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Chapter Text

Emma’s feet are tender. And soft. And so are her hands. They had remained unblemished after years of pampered palace living followed by even more years of pampered palace imprisonment. And although Emma hasn’t had an easy life, she’s not had to earn her food through the work of her hands or relying on her feet to carry her through planting fields. She’s never had a broken bone nor cut her pale, delicate skin.

Running through the pitch-black forest in the dead of night, she cannot see the trail of blood that she leaves behind, but she surely feels it with every new laceration of her flesh from the unforgiving rocks and branches. The paths might be clearer, and softer, but she cannot stick to the paths. Just a straight line through the forest, to get as far away as fast as she can. As if her life depends on it.

Because it does. In every sense of the word.

If Regina’s Black Knights let loose their dogs, they’ll be on her in an instant. The coppery scent of blood is even rising up in her own mouth, although that might be from the way she had to bite the inside of her cheek waiting for the guards to get out of the way so that she could make her escape. She lets loose a spell behind her to make the blood trail disappear, and though her magic is untrained, she prays that it will be enough, that the scent will disappear, that she will be safe.

But safe is about to be a relative term, because as soon as she gets through the forest that marks the border of her family’s royal lands - the home that belongs to her, not the imposter upon the throne - she falls on her hands and her knees in the tall grass and breathes deeply until her lungs no longer ache as though filled with broken glass. Once she has her breath again, Emma rises to her full height and lifts her chin, hoping that her regal posture will give the impression that she’s not just had to run for her very life.

“Dark One, I summon thee!” she calls out into the night, praying fervently that her command will be heard and wishing desperately to be left alone and unseen by the object of all of her nightmares.

There is a plume of deepest red smoke, so similar to Regina’s favorite way to enter her chambers - purple smoke and a dark chuckle - that Emma’s biting the inside of her cheek again to keep her composure. Emma prepares herself to finally meet Rumplestiltskin, Regina’s greatest rival, her most hated enemy, and the one man who might be powerful enough to protect her. His protection will come with a price, Emma knows that, but she knows that anything would be worth it to get her away from Regina’s latest machination.

Rumplestiltskin is a slimy, scaly, cruel little man who will pull out a heart and crush it as soon as he looks at you and rejoices in every opportunity to make a deal that benefits him. Emma has very little to barter with. But she’s a clever woman - even Regina had had to concede that - and her cleverness has gotten her out of many scrapes and through some of the worst parts of her twenty years of imprisonment.

“Who, darling, are you?”

The deep accented voice that precedes the appearance of the Dark One catches Emma off-guard. She had expected something that resembled Regina’s whispered stories of her old magic tutor. What she had not expected was a smooth, velvety voice that makes Emma’s legs quiver and her stomach clench uncomfortably. Even her mouth goes dry and the feeling gets worse when the deep red plume of magic dissipates and reveals the creature that she’s summoned.

He is tall and dark-haired with a heavy leather coat that nearly reaches the tall grass she had just been kneeling in. For a moment, she wonders if she made a mistake and called for someone else or if her untrained magic somehow confused things and brought a mortal in place of a creature of darkness. But then he locks eyes with her, his gaze blue and piercing, and his mouth curves into a diabolical smile that makes her blood run cold. Emma can sense the magic that runs through his veins - the same sort of magic that has been her constant companion throughout her life. But it's a different magic than hers. Dark. Evil. Twisted and cruel. A magic that has killed and tortured and let the life slowly drain from friends and enemies alike.

This is the Dark One.

Her worst enemy.

Her savior.

For one instant, Emma considers bowing before him and showing some deference. Regina told her that Rumplestiltskin likes being flattered and propped up. But Emma still has some pride, and she’s still a princess, even if the throne has never felt further away. She lifts her chin instead and tries to imitate the way her mother used to speak to foreign ambassadors who came to her with trade agreements that were good for their kingdoms and bad for Misthaven.

“I am Crown Princess Emma of Misthaven.”

The Dark One lifts a single eyebrow, the only sign that her words have surprised him. He surveys her with a long, lingering gaze, starting at her bare feet, tracing up the legs that are visible through her ripped dress, across her too-tight bodice, lingering at the breasts that are threatening to spill out, and finally stopping at the face that’s probably sunken in from poor diet.

“I thought you were dead.”

Another eyebrow joins the first and he glances around her, to the shadowed forest where the sound of shouting Black Knights is rising in volume with every passing moment.

“I will soon be dead if you do not help me, Rumplestiltskin.”

An ugly sneer crosses the man’s face, as deep as a gash, and he steps forward until his booted feet nearly step upon her bare toes.

“Do not say that name to me, Princess,” he hisses.

“I apologize, Dark One,” she says softly with a bowed head. He needs respect? He needs her to beg on bended knee? She can do that. Regina taught her to bow and plead for every scrap of bread and she was a talented, if reluctant, pupil. “Please, I need your help. I need sanctuary. I am willing to make a deal, just please get me out of here.”

Emma lifts her hands in pleading supplication and lets out an involuntary hiss at the sudden and unexpected pain of her palms pressed together. She scarcely has time to wince before an unfamiliar coolness of metal wraps around the clammy skin of one wrist and draws her hands apart, bringing one of them closer for his perusal. 

A sliver of moonlight glints around the thing touching her. It is a hook. Silver and gleaming and protruding from the place where the Dark One’s left hand should be. Regina never said that Rumplestiltskin had a hook for a hand. This man is not Rumplestiltskin. 

Emma resists the urge to draw back. She had called for the Dark One whose stories have filled her nightmares for two decades. But this Dark One, he’s an unknown entity. He might be even worse than Regina, demanding a price she is unwilling to pay. 

“Your hands are bleeding.”

His voice has lost the cutting sharpness. It is soft, almost apologetic, as if he had been the one to inflict the injuries upon the palms of her hands and the thin skin of her wrists. Emma had been so focused on clearing her blood trail she hadn’t even thought to heal herself. Now that her attention is drawn to the lacerations, she can feel how her feet are throbbing with their own cuts and scrapes. 

It hurts like hell. Emma’s first instinct is to draw her hands back. Regina taught her how to beg, but Snow White taught her how to withstand the greatest of pains without showing any weakness. Like a true queen. A rightful queen. 

However, Emma did not call for the Dark One to prove how strong she is. She needs his help. And now she must show him how badly she needs it. Emma peels back a bit of the facade she’s hidden behind during her captivity. 

“It doesn’t matter,” she says at the same volume as his quiet voice. Emma waits for his eyes to move from her bloody hands back to her face before continuing, “It’s nothing compared to what Regina has done to me. What she plans to do to me.”

“What does she plan to do to you?”

His tone is curious. Not concerned, but as if she is providing long-overdue entertainment. 

“She is going to sell me off to the highest bidder.” In a flash his detached expression turns to disgust and rage. Emma has to force herself not to flinch as the rest of her words come tumbling out, ready to be said even before his face had turned murderous. 

“She plans to marry me off to a monster and when he rapes me until I produce a child, she will steal my baby from me and corrupt it and raise it to be her heir, her evil successor.”

The shouts of the Black Knights get louder and Emma can almost make out individual voices, hear unique timbers of the men who shoved her into her chambers at eight years old and have been holding her captive ever since. 

“Please,” she begs, tears flooding her vision. Ignoring his hook around her wrist, she brings her palms together again and focuses on anything but the pain of broken and exposed flesh. “Please, my lord, please. I’ll make a deal, I’ll do anything. Please. Surely nothing you can imagine would be worse than what Regina has and will do to me.”

The plumes of dark red magic that fills her vision breaks the dam holding in her tears. The Dark One is leaving, as all others have. Her last resort was futile and Regina will find a terribly original way to punish her for this attempt at escape. 

But then the clenching of Emma’s stomach gets stronger and her feet leave the ground and she loses all sense of where and when she is. A moment later her feet hit the ground, but it is not the wet slipperiness of nighttime grass but a warm smoothness of stone. Emma blinks through her tears at the soft candle glow and roaring fire of the strange room she’s  found herself in. It seems to be a ballroom or a dining room or some sort of throne room - Emma is not sure. But the ceilings stretch to the heavens and the empty space around them echoes with the sound of her cries.

She wants to hold back her sobs, but she can’t. She finds it impossible. Once released, they must find a place to go. So the tears pour down her face, splashing onto the exposed skin of her chest. Emma’s shoulders shake with the futile effort to hold back her sobs. All she can feel is terror and hope, anxiety and fear. Her knees hit the stone floor and her hands fly to her face to wipe at her tears. 

That is a mistake. The salt stings the open cuts on her hands and she cannot hide the additional whimper. 

“Can you heal yourself or do you need bandages?”

“What?”

Emma uses the back of her arm to dry her eyes and looks up at the Dark One towering above her. She is the very picture of weakness and humility, here on her knees before an all-powerful being, and she hates that perhaps she has traded one dark captor for another one. A devil she knows for a devil she does not. 

“What do you mean?” she asks again. 

“You are bleeding most profusely on my clean floor. In your distressed state can you harness your magic to clean your wounds or must I summon some bandages myself to stop the mess from spreading?”

“Oh.”

Emma sinks down, fully sitting on the floor, and probes for her light magic. Sometimes it is harder to find during emotional moments. Sometimes easier. She is mostly surprised that he senses it, though she shouldn’t be. His magic radiates from him and perhaps hers does the same. Emma was never able to hide it from Regina, and though the woman had tried to manipulate it for her own use, Emma had never cooperated. Left unused and untrained for so long, her magic has sat idle in her heart, waiting to be noticed and recognized and set free. 

“I can- I can heal myself. I apologize for the blood.”

The magic pools in Emma’s stomach and she prepares to send it forth to her hands and her feet when the Dark One’s cool voice interrupts. 

“Stop. Leave it for now. It adds somewhat to the drama.”

She looks up in time to catch the way his hand and hook perform a flourishing gesture as his lips twist in a mockery of a smile. The magic sinks back into her belly and mingles with the dread and regret that are already forming there. Emma hesitates, not sure what to do next, when an all-too-familiar sight appears at the far end of the room.

Purple smoke. Swirling and coalescing and heralding the entrance of her captor. Emma wants to run again. She wants to fight tooth and nail. She wants this all to be done with because she is so damn tired.

As if he knows what she is thinking, the Dark One glares down at her and hisses, “Stay there and be quiet,” before he steps forward to stand between her and Regina.

Emma isn’t sure she can remember the last time that anyone stood between her and her captor. No one has had the power. No one has cared. She blinks up at him in surprise.

“You’ve been holding out on me, Your Majesty,” the Dark One’s smooth voice purrs as soon as Regina’s form lands on the stone floor.

Her eyebrows fly up her forehead and for a moment Regina looks shocked. That’s another unfamiliar sight for Emma - Regina caught off-guard. Glee flutters in Emma’s heart as she peers around the Dark One’s form. Regina’s surprise hardens to amusement and she lets out a bitter laugh.

“And you are not who I expected, Hook. No wonder Rumplestiltskin has been so quiet these last few years.”

The click of Regina’s bejeweled heels echoes around the chamber as she stalks toward the Dark One. Emma expects him to meet her halfway or retreat from her incoming wrath. Instead, he holds his ground, the great leather coat swaying slightly at his knees as he adjusts his stance and stands a little taller.

“She is mine. Give her back.”

“Yours? Really?” The Dark One lifts his hook, letting it glint in the candlelight, and then seemingly uses it to pick at his fingernails. “I wasn’t aware that people could belong to others, Your Majesty.”

“She is my ward. I am responsible for her care until-”

“-and what a poor job you have done so far, Regina,” the Dark One interrupts, his voice thunderous. “Starved and wearing filthy rags.”

Regina’s magic coalesces around Emma and for a terrifying moment she’s afraid that she is being sent back home again, back to her chambers. But the floor is firm under her backside and her thin dress disappears beneath the magic, replaced by silks and furs and jewels that rival even Regina’s ostentatious wardrobe. Her hair is gone from her neck and she can feel the slight headache of how tightly it has been pulled into some elaborate hairstyle at the top of her head. 

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Regina sighs. She gestures to Emma behind the Dark One and rolls her eyes. “The girl is fine.”

Emma meets the blue gaze of her protector and silently begs him to see the truth in her eyes. To not believe Regina. Can’t he see her sunken expression, the clear signs of hunger and neglect? Her weak muscles? 

To get her point across, Emma desperately makes her own dramatic gesture. She draws her magic together and pushes it out, stripping her of Regina’s mockery of a dress, letting her hair fall in limp waves around her, and exposing every inch of her naked body to both of the dark magic users before her. Every rib not protected by a layer of fat. Every bruise inflicted by a Black Knight. 

His gaze is piercing and she has to force herself not to shield her body from his view. This is vulnerability. She hates it. Desperately. But she needs it to survive.

“Oh please.”

Regina’s annoyed huff startles the Dark One out of his perusal of her form and he turns back to Emma’s captor in an instant. The Dark One lifts his hand and for a moment she wonders if he will attack Regina or send Emma away. With a twist of his wrist, a heavy blanket appears and he flings it behind him without looking, where it lands perfectly across her shoulders. Emma pulls the blanket around her, nearly moaning at the warmth that clings to the fabric.

And something else. A scent. Masculine and spicy and comforting in a way she hardly remembers anymore.

“I didn’t know you were interested in getting involved in politics, Hook,” Regina sneers. “What I decide to do in my kingdom is none of your business.”

“The little lamb wandered off of your lands and into mine. And she summoned me by name.” Regina snorts. “So now it is my business. She said you were selling her off.”

“She exaggerates.” Regina sniffs and tries to step around the Dark One toward Emma but he is too fast, pivoting so that Regina can get no further. Emma pulls the blanket more tightly around her naked body and gives Regina what she hopes is a defiant glare. The woman sighs and looks back at the man between them. “Haven’t you heard of an arranged marriage? Happens all the time with royal families. I myself was part of one and look how I turned out.” She spreads her arms with pretend nonchalance that does nothing to conceal the fury making her body tremble.

To Regina, an arranged marriage is a fate worse than death. And she intends to subject Emma to the very worst one that she had been able to secure.

“Marriage? No, no, no, that will not do. That shall not be possible.” The Dark One tuts and lifts a single finger to wag it at Regina, looking for all the world as if she has made a grammar mistake during a lesson.

Regina, who had seemed to be prepared to attempt to step around him again, freezes in her tracks. “What do you mean, Hook?”

The Dark One takes a step forward, leaving Emma feeling more vulnerable the further he moves  away from her. Regina steps back. Two more steps forward, two more steps back.  He stops. “I’ve already made a deal with the lass. And if you remember, my deals are unbreakable.”

Her gaze darts to Emma on the ground and back up to the Dark One. “What kind of a deal?”

He gives Emma a maniacal grin over his shoulder before his form relaxes a bit and his elbow pops out, making it appear as though he has tucked his thumb into his belt. “You could say I made a proposal of my own, Your Majesty.”

In an instant all of the candles in the great room go out with a pop and the roaring fire behind Emma suddenly cools. There is only the faintest of moonlight to see Regina disappear where she stands before Emma feels her reappear right beside her. Emma closes her eyes and tries to move as fast as she can, to duck out of the way, to roll away, to run away, but she feels arms clutch her and she’s being transported. She thrashes her body, desperate to get away, to finally, finally, finally be free, but the arms grab on to her tighter and hoist her against a chest, bridal-style.

It is then that Emma opens her eyes and realizes she’s on the other side of the room, far away from the fireplace, looking at Regina through the dissipating plumes of red smoke. She is in the Dark One’s arms, his soft leather coat at her cheek, his hand clutching her thigh, his arm wrapped around her shoulders, his touch warm through the plush blanket that swaddles her.

“Killian Jones!” Regina roars. “You let her go or I will-”

“What, Regina?” he spits. “What do you plan to do if the Dark One takes your captive princess as a bride? In what way do you imagine you could stop me from taking exactly what I want?”

Regina sweeps across the long room and Emma can feel how the man holds her just a little bit closer, a little more protective of his quarry.

“This is an act of war, Hook. Stealing what does not belong to you, making an obvious bid for my throne.”

The Dark One literally spits. A wad of his saliva lands on Regina’s gleaming jeweled bodice, and she draws back as if she has been struck. Emma has often imagined doing the same thing, but even she hasn’t dared to follow through with it. The disrespect  is… incredible.

“Fuck your war, Regina. The deal has been struck and your power over her is no more. Now be gone before I strike a new deal with her, one that calls for your head on a platter.”

Regina’s furious gaze leaves the Dark One and settles on Emma, trembling with fear and hope and rage all bundled together. “I think you will find that my palace was a haven compared to the evil that awaits you here, Emma,” she sneers. The woman disappears in a plume of purple smoke, and when she does not immediately appear again, Emma can let loose the tears that had been forming at the corners of her eyes.

There is a gentle burst of magic that ripples across the room and Emma can feel how it sinks into every stone and brick of the castle, even into every blade of grass and tree in the land.

“She is banished from this place, love,” the Dark One explains softly. “You are safe now.”

The nakedness that had served to prove the validity of her claims no longer feels like armor, it feels like a liability. Emma shivers and stares at the man’s chest. She hadn’t realized it before, but his shirt is unbuttoned, nearly to the navel, and she can see the whorls of dark hairs exposed by the lack of fabric. By simply brushing aside the blanket, she would be able to feel the warmth of his chest upon her own skin. Or the coolness, perhaps, she’s not sure if Dark Ones are warm or cold.

Before she gathers up the courage to look him in the eye again, her stomach clenches as magic swirls around them once more, and Emma blinks at their new location. A bedroom, not unlike the one that’s been her prison for twenty years. A large, soft bed with crisp sheets. An elaborate fireplace with a merry fire. An ornate wardrobe. A tall looking glass. Heavy curtains hanging from two windows and what appears to be a door to a balcony. And another door, this one wide open, that catches her eye immediately.

The Dark One carefully sets her down on the ground and Emma grits her teeth, forcing her legs to stay strong beneath her. To prove that she was worth saving.

“Heal your wounds now,” he orders quietly. “If you can.”

Emma nods and swallows down her tears so she can focus on sending the magic to her extremities. In a moment, the cuts are all gone. When she opens her eyes, she realizes something new has appeared in the room. A large bath, completely out of place, and filled with water that steams with heat.

“Bathe,” he continues, gesturing at the bath. Then his finger points to the wardrobe. “You’ll find something in there to wear. Get some sleep and we will talk in the morning.”

“But-” she begins, desperate to talk further and know what happens next. He silences her with an upheld palm.

“Bathe. Dress.” A twist of his wrist and something else appears - a platter of food and a pitcher of water on the table. “Eat. Sleep. We will talk in the morning.”

Emma opens and closes her mouth a few times, but realizes she is too exhausted to fight, and nods in agreement.

The Dark One bows and begins to walk out the door. She had expected another plume of magic and is relieved to see something so ordinary. He pauses at the entryway and gives her an assessing look.

“No door here shall be locked to you. You may come and go as you wish, though I would encourage you to at least stay for the night. And I shall not enter your room again except by your explicit invitation.”

It seems as though he is waiting for her response, so she gives it with a little nod of her head and she watches him walk away, into the darkness of the hallway. Emma finally lets the blanket fall from her body and steps into the steaming bath with an indecent groan and a concerted effort to stop shaking with fear and cold and fury.

For the first time in two decades, she is free. Gloriously, terrifyingly free. While she is here, Regina cannot harm her. No Black Knights to burst through her door. No Regina to appear unannounced with taunts and mocking. Emma can fall asleep and wake up of her own free will.

She intends to stay in the bath until it gets cold, but it never does. Eventually, her eyes are drooping so heavily that she scrubs herself quickly and steps out and uses her magic to dry her hair and body. In the wardrobe she finds a thick nightgown beside a range of pretty dresses and clean shifts. She is no longer shivering, but Emma still picks up the blanket from the floor to wrap around her body as she eats her fill of the flaky bread and still-warm soup.

Emma doesn’t even pull back the sheets on the bed, she just curls into the blanket the Dark One summoned, inhaling that unfamiliar but still somehow comforting scent. The half-formed questions in her mind before she passes out are brimming with curiosity about what happens next. Was the Dark One bluffing to Regina about a deal to marry Emma and claim the throne of Misthaven? And what did Regina mean about the evil to be found here? Has Emma traded one evil captor for another?

Despite the questions flooding her mind, Emma falls into a deep sleep, dreaming of intense blue eyes and arms holding her tight, protecting her from danger

Emma wakes up to the sound of rain beating down on an unfamiliar roof and lashing against unfamiliar windows. She opens her eyes slowly, still afraid it may have all been a dream, and the scent of the blanket wrapped around her is the first anchor to the truth of her freedom. The next is the sight of the room when she opens her eyes. Just as beautiful as the night before. And the door is still open from how she left it, a reminder of her ability to walk through it any time.

She wakes up slowly, luxuriating in the ability to rise and move and do as she pleases. She wiggles her toes in glee, observing them silhouetted by the still-burning fire. When her body finally convinces her of the need to empty her bladder and fill her stomach, she uses the connected privy to do the first and dresses herself from the wardrobe to do the second. The only issue, she realizes, when she steps into the hallway, is that she is not sure where to find food or how to get there in the first place.

One of Regina’s first acts when she overtook the kingdom and cursed Emma’s parents was to keep Emma from using magic to travel around the castle and its lands. She couldn’t have her ward escape her clutches. It has been twenty years since Emma let her magic swirl around her body to send her from one location to another. Emma bites her lower lip and tries to remember the feeling of that magic, how it made her float and fly before gently placing her where she wanted to go. Thinking of the dark grand room from the night before, Emma pictures it in her mind and lets the magic sweep her away.

She lands with less grace than she would have liked, but still, she lands in the appropriate place, quickly balancing herself on her bare feet to keep from falling on her backside. Emma steadies herself and looks around the room. Not as dark as the night before, but still dim, with the sound of the rain even louder against these windows.

“Good morning, Highness,” comes the velvety voice of the Dark One over her shoulder.

Emma turns abruptly, nearly falling over again in surprise and agitation, and finds the man leaning against the entryway of the great hall with his arms crossed. His thick leather coat has been removed, and now he wears only a thin black shirt, fitted leather trousers, and sturdy boots nearly to his knee. He seems softer, somehow, though not at all less dangerous.

She curtseys, remembering how Regina often liked such shows of deference, and replies softly, “Good morning, my lord.”

The corner of his mouth is twitching when she looks up from her curtsey and she wonders what, exactly, is so amusing.

“May I interest you in something to eat, Princess?” A flick of his hook and a table appears with two chairs and a mountain of food. Fruits in every color of the rainbow, breads of various sizes and grains, five different kinds of meat and ten different kinds of vegetables. Emma hesitates before sitting down at one of the seats and nearly falls out of it when it pushes itself closer to the table with magic. She reaches for her plate and has to draw back when the very items that had caught her eye come swirling up from the table and land on the plate before her.

“Tuck in,” the Dark One says, and through the dancing breakfast, she can see the corner of his mouth twitching again. He must be making fun of her. Well, nevermind. She has dealt with humiliation before, this is nothing. Emma digs into her food and sates the worst of her hunger.

Swallowing a rather large and juicy sausage, Emma takes a sip of the goblet before her and takes in her new captor.

“You are not Rumplestiltskin.” 

There is no food or plate in front of the Dark One. He sits on his armed chair with all the regality of a throne, reminding her for a moment of her own father and how she used to watch him in the throne room as he and her mother held court.

“No. When I killed him I became the new Dark One and gained his powers.”

Emma spears another sausage. “But you make deals as well. You can help me.”

The Dark One stands up from his place across the table and walks around it until he is standing beside her. A snap of his fingers transports his chair to where he is and he sinks into it elegantly. “You do not want to make a deal with me.”

Emma sits back in her chair and studies the man, the Dark One.

“I could leave here right now. You’ve put no limits on my magic. Why?”

“Why would I?”

“Because I did not come to you for help without expecting something in return. I can’t imagine why you would just let me go now.”

The Dark One leans forward, putting his elbow on the arm of his chair and resting his chin in his hand to tap at his stubbled cheek with a single long finger.

“Regina has always believed she can get away with anything. I thought it might be fun to show her that she is wrong.”

Emma blinks. “Fun? That’s why you did it?”

He shrugs and she sees the facade for what it is, the mask he wears. The one she had often slipped on during her captivity. Emma takes him in and she frowns. “I’m going to let you in on a little secret. I’m pretty good at knowing when someone is lying to me.”

The farce slips away and he looks at her with interest. “Really?” He hums and cocks his head to the side, making her feel as though he too can see more than an ordinary person. Perhaps he has the same power. “A manifestation of your magic, I suppose.”

“I suppose,” she agrees, spearing another sausage and popping it into her mouth. She observes him as she chews, waiting for him to cave in and elaborate. He does so more quickly than she would have imagined.

“When I was a boy, I woke up one day to find out my father had sold me into indentured servitude.”

“Slavery,” Emma says before she can hold her tongue.

The Dark One nods. “Aye.”

It is hard to picture him as a boy, dark-haired and blue-eyed, suddenly owned by someone else. But she imagines it is not much different than being a girl, blonde-haired and green-eyed, suddenly imprisoned in her own home. Emma eats in silence for a few more minutes and she can feel his piercing gaze on her.

“Do you not want to make a deal with me then?”

The Dark One chuckles humorlessly. “Making a deal with a Dark One is a dangerous thing. It is an act of desperation for those who have no other options.”

Emma swallows her final bite of food and daintily pats the corner of her mouth with a napkin. In an instant, all the food and dishes disappear, as though they were just awaiting that signal, and Emma struggles to appear unaffected. Regina often displayed her magic, but it was usually used as a tool to frighten and intimidate, not as a tool to comfort and care.

“I have no other option. I need protection from Regina and I need to be able to find and save my parents.”

He rises from his seat and Emma prepares to be sent out of the castle. Instead, he holds out his palm and she places her hand in his grasp so he can help her stand. The table and chairs disappear too, leaving them alone in the grand hall.

“There are always other options, Princess. Why, your own mother, for instance, found herself in a similar situation before you were born. Against the same foe, even.”

Emma remembers the story like a fairytale she heard once in a dream. “What did she do?” she asks, her whole body aware that her hand is still in his and he has not let her go.

Suddenly he looks rather boyish and color appears in his cheeks. The Dark One drops her hand and gives her a crooked grin. “Actually, now that I think on it, she got married. Your parents spent several months in rebellious skirmishes against the Evil Queen, but it was the act of celebrating a royal wedding that showed the people that the future was to be found with Snow White and not Regina. And when you came along,” the Dark One shrugs, “well, that was a clear sign to the world that you would be the heir and your parents would rule until you came of age.”

Emma ponders this old story presented in a new way. She had always believed her parents’ story to be one of love - the truest and best love in all of history. But the way that the Dark One tells it, their marriage was only done to curry political favor and secure them a place on the throne of Misthaven. Has she remembered them wrong all these years? Or is this a jaded perspective, one that neglects the way her mother would always tug her father’s ear and call him Charming and the way her father would run a thumb across the scar on his chin and tell her mother that he will always find her?

She swallows back her doubts. Her parents loved one another. Theirs was the truest love in the realm. And though Emma knows True Love to be rare, as a child she had always hoped to find her own love one day. Emma shakes off her girlish fantasies and focuses on the idea of a child, an heir to the throne. 

“That is why Regina wants to marry me off and take my baby. She thinks it will make me nothing and give her everything. A child to raise from the start, one that will obey her as I never did.”

For a moment Emma catches a flash of something that might be pride cross the Dark One’s face. Then it disappears and he studies her again with a serious expression.

“And what of the man that Regina had planned for you to marry?”

Emma shudders. Her mind flashes back to an evening in a parlor, her mouth magically sewn shut, her dress entirely too small, the man’s eyes taking her in greedily and his wet tongue constantly moistening his parted lips. And Regina smoothly drawing up marriage contracts and grinning at the man’s lecherous stares and Emma’s furious glowers.

“No,” Emma says emphatically. “I would rather die than spend another moment with him.” The Dark One does not miss the way her arms move to protect her chest, as though the man is in the room with them, looking at her again. He does not appear to need explanation, but Emma gives it anyway. “He already had five bastards. Regina assured me that there were even more, but those mothers did not survive his proclivities. ”

The darkness flares up in him so strongly that Emma flinches, expecting it to strike her. She can almost hear it unwinding and uncoiling, stretching out from the heart of him and filling every square inch of his form. The darkness radiates out of his blue flame gaze and makes his dark hair nearly stand on end.

“Where is that monster now?”

Emma’s magic is used to curling up in the pit of her stomach in the face of the rising tide of dark magic. Regina’s fierce tirades and cool taunts had pushed Emma’s magic deep inside of her, threatening violence if it had dared to lash out at her captor. But the Dark One’s magic feels different. An endless ocean that is both frightening and thrilling. Emma tentatively allows her magic to unfurl, to see how it will react to his fury. To see how the darkness will react to her light.

Her magic opens up a pit inside of her and beckons to his magic. Gently, softly, carefully, she encourages him to pour that darkness out, to drain himself of the force that is making his muscles tense and murder glint in his gaze. Emma feels his magic wash over her, but it does her no harm. It passes through and disappears into the ether, gone, the only trace of its presence the faint sheen of mist, a hint of a rainbow after a storm.

The Dark One gapes at her, obviously caught off guard, and Emma looks down to realize that she has been holding his hand and his hook in her grasp. She loosens her grip in startled embarrassment, and his hook falls between them, but his hand only holds hers tighter.

“What did you do?”

Emma tries to back away, but he won’t let her, so all she can do is drop her gaze and apologize profusely. “I’m so sorry, my lord, I only meant to-”

“What. Did. You. Do?”

It is easier, this time, to reach out with her magic, though she does so nervously. She expects that she will need to be a conduit to the release of his fury once more, but instead she finds the magic has softened somehow. The ocean is gone, and in its place is something a little more like a beast, something skittish to her touch but desperate to be touched all the same. Emma’s magic moves forward and gently, carefully, runs a finger down its spine. It shivers beneath her magic before it curls in on itself defensively.

Emma dares to look back up at the Dark One. In the place of the rage she had expected is a vulnerability and even - even a fear.

“How did you do that?” he asks.

She shakes her head. “I have no idea. I just-” Emma looks into his eyes this time as she reaches out, senses the creature, and pets it as she would a horse or a dog. It trembles against her magic and twists around her. Emma should feel frightened and caged. But instead she only feels protection and-

Comfort. That’s it. Comfort. Like the blanket the Dark One had conjured for her the previous night.

The Dark One takes a deep breath and Emma feels the rise and fall in her own chest. That must be because her chest is pressed to his and his arms are wrapped around her. When did that happen? When did their lips get so close to one another?

He breathes again, so close that it tickles her lips, but before she can lean forward and cross the distance between them, he shifts and pulls her face into his chest and tucks his chin on the top of her head.

“Just one more minute, please. Whatever you’ve done, just one more minute of-”

Emma nods and closes her eyes to feel how their magic twists and wraps and weaves together the same way their bodies are. Pressing tightly together, holding one another close. She cannot quite sense what this offers him, but she feels safe. Safer even than she remembers feeling as a child, when she didn’t understand the importance and the gift of being held, of being cared for, of being protected. Her magic stretches and arches and fills the space and luxuriates in the freedom that he’s given her.

They breathe together as one and she wouldn’t be surprised if they opened their eyes together as one as well.

She is loathe to leave his arms, but she thinks she should look at him again. Emma pulls back enough to meet the gentleness of his blue gaze, unlike anything she’s seen from him before. He doesn’t look like the Dark One at all. He just looks like a man. A beautiful, contented man.

“What was that?” she finally asks.

He shakes his head slightly and the lopsided smile tells her he has no idea either. His hand finds hers and he draws it up to his mouth where he brushes his lips across the back of her knuckles. The creature that was his magic is gone, and in its place is licking tongues of fire, ready to burn her alive. Emma can feel it along every inch of her body and she has no idea if her own magic wants to drown the fire or give it more kindling.

“Your magic,” he says roughly, twisting her hand and pressing a kiss to her wrist, “and my magic are connected somehow. It might be that we are destined to be one another’s ruin.”

Emma takes his hand and draws it to her face, encouraging him to cup her cheek with his warm, rough palm. “Or one another’s rise.” She leans forward until their noses brush against one another. “Marry me. Help me defeat Regina,”

The Dark One draws back as if her magic has hurt him - or maybe it was her words - and when the connection is broken, she almost weeps at how that safe feeling is gone.

“You want to make a deal.”

The ocean is back. She misses the creature. And the fire. But rather than summon a deep well, she focuses her own magic to draw up a tide of her own.

“My life has been littered with broken promises. Those who vowed loyalty to my parents betrayed them when things became difficult. My parents have been missing for decades. And I’ve been left alone without a single ally. I have no desire for a promise or a vow that can be tossed to the side when the situation changes. You said that your deals are unbreakable. That is what I need right now, Dark One. Something unbreakable. Something that cannot betray me.”

The Dark One searches her face.

“You seek an ally. Someone to help you in your fight against Regina. A warrior.”

She lets the ocean of magic rise higher, all the better to disguise that creature inside of herself, the one who just wants to be safe, to be befriended, to be seen and cared for. Emma stands a little taller and meets his cautious gaze.

“I need an ally that will help me get what belongs to me. My family. My throne.”

“You want to make a deal that I would find you a husband?”

Emma looks away in embarrassment. Had she misunderstood? “Last night you told Regina that we were already- that we were going to-” she stammers. She can sense his own discomfort and that gives her courage to look up again.

The Dark One scratches behind his ear with his hook, looking boyish again. “I knew that lying about a deal would make Regina leave. She would not dare to fight the Dark One in his own castle. But you are under no obligation to me, Highness. As I said last night, you are free to leave and reclaim your kingdom on your own. Regina will assume that I am keeping you here and will be focusing her attention on destroying me for the time being.”

Her light magic trembles for a moment, feeling the loss of him in advance, and before she can banish those feelings, his darkness crosses the distance and she can feel the warmth of him touch her again, just an instant before the backs of his fingers caress her jaw.

“You do not want that,” he says, disbelieving.

Emma shakes her head. “I called for the Dark One for a reason. I knew that you were the only one that could help me defeat Regina. The only one that could protect me.”

“Protection and marriage are very different things, love.”

“And that is why I want to make a deal. For protection. From Regina and any other horrible husbands she might find for me. And I want an unbreakable deal for an ally that cannot abandon me.” She takes a shallow breath. “And I want-” Her magic rests against his as her lips nearly touch his and she’s not sure if she can articulate this last thing that she wants.

She doesn’t need to say it. He knows what else she wants. Emma waits for him to step away but his lips come just a little closer and he asks his question in the quietest of whispers. “You’ve been left alone and imprisoned, how can you know what you want?”

Emma’s fingers comb through the hairs on the back of his head. “So have you. What do you want?”

He doesn’t tell her. He shows her. And it is fire, raging fire, flames licking the rest of her body as their mouths meet. She’s never been kissed before, never knew what it would feel like, never imagined there could be so much wanting, so much passion, so much certainty and uncertainty alike. He leads her gently, carefully, showing her how to move her lips and then backing off to let her explore and experiment. When he gasps into her mouth, the fire of her magic burns brighter and she can feel how his flares up in response, spurred on, enflamed, impassioned.

The way that she has to pull away first, breathing deeply, makes her wonder if the Dark One actually needs to breathe or if he would be able to kiss like that forever without passing out. Emma however, needs to breathe again. And perhaps she needs a moment to try to think straight. She focuses on the whorls of midnight hair on his chest and she counts backwards from fifty until her breathing is even and her magic is back in the pit of her stomach, dormant and unemotional.

Emma looks up and waits for him to refuse her, send her away, and force her to fend for herself. Alone. As she’s always been. The Dark One’s blue eyes study her intensely, taking in her broken spirit and her kiss-swollen lips. She knows that he can see all of her flaws and weaknesses and the way she hungers for someone she can trust. He opens his mouth and she braces herself for rejection. But what she receives instead is the answer to all of her prayers.

“Let’s make a deal.”

Chapter Text

Killian Jones takes in Crown Princess Emma of Misthaven, observing her sharp green eyes, her sunken cheeks, and the glow of light magic that calls to him like a bloody siren. No matter what she claims, this woman will not be his rise, she shall be his ruin. Casting him upon the sharp rocks of fate until the monster is gone and, perhaps, the man can be freed. The words fall from his lips as though she’s summoned them by her sheer force of will.

“Let’s make a deal.”

The darkness inside of Killian whispers all manner of suggestions. Deals where the darkness gets the better end of the bargain, where the princess ends up imprisoned again, or Regina is tortured and maimed for her hubris and cruelty. The darkness circles around him, taking over the place that the princess’s magic has vacated, and encouraging him to focus on accomplishing his own goals, not hers.

She steps away from him, trembling slightly, and Killian follows to steady her. She gives him a grateful look and nods, almost to herself.

“May we walk?” she asks. “Regina would sometimes give me leave to walk the grounds and it would help me think.”

There’s a flare of fury at the idea of the Evil Queen rationing opportunities for the princess to walk on her own bloody land but Emma’s magic wipes it away as effortlessly and easily as a child letting water flow through their fingers. He’s amazed at how she controls his emotions without any sort of training and he wonders if he has the ability to do the same for her. No, the darkness asks that question. Killian pushes it aside.

“Please,” she implores, reminding him keenly of her pleas the night before in the forest, the way her bleeding hands had pressed together in supplication, the scent of blood and terror mingling in his nostrils, delighting the darkness and horrifying the man. Killian offers her an arm and begins to escort her out of the great hall and down a corridor, trusting in his feet to find a path so his mind can focus on the woman.

“I want a deal where I am not left alone and defenseless,” she begins. “If you were to marry me, I would be willing to-”

“No!” Killian cuts in emphatically. The princess turns to him with surprise in her green eyes and he can feel something there, something small and defenseless, something that had called for help when he suggested that she continue on her mission without him.

“No, no, no, no,” Killian continues, forcing the darkness back down from where it had sprung up in glee. “That is not the deal you want to make, Princess-”

“Emma.”

Killian stammers, caught off-guard. “I’m sorry, I-”

“Please. Call me Emma, my lord. I think, no matter what deal we strike, you can call me by my name.”

His feet stop and he releases her arm so he might give her a formal bow. She’s a princess, after all. And although there isn’t anyone to properly introduce them, it would not do to offend her. “Killian Jones, at your service.” When he meets her eyes again, she surveys him with a small smile. He wonders at the last time anyone had bowed before her.

“Regina called you something else.” Her eyes dart to his hook. Not with disgust, but with curiosity. It hadn’t escaped his notice that she had clung to it several times over the last few minutes and had shivered in pleasure when it trailed down her back as they embraced.

“Hook,” he confirms. “Captain Hook.”

“A man of many names.”

She’s amused. In the face of a nefarious pirate, of the greatest force of darkness and evil, this woman is not intimidated at all. She’s bloody amused. Whether that is a side effect of years of imprisonment by Regina or her own plucky parentage, he hasn’t a clue. But Killian thinks he would like to find out. He thinks he might go to great lengths to find out just how far her amusement can reach.

“Killian will do,” he replies dryly, the same amusement in his tone, and when she smiles at him, he thinks it is the most beautiful thing he’s seen in a century. He can feel her magic for a moment, humming and smiling as well, and he reaches out for it the same as he reaches to take her arm again and continue escorting her through the castle.

“Why isn’t that the deal I want to make?” Emma continues as if they had never stopped. “I told you that I need a powerful ally who will not abandon me.”

“For what purpose?” Her body tenses beside him, and the same instincts that had allowed her to subdue his anger allow him to comfort her fears. So it does work both ways. She relaxes and Killian can clarify. “What is your goal, love? To find and rescue your parents? To overthrow Regina?”

“Yes.”

Killian sighs and tells the darkness to be quiet, that he will not be making two deals with the lass.

“Where are your parents? Let us start with that.”

“I do not know.” The darkness laughs at her, mocks her, and he shoves the cruelty aside. He waits for her to elaborate and she does so with a quiet, sad tone that makes him picture her locked up in a room, hungry and cold and bruised. He has to force his anger aside so he can pay attention to her words. “Regina refused to tell me.”

“Ah. We could use blood magic.” Killian thinks of a globe, a tool he had found in the Dark One’s basement, something that had never been of use to him, having no blood relatives alive anywhere. “Find them that way.”

“So you’ll make a deal with me to find my parents but not marry me or overthrow Regina?”

Killian growls in annoyance at the woman’s impatience and ignorance. Or perhaps she is being deliberately obtuse.

“All magic comes with a price,” he snarls. “And I can think of no worse price than being bound to the darkness.” The magic inside of him rises at the memory. The way that the Dark One’s dagger sunk into the scaly flesh of Rumplestiltskin. How cords of magic flew from his body and wrapped around Killian, lifting him up, suffocating him, drawing him into a darkness so deep and so all-encompassing that he feared he would never breathe again, never laugh again, never love again.

This time, the princess does not cast out the darkness. He can feel her magic beside him, experiencing it as well, touching him lightly as her hand clings to his arm.

“Being bound to me is not a reward. It is the price for your parents’ rescue or your kingdom’s return.”

Princess Emma watches him with a curious expression on her face. Studying him, as though he were a puzzle or a complicated trade agreement. She shakes her head slightly before looking forward again, down the dark hallway that they are passing through. 

“Regina said you wanted the throne. Was she right?”

The darkness inside of him cries out for the throne. It craves such power, such subjugation of others, the wars it can wage and the deals it can make. The very things he’s avoided since he killed Rumplestitskin three years ago and took on the darkness for himself. It takes all of his energy every day to stay in the castle and away from the vulnerable humans he wants to exploit. Killian clenches his jaw and barely manages to grit out, “No, I do not want the throne.”

The way she looks at him reminds him of her words from the table. How she has the ability to spot lies, likely a manifestation of her magic. She shakes her head again. “No, you don’t, do you? But the darkness does?”

He’s astounded by her perception. Killian nods and his magic reaches out for hers and is surprised to find that she is already there, calming him, subduing him, comforting him. He takes a deep breath and offers her a silent thanks. The darkness has been covering him for so long that he hadn’t imagined he would ever find relief. He never could have predicted someone like Princess Emma, someone with a light magic so strong that it can fit into all of the broken cracks of his dark magic and make him feel whole again - nearly human again.

The darkness wants to destroy her. The man wants to keep her as close as possible. And it seems that she wants the same from him. Running from one dark captor and on to the next.

“I have a proposal.”

Emma laughs and it pushes the darkness away further. “That’s what you told Regina.”

“Aye, well, this would make her just as incensed. I propose the deal that you would like to strike with me. One that will satisfy the darkness and your own goals. One that I will not be able to back down from.”

Her feet stop and her strong grip on his arm draws him backwards, stopping him in his own tracks. “I’m listening.”

“I would vow to help you, to the best of my ability, to overthrow Regina and return your bloodline to the throne of Misthaven.”

“And the price?” She watches him carefully, well aware that all magic comes with a price.

“That our child shall one day sit on that throne.”

She hums, as if the idea is not unappealing, and before he can stop himself, the darkness reminds him of what she had looked like before he had conjured her a blanket the night before - naked and vulnerable and utterly without protection. His to take and overpower with very little effort - although the darkness would like a little effort, all the sweeter for the struggle. He hastens to subdue that fire before she notices.

The sharp look she gives him says that he was not fast enough.

“I could not put a bastard on the throne.”

“No.”

“And Regina already believes that you intend to take me as a bride.”

“Aye.”

“A royal wedding and an heir to the throne would give us the support of the people.”

“Aye.”

Emma releases his arm and holds out her hand with a straight back and a firm set to her mouth. “I want to make a deal.”

Killian clasps her hand with his and feels her warmth, her magic, her strength shoot up his arm and all across his body. “I vow to help you, to the best of my ability, to overthrow Regina and return your bloodline to the throne of Misthaven.”

There is a spark, a glint of mischief and perhaps desire in her eyes when she agrees to the second part of the deal. “And I vow that one day our child shall sit on that throne.”

Dark magic swirls around them, unseen but so strong he can nearly reach out and touch it, sealing their vow and binding them together in an unbreakable covenant. Whether they rise or fall, they will do it together, and his fate is now tied to that of a princess without any power or prestige. 

He is afraid, for a moment, that Emma will instinctively banish the darkness and void their deal. She’s done it nearly every time it has flared up, seemingly without even thinking about it. But perhaps she understands that the darkness is vital to the unbreakable nature of the deal. She allows it to curl and coalesce. 

They both stand still, waiting for the darkness to dissipate, and when it does, her light magic falls gently upon them like a gauzy scarf. Like a mother’s kiss when you’re still asleep. It hardly feels as though it will be enough. But it will have to be. 

The magic has sealed their vow and Emma intends to seal it in her own way. Her fingers grasp the hairs at the nape of his neck and she pulls him firmly to her lips. The fire from their first kiss is now an inferno, burning him from head to toe. His fingers comb through the beautiful strands of her golden hair and one of her hands presses so strongly against the small of his back that he wonders if they could ever be pulled apart. 

He devours her kisses and her magic and her light and her goodness, and with each deep kiss he feels less like a monster and more like a man. Her light magic fills in the cracks that have become canyons over the years, making him whole again. 

Whole. And wholly hers. 

She has chosen to bind herself to the Dark One, to seek his protection. A foolish decision, so the darkness snickers. But Killian also thinks that the darkness may be underestimating the power of the light. The power of Princess Emma. 

Once he’s cleared his mind, Killian escorts her to the vault in the dungeon, using magic to open a hidden panel and walk down a set of damp, cold stone steps. He hasn’t spent much time here. All the magical items overwhelm him with their power, calling out to him and mocking his decision to let his magic lie fallow in favor of solitude. Killian finds the globe with ease and he pulls it from a bookshelf to set it on the edge of a cluttered desk.

He holds out his hand. “May I?”

The trusting creature is not prepared for the way he draws her hand to the needle at the top of the globe, eyes growing wide in surprise, but she does not let out a sound when it pierces her skin, and he wonders at how many times she’s been hurt and had to suffer in silence. 

A single drop of Emma’s blood lands on the globe with a barely-perceptible splash. The red swirls on the surface as if it were made of liquid, dancing and spreading until the one drop becomes definitive lines, transforming into shorelines and mountains and forests and rivers. Emma pops her fingertip into her mouth, sucking at the superficial wound, and squints at the sphere with the eagerness of a small child. 

She said she was eight when she saw her parents last. Killian can picture it - the same beautiful hair, the same keen eyes. All elbows and knees and fighting Black Knights tooth and nail as they carry out Regina’s evil schemes. 

In the forest he had first noticed the shadows under her eyes. Then later, she stripped herself bare and revealed the bruises on her stomach and thighs. The longer he dwelt on the extent of her physical injuries, the more rage had risen in him. Killian spent all night resisting the darkness’s screams to magic his way to Misthaven’s castle and execute every single one of the guards that kept watch over Emma. Regina would be last, shrieking with her own pain as Killian sinks his moniker into the place where her heart should lie. The urge to avenge the princess rises again and it is only her magic that is keeping him here, her magic that seems to be tethered to his. 

The deal they struck was not to get revenge for her, as much as Killian’s own vices wish it to be so. Their deal is compelling him to stay here and begin the work to get her bloodline back on the throne. In order to one day get their bloodline on that throne. Killian has convinced the darkness that Snow White and her Prince Charming will be invaluable in that work, which is why he is able to cast the blood magic. 

His first task is to find and rescue the grandparents of his future child. His own future family - if Emma even sees him in that way when this is all over. When she has her throne and she has her heir - when she has parents to protect her and Regina is dead - what use will she have for the Dark One anymore?

Such thoughts are surely a gift from the darkness and Killian prepares to brush them aside impatiently. He’s surprised to find Emma there already, not looking at the blood magic, but looking at him, her eagerness transformed into concern. Her magic touches his and it gently pulls him toward her. 

“Everything alright my lord? Is it working?”

For a moment he thinks she is referring to the way her magic has soothed him in his concern, the way a single caress makes the beast inside feel safe and at ease. But then he realizes she means the globe, where her drop of blood has coalesced into a solid map of her parents’ location. 

She can feel and respond to every one of his emotions. The idea is both freeing and terrifying. He would never be able to hide anything from her. Never able to mask his pain or his frustration. The lass will be inundated and nearly driven mad by the darkness in no time. 

“Everything is fine, darling,” he soothes, focusing on the globe once again. With a flick of his hook, a parchment appears in his hand and it replicates the image onto the smooth cream-colored surface. 

There is a certain way that her magic sparks that confuses him for a moment until he looks back at the princess and catches the look in her eye. The desire is back, but only a flash, and he wonders if she likes the term of endearment. He endeavors to use it again to test his theory. Her magic touches his own and he gets lost in her eyes and the idea of how their light magic and dark magic would come together if they moved beyond kissing. 

When. 

When they move beyond kissing. 

When they work on her end of the bargain and create an heir for her throne. 

“Let’s get my parents first, work on the heir second,” she says in an exasperated tone that hardly hides her own fire, snatching the map from his hand and squinting down at it. 

The darkness had liked the scared little lamb, trembling on her knees, pleading to do anything and everything if only she could be protected from Regina. But the man rather likes this taste of the princess’s spirit, the way she seems born to command and lead, the traits she will pass down to their child. The fire remembers the tentative way she had first kissed him, the innocence, and how she had been a clever pupil that quickly brought him to half-hardness with only her kisses. Imagine in a bed, his hand leading hers-

A small tornado of dirt and sand douses the fire and he blinks to awareness at her frown and her eyes still on the map. 

“What the devil does this mean?” she snaps. “Where are my parents?”

Chastised, Killian reaches for the parchment and holds it stretched between them. He points at a tower-like shape with the point of his hook. “This is us. The Dark Castle. Notice the charming turrets?” Her frown twitches in amusement. He traces his hook in a serpentine pattern down the map, around the wavy blobs that dot the parchment, until it reaches a shape like a heart. “And this is where your parents are.”

“Do you know where it is? Is it far away?”

Killian shakes his head. “It is not far, but it will not be easy.”

Emma’s magic quivers and he tucks his magic around hers as he drapes his arm across her shoulders. 

“Can’t we just travel there by magic? Get them home by supper time?”

He pictures the queen and king of Misthaven sitting at his dinner table and the image is so ludicrous that he nearly laughs aloud. What will they think when their long-lost daughter finds them with the bloody Dark One in tow? There is no world in which the paragons of goodness would ever deign to break bread with him. 

Her magic pulls him just a little closer. 

“Regina planned their banishment well. These are the Lost Islands.” Killian nods at the map. “I sailed through them many years ago, but I do not recall which island is which. I could spend the next few months attempting to reach them alone with the map and my magic, with trial and error, but I do not imagine that you want me to waste time that way.”

She looks at him with wide eyes and shakes her head and there’s something about her magic, the way it reaches for his, that tells him that her concern isn’t so much Killian taking an inordinate time in retrieving her parents but in him being apart from her.  

“I would not go with you?”

His arm tightens around her shoulders before his magic does the same. 

“Such a method would mean I spend half my time on the open sea without a ship. That would not be safe for you, darling.” Before she can claim that she would be willing to brave such dangers, he continues. “And I doubt your parents would willingly be transported by the Dark One. So we will have to go together-” here she relaxes, obviously relieved “-the old fashioned way. By ship.”

Killian takes the map from her and uses his magic to roll it up and make it disappear for safekeeping. All the dark and magical objects surrounding them in the clutter of the Dark One’s dungeon makes his own darkness lurk closer to the surface. With a twirl of his hook, Killian sends them both out of the room and out to the gardens, where the air is wet but the rain has stopped falling. He looks down, and realizing the princess is still barefooted, puts a pair of shoes on her feet perfectly sized for her. 

She barely seems to notice the boon he’s granted her and it irritates the darkness. Perhaps he shouldn’t be aiding someone so ungrateful and-

“Do we have to travel by ship?”

The dark magic reaches out and finds a wall. Ah. She has discovered how to shield herself. That might be for the best. He retreats from her magic with a sigh. 

“Aye. It  is the best way to reach an island surrounded by water.” 

Her lips are pursed. His magic reaches forward and finds a door she’s left unlocked. 

“Are you scared of water, love?”

Emma bristles. “Of course not!” She takes a step away from him and steps toward a rose bush, leaning down to smell a flower. Her hair falls forward, shielding her face from his gaze, and the darkness huffs at him in frustration, that he would be kind and gentle and careful with her. To let her step away, to let her hide her beauty from him in any way. Killian swallows and waits with barely-restrained impatience. 

“I’m sorry,” she sighs into the rose bush. “I haven’t been outside the royal grounds since I was a girl. Being out on the sea, surrounded by open water, it makes me-“

His magic steps through the door she’s allowed him to open. 

“-nervous,” he finishes for her. Killian focuses on standing in place and allowing her space to return to him if she wishes. She turns finally and her pale cheeks are flush with color but her mouth is in a straight, thin line. She may have begged for his help the night before, but Princess Emma does not like being weak. 

When Killian was a lad, sailing the sea with only goodness and honor in his heart, he had dreamed of rescuing a fair maiden and winning her heart. When he met Milah, he was not as good, not as honorable, but he had thought that the rescue would be just as worthy. Like the memory of a dream, he feels that part of himself awaken and step up to the rescue. 

“No need to be nervous, darling. For I am not only the Dark One, but a sailor, who spent much of his life on a ship.”

Emma’s eyebrows rise and her nervousness slips away in her assessment of his form. Killian feels his own nervousness appear as he wonders what she sees when she looks at him. A scoundrel. A manipulative arse. A beast who craves power. The Dark One. One not fit to be her rescuer. 

“You were a pirate.”

It is not a question but he answers as if it is. “Aye.”

“Were you a good one?”

Killian knocks down the darkness that wants to be offended by her question and he smoothly smirks and quirks a brow. 

“The most dastardly in all the sea.”

Emma ignores his facade of easy charm. He is not sure when he stepped forward, but he finds himself beside her and beside the rosebush, now restraining himself from running his thumb along the sharp line of her soft cheek. 

“You can get us there safely? To my parents? You’re a good enough captain?”

Both the darkness and the man purr in delight over hearing his title from her lips. Killian pictures the princess in his cabin, sprawled naked across his bed, thanking him for safe passage by letting him enjoy her delicious body. His restraint snaps and Killian traces her cheek with his fingertips. “I’m a hell of a captain,” he whispers. Emma’s breathing stops and he leans closer to her lips. 

At the last instant, Emma turns, offering him her cheek, and the darkness snarls at both of them in fury. Killian swallows heavily and, after a beat, Emma lets the darkness slip through her grasp like water through a child’s fingers at the shore. Out of the corner of her eye she gives him an apologetic look. 

“When do we depart?” she asks. Emma is looking at the damn rose bush again. And he wants her pretty green eyes on him.

Killian conjures up a piece of parchment and quill and he writes a missive in shorthand. A wave of his moniker and the parchment folds in half once, folds a second time, and then a series of furious folds and flips occur until a little paper bird flaps its wings at them. It nods its little paper bird head and takes flight, heading for the shoreline. Killian turns back to Emma and is delighted to find her staring at the departing paper bird with amazement in her eyes. She enjoys the parlor tricks. He wants to do more of them for her. 

He finally answers her question. “We should know when we can leave in a few days. My ship will need to find port and send word and then we can travel to where she is.”

“Oh.”

“We shall be here for a few days at least, love,” he murmurs, stepping back into her personal space. “I suppose we could focus on the other parts of our deal.” 

In the absence of an immediate departure her eyes dart around the garden like a cornered creature, looking everywhere but at him. The darkness is endlessly amused by her anxiety. She agreed to create an heir with him, she kissed him with untrained passion, and now when the opportunity to make good on her promises rises up, she shies away. 

The darkness likes that. It wants to subdue her, overpower her, take her virginity and claim her before her parents can attempt to make some other deal and get her out of this one. His magic swirls around them to transport them to a bedroom, one where he can summon chains to lash her to the bed if she decides to fight back. 

And it is that image - of Emma naked and bound with fresh bruises and tears clinging to her eyelashes - one that the darkness thinks he will like and is eager to replicate - that changes his trajectory mid-travel. 

They land in the great hall and Killian turns on his heel and forces himself to walk halfway across the room just to get some space from her. Over his shoulder he summons a table nearly creaking with rich foods and delectable desserts and snaps, “Eat.”

From the other side of the room he can feel how her magic cautiously approaches his. But Killian has learned how to erect his own wall, and she finds it to be impenetrable.

“Eat,” he says again, sharper, and her magic retreats back to her with a snap.

“I thought that you would want to…” she near-whispers, trailing off, and when he peers out the window of his barricade he can feel how her fear of him and what he might do is mingling with her desire to be protected by him.

Killian conjures up a full-length mirror and grits his teeth as he wrestles with the darkness inside of him. It wants him to focus on making her uphold her end of the bargain, but Killian had been strategic with their deal. The end goal is not a quick fuck, but the creation of a strong, healthy child that will be able to lead the Kingdom of Misthaven. The darkness will not win this war.

“What do you see, Highness?” he asks, stalking toward her and peering at her face over her shoulder, as she looks at herself in the mirror. Her eyes meet his and, after a moment, when he raises an impatient eyebrow, she focuses on her own face.

“An orphan,” Emma says quietly. “A girl left alone, unloved and unprotected.”

He had seen the same thing - at first. But it had only taken a moment before he had also observed her bravery, her determination, and the way she was willing to save herself by any means necessary.

“I see the same,” he says coldly. “And so will your people.” Killian steps closer so she is nearly leaning against him and places his hand on her stomach. “You need to put on some weight and build some muscle. It will be necessary to win back your kingdom and to carry our child.”

His eyes are on her abdomen, imagining how it would grow and swell, and he can feel her eyes on his face, assessing him. Killian’s instinct is to hide that the thought pleases him, but he tells the darkness to shove off and opens up again, his darkness nudging against her light, like a cat circling its owner’s legs.

“You want me healthy?” Emma sounds incredulous, as if no one has ever wanted that for her before. And perhaps no one has for many, many years.

Killian nods. “Of course I do, darling. That is essential to our deal.” He stoops down to whisper into her ear, banishing the mirror with a flick of his hook. “So your job, over the next few days, is to eat your fill, sleep contentedly, and explore every inch of the castle and the grounds.”

Her nose nearly brushes against his when she turns in his arms. “Is that an order?”

He wonders what her life has been like over the last two decades. How had Regina tortured her? What liberties had she allowed her Black Knights to take with the princess? She is finally free from Regina and finds herself literally face-to-face with another dark captor. His darkness wants to command her just as much as Regina’s had.

“No,” Killian replies cooly, biting the inside of his cheek. The darkness wants to bite back. “It is not an order. But if you do not do as I suggest, I will assume that you are trying to go back on our contract. I cannot restore a weak bloodline to the throne.”

Emma nods, and though he can feel her beginning to move out of his arms, he holds her close, the man not ready to part with her yet, the darkness desperate to run away as fast as possible. “And what will you be doing, my lord?” she breathes. “To uphold your end of the bargain?”

He gives her as cocky and flirtatious a grin as he can manage, knowing she must see right through him and how he’s known her less than a day and already prepared to do anything he can to help her succeed in her mission.

“I shall be planning our wedding, of course,” he says with a wink. “And I thought I told you to call me Killian.”

And with that, he vanishes, retreating to the library where the darkness screams at him and he tells the darkness the time has come to shut up. 

The Dark One - Killian - is scarce over the next few days. Emma is used to being alone, perhaps she even prefers it. Or maybe she has forgotten what it is like to be with others. Either way, Killian leaves her to her own devices. She follows his orders to the best of her ability, sleeping in late and waking up slowly, filling up on the food that appears magically any time she even walks by the grand hall, and taking walks around the grounds and poking her head in every doorway.

The Dark Castle lives up to its name. The rooms are beautiful, but something is lacking, void of a heart or any sense of cheeriness and kindness. Emma senses the dark magic left on each surface like a dusty residue, and it makes her curious what nefarious deals previous Dark Ones struck with the innocent that wandered into their land.

As for the current Dark One, he has not been living up to his name. He keeps to himself, appearing sometimes at meals but never eating. He’s learned to wall off his magic, and though they take turns pressing against one another, neither of them budges again, each content to keep their own counsel. She cannot puzzle out if the man or the darkness is in control;  sometimes this bothers her and sometimes it does not. Either way, she finds that her new home is much more comfortable, much more free, than her old one, and if not for the ache of her heart that misses her parents, she would be tempted to just stay here forever.

On the fifth day, Killian asks for a list of her parents’ closest political alliances. She spends the entirety of her midday meal racking her brain for names of those who her parents loved and trusted - the two often synonymous in their minds - and a quill at Killian’s side furiously records the names without him having to write.

“Are you going to ask them for aid?” she questions, standing up when the food has disappeared and trying not to jump in surprise when the table and chairs disappear as well.

Killian nods and crosses to her. For a moment she wonders if he is going to kiss her. She licks her lips in anticipation and hope, wondering if it is obvious that she’s been dreaming of his kisses every night before bed and daydreaming about them every step of her exploration of the lands. It must be, because his eyes are drawn to her lips and his own curl deviously.

“We will ask them for aid eventually. We are starting by inviting them to our wedding.” A new piece of parchment appears between them, like a shield, and Emma squints at the perfect calligraphy. She lets out a gasp and snatches it from his hand.

You are cordially invited to the wedding of Crown Princess Emma of Misthaven, daughter and heir of the rightful Queen Snow White and King David, to the Dark One, the most powerful magic user of the realm.

“What on earth is this?” she mutters, half to Killian, half to herself.

“It is a wedding invitation, love. I thought we discussed the necessity of a splashy ceremony to get the kingdom to rally behind you.” His dry tone draws her attention back up to his beautiful blue eyes and the dimples dancing among the black stubble.

Emma flushes and hopes he doesn’t notice the way she loses her speech whenever she looks at him. “Yes, of course,” she grouses. “But this is- this is propaganda.”

Killian quirks an eyebrow. “Aye. And?”

“And- and-” Emma struggles to articulate what she hates so much about the invitation. “And my parents’ wedding wasn’t a show of force, it was a sign of hope for the people. That Regina would be overthrown by the power of love and a new beginning and-”

“That is what the child is for. A new beginning. Everyone loves a baby to coo over.”

His dismissiveness would make her bristle if not for that moment that his magic let slip that a child would be more than just the fulfillment of a contract to him. When he placed his hand on her stomach and she felt that longing for love call out to her. A longing that her own heart had echoed. She tries to remind him of that now, but finds his magic is once more hidden away.

With a roll of her eyes, Emma tucks her tongue into the corner of her mouth as she concentrates on rearranging the ink on the invitation. When she is satisfied with the changes, she hands it to Killian with a smirk.

Your presence is requested as Princess Emma of Misthaven and Captain Killian Jones unite in marriage. Help us to celebrate True Love and everlasting partnership.

He holds the invitation with all the disgust of someone forced to touch a feces-stained rag.

“And what is this?”

“My alterations. Don’t you like it?”

Killian grunts in disgust. “How on earth are people to know that I am the Dark One? And what is all this hogwash about True Love ?”

“That’s your propaganda! Reminding people that my parents share True Love and that I am the product of that love.”

“Everlasting partnership?”

She huffs. “Well, I can’t very well say a contract to overthrow the Evil Queen !”

Killian’s eyes light up and before she knows it, he is holding up the parchment again with a flourish.

We invite all those who hate the Evil Queen and want to see her die a miserable death to join us for the wedding of Princess Emma and The Dark One.  We will vow to kill her and reclaim the kingdom.

Emma erupts into giggles and when she has found her breath again, she waves her hand and gives the parchment back to Killian.

The legend of the Dark One has frightened children for centuries. For those who have been too scared to summon him by name, come  see him with your own eyes when he marries Princess Emma. But be prepared: Captain Killian Jones is not the Dark One you were warned about!

She can’t puzzle out the look on his face when he finishes reading her latest iteration. Emma holds her breath, wondering if she has vexed him, but then he turns the parchment back around and she scans the new words.

If you thought that Princess Emma was dead or, worse, a mindless puppet of Regina, then you were sorely mistaken. Please join us for her wedding ceremony where the beautiful princess binds herself to the Dark One to prove she will do anything to take back her kingdom.

Emma smiles but shakes her head slightly. “That’s the other thing I did not like,” she muses. “We cannot just call you The Dark One. You’re more than that.”

Killian tilts his head in confusion. “But I am the Dark One. The invitation should be clear-”

She shakes her head and reaches for his hand. “Power did not win back the kingdom for my parents. Love did. And no one is going to rally behind a political marriage. Even Regina understands that, which is why she was going to quietly marry me off. The invitation has to give people hope. Hope and love.”

Her magic reaches out for him, and after a moment of hesitation, his magic responds, allowing her to step forward and wrap her arms around his shoulders and feel, once again, that longing he has for love. She’s been alone. He’s been alone. They’re both so desperate for-

She kisses him this time, rising on her toes to press her lips to his. She could be mistaken, but it seems that he melts into the embrace. Killian allows her to cover him with her light magic, envelop him in her longing, give him leave to cover those cracks in her heart as they thoroughly kiss one another. It makes sensations shoot up and down her spine and she does not want the kiss to ever, ever end.

It ends. It must. Regrettably. 

Emma takes a deep breath on the other side and licks her lips, which now taste like Killian. They feel deliciously swollen and she stares at his lips, wondering if they are tingling like hers are. He smiles, and she feels like they must - he must be as affected as she is.

“Love, hmm?” he asks, voice rough, drawing her attention away from his lips and back to his eyes.

“I don’t-” she begins to stammer. “I mean, I am not asking you to-”

“To declare my love for you, darling?” His smile widens and she knows he must be able to feel how much she enjoys that term of endearment. He shakes his head and continues, “Of course not. But perhaps something that indicates that we are fond of one another beyond our deal?” Killian tilts his chin as though asking for her agreement and she gives it with a nod. He holds up the parchment that she had forgotten all about and she reads the words aloud.

“You are cordially invited to the wedding of Her Royal Highness, Princess Emma of Misthaven and Captain Killian Jones of Glowerhaven, the Dark One. We welcome all those who wish for new hope for Misthaven to join us on this day of celebration.”

Emma hums. “Add in some bluebirds in the corners. My mother’s favorite birds. Perhaps it will be a sign to our guests that this is not some trick of Regina’s.”

The birds appear in a moment, little figures among the swirls, perched on branches alongside flowers.

“Forget-me-nots?” she asks, curious, wondering if pirates or Dark Ones know anything about flowers.

“For true love and respect,” he says quietly, almost shyly. “Is that-”

“And for your eyes,” she cuts in. “They are the same shade.”

The Dark One flushes. He actually flushes. “Been staring at my eyes, have you?” Killian teases. 

Emma shrugs, though the effect is muted by her arms still around his shoulders. Her fingers toy with the hair on the nape of his neck and she smiles. This is the most he’s interacted with her for days, and though Emma’s used to being alone, perhaps she doesn’t like to be - doesn’t need to be. “At times,” she admits. “When you’ve not been hiding.”

His own arms wrap around her waist and he steps even closer, their magic twisting together like their own limbs currently are. “I shall not be able to hide for much longer,” he says, and she wonders if he is teasing her some more or admitting that he’s kept his distance on purpose, “as tomorrow we travel to my ship to begin our journey.”

Emma perks up, ready to leave in a moment if he says they may. The instant Regina told her that she had found Emma a suitable husband , Emma began plotting her escape. It had been all that she had thought about for so long that Emma finds herself quite without a focus these last few days. There is more than a small part of her that is anxious about traveling by sea, but most of her is just ready to get to her parents as soon as possible, to make good on her family’s vow to always find one another. 

“Do you have a dark carriage you use for travel? Pulled by a set of dark horses?” 

She gives him a playful smile and he matches it with one of his own. “No, the Jolly Roger will be anchored just north of the Lost Islands. We can magic straight to the docks, as I’ve been there before. Mister Smee should have the Captain’s Quarters all prepared for you so you can have your privacy. Not as spacious as your room here, but it’s as well as I can do, and my crew shall treat you with respect.”

There is a fondness to his voice when speaking of his ship and her crew and Emma wonders why the man is landlocked in a dark and creaking castle when his heart is obviously on the sea with his ship. Emma is just about to ask him the question when he pulls away from her and tucks hand and hook behind his back, like a courtier.

“We will leave in the morning as soon as you’ve broken your fast. No need to bring anything with us, but dress for travel and high winds.”

His dark magic swirls around him, obscuring him from her sight. In an instant he is gone, and Emma considers trying to find him, but she knows that it is futile. Her magic senses his magic, but here, in the Dark Castle, the traces of his magic are simply everywhere. It lingers on every surface, like a film of dust, and Emma intuits that no matter how long she spends here, her light magic will never quite manage to scrub it away.

She looks down at her boots, sturdy and perfectly sized to her feet, and making sure that the laces are secure, sets off down the hallway to explore another wing of the castle.

Chapter Text

“Nervous, darling?”

Killian’s smirk is infinitely irritating, making her narrow her eyes and shake her head, despite the way her heart is thumping. Of course she is nervous. Dreadfully nervous. Nervous to leave the Dark Castle which, despite its name and reputation, has been more of a sanctuary than her own castle these last years. Nervous to be among people again. Nervous to step aboard a ship and trust her fate on the open seas. Nervous to find her parents. Nervous to not find her parents.

And, of course, there is the nervousness that always happens when she stands close to the Dark One, looks into his eyes, and remembers the deal that they have made and the partnership that has been forged and sealed by magic.

“Of course not,” she lies.

He obviously does not believe her, which is why he holds out his hand for her to take. Emma goes a step further and grasps his hook as well, seeking an anchor in the swell of magic that surrounds them to transport them to the far-away docks, and she catches the way his eyes widen in surprise in the instant before his face is obscured by dark red plumes of smoke.

When it dissipates and her feet land on uneven cobblestones, his face appears before hers again; however, she notes that the shock has disappeared and been replaced by a careful coolness. Emma’s magic probes for his on instinct, to grasp it as tightly as she is holding on to his hand and hook, but she finds him locked away again.

She retreats inside of herself and hopes that her disappointment does not show.

The displeasure is short-lived, as it’s quickly overshadowed by the cacophony of noises and smells all around her. Emma blinks at the bright light of the sun reflecting off of the sea, a stark contrast to the constant shadows of the Dark Castle. Once her eyes adjust, she takes in the crush of bodies, wearing a rainbow of dull colors, and more variety than she’s seen since she was a child, having grown so used to the sameness of the Black Knights.

All the people move through and around one another in a slurry of dizzying chaos. They shout and cry out and laugh in her mother tongue and in languages familiar and unfamiliar. There is a small child playing with a spinning top nearby and an old crone sitting on a step darning some socks. The scent of humans, most of them unwashed, fills her nostrils and mingles with the smell of saltwater and seaweed and the fish being thrown from a ship to a wagon nearby.

Emma does not know if she wants to throw up or faint or twirl in delight.

Her knees get a little weak and Killian’s arm is around her in an instant.

“Emma?” he asks anxiously, holding her up, and she is both thankful for his aid and hating displaying another sign of weakness.

“I’m fine,” she grits, trying to force her legs to hold her up. Another look at the crowd and she has to squeeze her eyes shut, dropping his hook to place her hand at her temple. “It is nothing.”

“It is not nothing,” he growls. Emma opens her eyes long enough to catch him looking around for some sign of Regina or another evil fiend ready to ruin their plans. Emma shakes her head, unseen by him, and reaches out with her magic, hoping that it will say what she cannot.

It does.

Killian’s magic curls around her defensively and it helps her to block out the bedlam around her. Emma closes her eyes again and the world fades away even more, his magical protection growing even stronger. In an instant, the commotion disappears and all Emma hears is blessed silence. The sound of her well-loved companion since she was a girl.

“I am sorry, I should have realized this would be overwhelming,” he murmurs, his voice the only thing she can hear. Emma closes her eyes and trusts in Killian to lead her through the multitude of people, his arm strong around her as they weave through the crowd until her feet leave the cobblestones and the heels of her boots click on the wood of a gangplank.

“Just another two steps,” Killian says softly, now directly behind her, and once the sound of the wood beneath her changes, she takes a deep breath and luxuriates in the cool sea breeze that clears both her senses and her mind.

Emma reaches out with her magic to thank Killian for his assistance, but finds that it has quite changed. His protection has been replaced by something like lightning, something like agony, and Emma draws her magic back before she can be similarly affected and her eyes fly open, expecting to see them being attacked.

In an instant, the sounds of the crowd return to her ears, but Emma’s eyes are trained forward, to the length of the ship that they are currently standing on, and to the gentleman now approaching them with a red cap in his hand. Emma’s anxiety is still at the surface, but she finds that it is manageable for the moment.

“Your Highness?” he asks. When she gives him an uncertain nod, the man bows deeply and quite ungracefully, clearly not used to such signs of subjugation to royalty, and Emma composes her features to look flattered, not embarrassed. The man’s eyes turn to Killian behind her when he rises and Emma senses a mixture of nervousness and excitement in him. “Captain. It is good to see you, sir.”

“I trust you’ve been caring for my ship, Mister Smee?” Killian says by way of greeting. Emma expects him to walk away from her and begin some kind of inspection or something, but he stays behind her, perhaps like he’s hiding, perhaps like he’s worried about her - she’s not sure which one might be true.

“Aye, Captain. Of course,” Smee says quickly.

“Then let us be on our way,” the Dark One snaps. His arm reaches around Emma to hold out a rolled-up parchment to the man. “Follow the map.”

Smee takes the map and turns smartly to give orders to the crew members scattered across the deck. Emma watches them for a minute, needing to focus on anything but the swarm of people she knows are moving and swaying right behind her on the docks, but when Killian doesn’t move either, her curiosity gets the better of her. Emma turns and forces her gaze to focus on his face and not the people behind him.

“Are you alright?”

His clenching jaw and eyes that will not meet hers tells one story. “I am fine,” he says in a clipped tone, attempting to tell a different story.

“You are not,” Emma insists.

Killian places his hand on her shoulder and leads her forward, bidding her to step into the bowels of the ship through an open hatch. Emma obeys him, still concerned about his obvious discomfort, and descends the ladder. She’s thankful that she found a pair of trousers in the wardrobe this morning, something that had not been present the other days, and though the leather feels strange against skin that is used to stockings and skirts, the mobility will serve her well on this journey.

The hatch and the ladder lead to a private cabin, neat and tidy and every surface gleaming with fresh polish. A narrow bunk is made up beneath a stained glass window, and Emma turns in place to take in the wardrobe, cushioned bench beneath another stained glass window, desk, and table with two chairs. Not a large space, but a clean one, and it has more of a feel of history and love than any of the rooms she found in the Dark Castle.

“This is your cabin,” Emma says. It is not a question.

“Aye.” Killian’s jaw is still twitching, but whatever is bothering him is behind the wall he’s erected around his magic. “Yours for our journey, love.”

Emma startles. Even if his body is tense and his magic is barricaded away, it does not take a clever person to recognize the longing in his eyes. Why would he want her to have this space?

“I couldn’t.”

“Dark Ones do not sleep.”

She had noticed that he never ate with her but figured it was some quirk of his or that perhaps he preferred to eat alone - or maybe just had terrible table manners. But now Emma suspects that he does not eat either. No food, no sleep, no rest or refreshment for his weary soul.

Emma’s fingers twitch to grasp his hand again and she buries them in the fabric of her cloak. “Thank you for your hospitality,” she says simply, feeling as though it is not nearly enough.

Killian quickly excuses himself and Emma takes a few minutes to observe her new private quarters. The Dark One had given her leave to explore every inch of the Dark Castle and she figures it must now extend to his ship and the room he’s told her she can use as her own. Emma’s fingertips graze the crisp white sheets of the bed, the soft wood of the wardrobe, the worn spines of books, and the lines of a woman’s face drawn in charcoal, hung on one wall.

When she’s finished her perusal, Emma adjusts the tie on her cloak and returns to the deck.

Thankfully, in the time that she’s examined the captain’s quarters, the ship has left shore far behind, along with the scents and sounds that had so affected her. Another breath of the sea air makes Emma feel quite refreshed and prepared to face the day. She moves her exploration to the world of the ship above deck, trying to take everything in and catalog the questions she has about seafaring. She pays special attention to make sure she is not in the way and not injured by her own poor attention, eventually retreating to the stern of the ship after she has completed two laps around the deck.

Killian is already there, staring back at the shore line with an inscrutable expression. 

“A fine ship you have, Captain,” Emma says lightly, observing him out of the corner of her eye. He winces, as though pained, and Emma takes hold of the ship and wonders why the compliment was so poorly received. 

They stand in silence for a long time, watching the village slowly disappear. Eventually, Emma’s stomach gives an audible roar and Killian looks over at her again. 

He waves a hand in the air. “Food is all set out for you, love. Go to the cabin and eat to your heart’s content.”

“Will you join me?” she asks quietly, hopefully. Killian shakes his head. Emma prepares to step away but at the last moment her feet refuse to budge. “Will you please tell me what is wrong?”

It must be the strength of her voice that catches him off-guard. She has been content to obey him, trust his wisdom, not question him. But now he is obviously in pain and it is causing her pain. Emma locks her knees and waits for him to evade her question again. 

“Nothing is wrong.”

She waits some more. 

“If you will not go eat I will assume-”

“We need more than my healthy body to make good on our deal, Killian,” Emma says stubbornly. “We need some measure of trust and honesty. If you will not tell me what is wrong then I cannot help.”

His cool blue eyes burn into hers, his magic locked away along with his vulnerability. Eventually, her stomach growls again, she raises a defiant brow, and he sighs. 

“You cannot help. Long ago I cast enchantments on my ship to make it torturous for the Dark One to step foot on her.”

It takes a moment for Emma to catch the full meaning of his words. Why would he want to keep himself from his own ship? But then she remembers that Killian was not always the Dark One, that Rumplestiltskin bore the name and the magic first, and Killian killed him. He has not explained why and how he murdered his predecessor. 

“You wanted to keep Rumpelstiltskin away.”

“Aye.” Killian ducks his head. “The last time he was on the Jolly he killed the woman I loved.”

Emma pictures Rumpelstiltskin, the creature of her nightmares, appearing in the middle of the gleaming deck of Killian’s ship, ripping a woman from Killian’s arms, and murdering her in cold blood.

“Is that why you killed him? To avenge her death?” Tentatively, Emma lays a hand on the sleeve of the thick leather coat she has not seen him wear since the night they met. It is warm from the sun and soft under her fingers.

Killian nods, eyes still on the deck. He does not brush off her hand as she had expected. She contemplates this new revelation, about a man who loves so deeply he will go face-to-face with the greatest force of evil and darkness in the realm in order to make someone pay for their crimes. A lucky woman to have been the recipient of a love so strong.

“You cannot reverse the enchantments?”

He pulls away from her touch to lay a hand on the polished wood of the rail. “Not without destroying her and that would hurt worse than the pain she inflicts on me.”

Curious, Emma’s magic nudges against his own, asking to feel what he feels. The barricade remains up, keeping her out, and her nudge turns into a push, then a shove, then a swift kick that nearly knocks her back when he suddenly releases the floodgates.

Emma doubles over in pain. Every muscle feels as though it is being run through by lightning, all of her nerve endings open and exposed, her whole body both energized and exhausted at the same time. Emma gasps at the torturous agony, and at the sound his magic shoves her out again and locks her away from it. She sags against the rail and, panting heavily, looks up at Killian with wide eyes.

“Is that what you’ve been feeling? Since the moment you stepped foot on the ship?”

His eyes are trained on the shoreline, focused, cold, and he nods shortly. A muscle in his jaw twitches. Emma wonders that he can even move with the way that the Jolly Roger is causing him so much suffering.

“You need to go,” she gasps. “Killian, you cannot stay here any longer. How can you even stay here?”

His response is quiet. “We made a deal. I must protect you and get you to your parents.”

“But Killian, you must-” she begins weakly, and she draws back when he straightens to his full height and glares down at her. 

“We are on my ship and I am the one tasked with your safekeeping, Your Highness. If you continue to be insolent I shall have to devise a punishment.” The way that wickedness gleams in his eyes makes her fearful of what sort of punishment the Dark One would inflict upon her. 

He grasps her elbow and pulls her closer. “Time to eat, Princess.” His sing-song voice sends chills down her spine. The Dark One begins to shove her away from him, toward the waiting feast in his quarters, and in desperation Emma places her hand on his bare wrist, trying to stop him or stall him or calm him or get the darkness to leave him the hell alone. 

In an instant, the obstruction between his magic and hers disappears and she can feel the calm quietness of nothing. The bliss of stillness. It is similar to the way he made the noise of the docks disappear just a few hours ago when she had been so dreadfully overwhelmed. The maniacal glint in his eyes is extinguished like a flame in the wind and in its place is naked relief.

“Bloody hell,” he grunts, stumbling for a moment, and when she stumbles with him, she loses her grip on his hand and the white-hot agony returns. Emma grasps his hand in hers by instinct and the calmness returns.

Their fingers now intertwined, Killian stares at her incredulously. “What did you do?”

Emma shakes her head and feels how the rest of her body is shaking too. “I didn’t do anything.”

Testing a theory, Killian releases her hand and he must have put protections back in place because she cannot feel his pain, but she can see it plain as day; a tense jaw and a furrow in his brow. Without thinking about it, Emma lifts her hand and smooths her fingers over the rough stubble on his jaw. His face goes slack and a groan escapes his throat. Killian’s hook presses against the back of her hand, keeping her in place. 

“Does that feel better?” Emma whispers, though the answer is obvious. 

Killian groans again, the sound almost obscene. She watches his serene expression for several minutes, his face calm, his eyes closed, a slight smile on his face. The sea breeze picks up and the smile gets larger, broader. Emma wonders at the last time he had been able to enjoy being aboard his ship. 

All of the sudden, his eyes fly open and Killian looks at her in a panic. “Is this draining for you? Does it hurt to protect me in this way?”

The thought hasn’t even occurred to Emma. She pokes at her magic and tries to put the feeling into words. “No,” she says slowly. “No, it feels like a spring or a fountain. Like the magic just keeps bubbling up. Actually,” Emma grins shyly. “Actually, it sort of tickles.”

“Tickles?”

Killian laughs at the idea and she can feel the way the sound makes his neck vibrate. “Although,” Emma adds, purposely taking his right hand in hers before pulling back her right hand from his jaw. “My arm was starting to get tired.”

He laughs again and moves his hand so their fingers are intertwined. “I can’t believe you- well, I never thought I could-” Killian sighs and looks at her, half-exasperated and half-delighted. “If you would be willing to shield me with your magic, then I just might make it through this journey without being a complete arse.”

When her stomach growls a third time, he does manage to convince her to have a luncheon in the Captain’s Quarters. And she manages to convince him to join her for the meal. As she eats her fill, they discover that skin-to-skin touch is necessary for her protection to have any effect. The experiment to have her focus on covering him with her magic without touching him is a total disaster - it ends with her feeling a headache develop from the concentration required - and she finishes her luncheon with her left palm over his hand on the table while licking the remnants of frosting off of her right fingers. 

“One more experiment, darling?” Killian asks in a rough voice, eyes on her mouth. She nods, not knowing why her heart is suddenly racing, and when he pulls her to her feet she barely notices the food disappear. 

Killian’s mouth is on hers and in the haze of his slow, leisurely kisses, stealing her breath and curling her toes, she can feel how he lets go of her hand so only their mouths are touching. The way he keeps going tells her that the kiss is enough to satisfy his need for her protection, and when he pulls away from her mouth, he immediately burrows his face in the spot where her neck meets her shoulder. 

“Imagine the relief I would feel if I spent all night with my cock buried in your quim,” he quietly moans. His warm breath and lewd words make heat rush between her thighs. Emma buries her fingers in his hair and bites her lower lip to hold back her gasp. The fire is back, blazing over both of them, and with the bed only a few feet away, it feels like it is taunting her with her lack of sexual knowledge. 

Carefully, Emma douses his fire and encourages him to pull away from her, while keeping her fingers in his hair. She licks her lips and forces herself to meet his eyes, to face the passion that is still gleaming there, barely restrained by her magic. “Have you decided that I am healthy enough?” she asks nervously. “Should we- should we try to work on my end of the deal?”

What fire she hadn’t managed to douse with her magic goes away at her words and his eyes look contrite. Instantly he pulls back from her arms, then hisses in pain as the ship’s enchantment catches him off-guard. Emma grasps his hand and he comes back to himself, blinking from the onslaught of so many different emotions.

“No,” he snaps, making her flinch. He shakes his head and says it softer. “No, no darling. I should not have said that. The darkness is determined for us to fuck and is hardly interested in my being a gentleman about it.”

Emma squeezes his hand, trying to swallow her shyness. “And you? What do you want?”

She wants to hear him say that he wants her. She feels that he does, she assumes that he must, and even if it is only his loneliness calling out to hers, she’s not sure if she cares. It seems like enough to her. He feels like enough to her - feeling safer in his protection than she’s been since a child, despite the darkness that makes his emotions erratic. Emma attempts to hide the vulnerability of her question and make her face neutral.

Killian steps closer to her again and flicks some of her hair off her shoulder with his hook. His expression is soft again, fond, and when he meets her eyes her stomach leaps in her chest.

“I want you healthy. Being in a limited space is no excuse to not walk as I instructed, Princess. If you are amenable, I would like to show you around my ship.”

Emma weaves their fingers together and offers him a smile. “Lead the way, Captain.”

Killian hadn’t thought it would be possible, but he does, in fact, grow tired of holding Princess Emma’s hand. Not emotionally, of course - since the moment he saw her in the forest he’s been craving her touch, to hold her and be held. But physically, needing to keep his skin pressed to her skin does get a little cumbersome. Eventually, he understands what she means about the magic tickling, as he feels a prickling under his skin where they are touching one another. Her fingers keep shifting and twitching to stay in a comfortable position, and he finds himself longing for them both to be naked so he might discover a multitude of ways that she might comfort him with her magic and her body.

Fool that he is, he let one of those ways slip and the little lamb shrank away in fright.

Somehow, he’s ended up with his head on her lap as they sit beneath the stars, the crew giving them a wide berth. Her fingers lightly scratch his neck, play with his ear, toy with his hair. If a Dark One could sleep, Killian would have long ago passed out beneath her gentle touch. He is practically purring in her lap, and though the darkness growls at him for his submissiveness, he tells the darkness to kindly bugger off and keeps his eyes closed in delight.

Killian takes a refreshing breath of the sea air and smiles. The last time he was this content on the Jolly was centuries ago, when Milah was alive and they would sleep on the deck on fair nights, her desperate to feel the freedom of the open air and him desperate to feel her near. Being here, now, with Emma, feeling that same peace at sea mingled with the terrifying feeling of falling in love - it is bittersweet. 

He never thought he would be capable of letting go of his first love, his Milah. Revenge over her death consumed him, and once it was accomplished, the hole left behind was somehow even deeper than before. Three years he’s hidden in the Dark Castle, appearing only when summoned and even then he has turned down most deals, keeping the darkness at bay by giving it his loneliness to gnaw on. 

But Emma has given him purpose. Something to be a part of. He has no illusions that he will be a cherished member of the noble house of Snow White, but he does hope he will be allowed to spend time with the child, the heir. He will want to channel his years of hard-won wisdom into them, to create something better, more pure than himself. 

The darkness wants to corrupt Emma and corrupt the child. Killian will fight tooth and nail to keep that from happening. 

Emma shifts and he can hear the gentle hitch in breathing that indicates she’s yawned. Again. Killian twists slightly so that he can look at her. Her palm cups his jaw and her thumb runs along his cheek. 

“You need to go to bed, love.”

“I’m fine,” she insists without any real conviction. This is her third yawn in ten minutes. Killian raises a brow and she rolls her eyes. “I just don’t want you to suffer.”

He is not sure whether he wants to laugh or cry at her words. When was the last time someone cared about the suffering of Captain Hook or the Dark One?

Not unkindly, he says, “My suffering will be bearable if I know there will be an end to it when you awake.” Bracing himself to feel his ship’s protective enchantment, Killian disengages from her touch and stands up, relieved when she takes his offered hand and rises as well. He escorts her across the deck to the hatch to his quarters and kisses the back of her hand. 

“Sleep well, Emma,” he says, not sure if he is attempting to be seductive, flirtatious, or friendly, and in the jumble, likely sounding evil. He makes to let go of her hand, hating the new pain it now causes, when she grips him tighter. 

“Stay,” she says quietly, shocking the hell out of him. 

“Pardon?” he asks, not sure that he heard her correctly.

“Stay.” This time her voice is louder, firmer, more commanding. A taste of the royal who’s never been given the opportunity to rule. “I will not be able to sleep if I know that you are distressed. It costs me nothing to help you. So…” She looks at him through her lashes and Killian wonders if she understands the power she holds over him at this moment. “Stay.”

The darkness has been pushing him to do this very same thing since the night she stepped her delicate, bleeding feet into his castle. To lie with her, to take her, to claim her for himself and for the darkness alike. How simple it would be to seduce her. Child’s play, truly. A woman fresh and ripe for the picking, gorgeous and gentle, one who has already made a vow to bear his child, who knows what that entails.

It would be so easy.

Too easy.

Killian is shaking his head before the words form on his lips and Emma’s eyebrow rises in a teasing arc. “Killian,” she says, now with a smirk on her lips, and he is awestruck at her fortitude to smirk before the Dark One while inviting him to her bed. “We are to be married in a few weeks’ time. Surely your delicate pirate sensibilities will not be too scarred if we share a bed together.”

Without warning, his feet leave the ground and Killian is caught up in a plume of milky white magic, his stomach lurching at the surprise transportation in the instant before his feet land again and he blinks at the lantern-lit Captain’s Quarters. He blinks at Emma as well, who is no longer wearing traveling clothes, but is wrapped in a simple white nightgown, lace at her shoulders and ankles. Her smooth, creamy flesh is on display, miles of skin visible along her arms and above her breasts, the nightgown cut to accentuate her beauty. 

Her hand is still in his and he watches her, waiting to see what she will do next. 

“Do you know what you are doing, Princess?” he gruffs, holding on to his control by a thread. Every moment he stands still is another moment of torture, but another moment of triumph over the darkness. 

“I am attempting a seduction but I admit I am woefully untrained in such matters.” She looks at him through her eyelashes again. His heart stutters in his chest. 

Against his will, Killian’s fingers untangle from hers, but rather than leave her as is right and proper, the pads of his fingers trace up the soft skin of her arm until his hand can gently wrap around her neck, the darkness wanting to pull her forward, the gentleman wanting to keep her at arm’s length. 

Killian lets the darkness take control. Just a bit. Just for a bit. Allows the darkness to kiss the light, swallowing her moans and growing hungrier with every gasp. He tastes the skin of her neck, pure and pale, and he only just manages to keep himself from marking it. The crew already know she is his, there is no need to claim her this way, but he wants to and from the little whimpers she lets out when his teeth graze her sensitive skin, she wants it too. 

From the start, Killian’s intention had been to wait to take her, to wait until their wedding night. Royalty seems fussy about such things, and even the darkness had conceded that a bastard would not be well-received on the throne. 

But their wedding is only a few weeks away. A few weeks that would mean no difference when considering nine months. And the thought of taking her in his cabin, on the Captain’s bunk, pleases both the darkness and the pirate. 

He holds her closer as his lips return to her own, and then, with his hand still clutching the nape of her neck, he pulls away so she might breathe and he might think. 

“No human law yet binds us together, darling. You are under no obligation. We can wait to consummate our deal on the night of our wedding.”

“I- I know,” she stutters, eyes dazed and unfocused, and Killian attempts to wall off his fire a bit so she might be able to think as well. “But I-”

For an instant, through the magic that bobs and weaves closer and then further from one another, he senses the vulnerability of her. She does not crave passion, she craves companionship. Emma had liked his lying on her lap as much as he had. But she tucks that behind the ramparts again before he can do more than notice it. 

“I think I would like to know what to expect.” She takes a deep breath, her eyes now focused, her mouth a straight line. “On our wedding night,” she explains. 

“Ah.”

Her magic retreats further, concealing herself from him, her face carefully blank, her body tense even as her hands playfully grasp the lapels of his coat and she circles her thumbs on the soft leather. 

“Regina…” she licks her lips, “threatened me about what to expect. She told me it hurts terribly. But she must have thought I have forgotten my parents and their love, because I cannot believe that my father could be so cruel.”

His anger flares against Regina and her torture. Emma’s sparse description of the man that Regina had intended her to marry had made Killian’s vision black out at the thought of anyone raising a hand to the princess he was already planning to claim for himself. Standing before him in her nightdress in his beloved Captain’s Quarters, he’s struck by her bravery, to be willing to face something she likens to torture in order to save her parents and reclaim her kingdom. 

The darkness wants to exploit her fear and Killian just manages to get the upper hand. His thumb runs soothing lines along the side of her neck and he endeavors to keep his voice light. 

“I can show you, if you’d like. All the ways a man and a woman can fit together.” She stops breathing. “The pleasure to be wrung from your body. The exquisite bliss of two bodies joined as one, rising and falling and going mad with need.”

He opens his magic to her and engulfs her with the fire, lets it cover her and burn her to a crisp. Emma’s eyes flutter closed, lost in this pleasure the same way she had been lost in pain when he let her feel how the Jolly Roger hurts him so. 

Emma and his ship are much the same, now that he thinks about it. Fortified against the darkness, protected and beautiful and safe. He should stay away. 

And yet there is nothing he craves more. 

With her eyes closed, Emma nods her head, and it is enough for Killian to finally give in. He gives in to the fire, to the temptation, to the darkness. His kisses get more desperate and demanding and Emma pants against his mouth, trying to keep up. Her lack of experience is not a hindrance, not for a man who knows what he wants, not for a creature that luxuriates in corruption. 

His hand leaves the back of her neck, ready to bare her to his gaze, but she moves first, tugging at his lapels until she can slide the heavy coat off his back. Now her hands, small but strong, dig into his shoulder blades for a minute before gliding around and unbuttoning his vest, then his shirt. 

Delighted by her boldness, Killian pulls away to look at her looking at him. She must be confused by his response, because her magic retreats further away and she frowns. “Is this not-?”

Careful to keep their skin touching, Killian runs his hand down her arm and covers her fingers with his own. “You are welcome to touch me however you like, darling.” He waggles his eyebrows. “Really get into it.”

Emma’s terse mouth twitches before she refocuses on her task of sliding off his clothes until he is bare above the waist. He trusts in her to maintain skin contact - though the idea of a little torture with his pleasure is not altogether unappealing - and lets his arms drop to his sides as her fingertips graze the slopes and planes of his torso. 

“You are quite… furry,” she observes. Emma traces patterns in his chest hair, following the natural line of the hair one moment, going against the grain the next. If her protective magic almost tickled before, it outright tickles now, and Killian restrains a laugh, fearing it would scare her off. 

One hand anchors at his waist while the other one smooths across the leather of the harness holding his brace and hook in place. Her brow furrows. “Are you-?” Emma’s eyes leave his chest and meet his. “Do you leave this on all the time?” He nods and her touch immediately leaves the leather and returns to his chest, almost like she’s embarrassed or scared.

Killian tries not to impede her exploration as he draws his hand to his hook and carefully detaches it from the brace. His fingers fumble with the buckles he hasn’t released in months, preferring to use magic to keep himself clean, having no need for sleep, not wanting to be reminded of the scarred flesh beneath his hook.

Both of Emma’s hands land on his waist as she watches him remove the harness and Killian watches her. He lets the leather straps drop to the ground behind him with a dull thunk. He expects her eyes to go right to his shortened left arm, to examine the ugly scars, but instead they dart to his right arm, and he makes to move it away from her but she is too fast for him.

Emma grips his forearm with both hands and runs her thumb gently along the lines of the dagger-pierced heart and the scroll with his lover’s name. Getting the tattoo had been the first moment he felt anything at all after Milah’s death, the first moment he had felt anything but the terrible numbness of loss. The gentle tickle of Emma’s magic across his skin makes him want to cry or laugh, or pull his arm away.

“Milah,” Emma reads aloud. Killian can feel her gaze on his face but he keeps his eyes on the tattoo and her fingers. “The woman you loved? The one you killed Rumpelstiltskin for?”

His jaw tenses and it takes everything inside of him to stand still when the darkness is screaming at him to shove her away, chain her up, and roughly take her. Anything to keep the princess from exposing the wounded parts of himself that have been festering for centuries. All he can say is, “Aye.” Killian lets the storm of his hatred - at Rumpelstiltskin, at himself, at the bloody Dark One - rise all around him, cutting him off from Emma’s view, but she taps at it in that gentle way that reminds him of a whisper of a kiss.

Her eyes are still on his face. Her fingers are still caressing his tattoo.

Killian’s hand forms into a fist, clutching at nothing at all, when she leans forward and presses her soft lips to the skin of his wrist, right over the faded red heart.

The water washes away. When he lets her in, her light magic curls around his dark magic and Killian releases a shaky breath.

He takes hold of the back of her neck once more and draws her mouth to his, tasting the sweetness she has just offered him. This kiss is softer. Her magic is keeping the darkness at bay. It’s helping him keep his mind clear as he lifts her in his arms, holding her as he did the night he pulled her from Regina’s clutches, and lays her on the firm mattress of the bunk. 

“No matter what that woman told you,” Killian grunts, toeing off his shoes before stretching out beside her, “it does not have to hurt.” He cups her face in his hand, wanting her to look at him and see the honesty in his eyes. Her magic will tell her the truth. 

When it does, some of her fear fades away. 

Killian’s hand slowly trails down her neck, past her collarbones, and he runs his palm over the swell of a breast. Emma gasps, eyes fluttering closed, and he drags his fingers across the peak until a nipple pebbles up. 

“So responsive, darling,” he mutters. His hand moves to do the same to the other breast and he gazes fondly at the pair of them, so delectable. Killian nibbles a tip through the fabric with the barest of pressure and Emma hisses. 

“You said it does not have to hurt,” she complains without any real heat behind it. 

“Do you want me to stop?”

She does not hesitate before she breathes, “No,” and he does not hesitate before he gently bites down on her second nipple. The fabric grows wet beneath his mouth as he goes back and forth between the two, licking and nibbling and brushing with the coarse hairs on his cheek, drawing out Emma’s little noises of pleasure as he does so. After a few minutes, Killian bunches up the fabric of her nightgown and she lets out a shuddering sigh before her hand lifts and the garment disappears in a puff of stark-white smoke.

Now that she is bare to his gaze, Killian takes in the prize that he has secured. The darkness would have been happy with access to any throne, to any symbol of power that could be manipulated and corrupted. But Crown Princess Emma of Misthaven, with her elven features, golden hair, soft skin, and rounded breasts and hips, is a prize that the man wants to claim as well. Killian skims his fingertips across her flesh, tracing the dips and the swells, lingering for a moment at a place where he had seen a particularly nasty bruise the night she first disrobed to prove the abuse she had faced.

The bruise is gone, leaving only a memory, a swell of anger that Emma encourages him to push away.

“Is something wrong?” she asks, observing him with a little fear. Obviously she had not expected the rise of fury. “Did I do something?”

Killian shakes his head and leans forward to kiss at the spot, right below her ribcage, her body more full than a few days ago but still needing more fat, more muscle. “You are perfect, darling,” he murmurs into her skin. He kisses the spot a second time, feeling her shudder beneath him, and trails his kisses lower until he’s settled on his stomach between her thighs, which automatically open to him. She might not know what to do, but her body knows how to respond to his.

He bends her knees to encourage her to open further to his gaze, examining the folds and delighting in the glistening of wetness that coats them. Her thighs push weakly against his hand and his stump, a futile attempt to hide herself from him, but he holds firm and the darkness lets out a growl that she would even think of covering up again. He tuts in annoyance and meets her eyes. The green has been swallowed up by black, straining to see in the dim light, overcome by all of these new sensations. Killian knows his smirk is quite wicked, and when he lets his fire cross over to her magic, she meets it with some of her own.

“I want to look at you,” he explains. Killian shifts his hand so he can run his thumb along the seam of her, parting the folds and revelling in how warm and wet she is. His thumb dips lower and he groans at the way she’s leaking in excitement, drawing the moisture up so he can run a soft circle around her sensitive nub. “Bloody hell, is this all for me? Is the princess so eager to be taken by the Dark One?”

Her hips jerk beneath him and she whimpers. Emma’s moved beyond words and he hasn’t yet decided if he wants to force her to speak or just enjoy how she is giving herself over to sensation.

“Have you touched yourself before, Emma? All alone in your room?”

“Y-y-yes,” she stutters. He seems to have found a good rhythm on her nub as her legs relax again and that fire burns higher, eager to scorch the earth. Killian lays his head on her knee and draws her hand down to her center.

“Show me. I want to see how a princess pleasures herself.”

He expects her to hesitate and try to cover herself again, but the fire must be too much. Emma’s fingertips dip lower and draw more moisture up to her hidden pearl and she flicks against it with practiced movements. He grows even harder at the sight, not sure how much longer he can keep the darkness at bay and make sure he proves Regina wrong - he will not hurt her.

She is barreling toward her peak, her thigh quivering beneath his cheek, and he licks his lips to taste her scent from the air. 

“Hold yourself open,” he says harshly, and when she uses her other hand to part her folds so he can better see her pink softness beneath her blonde curls, he moves his hand back to her and slides a finger into her warm, wet cunt. “Good girl,” he coos. 

Emma lets out a cry and he is ravenous for more. Killian glides his digit in and out of her moist channel, memorizing how she feels, how she grips him, and slides a second finger in as she gasps, “Yes!”

“Does this hurt?”

Her breathy laugh makes her clench around his fingers. “It feels so good,” Emma sighs. 

He leaves his fingers deep inside of her, barely moving, and grunts, “Touch yourself again, darling.” Her movements had stopped in the surprise of his entrance. “Let me watch you fall. Let me feel you clench around me.”

A few more brushes of her fingertips at her bundle of nerves and she shouts her release, along with his name, and her snug channel grips around his fingers. Killian watches her face as she reaches her bliss. She is flushed and gorgeous, awash in her pleasure, unashamed - or maybe unaware - of his gaze upon her.

Her cunt is still quivering when he removes his fingers and surges forward to run his tongue along her, from the puckered muscle at the base all the way up to where her fingers are still pressing against the bundle of nerves. They move away when he sucks at it with pursed lips and Emma groans loudly, wantonly, when he kisses her sloppily and laps up her sweet release.

It seems to take Emma a minute to realize what is going on. His tongue is working patterns into her swollen flesh when she gasps, “What are you doing?” It is not a question of concern, but rather surprise, and Killian nips at the skin near her hip  before looking up at her in amusement. Her eyes are wild now, frenzied, and the way her chest is heaving makes her breasts tremble enticingly. 

“Tasting you, my sweet. I want you soft and relaxed when I fuck you.” Killian carefully inserts his fingers into her once again and finds her bud with the tip of his tongue. 

“Oh,” she groans, still not seeming to quite understand, but not exactly arguing with him. Her body is soft and pliant from her first orgasm, meaning that she is mostly still as he carefully stretches her with his fingers and works over her folds with his tongue. Occasionally she jerks or shifts or moans and he catalogs each one so that he might better pleasure her. If her first peak came fast and hard, the second one builds slowly, deliciously, and when she finally explodes, shaking beneath him and spasming around his questing fingers, he grins in triumph.

She is so warm and soft and relaxed. He gives her a final kiss right below her thatch of blonde curls and adjusts himself between her thighs, magicking away his trousers impatiently. Once his manhood is released from its confines, he nudges against her center, trying to coat himself in her essence.

Emma’s eyes flutter open at the new way he’s touching her. She adjusts automatically, welcoming him into the cradle of her thighs as he teases himself with her heat, but she surveys him wearily.

“Are you ready, darling?”

“Ready?” she asks sleepily. Her magic is no longer blazing, just a sated, cared-for creature curled up in exhaustion, and it seems immune to his own fire.

Killian chuckles and Emma blinks into more awareness. “Ready for me to enter you.”

“Oh.” He nudges against her with more urgency and now her eyes are wide open again. “Oh!”

“Just relax,” he soothes. Killian lines himself up and surveys her face. “Relax, Emma, and this will not hurt.”

With his hand and wrist holding Emma in place, he waits for her to push him away and beg to back out of their deal, but she does not. Instead, she takes a deep breath and nods, eyes surveying him right back, and when he slides himself into the heaven of her cunt, she grits her teeth as her channel grips him like a fist. 

“Breathe.”

She lets out her breath and he waits for her body to adjust, his fingertips trailing along the line of her jaw and then cupping one of her breasts just to feel how it fits so perfectly in his palm. He begins to gently rock against her and after a minute she relaxes enough for him to take her with slow and steady thrusts. 

“Bloody hell,” Killian grunts. Emma’s eyes, which had closed as she concentrated on relaxing, fly open again. With his cock in the first cunt he’s had in years, Killian knows he will not last long. But that will be for the best, to give her a taste of what it means to take him in, to satisfy him without making her overly sore. 

“You are going to regret making this deal, Princess.” Emma’s brow furrows in confusion. The darkness wants to taunt her as he takes her. “Perhaps you thought that I would only make you come to my bed to seal our marriage and make a child.” Killian picks up the pace and his eyes are rolling in the back of his head with pleasure, his next words a growl. “But you were mistaken. So very wrong. Because now that I have had a taste of this perfect cunt, I shall be having you any damn time I please.”

The darkness waits for her to cry in fear. Instead, her hands land on his backside and she shifts in his grasp, helping him to slide more deeply inside of her, and when he meets her eyes he sees a glint in them that is wholly unexpected. 

“Is that a promise?” Emma asks with a lazy grin. 

He explodes inside of her a moment later, filling her with his seed, adding his release to the wetness he had coaxed from her body already. She watches him the whole time - he can feel her gaze even when his eyes slam shut in bliss - and when his fire dies down to a spark, she wraps her magic around him the same way her legs and arms wrap around his spent body. 

She is embracing him. The Dark One. She is holding him tight and comforting him like he is a man, not a monster. 

Emma’s breathing begins to even out and he carefully untangles their limbs from one another so that he can stretch out beside her. Killian is careful to remember that their skin must be touching to ward off the Jolly Roger ’s defenses. He nudges against her feet as he conjures a warm, wet washcloth and gently swipes it between her thighs. Emma nearly coos in pleasure and she turns toward him as though he were the sun, not the night. 

“How do you feel?” he asks quietly, almost shyly. 

She nods before opening her eyes again. “A little sore.”

“But not hurt?” Killian clarifies, knowing the darkness hopes she is. Emma shakes her head and he pulls the blanket over her with magic. “When did you last bleed?” he asks. The darkness is curious. 

“I do not bleed regularly.” Her face flushes a bit. He wonders if that would have been normal for her body or if it is a reaction to Regina’s torture and the stress and malnutrition it included. Either way it is not her fault, and Killian finds himself hoping that tonight did not make a child. 

Perhaps because she still needs to get stronger. 

Perhaps because he wants to do it again. Soon. 

Either way, he makes a weak attempt to leave, but his heart is not in it. He lets Emma fall asleep and he settles in to protect her. Except there is nothing to protect her from. Not on his ship. Except perhaps the darkness that she’s already been exposed to. And it is too late for that. 

There is nothing for him but to watch her, admire her. Wonder what she had been thinking as he pleasured her and then used her body for his own pleasure. Does she want to join together again as much as he does? Should he try to make her fall apart while he is inside her next time, so she can milk him dry? Is that better for conception?

Is that better for her to see his love for her? 

The darkness inside of him reels at this idea. He spent centuries working on avenging Milah’s murder, fucking the occasional woman but always wishing she were his Milah. 

Tonight though, his thoughts had only been of Emma. Of her pleasure and her sweet taste, her walls gripping him tight. 

She’s given him more than something to be a part of. She’s given him someone to love. To protect and defend, not only because of their deal, but because of that good man he buried inside of himself long ago. 

Killian spends the whole night watching Princess Emma sleep. Watching and thinking. Wrestling with the darkness, which now regrets making this deal in the first place. Scolding the darkness so it remembers that Killian needs to care for Emma and support her goals, not tear her apart. That is the only way that he can place his child on the throne. The battle against the darkness that wants to corrupt the child will be a fight for another day. 

Emma tosses and turns in her sleep. Sometimes Killian holds her close and sometimes he touches her with just a hand on her shoulder or thigh or, for an hour, the place where he can still picture a vivid purple bruise. 

Shortly after sunlight seeps through the stained glass windows of the cabin, Emma stirs from her place in his arms. She had settled on her side over an hour ago and Killian had taken the opportunity to tuck her against his body, resting his hand on her stomach and burying his nose in her curls. When she starts to move, he smiles against her shoulder and pulls her just a little closer.

Her entire body freezes up and his heart sinks lower than his stomach.

Emma scrambles away from him as fast as she can, clutching the bedsheets and letting out a squeak of fear. The sound is even more awful than the magic of the Jolly Roger hitting him full-force again, made worse by the hours and hours of protection that Emma had provided. Emma’s body is shaking on the other side of his bed, shivering in cold or fear or both, and though it breaks his heart to see, Killian grits his teeth in preparation to be told that last night was a mistake.

He conjures up two blankets. The first is a thick one that settles across her back and the second is a thinner one to rest on his lap from where he sat up, wanting to keep her from having to see his naked body if that would bring her harm as well.

A pale hand appears from beneath her blankets and grips the dark fabric of the one he summoned. After a moment, her trembling voice asks, “Killian?”

Killian sits up higher in curiosity. “I am right here, darling.”

Emma sits up and turns, seeming to not notice how both blankets fall to her lap and reveal her breasts to his gaze. He barely notices as well, focused as he is on her expression, which is not hostile as he had expected, but slack with relief.

“I’m sorry,” she says. Her voice is barely above a whisper. She blinks, seemingly coming to herself. “I thought…”

She trails off and does not share what she had thought, but he reaches across the distance between them to place his wrist to her back, both to give himself relief from his ship’s enchantments and to test the waters and see if his touch is still welcome. She leans against him and his heart works its way back up into his chest.

She makes no effort to explain further, but now Killian is intrigued. “What did you think?” he asks. Her face turns a little pink and he presses her further. “You can tell me.”

Emma lets her magic open to him and he reaches out to caress the panic that had awoken at his initial touch. She leans into that as well, reassuring him that he is not the problem.

“I always had a fear that I would wake up to one of the Black Knights in my bed.” Emma meets his eyes and he imagines she sees murder flare up in them. “Regina would encourage them to beat me and starve me but never to touch me like that. She wanted me to be just damaged enough to suit her purposes. But I was afraid that one day a Black Knight would take a chance and slip me a sleeping potion or just overpower me and…”

She cannot say anymore and Killian cannot hear anymore. He pulls her into his arms and holds her as tightly as he can, trying desperately to keep himself from immediately leaving her side so he might kill Regina and her Black Knights, one by fucking one.

“You thought your worst nightmare had come true.”

Emma nods into his chest. He cannot really reassure her since he knows that he is going to become her worst nightmare, her greatest regret. Instead, he can give in to the darkness. 

“When we rescue your parents and begin to fight Regina in earnest, I am going to kill every single Knight that held you captive. I swear it.”

She chuckles wetly against his chest. “You cannot swear that.”

Killian pulls back so she might see the sincerity in his expression. “I swear on your name, love. I swear that those who hurt you or made you afraid shall all pay for their crimes.”

Her face is truly puzzled. “Why? Why would you promise that? That was not part of our deal.”

There is no explanation he can give that will make sense. Because the simple explanation is that he loves her and it drives him mad that she was tortured for so many years. The darkness taunts him that she would never care for a monster like him. So he says something else. Something close enough to the truth that he hopes her ability to spot lies will overlook it. 

“Because now every offense to you is an offense to me.” He gives her an evil smirk and the darkness shares with him images of Black Knights bleeding at his feet and Regina begging for mercy. “And I believe that you are overdue the opportunity to have your revenge.”

Chapter Text

Emma spends every minute of the next week at Killian’s side. He holds her hand though every meal, plays with the hairs at the nape of her neck as she stares across the waters, and even guides her hand as he teaches her to steer the ship. 

At nights, he conjures up a nightgown for her and soft trousers for himself and hums a song in her ear until she falls asleep. Although she had expected him to take liberties with her body now that they have been intimate with one another, he pours sand and grit on any fire she tries to inspire in him with her magic. 

He does not want to lie with her again. Despite his promises to do so, drenched in darkness and desire, he has made no move to seduce her. It must be that her brazen touching of herself and subsequent lying on the bed like a dead fish had been less than satisfying. Almost immediately he had wanted to know when she had last bled. 

Emma is a contract to him. A deal. And she should stop dwelling on the pitiful hope that she is anything more. 

Mostly, they spend the week together in silence. Emma has forgotten the art of making small talk and, besides, she has no stories to tell except those about her captivity. Killian offers no tales of his own, no dull conversations about politics or the weather. Silence, she finds, is much easier. Preferred, even. 

She has become friends with silence. And there is something about Killian’s presence that makes the silence feel much less lonely. 

The moment that he helps her to step into the dinghy that will take them to the shore of the island where her parents are being held captive, Emma expects Killian to drop her hand with a sigh of relief. Surely being so close to her for so long must be beyond exhausting. But he keeps a firm hold of her left hand, tangling their fingers together as two members of the crew row them to the rocky beach. Once they are to shore, Killian picks her up and wades through the shallow water until he steps on dry ground, with only a gruff, “Back to the ship. I will send word to Smee soon,” over his shoulder to the men still in the dinghy. 

She is still in his arms. 

He makes no move to put her down, though the ground is dry and she is more than capable of standing on her own two feet. Emma swallows hard as she contemplates how to tell him, kindly, that she is not too weak and helpless to walk on her own, despite what he might think. 

Killian readjusts her in his arms and surveys the tree line before them. The foliage reminds her of the plant life back home in Misthaven, but the forest is suspiciously quiet, with only the faintest breeze making the trees rustle and shake. It sets her ill at ease, and though she wants to prove to Killian that she is strong enough to make good on their deal, her arms lock tighter around his neck and she moves just a bit closer against him. 

His blue eyes blink down at her in surprise - did she hurt him somehow or had he forgotten she was even there? Emma raises an amused eyebrow and swings her legs playfully. It seems her latter guess is the correct one, because he sets her down swiftly - so fast she almost tips over - and scratches behind his ear with the tip of his hook. 

“Apologies,” he mutters, giving no other explanation. 

Emma pushes aside the questions that have been building up about his thoughts and feelings and turns her eyes back to the forest. “Should we see if we can find my parents then?”

He makes an after you gesture, and when she walks forward and deeper into the island, she can barely hear his feet behind her. But she can feel his presence, strong and sure, and it fortifies her every step. A few times she stumbles over a log or slips on some moss and Killian’s hand is there to steady her. 

But she already misses the constant contact from the Jolly Roger. She tentatively reaches out with her magic and finds he has closed himself off to her again. 

After nearly thirty minutes of trekking, a horrific sound stops them both in their tracks, and Killian grabs her waist with hand and hook and flings her behind him in a flash. 

“What is-?” she begins, but the glare he shoots back at her and the single finger he lifts to his lips makes her mouth clamp closed again. 

They stand still as a pair of statues, waiting, and when the noise sounds again it echoes in Emma’s bones and makes her stomach twist in knots. It is loud and deep and she knows, without a doubt, that it is the sound of something frightening. Something she should be afraid of. 

Emma steps forward next to Killian. 

She expects him to reprimand her or roll his eyes or push her behind him again. But instead he leans just a little closer and when he steps forward toward what seems to be a clearing, she steps forward as well and grabs a hold of his hook. They step out of the tree line connected in this way and gasp in unison. 

“That is a dragon,” Emma says, rather unnecessarily. 

Killian rocks back on his heels. “That it is,” he agrees. As one, they look up at the other thing in the clearing. “And my guess is that your parents are at the top of that tower.”

Emma nods. “Bit of a cliche, don’t you think?”

He snorts and Emma smiles involuntarily at the undignified sound. “Regina has always been dramatic, but not that original.” Killian lifts his hand in the air and twists his wrist. Nothing happens. Emma eyes the tower and the snoring dragon curled around its base. 

“Was that supposed to do something?” she whispers. 

The withering look he gives her just makes her smile grow wider. 

Another flip of his wrist does absolutely nothing. Killian pulls her in front of him, molding his front to her back, but before she can grumble about the rather ungentlemanly conduct of trying to protect himself by using her as a shield, the brace for Killian’s hook pushes against her stomach and his fingers weave with her own.

“May I?” he asks. Emma turns her head and gives him a confused expression over her shoulder. His expression doesn’t change, but then she feels his magic invite her in. 

It pulls at something deep within her. Something connected to her gut and her soul and the essence of who she is. Emma resists at first. She pulls back and keeps her magic to herself. She knows that Killian is the Dark One, but for the first time since their magic came in contact with one another, it feels truly dark. Emma’s magic recoils protectively. She feels that desire to fight in the same place where her magic comes from.  

“Trust me, Emma,” Killian whispers in her ear. His voice is pleading almost, and it catches her off-guard. Reluctantly, Emma hands him a thread of her magic. He pulls it taut and winds it around his own and it reminds her of how it felt when he slid himself inside of her - a sense of otherworldly connection. She hands him more and more threads until his magic and her magic are an intricately woven tapestry. 

This time, when he flicks his wrist, she feels the magic pulse out of him. It pulses out of her too. When nothing happens, Emma sags in disappointment and confusion. 

“Regina was more thorough than I thought. A banishment won’t do. So perhaps we need a champion.” Killian’s fingers are still linked with her own and he raises a playful brow. “Do you know how to fight a dragon, darling?”

“Actually, my father defeated one. Long ago.”

His expression changes to surprise and, if she is not mistaken, intimidation. “Really?” Emma nods. Killian hums under his breath and the playfulness returns. “Do you want a go at the dragon, then?”

Emma shakes her head emphatically. As a child, her father had started to train her with the sword, and her mother with the bow, but she’s long since forgotten those lessons. She stands no chance against a dragon. “Any other ideas?” she asks.

Killian lifts her hand once again and he murmurs, “Aye, if you would be of assistance again,” and she can feel him reach for her magic once more. This time she gives it without any hesitation and their strands of magic braid together, dark and light, silver and gold, and Emma watches something materialize in front of them in the clearing. The dark red plumes of smoke obscure the giant conjuration until it is complete and Emma would probably gasp if not for the lack of breath in her body anymore.

They’ve created another dragon. This one is as huge and just as terrifying as the first one, sunlight glinting off of its red scales. The new dragon lets out a roar that frightens the black dragon awake. And frankly, it frightens Emma as well. Killian wraps both arms around Emma and steps back into the forest so they can observe the two creatures from a safer distance.

“Did we-?”

“Aye.”

“Have you ever-?”

“Conjured a dragon? No, this is a first.” His arms tighten around her and his voice gets lower, huskier. “You never forget your first.”

Emma’s face flushes with more than just fear, remembering once again the first night on his ship. Her first. She’ll never forget that, she knows for certain. With the manifestation of their magic now battling for them, there’s no reason to remain in Killian’s arms, but she does anyway. He probably thinks she’s weak and scared. She takes the excuse. They watch the two creatures battle one another for a long time, slashing with huge talons and breathing fire on one another. At one point, the fire gets rather close to where they are standing, and Emma reaches out her hands on instinct to protect them from the flames. A hazy shield appears until the flames die away.

“Thank you for the rescue, milady,” he teases in her ear, and she feels her face grow hot with embarrassment. He is the Dark One - he doesn’t need her to rescue him. Her rudimentary protection is so simple compared to the dragon that he created.

A few minutes later, when her cheeks have cooled again, the black dragon is once more lying on the ground of the clearing, this time in a pool of its own blood. Glassy eyes gaze up at the sky and Emma manages to step out of the safety of Killian’s arms and towards the two dreadful creatures. There’s something about the red one that tells her it will not hurt her. It might even obey her if she figures out the correct spell or incantation. Emma ignores that one and lays her hand on the still head of the black dragon.

“You were her victim too,” she whispers to the creature. There are tears welling up in her eyes, and they feel foolish, but they also seem right. Justified. “I’m sorry that you didn’t get to be saved.”

The dragon does not move.

“Darling?”

Emma feels Killian’s magic press against hers before she hears his footsteps or his voice or his hand touching the small of her back. She turns and he seems taken aback by the look on her face.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” she lies. When his magic reaches out again, he finds that she’s hidden herself away. Killian looks at her for a moment, seeming to see more than she’s showing him, and with a wave of his hook, the black dragon disappears. Emma’s heart lurches inside of her chest even as she feels so silly for her sorrow. She shouldn’t be worried about a dead dragon, she should be focused on her parents.

“Do you see a door anywhere?” she asks, scanning the base of the tower and stepping away to circle the stone edifice.

“No.”

Emma steps back and lifts a hand to block the sun so she can peer at the top of the tower. She kept checking the single window during the dragon combat, but no one appeared, though the sounds were nearly deafening. It gives her the same sense of ill-ease that the silent forest had inspired when they first stepped in.

She examines the window, purses her lips, and cuts her eyes to the red dragon, now observing them silently. Well, silent except for the low rumble of its breathing. Emma stalks toward the red dragon and, as she had deduced, it makes no move to attack her. The magic pulsating around the creature is familiar. It had come from her and she knows, in the core of her being, that this magic will not hurt her. It could never hurt her. Emma grasps one of the cords of magic that created it and tugs gently.

The dragon lowers its head.

Killian murmurs something behind her, but she’s too focused on the dragon to pay him any attention. Once again grateful that she’s wearing trousers, Emma carefully swings her leg over the dragon’s neck and settles herself astride the great creature. She looks up at Killian and gives him a smile. This magic is truly delightful.

“Are you coming?” she asks playfully.

He shakes his head slightly and nods, somewhat stupidly. Killian crosses to her and gracefully sits behind her, his brace and hand at her stomach while her own fingers grasp at the slippery scales of the dragon. But Emma knows, somehow, instinctively, that she will not fall.

“Ready?”

Killian’s huff of breath is amused. “I may never be ready, darling,” he breathes, but no sooner are the words out of his mouth than her magic lifts the dragon’s head and they lumber forward until they are level with the window of the tower.

“How about now?” Emma asks over her shoulder.

Another huff, almost a chuckle. He loosens his arms and holds Emma steady as she stands up on the dragon’s neck so she might step onto the windowsill. Killian follows her a moment later, grabbing her hand for purchase, and as soon as he steps off the dragon, he flicks his hook and the creature disappears.

Emma does not hide her disappointment. “I was just starting to get the hang of it!” she proclaims.

Killian quirks an eyebrow. “We can conjure another dragon if you’d like.” His hand squeezes hers and her heart stops for a moment. “Any time you’d like, Emma.”

She has a sudden image of them riding a pair of dragons around his castle, just for fun, and it is so ridiculous and so wonderful that she smiles at him and he smiles back.

Her expression changes when she turns around to take in the room they’ve stepped into.

It is a circular room, lit by unnatural light that must be magic. But the magic doesn’t feel comforting like hers or like Killian’s. It has the stench of Regina, and Emma’s nose wrinkles at the memories it brings up. At the center of the tower room are two objects that Emma recognizes immediately. 

In her home, in her castle, there was a painting she would stare at as a child. It was on display in the main entryway, and though her father often gave it looks of dislike, her mother would smile at it fondly and smooth her hand through Emma’s hair as they looked at it together in the morning while on their way to break their fast.

The painting depicted a lovely woman lying in a hollowed-out tree trunk, arms gently folded on her breast. The handsome man at her side is wearing a deep red cloak and is leaning toward her, their lips a breath away from one another, both mouths curved into gentle smiles at the True Love’s Kiss to come. Emma loved to gaze at the painting of her parents but her father always frowned and said it brought up too many bad memories of everything they had endured leading up to the kiss. Her mother would whisper in her ear that the road to the kiss had been painful, but after it, they always had one another, and the painting reminded her of the hope she had felt that day and every day afterward.

Emma hasn’t seen the painting in years. Regina likely destroyed it.

But Regina has recreated the painting as a still-life, down to the hollowed-out logs covered in glass holding both of her parents, side-by-side, preserved in all their beauty as they each suffer through sleeping curses. 

Together in the curse. Together, but unable to wake one another. 

When Emma’s legs give out beneath her, her back hits the wall of the tower hard and her ears begin to shrilly ring. There’s a rage and a sorrow rising up inside her own breast, pounding against one another, fighting for dominance, and she is not sure what will win.

Rage wins at first. It bursts out of her with a sharp clink, followed by an inhuman growl that rumbles forth. Then there is a scream that rips through her chest, one that doesn’t stop until her throat is raw.

But then it doesn’t matter. Because the sorrow has caught up with the rage and her screams turn into sobs. Emma’s entire body is shaking as the tears pour down her face and her backside hits the stone floor as her legs completely lose their strength. She curls into a protective ball on the floor, crying into her knees, just as lost, just as cursed, just as alone as her parents.

Inches away. Miles apart.

Emma stays for a long time like that before she feels the nudge. Killian. His magic is stepping next to hers, gently asking to get closer, and she only hesitates a second before she lets him in. His magic envelopes her the moment before Killian’s arms do. Warm. Comforting. Inviting. There’s a new swell of sorrow rising up, but this time it is lingered with something else. Something that has been all too rare.

Companionship.

She sighs and then she sifts in his arms, unfurling herself so she can lean on him and allow him to soothe the places inside of her that ache from all the years that have been stolen. With her head burrowed into his neck, Emma’s breathing evens out and his fingers comb through her hair with a gentleness she wouldn’t have thought was possible. She is just about to admonish herself for crying on the Dark One’s shoulder when he begins to hum the tune that has soothed her to sleep these last several days; the tune that, when she wakes in the morning, reminds her that she is being held in the arms of her dark protector, not a Black Knight.

Emma’s body relaxes even more and, eventually, she is able to pull away.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers to her knees.

His hook under her chin draws her gaze up to him. “You have nothing to apologize for.” Killian says it so simply that she almost believes it to be true. When she begins to stand up, he is on his feet in a flash and pulling her along with him. Emma lets go of him to wipe her face with both hands and surveys the two supine figures in the room with them. She steps closer to get a look at their perfectly-preserved faces. As a child they had seemed so old , but now they just look like people. Like her.

“Wait. Wasn’t there glass on the top of their coffins?” she asks, almost to herself.

Killian clears his throat. “There was, darling.” She turns to look at him, surprised. “But you cracked the glass and I was afraid it would shatter further and injure your parents so…” He waves to the pair of them significantly.

Ah. That must have been what that sound was. Emma offers him a thankful smile - or an approximation of one - and returns her gaze to her parents. There’s really no other choice, she will need to offer one of them True Love’s Kiss. She thinks of the painting she loved as a child, pictures it in her mind, and she steps forward and leans down, a slight smile on her lips, as she kisses her mother on the forehead.

The blast of magic nearly knocks her over. It is gentle, yet strong, and it speaks to the magic that dwells in Emma’s own bones. Snow White’s eyes blink open and she takes in a gasping breath. Emma’s heart stops in her chest. Her mother’s eyes dart around as she breathes heavily, taking in Emma’s trembling features, and for a long minute, Emma waits to hear her own mother ask who in the hell she is.

“You…” Snow White murmurs, “you found me.” A smile lights up her face and Emma’s heart can beat again. “Emma, you found me. You found us.”

Snow grabs Emma’s shoulders and tries to pull Emma to her but Emma is trying to pull her mother up, so both of them likely end up with splinters in their arms from the log. Either way, they embrace, and Emma is eight years old again, safe in her mother’s grasp, believing, maybe for the very first time, that everything is going to be alright. Because at least she has her mother.

It isn’t easy to extricate Snow from the log coffin, since she is wearing a flowy white dress that gets caught in every single stick and splinter. Eventually, she is on her feet, standing before her daughter, and Emma marvels at how she is now as tall as her mother.

“Emma, my brave, beautiful girl,” Snow grins. Her hands cup Emma’s cheeks and her smile beams so bright that Emma’s surprised a whole flock of bluebirds don’t come flapping through the window just to witness the sight. Over Snow’s shoulder, Emma notices Killian leaning against the wall, surveying them both with his ankles and arms crossed, expression inscrutable. Her mother draws her attention back with a sigh. “Where is your-?”

But then her eyes catch on the second log coffin and she gasps. Snow pulls Emma with her to look down at the handsome Prince Charming and the tremble in her mother’s hand doubles in speed.

“Charming,” she breathes. Almost like she cannot help it, Snow leans forward and kisses her husband and sets off another shock wave of magic rippling through the tower. Emma luxuriates in the feeling, but somewhere, right behind her, Emma can also feel how Killian’s magic seems to recoil against it.

Emma watches how it is her father’s turn for his eyes to flutter open now, to stare at her mother until he recognizes her, and then meet Emma’s eyes over her shoulder as a smile begins to form on his face. “She found us,” David whispers weakly.

“Did you ever doubt I would?” Emma replies with her last reserves of sass.

Snow helps David sit up and he grins at their daughter. “Truthfully, the dragon gave us pause.” Once his feet are on the ground, David’s arms are wrapped around both of his ladies, holding them tight, his hand cupping the back of Emma’s head, and somehow more tears start running down her face. She had thought she had no more, but being in her father’s warm embrace is proving her wrong.

Her parents pull away in tandem and, with their arms around one another’s waists, they regard her, a matched pair as always, each of their free hands squeezing one of her hands. 

“Emma, you saved us,” David says, not with a tone of disbelief, but of pride. Emma flushes. 

Snow’s eyes are filled with tears. There’s a melancholy about her gaze. “You’re all grown up,” she says sadly. “How long have we been under the sleeping curse?”

Emma swallows. “Twenty years.”

Her parents echo her words in horror. They begin to ask her a flurry of overlapping questions and she is not sure which to answer first, or if she should - heaven forbid - just tell them to hold their tongues. Thankfully, Killian intervenes from his place behind her.  

“I hate to break up the reunion,” he says dryly. Her parents both flinch, having obviously not noticed him. Emma turns in time to see how he shoves off the wall by leaning back on his shoulder blades and leading with his hips, a sinuous movement that makes her remember the slow way he had thrust those hips against hers in his cabin on the ship. There’s a trace of a smirk on his lips that tells Emma she didn’t disguise the little spark to her magic fast enough. 

The smirk disappears and Killian continues, attention now focused on her parents. “I suspect that Regina will soon realize her dragon has been defeated and her curses have been broken, if she hasn’t already.” Killian reveals a paper bird and lets it lift off of his palm and fly out the window. “So I would suggest we be on our way, Your Majesties.”

“Right,” David agrees. He lets go of his wife and daughter to stride over to Killian and peer out the window. “And, uh, how did you two get up here, exactly?”

Killian’s magic reaches out to hers and she can feel it as strongly as she had felt her parents’ hands in her grasp. Does she want to tell them? She senses, intuitively, Killian’s exit strategy. 

“We used magic,” she says, simply. “I’ll explain it when we get back to Killian’s castle.” Emma squeezes her mother’s hand tighter and holds out her arm for her father to take her hand again. When he does, Emma looks at Killian expectantly. His expression doesn’t have to change for her to feel the way he is reluctant to complete the circuit. But her magic steps next to his, letting him know she cannot do this alone. Her mother takes his hand and her father, with a look of surprise, his hook. 

As his magic weaves with hers, Killian says, “The dining hall,” and she can see it in her mind, calling to them. Swirls of dark red and pure white coalesce, pulling them all up and across weeks of travel back to the place that had felt safer than her own home. 

Snow sags against Emma in exhaustion, the long distance obviously taking a toll on her body, and though David tries to disguise it, he’s leaning against Killian a bit too. When both of them get their feet under them, Killian lifts his hook and the banquet table appears, this time with three chairs, and several dishes that she does not recognize. 

Her parents are blinking at the arrangement in shock when Emma catches Killian’s eye. She wants him to stay, but obviously he would rather not. 

“You three have a lot to catch up on, dar-“ his mouth trips on the term of endearment and clamps closed. Emma notices him swallow heavily before speaking again. And if Emma is not mistaken, her father fixes Killian a sharp look. Another twist of the hook. “A fire is lit in your room and the one north of you.”

Both Killian and his magic disappear in a plume of deep red before she can thank him. Emma closes her eyes to see if she can feel him in the castle, but all she feels is the dark magic in every nook and cranny. 

“Emma?” Her father’s voice is low and she winces before opening her eyes. “Who the hell was that?”

Attempting a voice and attitude of nonchalance, Emma plucks an apple off the table and bites into it with a satisfying crunch. “That was my betrothed. The Dark One.”

Once again, her parents erupt into questions and comments, bombarding her at the same time. 

“Sit!” she finally barks, feeling odd for ordering her parents to do something but also knowing that they are overwhelming her. “Sit,” she says again, at a quieter volume when both of their mouths clap closed. “Eat something and let me explain.”

Emma sets down her apple and waits for her parents to sit across from her and reach for their plates. Just as it does for her, the enchantment on the food or the table or the room makes different items dance off of their displays and onto the plates of the Queen and King. Snow digs into her food before David does, seemingly more trusting, but after a minute even her father begins to eat, and Emma figures he must be starving after his twenty year nap. 

Her plate remains empty. The enchantment must sense her lack of appetite. 

Emma wonders where to begin. “Was Regina ever nice to you?” Emma addresses her question to her mother, who seems puzzled by it, but nods, swallowing her mouthful of food, before elaborating. 

“Sometimes. She was at the beginning.”

“Regina was nice to me too,” Emma confesses. Both of her parents sag a bit in relief. “At the beginning.”

Snow’s eyes fill with tears. 

“Regina let my tutors keep teaching me and at first the only difference was that she kept me closer. No magic to transport myself. No friends or visitors. And no asking about where you two had gone or I would be kept in my room for the next day.”

“Oh Emma.” Snow’s hand stops halfway to lifting a goblet to her mouth. Emma manages a brave smile. 

“By the time I had come of age I wouldn’t stop asking about you both. Even if it meant I would never leave my room. Eventually Regina realized that I was not going to allow her to control me when I took the throne.”

Snow’s watery smile blazes with pride. “Of course you weren’t. That throne belongs to you, Emma, not her.”

Emma takes a deep breath. Now is not the time to tell her parents how she is so unworthy of the throne, too weak to be a leader and a ruler. She stares at her empty plate and braces herself. “After that Regina changed. I was kept to my room, fed just enough to survive, and the Dark Knights were encouraged to be…” Emma considers her words “rough.”

Her mother’s stuttered gasp says everything. Emma manages to look back up and face the pity and fear in their expressions. 

“Eventually she gave up on me. Decided it would be easier to marry me off and take my child, with the goal to raise them from the beginning. Someone who really would be her puppet.”

David sits up straighter. “So she made a deal with the Dark One? She intends to marry you off to the worst creature of darkness and evil?”

Emma’s magic, after so many days in close contact with Killian and his magic, rises up with a tide of annoyance. How could he say something like that about Killian? Her one ally, her one protector, her one friend after so many years of being alone. The one person, outside of her parents, whom she can trust. 

“And what happened to Rumpelstiltskin?” Snow asks, as if the idea has just occurred to her. 

The rage splashes down on the ground and Emma shakes her head to clear it. “Regina did not arrange this marriage.” She tries to recall how old the man was, the number of wrinkles on his face and hands she observed in the dim candlelight of the parlor. “She intended to have me marry Baron Conomor.”

Snow White’s porcelain skin visibly pales. She recognizes the name. 

“Snow?” David looks back and forth between the two of them, befuddled. “Do you know who that is?”

Her mother nods and grimaces. “Regina actually threatened to marry me off to Baron Conomor too. He is very wealthy and very cruel. If a family finds themselves too deep in debt, he offers to settle their account in exchange for a night with their daughter. But it is well known that girls do not always return, and those that do are forever scarred.”

David is pale now. And trembling with fury. Emma lets them both process the horrors she nearly endured before she continues her story. 

“I had no way of knowing where Regina had banished you. No reason to run away unless I learned. But when I met that monster I began to plot an escape.” Emma takes a deep breath, attempting to control her temper. “And the only one I could think to go to for help was the one person that Regina ever spoke of with fear. The Dark One.”

Her parents exchange a loaded look. “We encountered Rumpelstiltskin several times,” David says slowly. “Regina was wise to fear him.”

“But that man is not Rumpelstiltskin,” Snow says again.

“I was as surprised as you were. But I still begged him for assistance and offered to make a deal if he would help me get the throne back.”

Another exchange of looks. Just as loaded. 

“You offered to marry him?”

Emma clears her throat. Confessing that she threw himself at him is probably not the best way to inspire their confidence in her after all these years. 

“No,” she says truthfully. “When Regina caught up with us, he lied and said he had already made a deal with me.” Her face warms at the memory of Killian holding her naked, exhausted body in his arms. “He gave me shelter and made it so that Regina cannot come inside the castle or on the grounds. We are safe here from her.”

With one synchronized movement, her parents begin eating again. Emma wonders if they even realize they’re doing it, or they’re just so attuned with one another. They both chew thoughtfully and her father’s hand rests on her mother’s back, as though he is making up for all the time they’ve been close enough to touch but unable to do so. 

“Why did you call him your betrothed? If he didn’t make a deal with you?”

Emma turns to David and his question. “We did end up making a deal. I knew I needed an ally to be able to find you two. I didn’t-” The tears reappear, and she doesn’t want to show her weaknesses, but just like that first night with Killian, she needs to make them see. If they don’t understand what happened, they won’t understand why she did what she did. “I didn’t have anyone, Papa. No one. But I knew that if we made a deal for him to help me, nothing can force Killian to leave me or betray me.”

Snow inhales sharply. “So you trust him? The Dark One?”

She thinks Emma is foolish. Foolish and silly. Emma swallows back her embarrassment. “I trust the deal we made, Mama. And the magic that binds it.”

Her mother nods in understanding but her father’s brow is still furrowed. “So what deal did you make? What did you offer him in exchange for his aid?”

Snow’s hand flies to her breast. “Please tell me it was not your firstborn child. Oh Emma, I know that was Rumpelstiltskin's favorite form of payment.”

All of the sudden, Emma feels like a fool. He hadn’t said it that way, but that is what it is. Her child will be his. A child of his blood that he will be able to manipulate in the way that Regina had always wanted to manipulate her . But he will not be the child’s ward, he will be their father. 

The future king might have Killian’s eyes. The future queen might have his dark hair. She hadn’t only offered him her child, she had offered him her heart. There is no way she cannot love the one who makes up half of her child. 

Her stomach lurches and she feels as though her bite of apple might come back up again. Has she been a silly little girl, easy to manipulate?

There was no disguising her reaction. David looks thunderous and Snow’s eyes are wet with pity. But Emma has made her bed and now she must lie in it. She manages to straighten her spine and look at them with as much dignity as she can muster. 

“The deal was to return my bloodline to the throne. And in exchange, our child would one day sit on the throne.”

There is a long pause as her parents absorb this information. Now her father looks as though he will be sick. “Emma, how could you do that?” he asks. “How could you even imagine doing such a thing with the Dark One?”

Her mother makes a funny sound in her throat and arches an eyebrow. “Well, it isn’t that hard to imagine, Charming.”

“Snow!”

She turns a little red but looks unrepentant. “I have eyes. I was under a sleeping curse, not dead.” Snow turns to her husband and there’s a twinkle in her eyes, a twist of her lips that Emma has felt on her own face. It soothes Emma in a place where Regina had wounded her every time that she mocked that Emma was nothing like her mother. 

“Her Dark One is quite handsome. I don’t imagine having a child with him will be too terrible a burden.”

“Snow!” David is turning a little purple and Snow looks at Emma and gives her a wink. It is strange, but nice, for her mother to treat her like a fellow adult. And the way that Snow claims Killian on behalf of Emma, that he is her Dark One, it makes Emma’s stomach do a funny little dance. It is ridiculous, of course, to think that the Dark One would be hers. Emma has spent enough time with the man and his magic to know that he cannot really belong to anyone, least of all her. He is too powerful, too strong, too dark. 

Emma searches her mother’s expression for signs of mocking, but only finds curiosity. 

“I’ve asked twice now, but are you going to tell me why that’s not Rumpelstiltskin?”

“He killed him,” Emma says, her voice a little strangled. “He said that made him inherit the darkness and the powers. His name is Killian Jones.” Knowing that it won’t help anything, Emma adds, “He was a pirate.”

Everything clicks into place. “Captain Hook?” David bursts out, incredulous. “My daughter is marrying Captain Hook?”

“Well, we can’t put a bastard on the throne,” Emma says practically, at the same time her mother sighs, “Would you rather our daughter have a bastard child?”

They look at one another in surprise and burst into laughter. David joins in after a minute and some of his concern has melted away. “You’re just like your mother,” he says finally, standing up and circling the table and helping her to her feet. “She would do anything for her kingdom and her people.”

He understands. He doesn’t like it, but he understands. 

Emma escorts them to their quarters and though they offer for her to climb in bed with them like she did as a child, burrowing under the covers and giggling until she couldn’t breathe at their tickles, Emma shakes her head. She loves her parents and has missed them desperately, but having them back again is wonderful and awful all at the same time. 

She feels like she’s a failure. She feels like they think she can save everything. 

When she steps into her room and summons a soft nightgown, Emma looks around the quarters and cannot help but feel like something is missing. But everything is in the same place as it was a week ago when she left. She is just about to sit down before the fireplace when a tinkling of dishes surprises her. 

A plate has appeared on her table filled with some of her favorite foods. Emma crosses to the table, inhales the scents, and her stomach grumbles as if it had been waiting for this food to appear. 

There is a note beside the plate. 

Emotional conversations are no excuse not to eat. Please do not neglect caring for yourself, darling. 

Emma traces the curls of the g’s and the elegant lines of the l's. She stares at the parchment for a long time before she sits down to eat, wondering if Killian’s concern is more for her or for the health of his future child on the throne. 

Chapter Text

The King rises early. 

Killian senses him just before the dawn breaks, stepping out of his chambers and into the corridor. From his place in the library, Killian’s magic follows him down the hallway, past the great hall without stopping to get any food, and straight out the main doors. Killian wonders if the King is going to make a break for it, but his pace is leisurely, and so Killian gets brave and, after a few minutes, he transports himself to the door of a servant’s entrance and times his exit from the castle to coincide with David passing by. 

“Your Majesty,” he says smoothly, offering a short bow that the darkness attempts to make more mocking. “Might I join you for a stroll?”

David does not break his stride nor spare Killian a glance. “This is your land, Dark One. I couldn’t stop you if I wanted to.”

Killian catches up with him with as much dignity as he can manage. The darkness itches at him to just transport himself to the man’s side, or maybe destroy him before he can cause any trouble. One parent is enough to help Emma ascend the throne, isn’t it? Snow White is the one with the blood ties to Misthaven anyway. 

He gives the darkness a swift kick and tries to think about the softness of Emma’s hair on his face while she slept. It helps him remember his humanity. 

“I was not always the Dark One,” he begins, trying to keep his voice light. “Only a few years ago I was just a man, one wronged by Rumpelstiltskin, having no idea that my vengeance would cost me my soul.”

The King snorts. “So my daughter is marrying a man without a soul. Lovely.”

Killian’s jaw clenches. “I have a soul, Your Majesty. Only my soul is constantly in a battle against a darkness that would see me give in to my worst impulses.”

The other man stops in his tracks and looks at him, truly looks at him, for the first time. David sighs and sets his eyes on something in the distance. “And what are your worst impulses? What battles do you fight against the darkness?”

“My own vices and the cravings of the darkness are different from one another.”

The King looks at him again. “What does the darkness crave? What does it want with my daughter?”

The darkness does not want to answer. He has to choke out the truth around the darkness’s self-preservation. “Power.” Killian licks his lips and forces out an explanation, shoving the darkness aside. “The darkness wants the throne of Misthaven for itself. The more people to meet and manipulate and control. The more deals to be made and people to suffer.” His heart pounds as though he has just run a great distance and Killian struggles not to let his distress show.

But David stares at him for so long that he feels heat prickle up at his neck and under his arms. Like his daughter, he seems to know how to understand the lay of the land. Finally, the man sighs and his eyes shift again. “The throne does not belong to you. It does not belong to me either. It is Snow’s birthright and will be Emma’s some day.”

“I know.”

David’s eyes have not left the distance. “Do you?” Killian follows David’s gaze and starts at the realization that he can see Misthaven’s castle from this vista. Emma had never stopped to look at it once, though her strolls would often bring her past this point. 

“I do not want the throne,” he insists. “Honestly.” The darkness doesn’t mind letting him make this admission. It mocks him for his lack of interest in power and he scowls at it as he tries to focus on the man before him.

He feels the King’s eyes shift to him as he observes the castle in the distance. “Then what do you want?”

Emma. 

Her name rises so quickly to Killian’s lips that he had to bite his tongue to keep it in. He wants her so badly that it had been a constant battle aboard the Jolly to keep himself from spending the entire journey in bed with her. Every moment with her has been a gift, a step out of the world of pain and loneliness and back to life, back to light. 

The darkness has been barking at him how weak he is for loving her and ever imagining that she could return his affections. The darkness is threatened by Emma, which only makes him love her more. Her bravery and selflessness and playfulness - she’s pulled him back from the darkness and made it easier for him to fight those impulses. When she has been near, the darkness has been pushed to the side.

But he does not tell her father that. He might be reassured that Killian’s deal was born of compassion, not a bid for power, but that is not the question he is asking. 

“Revenge,” Killian snaps. The darkness rises at the delicious word. His favorite word. “I spent centuries hell-bent on revenge and the darkness wants to see me give in again.” Killian feels a maniacal grin twist his face as he pictures Regina inside the castle, plotting and planning and wishing she could have his princess back. 

“And what did Regina do to you to inspire such wrath? 

The King’s question pulls Killian out of his imagining Regina hanging from the ceiling by her toes, his hook methodically skinning her alive. He stares at the man in confusion. Does he not understand? That Regina must pay for the years of torture and abuse she inflicted upon Emma? That it is Emma that Killian must avenge? That he will not be able to rest until Regina is dead and Emma is finally safe?

Killian struggles to find the words and David rocks back on his heels, eyes widening in sudden understanding. 

“Oh. The revenge is for Emma.”

David frowns and begins moving again and, with a final look at Misthaven’s castle, Killian follows. They walk in silence. David is obviously deep in thought. As they approach the castle, the King walks toward a well, peers down into it and draws out a bucket of water. Surely the man must realize that Killian can summon him a drink with barely any effort, or even that the spell in the dining hall that fed him the night prior can slake his thirst this morning. But, no, the man draws out a bucket, sweat pebbling on his forehead from the morning’s exertions, and dips a ladle into the water to drink from. 

When he’s done, he offers the ladle to Killian with barely-disguised curiosity. And although Killian has no need of sleep or food or drink, he accepts it and takes a healthy gulp. 

“Thank you,” he murmurs, returning the ladle to its place. 

The man crosses his arms and keeps surveying him. Killian surveys him right back, the man trying to look unassuming, the darkness bristling at the examination. The King is a proud man and Killian cannot fathom what would make him earn the man’s trust. 

“Thank you for saving us,” he says finally. Killian’s jaw nearly hits the ground. “And thank you for protecting my little Duckling.” He uncrosses his arms and holds out his hand, and though his expression is still guarded, Killian reaches out and gives it a firm shake. 

David does not release his hand immediately. “I suppose you’re used to doing things alone. But we work together in this family. Do you plan to go on your own and get that revenge, or consult with Emma first?”

Killian’s grip tightens and he can feel his expression harden. Neither the darkness nor the man particularly enjoy being ordered around. The King isn’t phased. “Emma is so much like her mother,” he continues smoothly. “Her capacity for mercy is astounding. I won’t lie and claim I never benefited from her forgiving my many mistakes, but at times it was frustrating watching her give people more chances than they really deserve.”

He assesses David’s words. “You do not think that Emma wants to see her tormentor suffer?”

The King shakes his head and finally drops Killian’s hand. “I don’t know. But if she does, that would surprise me.” He steps back into the castle, leaving Killian stunned and uncertain. He had thought that giving in to revenge would help him to prove himself to Emma. Now he wonders if he is even capable of winning against the darkness on not one, but two fronts.  

By the time Emma arrives in the dining hall, it is almost midday. Snow and David are hunched over the table, their backs to him and to the door where Emma appears with silent grace. Killian senses her magic before he turns around to look at her and the way her magic hesitates moving forward or drawing attention to herself makes him frown. 

Killian looks over his shoulder to take her in. The same tentativeness he senses in her magic is apparent in her body and across her face. Killian makes eye contact as his magic reaches out and, finding her surprisingly open to him, he pulls her closer until some of the tension leaves her expression. He stalks toward her while her parents remain oblivious until he is a breath away from her perfection. 

He wants to touch her or kiss her or greet her as a true betrothed. 

“Good morning, darling,” he murmurs. 

Emma’s eyes dart to her parents’ forms over his shoulder, whose voices haven’t stopped their chattering. The darkness does not care for that. Not at all. The darkness wants to be her only focus, the only one she relies on. There is a swell of frustration that he cannot hide, and from the way she draws back, it is obvious she senses it. 

“I’m sorry,” she says at a near-whisper. “I did not mean to sleep so long.”

Killian closes his eyes and focuses on making the annoyance dissipate like a mist in the sun. When he opens them, she is as tentative as she had been when he walked in the room and another fit of frustration rises, this time at himself. It takes even more force of will to make that go away. He sighs and reaches for her hand and when she takes it, he feels his heart become a still pond. 

His eyes open and catch the relaxed expression on her face. Easing his anxieties seems to have eased her own. And it takes almost no effort for her to do it. She controls his emotions and reminds him of the man he once was, the man he wishes he could be. Since killing Rumpelstiltskin, the darkness has been his constant companion. But their recent journey on the Jolly had been a reprieve from his unwelcome guest. Likely he had Emma’s constant contact to thank for that, and even as he releases her hand, his fingers drift up to her face and he caresses her jaw, wanting more of her warmth and her light to continue to ground him. 

“No need to apologize for sleeping well,” he says softly. “I told you that your job was to care for your body and after all the magic you expended yesterday I imagine you were quite drained.” His fingers comb through the golden strands by her face and she relaxes further. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired,” she admits. Emma’s eyes cut over his shoulder again but this time he pushes down the darkness. A woman needs her parents. Their child will need their grandparents one day. “And kind of nervous to see what happens next.”

His fingers beneath her chin are gentle yet firm. He wants her to see the resolution in his eyes. “Whatever happens next you are not alone. Never again.”

Gods above he wants to kiss her. Hold her and care for her and make this deal into something that actually means something. Killian smiles down at her and his magic must say something he had intended to keep hidden because Emma stands on her tiptoes and presses her soft lips to his. Her boldness is invigorating and it is only the presence of her parents on the other end of the room that stops him from turning the kiss into something more. As it is, he pulls himself away and looks with pleasure at the pinkness of her cheeks and the contented look on her face - so different from the pale anxiety that had appeared a minute ago. 

Killian offers her his elbow and he escorts her to her parents and the table. As soon as she sits, new food appears and dances its way to her plate. She begins eating casually, no longer impressed with the magic. He must find a new way to delight her. 

After exchanging morning greetings and niceties with her parents, Emma takes in the chaos before her as she chews thoughtfully on a baked good. “What’s all this?” Scattered across the table are a map of Misthaven, a list of guests for the wedding, one of the invitations, and a small mountain of white and cream and eggshell scraps of fabric. 

“Planning,” Snow White says with a sparkle in her eye. She seems as invigorated with plotting as her daughter is. 

Emma swallows. “Our wedding or taking back the kingdom?”

Snow’s brow furrows. “Both, of course. The whole point of the wedding is to take back the kingdom, isn’t it?”

David frowns and it draws Killian’s attention, watching the King survey his daughter closely. Emma flushes and stares at her plate as she takes another bite. “That’s what Killian says,” she demurs. “He said your wedding helped win the kingdom back for you and it gave me the idea that mine could do the same.”

Her mother’s smile falters as her eyes flick to Killian for a moment and the darkness rises in indignation. How, exactly, is he to prove to her parents that his intentions with Emma have become pure without making the lamb run away from his affections in fright?

“The next stage is to get you three out in the kingdom rallying support. Before Emma summoned me, I believed her to be dead, along with both of you.”

The Queen’s eyes grow wide. “Everyone had given up hope.” She reaches across the table and takes Emma’s hand. “Except Emma.” Snow’s wide eyes now fill with tears.

Emma turns away from her mother’s show of emotion and looks at Killian. Her magic is shuttered to him and he wonders why. “What do you mean get us three out in the kingdom? What do we need to do?”

“Your mother and I did it often in the days when she was a fugitive. We would travel from village to village, telling the truth about Regina, and trying to recruit those who would fight with us.” David wraps his arm around his wife. “It’ll be just like old times.”

“Not quite,” Killian interrupts. “This time you have magic on your side.” Killian steps forward to tap at the map with the curve of his hook. “You can travel to several villages in a day and still be back here in time for a hot supper and a warm bed.” He resists the urge to look at Emma when he says bed. “And just as the wedding guests have been invited to come a few days early and stay at the castle, I can establish a camp on the grounds for any who are willing to fight with us.”

If Killian’s not mistaken, something like astonishment passes across the King’s face. “Us?”

Killian meets his gaze. “Aye. Us. Did you think I would not fight Regina beside you, Your Majesty?”

David hums deep in his throat and Killian notices how both of the women are looking back-and-forth between them, as if viewing a sporting competition.

“Of course not.” David clears his throat and looks uncertain.

Killian summons a chair with the wave of his hook and sinks down beside Emma. After a moment of hesitation, he stretches out his arm and rests it on the back of her chair. “The three of you work on regaining the hearts of the kingdom and I shall be here receiving guests and soldiers.” He turns to Emma. “I’m sure that Emma will be capable of transporting-” he stops mid-sentence at the concern he can see in Emma’s eyes and feel in her magic, reaching out for him. His magic draws her close as he lays a hand on her knee. “Darling? What’s wrong?”

“You wouldn’t come with us?”

He shakes his head slightly. His presence will only frighten the people and make them doubt the wisdom of rallying behind someone as evil as the Dark One. It is an awful idea for him to go with the three perfect royals.

Her magic opens up to him even more and he remembers the feeling she had on the docks when they went to board the Jolly Roger. Her fear. Her anxiety. The overwhelming nature of Emma being in a crowd after spending so many years all alone. Being set free is both a blessing and a curse in that way.

Killian’s breath hitches in understanding and the shaking of his head turns into a nod. “As you wish,” he tells her softly, and her magic instantly relaxes. Killian pulls it even closer as he turns to her parents with a nonchalant look. “On second thought, Emma might not be ready to transport the three of you to unknown destinations quite yet.” He nods at the map. “Let us give Emma a day to recover from yesterday and we can begin early tomorrow morning. Is that acceptable, Majesties?”

David appears dumbstruck and Snow is giving him an inscrutable expression. The Queen readjusts in her seat and gives them both a warm smile. “Perfect plan, Captain. Now, on to the next preparation - the wedding!”

The next morning, Emma stands in the dining hall and surveys her image in the mirror. She hardly recognizes herself.

Her sunken eyes and cheeks have given way to a fuller face and a rosier complexion. Her hair, which would often be left in an unwashed braid, is freshly cleaned and gleaming in curls that fall across her shoulders. Her dress actually fits her rounder body, not squeezing her too tight or sagging too loose, and the overall effect is rather pleasing. If she didn’t know better, Emma would say that she looks like any ordinary woman, not one left alone for decades under the tyranny of a capricious monarch.

Because now there’s something in her eyes that hadn’t been there a month ago. A sparkle, a shine, a sense that she has something to fight for. Somebody to fight with.

One of those somebody's peers at her reflection over her shoulder with a blank expression that conceals his emotions.

“You look…” he trails off, raising his eyebrows and blinking at her. Emma smooths down the slippery scales of her new armor and smiles at him.

“Terrifying?” she asks.

There’s a smile dancing in the corner of Killian’s mouth and she’s not sure if that means he’s mocking her or impressed by her.

“You look like a Queen,” he says simply, and in her reflection Emma watches her cheeks flood with color. A Queen? Hardly. She’s nothing like her mother or her former guardian. But Emma senses that Killian means what he says and his magic seems to sense the hesitance rising up in her. Killian settles his hand and his hook at her hips and his expression hardens. “Like your mother before you, you bear the scars of Regina’s rule. Your people will see that your fight to overthrow her is personal. When you tell your story, they will not only see that, but hear it.”

Emma fiddles with the hem of her black dragon scale armor, made from the dragon that was also a victim of Regina, a gift from Killian. “I’m still not sure what I am going to say today. I was thinking of letting my parents do most of the talking.”

Killian’s fingers dig into her waist, drawing her attention back up to the blazing intensity of his eyes. “That would be a mistake, darling. You are the one that escaped Regina’s clutches. You are the one that secured an alliance with the Dark One. You are the one that found your parents, slew a dragon, and woke your parents up with True Love’s Kiss. The one that the people will want to see on the throne is you. ”

She steps out of his arms and whirls around to face him. “Me? Are you mad?”

There’s a moment when his anger rises, but just one moment, and it drains away just as quickly before he raises an eyebrow. “You did all of those things, aye?”

Flummoxed, Emma nods. She did all the things he said, but- “But I couldn’t have done any of it without you, Killian.”

He removes the distance she created between them and looks down at her with a soft smile. “That proves my point. A good Queen knows how to secure allies.” 

The sound of her parents making their way down the corridor and toward the dining hall saves her from having to formulate some sort of response. But the look in Killian’s eyes tells her that their conversation is not over. Her aim had always been to re-establish her parents on the throne, but Killian’s words make his own intentions clear. He means to make her the next Queen of Misthaven. And though she’s flattered by his faith in her, she is also quite aware that making her Queen makes him, by extension, the King.

The Dark One. The King of Misthaven. And the father of a future sovereign. An enviable position for anyone seeking power. The exact position that the darkness inside of Killian craves.

Using Snow’s memories and Killian’s magic, the foursome make their way to a village on the outskirts of the kingdom. When the red plumes dissipate, Emma takes in the strong scents of livestock and manure. She swallows hard and tries to breathe through her mouth, but her father inhales deeply and grins, “Ah, smells like home.”

Snow gives him a mirthful look and when she notices Emma’s pinched expression, she leans forward and whispers, “I hate the scent too, but I promise you get used to it.”

They’ve landed in the middle of a field and in the distance is a clump of buildings that denotes the village. Her father eyes both Emma and her mother and, after a moment of hesitation, offers his elbow to his daughter for an escort.

“Not so fast, Majesty,” Killian cuts in. “It has been twenty years since you two have been seen and we are rallying support for Emma’s wedding.” He holds out his left forearm and locks eyes with Emma as he waits patiently.

Emma takes in her father’s stunned expression and the way her mother seems to be biting back a smile. After a moment, she lays her hand on Killian’s arm and, when her parents link arms with one another, they follow Snow and David across the field and into the village. It doesn’t take long for the whispers to rise to shouts that fill the space between homes and shops.

“Snow White!”

“Snow White has returned!”

“The legitimate Queen! She is back!”

“Snow White and her husband! They have come back to us!”

Small children scurry out of their homes with wide and wondrous eyes. Young people blink at the foursome in confusion. Those that are Emma’s age and a little older survey them cautiously. But there is hope - naked, unhindered, unbound hope - shining in the faces of the old and elderly. Women stooped over with age fall to their knees and men with shaking arms point to Snow and shout with voices that have forgotten how to be quiet.

“King Leopold’s daughter, that is. The true Queen of Misthaven.”

Emma’s mother takes it all in with a soft, magnanimous smile. It makes Emma feel warm inside and she imagines that it does the same for all the people of the village.

“Good people of Emmetsburg! I am Snow White, rightful Queen of Misthaven, and I come to you today with good news!”

There is a cheer that rises up, louder than Emma would have expected from so few people.

“After twenty years of being locked up and kept hidden away, my daughter, Princess Emma, has broken free from the clutches of the Evil Queen!”

Snow takes one of Emma’s hands and holds it aloft, as though she has won a tournament. The people cheer again and the sound fills Emma’s ears. But it is too loud, too much, and Emma gives them a shaky smile and her knees get a little weak. Desperately, Emma opens up her magic to Killian and prays that he will be paying attention. It seems that he is, because she feels his magic wrap around her like a warm, comforting blanket, and it soothes her anxiety even as it dulls the sound of the crowd.

She reaches out with her hand as well and finds Killian’s hook. She clings to it like an anchor, helping her stay grounded.

“Princess Emma traveled across the sea, slew a dragon, and woke us from a sleeping curse with True Love’s Kiss!” Snow’s other hand grasps her husbands and now all four are linked together, united as one. “Today, we come to celebrate that our daughter has found love of her own and will be marrying the Dark One. Once they are wed in nine day’s time, Princess Emma and Captain Jones, the Dark One, will be taking back the kingdom from Regina’s evil clutches.”

The cheer is louder yet, louder than seems possible. Emma’s grip tightens on Killian’s hook but with his magic supporting her, she is able to make eye contact with the people.

They look as hungry for hope as she had once been.

“We need your help,” Emma says, hoping that she is not interrupting her mother’s flow. “We cannot reclaim the throne alone. If you can fight, join us at the Dark Castle and prepare for battle. If you can travel, help us to spread the word so that the whole kingdom will know that Regina’s days are numbered.”

The people do not give her the same bright enthusiasm as they give her mother, but their smiles are still kind and accepting and cautiously optimistic. All, that is, except one.

“The Dark One?” someone shouts out. The entire crowd turns to face the skeptical frown of a man about Emma’s age. “You are working with the Dark One? Why would Snow White align herself with a force of such evil and hatred?” The man points at Killian and nearly spits. “Why, he’s as bad as the Evil Queen.”

Emma can feel Killian’s fury rise up. She tries sincerely to wash it away, but her own anger rises in unison with his, and Killian shoots her a look of surprise when he realizes what has transpired. Emma drops her mother’s hand and steps fully forward, dragging Killian with her.

“He is nothing like the Evil Queen. She locked me away from the world and Killian has brought me into the light. She starved me and had her Black Knights beat me, while Killian washed my wounds and fed me good and rich foods. The Evil Queen stole my parents away and cursed them, Killian faced torture to bring me to them. So before you say anything about this man, my future husband, I will remind you to know your place.”

She scowls at the man until his glare turns into a grimace and then he ducks his head in shame. Surprisingly, it is Killian this time that helps channel her rage until it passes through her. They look at one another in shock until her father clears his throat.

“Snow and I approve of the alliance our daughter has made with the Dark One and we assure you that his power, combined with Emma’s, will be more than enough to overthrow the usurper on the throne.”

Feeling as though that is a cue, Emma allows a ball of white magic to spark in her left hand. Killian does the same with black magic with his right hand, and when they draw their hands together, it explodes into a shower of silver sparks that lights up the sky and garners more signs of praise from the crowd. Emma barely hears them this time, so caught up is she in the look of admiration that Killian is giving her.

She doesn’t let go of his hook as they make their way through the crowd, greeting people and smiling at them and delighting children with little enchantments. Emma makes leaves dance in pleasing whirlwinds, Killian brings folded paper animals to life, and when Killian summons a cake for a family and laughs as he smears the frosting on his nose and pulls a ridiculous face at a toddler, Emma’s heart nearly bursts out of her chest.

The swell of magic is too strong to contain or hide. Killian looks at her out of the corner of his eye and she feels his own magic meet hers. One day soon, the child that he makes giggle will be theirs. And he might be the Dark One, but he is capable of love and affection and care. She’s felt it every day since the night he transported her to his castle and she knows that he will fend off the darkness to protect their child.

He may not love her, but he will love the child they have together. Emma lets her magic meld with his so he can understand the weight of this moment, of the complete trust that she has in him. The darkness wants the power. The man wants the family. 

Killian will win. Whatever Emma must do, Killian will win. 

The next nine days are a whirlwind. Emma, her parents, and Killian spend most of their time traveling from village to village. Killian is always the one to transport them to an unseen place, but he pushes Emma to transport them back to the Dark Castle again. It drains her, making her collapse into bed right after supper, but after several days it gets to be less taxing. And she finds the simple magic tricks she and Killian demonstrate for children get easier and easier to do. 

Now she is the one animating paper animals. When she gets her first bird to take flight, Killian looks at her with such pride that his expression is seared in her memory as she falls asleep that night. 

Her mother or her father get the crowds excited, shouting about their strength, and Emma steps in to tell the people how she, too, is a victim of Regina’s. Emma learns how to talk about Killian to cut off words of doubt before they’re spoken. She talks about his loyalty. She extols his power. She stands close to him and bats her eyes, looking the very picture of love. And it works. 

Brave women and men offer to travel back with them to the Dark Castle, where Killian has set up camp and conjured a never-emptying dining table outside. He’s feeding other hungry souls and, with a little care, they will be more than fit for battle. 

Joining the militia are dignitaries from around the Enchanted Forest. Her parents’ close friends and allies begin arriving two days before the wedding and are put up in rooms in the castle. The dining table, which had started out with only one chair, then tripled when her parents came, has now swollen to over three dozen occupants, and Emma feels bad admitting she misses being alone. Even this small crowd is overwhelming.

She insists Killian sit beside her and she often reaches out to his magic with her own, thankful for the private conversations they can have even in public spaces. When his magic remains open and her magic remains open, they can sense one another’s emotions and offer one another support. He seems to understand intuitively when she needs the noise of a crowd dulled or to be sent to bed before a headache develops.

The evening before the wedding, Emma sits beside Philip and Aurora’s son, with the highly original name Philip Junior, and nods at him with a fixed smile on her face. He’s been prattling on most of the night and seems completely unaware that she has no anecdotes of her own to offer about the life of royalty. Philip Junior, it seems, has been pampered and cared for and propped up without a single impediment. He lives a dream life in a dream kingdom and will one day easily inherit the throne from his parents.

There’s a wave of irritation that comes over Emma as she wonders why, if Philip Junior is as brave and good-hearted as he claims, he never came to rescue her from Regina’s clutches. None of her parents’ friends did, in fact. None of these good and kind people ever mounted a search for her, reached out to check on her, or vowed to overthrow Regina once it became obvious that she had taken the throne once again.

Emma clenches her teeth and tries to push down her annoyance and it takes her a minute to realize she’s struggling to do so because it is not only her annoyance that she is feeling, but Killian’s. He clears his throat and she turns from Philip to notice Killian’s flashing eyes and the muscle jumping in his jaw.

“If you will excuse us, Your Highness ,” Killian says, the title dripping with disdain, “my bride has had a terribly trying day of working to re-secure her throne. I think it is time that she retires and gets plenty of rest for our wedding day tomorrow.” His hook loops around her elbow and pulls her to a standing position. “Offer the pleasantries they all expect, darling,” he hisses quietly in her ear. Leaving her on wobbling legs, Killian stalks to the door of the dining hall and she can feel his eyes as she gives both of her parents kisses. They barely seem to notice, and neither does the rest of the joy-filled table, but she catches Philip Junior’s frown as she joins Killian at the door.

In a plume of deep red smoke, Killian magicks them out of the dining hall and her feet barely have time to land on the floor of the upstairs corridor before Killian is pushing her back into the unforgiving wood of her bedroom door. His body is pressed against hers, and when he lifts her arms above her head, crosses her wrists, and holds her in place with his hook, Emma is truly trapped by him and held in place by his thunderous glare.

“Have you forgotten who you made your deal with, Princess?”

The way he wraps his lips around her own title is full of scorn and Emma would recoil if she had anywhere that she could go. All she can do is stare up at him in shock and wonder at what has brought about this ferocity.

“No matter what pretty princes may smile at you and make you bat your eyes, I’d warn you to remember that ours is an unbreakable vow,” he spits. His mouth is only a breath away from her own and she stares at the cruel twist of his lips. “I shall be the one to continue claiming you, Princess. It shall be my seed that takes root and creates the heir of Misthaven’s throne. And I’d warn you to remember that tomorrow is only a formality, because magic has already bound you to me. You. Are. Mine.”

His final words are said with such force that the back of her head hits the door with a resounding thump. It is suddenly hard to breathe, as though Killian has taken all the air from her lungs, and she struggles to move her gaze back up to his eyes. A wanton moan escapes her throat and the sound makes Killian’s eyes widen in surprise. Emma feels the heat of him from every place he is pressed against her, holding her in place, and it stokes the fire that she lets him feel when she opens her magic. She lets him feel how much she has been longing for him. She wants him to know that every night they’ve been back in the castle she’s longed for him to ask to be invited to her room.

“Good,” Emma groans.

Like an inferno lit by a single candle, his own magic blazes to life as he stares down at her in shock.  

“I don’t want to be with some empty-headed idiot prince who never bothered to check on me,” Emma grunts. “Our so-called allies downstairs all left me. You have not. It shows me that none of them can give me what I need.”

Killian’s own breathing seems to have gotten shaky. He exhales heavily and Emma licks her lips in anticipation.

“And what do you need, Emma?”

Hope. Power. Love. Safety. Family. Security.

She cannot say it. So she shows him, leaning forward and closing the gap between her lips and his. Emma tries to forget her inexperience and focus on the fire she shares with him that finds such easy kindling with his magic. The flames cover them both and when she sighs he deepens the kiss to dance his tongue with hers. Emma knows that it would be easy to use her magic to withdraw her wrists from his hook, but she finds that she doesn’t want to. She feels safe here, held and protected, and when his hand grasps her waist and trails down to squeeze her bottom, she whimpers and squirms and wants him to hold her even tighter.

“You shameless minx,” Killian finally breathes when he pulls away, his palm running across the curves of her backside and her waist and her breasts, eyes seemingly fascinated by the sight of his hand on her body. “You need the Dark One?”

Emma nods, not trusting her voice. Every place he touches her is like a brand, burning in its intensity, intoxicating in its warmth. She’s been cold for far too long and she craves the heat that he offers to her.

“Tomorrow,” he purrs. “Tomorrow you shall be mine.” His hand grasps her thigh and slides down to her knee so he might hitch it around her waist and draw her even closer. “Tomorrow we begin to work in earnest at fulfilling our contract.”

She shivers when his hardness aligns with her center.

“Tomorrow,” she moans back. His lips brush across the sensitive skin of her neck and she gasps, temporarily losing her thoughts again. “Tomorrow,” she finally breathes, coming back to herself, “you are mine, Dark One.” Killian pulls away and looks down on her with frenzied eyes and wild hair. She cannot read his expression. Emma should hold her tongue, but the fire is muddling her mind and making it difficult to conceal her true emotions. “Tomorrow the deal you made with me in private becomes a public promise.”

Killian blinks and he licks his lips and seems to come back to himself and regain some control. Had she been kissing the Dark One? Or Killian? Where does one end and the other begin?

“Is that what you want?” he asks gruffly. “Truly?” Emma uses her magic to pull his hook from the hole he’s gouged into the wall so she can extract her hands. She anchors them on either side of his face and takes a few deep breaths as she carefully pours sand and dirt over the fire. But his fire has dimmed, somewhat, and she’s fairly certain the man has returned.

“I told you,” she insists. “I don’t want anyone else. I want you.” I love you.

The declaration hangs between them, unspoken. But Emma feels it with every beat of her pounding heart, every shaky breath she takes, and every moment when his magic strokes her magic. It is as beautiful as a song.

She loves him.

But before she allows him to sense the deeper truth behind their camaraderie and passion, Emma tucks those feelings back into the chamber where she’s been storing them and focuses on the stubble of his beard beneath her fingers.

“Do you still want this?” she asks, afraid of the answer. “You’ve done so much for me already. My parents are free, the kingdom is rallying behind them, and,” her face is turning red but she cannot stop that now, “I haven’t bled since, we…” Emma cocks her head and hopes she doesn’t have to finish her sentence. His widening eyes say that she doesn’t. “An heir to the throne may already have been created.”

His fingers, which had been skimming the lace of her undergarments, leave her thigh immediately. Unsupported, her leg falls back to the ground and Emma wobbles unsteadily until hand and hook land at her waist.

“You could leave tonight,” Emma whispers, hating every word, hating the very suggestion, and closing off her magic so he will not know that. “The deal we made never involved marriage.”

He needn’t be bound to her. Not in this way. Not for the rest of her life. If he wants to leave, he can-

“I could never do that, darling.” Emma’s head leaves the wall as Killian gently turns them, so now he is trapped and she is free to leave. “I knew the deal I was making.” He swallows and is unable to wipe away a flash of anger before she notices. “I apologize for my ungentlemanly conduct. At times, I feared you didn’t understand the deal you were making.”

Emma thinks of Philip Junior. He’s handsome, strong, and sweet. Perhaps the type of man her parents would have wanted her to marry. But he inspires none of the same passion, none of the same comfort, none of the same love. She shakes her head and feels Killian press into one of the hands still cradling his face. It reminds her of how he had seemed to crave her touch so desperately aboard his ship - beyond the way her magic protected him. It gives her the boldness to reveal herself.

“I didn’t mind,” she admits quietly, staring at the scar on his cheek instead of his eyes. “I sort of like you saying that I’m yours.” Emma trails her fingers down his neck, across his torso, and around to his back, studiously avoiding his gaze and feeling so wanton she cannot believe herself. When she fists her fingers in the fabric of his shirt, she finds the courage to meet his eyes again. They’re blazing with a hope that feels unreal. “Because if I’m yours, then I’m safe.”

Killian groans, something low and needy that makes warmth pool in her stomach where her magic resides. He leans forward again, likely to kiss her until she is senseless, but he stops abruptly and growls. Emma prepares for another wave of fury that never comes.

“Our guests are leaving the dining hall,” Killian grumbles. His eyes shoot down the hallway. “You need to get in your room where you are safe, Princess.” The implication is clear. Safe from him.

Emma grins. “It wouldn’t do for them to see me in such a state.” She manages to give him a wicked look. “Especially Prince Philip.”

The darkness flares up again for only a moment and Emma fuses it with her fire to create a heady slurry that fuels another kiss. Just one more. But then even she can hear the footsteps and the voices down the hall and down the stairs, so she pushes Killian away with a disgruntled sigh.

“Until tomorrow.”

Killian’s smile is soft and amused. He takes her hand and kisses the back of her knuckles like a proper gentleman. “Until tomorrow, Princess”

Chapter Text

The day of Emma’s wedding dawns bright and beautiful. The perfect weather for the perfect wedding of a perfect princess. Emma wakes up late, thankful for the opportunity to sleep in after so many days of endless travel throughout Misthaven. She yawns and stretches before climbing out of bed to dress herself in something acceptable to break her fast downstairs with their guests. But as she crosses to the wardrobe, something moves out of the corner of her eye. An elaborate breakfast appears at her table with a familiar-looking parchment lying on her plate.

Eat well this morning. You have a long day ahead. When you are ready to receive visitors, your parents would like some time with you; send me a note when you are ready to see them.

She flips the parchment around in the search for words of love or hopefulness but finds none. A small lump forms in her throat and she swallows it back before pouring herself a cup of tea. Emma spends the rest of the morning contemplating all the hard work over the last week: both the villages that had rallied behind them and those that had spit and proclaimed loyalty to Regina. The number of fighters that had joined them in their cause and the many royals and dignitaries now gathered in the castle, all prepared for today’s wedding.

Close to midday, Emma rearranges the ink on the parchment, folds it into the shape of a bird, and sends it flying out her window. Not a quarter hour later, two knocks on the door herald Queen Snow and King David. Emma throws it open and they settle at the table that now fills with a mouthwatering luncheon.

After the plates have been loaded and emptied once again, Emma pats her bursting stomach and surveys her parents, wondering what words of wisdom they will be offering her. She does not have to wait long. Her mother leans across the table and takes her hand. “I cannot believe you are getting married today.”

Emma offers her what she hopes is a brave smile.

“We’re so proud of you, Duckling,” her father adds. His hand encases both of theirs, uniting the three of them together. “Going to such lengths to rescue us and save the kingdom.”

Snow’s eyes are watery. “I’m so sorry we weren’t here for you Emma. I promise we-” Her voice breaks and Emma grips her hand harder. “I promise we thought we were giving you your best chance.”

Tears fall down her mother’s face and even her father’s chin is wobbling. The first afternoon in the Dark Castle, after strategizing about taking back the kingdom and planning a wedding, her parents had told her the whole story, what Regina had never revealed to her - that they had voluntarily been cursed after Regina took over the castle and threatened to kill Emma, holding a knife to the sleeping princess in her bed.

Of course, it wouldn’t do to confess to her parents that there were days and weeks and years when she wished that she had just been killed. That the loneliness had been so awful that she had nearly died from the pain. Emma endeavors to shove all that to the side and keep herself from crying.

“I know, Mama,” Emma manages. “I know.”

Her parents stand and pull her into another hug, with her father cupping the back of her head the way he always does and her mother sobbing softly. When Snow stops, they both pull away and look at her, once again a perfect pair. Always synchronized. Always together.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” David says with his own brave smile. “If you don’t want to marry him, we can forget about all of this.” He waves his free hand in the air and it looks ridiculous.

Emma shakes her head and wipes at her cheek. Somewhere along the way she gave in and started crying too. “You want a bastard on the throne?” she chokes out with a laugh.

There’s a pained pinch to David’s face. “We want you happy, Duckling.”

At the end of the day, Emma believes that. No matter what mistakes they may have made, how their sacrifice for her felt like abandonment, she knows they desire her happiness.

“I wanted this,” she finally admits, the words barely audible. Her parents don’t look surprised, only curious. “I wanted to get married to him and make this deal. I don’t know why, but I believed in him. Believe in him, still. I trust him, Papa. I trust him to protect me and get the throne back.”

Snow’s eyes are wet again. “We didn’t want you to marry for security and to win the throne. We wanted you to marry for love, Emma.”

Emma clenches her jaw. She looks between her parents and wonders how to explain. “Doesn’t Papa make you feel secure, Mama? Don’t you feel like you’ll be alright as long as he’s around?” Her parents’ hands find one another. They always do. “And didn’t he help you take the throne from Regina all those years ago? Because he loved you?”

Snow gasps and David frowns and both are obviously processing her words. Emma continues on.

“I don’t- I’m not an idiot. Killian doesn’t love me , at least not in that way. But we care for one another and you don’t see it because he doesn’t show it, but he’s been lonely too. And I’d rather marry someone who needs a family, who can offer protection and strength, than wait around for some love that may never happen and spend the rest of our lives on the run.”

She finds herself pulled back into an embrace and more tears running down her face. Snow whimpers how much she loves her and David mutters how brave and wonderful she is. It is all too much and just right. All the things she craved for all those years.

Before her father leaves to give Emma space to get dressed for the wedding, he holds her tight and whispers one more thing in her ear.

“I do see it, Duckling. He’s a good man fighting against the darkness.” He pulls away and gives her a watery smile. “And I know he’ll take care of you.”

He walks out the door before a tear can fall from his eye, but Emma knows that it does, and she doesn’t really mind. Maybe tears aren’t so bad. She turns with a soft smile to face the looking glass and contemplate what dress and hairstyle to conjure.

“Uh, before you do that, Emma, I think we need to talk about something else.”

From the strangled tone of her mother’s voice, Emma is fairly certain what subject Snow wants to discuss. She turns and finds her mother sitting on the bed, which is entirely too appropriate. Emma cautiously perches on the edge of the bed and braces herself for an uncomfortable conversation.

“Tonight is your wedding night.”

“Mhmm.”

“I’m not sure what Regina told you to expect-”

Emma cuts her off with a hand. “Regina told me that husbands routinely hit and humiliate their wives and when they join together for the marital act it causes intense pain for the woman.”

Snow stares at her in horror. “She said- she said what? Oh Emma, she-”

“She lied,” Emma interjects. “I figured as much. And then…” Emma can feel her cheeks get warm, but her mother has treated her like a fellow adult so she might as well be honest with her “... on the ship, Killian and I…” Emma gives her mother a significant look and Snow’s face floods with understanding.

“The two of you laid together,” her mother finishes. Her own cheeks are a little pink, but she doesn’t look upset. If anything, she appears relieved. Emma nods. “And it was…?” Snow trails off and raises her eyebrows as she waits for Emma to answer the half-spoken question.

Emma can’t keep the sheepish smile off her face, which inspires a full-on grin on her mother’s face. “It was wonderful. And terrifying.”

“Sounds about right. But no intense pain? No hitting or humiliation?”

Emma shakes her head and then lays it on her mother’s shoulder to look at the fire crackling merrily in the hearth. Snow lets out a sigh of relief. “Do you have any questions for me? Anything I can do to ease any anxieties that you still have?”

She has a million questions, a million things to learn, though she doesn’t know if she can ask her mother, of all people, about them. She thinks for a moment and shakes her head again. “No, Mama. Don’t worry about me.”

Snow laughs and wraps her arms around Emma, pulling her tighter to her side. “When you’re a mother, you’ll understand. I will never stop worrying about you.”

Once Emma has made herself suitable for the day’s festivities, she and Snow exit her chambers and call for David across the hallway. Her parents draw her in for one final hug before escorting her down to the dining hall, standing on either side of her like a set of guards. But she takes their hands and squeezes them and lets them guide her to the great hall, to her fate, to her future.

Killian is waiting for them at the entrance to the hall, which is nearly bursting with people. A typical royal wedding might have exclusive invitations for royalty and nobility, but this is an event that is made to be for all. Their special guests are mingling with the soldiers recruited from villages across Misthaven, meaning there are entirely too many people in the space. She feels her heart rate spike at the thought of all of them looking at her.

Her parents kiss her and Emma grasps Killian’s arm. Her grip only gets stronger as he escorts her through the crowd and towards the cleric, desperately attempting to calm her racing heart. Instantly, Killian’s magic encases her like the warm, plush blanket he summoned to cover her body the night they met. Emma takes a deep breath and smells the same scent on him that she had picked up on the blanket. It is that warm, spicy, masculine scent that has been by her side every day of the last fortnight. It settles her nerves and allows her to concentrate on moving forward.

She gives his arm a squeeze and thanks him physically the same way her magic thanks him privately. He is grounding her. Shielding her. Protecting her. 

“We must get through the formalities, darling,” he coos by her side, unheard by the parting crowd. “The ceremony and the feast and the dancing. Then we will be expected to leave the celebration early to consummate our vows.” Killian raises a sardonic brow. “I wouldn’t want the Princess to change her mind.”

Emma’s magic sparks at the idea of what happens when they leave the celebration early and Killian smirks as he surveys the crowd. 

“Naughty girl,” Killian murmurs. His admiration is clear. “Focus on that, if it helps.”

She tries to, but everything else is very distracting. When they make their way through the people to the center of the room, the cleric stands there waiting for them, beaming. 

Although Killian had spent several days before their journey on the Jolly Roger planning for the ceremony, he had been unable to find someone willing to lead them through a marriage ritual. No one felt comfortable marrying the Dark One to an innocent mortal. It wasn’t until a few days ago, in one of the villages they had visited, that a portly woman with close-cropped gray hair and dancing eyes approached Killian and asked if she could offer them a blessing. When they found out that she was a cleric and had no issues with offering a divine blessing on the manifestation of evil, Emma had immediately asked her to join them in the Dark Castle and preside over the ceremony. 

Her calm presence in the middle of the crush of people centers Emma further, and she focuses on the woman’s words. 

She talks about love. And fidelity. Faithfulness and kindness. Forgiveness and selflessness. Emma can sense Killian’s discomfort so she tries to offer her own magical support. At the end of the ceremony, the cleric produces a red strip of frayed fabric from the pocket of her robe. 

They are to do a handfasting. Snow had looked utterly flummoxed at the suggestion but David had nodded in understanding. The cleric nearly snorted, saying the ritual was done often throughout the common folk, but not among the nobility. This particular red tie has fasted the hands of hundreds of couples. 

She winds it around Emma and Killian’s clasped hands and it reminds her of the morning they made their deal, when magic sealed the vow that has tied them together ever since. Now, their promises are public for the world to see. Where she goes, he will go. She will not leave him. The cleric pronounces their final blessing and proclaims them married. As a polite cheer rises up, Emma sends out some of her magic to wrap around their hands as well, to bind them together with her light the same way they have been bound by the dark. 

Killian’s brow raises in surprise when he sees what she’s doing. He stares at their joined hands and then looks at her, curious. He seems to understand quickly, and once her magic fades away like a mist, Killian pulls her against him with his brace on her back and swoops in for a heart-stopping kiss. 

He’s never done this before. They have kissed, but never in front of others. It makes Emma’s stomach twist in pleasure and embarrassment. Now he is hers. Hers to kiss and claim whenever she would like. No force in heaven or earth can separate them. She gives in to the kiss but makes sure to carefully throw sand and grit on the fire lest they let the flames move them into untoward public displays. 

“Emma,” Killian breathes when she pulls away, too quiet to be overheard over the twitters and chirps of the crowd. Their hands are still bound and his hook softly traces the line of her jaw. “That was…”

“Did I do something wrong?” she whispers back. He, after all, had been the one to initiate the kiss. 

Killian shakes his head and breaks into a smile. “Of course not,” he grins. “Never, darling.”

The cleric just beams at them and carefully grasps their elbows to pull them apart from one another so she can remove the red tie. She unceremoniously puts it back in her pocket, to be used for another couple, another wedding, and whispers conspiratorially, “And now we eat, right?”

And eat they do. But there is simply not enough space in the great hall for everyone to sit down and feast. So the crowd makes their way out onto the lawn where Killian and Emma clasp hands and together conjure up tables and benches for royals and commoners, warriors and nobles, to sit and eat. They all dig in with unrestrained enthusiasm, and as the newlyweds walk among the tables to greet their guests and receive their well-wishes, it warms Emma’s heart to see the hope and joy lighting up their faces.

These are their allies. Family and friends. Emma is no longer alone.

Her emotions must be leaking out into her magic, because Killian lets go of her hand to pull her close, resting his hand and his hook on the small of her back, skirting the line between proprietary and scandal.

“Some day they shall tell their children and grandchildren how they attended the wedding of the Queen of Misthaven.”

Emma laces her fingers together behind his neck, keeping him in place, and gives him a coy smile. “Are we on that again? The deal was to return my bloodline to the throne. My mother is the one with actual experience.” Her smile fades as she considers him. “Is that the darkness talking? To get you closer to the throne?”

She tries to keep her voice light, but still Killian swallows heavily. “Aye,” he says in a strangled voice. “That is part of it.” It seems to take great effort for him to maintain eye contact, and Emma struggles to push against the magical fortifications he’s erected.

“And the other part?”

The pain leaves his face slowly. “I think you’re a marvel, Emma. Your strength astounds me.” His eyes glow with sincerity. “I think you should be the one to take the throne because I have yet to see you fail.”

Emma’s fingers slip from one another and she anchors herself against his shoulders. He thinks she is strong? He thinks she is strong? She searches his expression for teasing and finds none. Emma cannot stop herself from pulling him down for another kiss, one that makes her toes curl inside of her red slippers. A kiss to thank him for his trust in her, and for how that makes her feel strong though she knows she is weak. 

“Bloody hell darling, your kisses are intoxicating,” he murmurs against her lips, their mutual fire crackling between them. 

It takes a great deal of effort to pull away from one another and continue their perusal of the feasting crowd. Killian’s lack of need for food doesn’t stop him from sitting her down at a table for two and ordering her to eat her fill. The look in his eyes reminds her of the insinuation on the note he wrote for her this morning; to fortify herself for a long day. But she also thinks of the note he wrote her the night they rescued her parents; that she needs to eat well and keep healthy no matter what struggles may come. 

“I am in much better shape now than when we met,” Emma says conversationally after swallowing a mouthful of quail. “Eventually you will have to stop counting every bite that I eat.”

Killian’s brows rise in amusement. “Why would I do that?”

Emma hums around her next bite as he waits patiently for her to elaborate. 

“Eventually I will reach an acceptable level of health.”

“And by then perhaps you will be with child and need to keep eating well.”

She rolls her eyes in an effort to disguise her pleased blush. “And once the child is born?”

Killian leans forward and whispers conspiratorially, wickedly, “Then we should have another.”

The next bite of food is difficult to swallow. “And- and- and eventually that stops. And you can stop counting.”

“You are forgetting one thing, darling.” His fingers on hers stop her fork on its path to her mouth. 

“What is that?”

“An effective King or Queen needs a stable home, a parent to teach them how to rule, how to care for the people. I need you healthy to be a good mother too. So you see, Emma, my job of caring for you and your health shall never end.” His eyes dart to the food held aloft. “Now be a good girl and eat up.”

After the dinner is dancing, and Emma finds herself grateful for the dance lessons that her parents had her take as a child, the ones Regina reluctantly continued - for a while, that is. After Snow and David open the ball with a beautiful waltz, swaying perfectly to the music of the instruments enchanted in the corner of the great hall, Emma and Killian take the floor. 

She does not trip and land on her face, which had been her biggest concern. She is not as graceful as her mother or as confident as her father, but they get by. Emma dances with her father next, and a number of her parents’ friends, as well as a few of the braver soldiers who decide to step onto the dance floor. 

When Emma sits for a minute to rest her feet, she spots two dark heads twirling together as if their feet never touch the ground. Killian. And the daughter of King Eric and Queen Ariel - Princess Melody. 

Emma and Melody had been close friends as children. They had spent summer holidays together and she and Melody shared a bittersweet embrace the night before after so many years apart. She is beautiful and poised and wholly untraumatized.  

As Melody spins in tight, perfect circles, Emma considers how a deal with her would have been of more benefit to Killian. The granddaughter of the ruler of the seas, the daughter of an established King. Excellent dancer. Fascinating conversationalist. Killian’s eyes crinkle in laughter and Emma adds another item to her mental list: funny. 

When the song finishes, Emma is so distracted by staring at Killian and Melody that she starts at the deep voice asking, “May I have this dance?” at her side. Emma jumps nearly to the roof, clutching her chest, and blinks at Philip Junior in surprise. 

“Oh! Um, yes, it would be my-“

“I apologize but I must have the last dance with my bride before we depart.” Killian’s velvet voice over her shoulder surprises her again. His face is calm but his eyes are stormy, and when she takes his hand to be led to the dance floor, she can’t help but tease him. 

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re jealous.”

Killian arches a brow and while she probes for his emotions with her magic, she finds the door shut. “Of empty-headed Junior? Hardly. Although I sensed a certain antagonism when I was on the floor with the little mermaid’s daughter.”

She hadn’t even attempted to conceal herself then. So Emma chooses not to deny it and she delights when Killian pulls her closer against him, entirely too close to properly dance. 

“I’d say we’ve remained here long enough to maintain good will. Are you ready to consummate our vows, darling?” He gets a wicked look in his eyes that makes her stomach jump. “Again?”

Emma is still nodding when a plume of red smoke covers them and her feet land on the slick tile of the corridor outside her room. She barely has time to steady herself before her back is shoved into the wood of her door and Killian’s breath is hot on her neck. 

“The first night I brought you to my castle I promised that I would not enter your room again without invitation. That changes tonight, Princess.” His lips begin to kiss her neck and her entire body trembles. “I’ve been a gentleman as long as I could manage, spending my nights thinking about your soft cunt and the exquisite look on your face,” he pulls away enough to run his thumb along the line of her cheekbone, “when I made you fall apart.”

“Invite me into your bedroom, wife,” he purrs, eyes burning into hers, fire covering them both. Emma whimpers at the words and the title, but it isn’t enough for him. “Invite me. Beg me to take you again.”

“K-Killian,” she stutters. “Please.”

“Please what?” The way he pops the T is obscene.

“Please come into my room. Please,” she gasps when he begins kissing her neck again and his fingers twist with hers, keeping her secure against the wood of the door. “I want to see stars again.”

Emma leans down as best as she can and captures his lips again, and they are still kissing when her magic engulfs them and deposits them straight on top of her bed. She is draped across him, using her now-free hands to try to grasp any hem or button she can find to start freeing him of his clothes. Her grunt of frustration must be amusing. He pulls away to laugh and rolls the two of them over so that he is now the one draped on top of her, supporting his weight on his elbows, his hips between her thighs but his hardness obscured by her ridiculous dress.

Impatiently, Emma waves her hand and they are both naked in a flash. Now she can grasp him by the backside and the shoulder to pull him down to her for more kisses, pressing their chests together so that his hair scratches deliciously against her hardening nipples.

“You impatient minx,” Killian growls against her lips. “So eager to be taken by the Dark One?”

“Yes,” Emma gasps. She may not be experienced, but she intends to compensate with her enthusiasm. With her lips still getting reacquainted with what it means to kiss and taste and tease him, Emma releases his bottom and, with as much courage as she can muster, she wraps her fingers around his hard shaft.

Killian jumps in her arms. “Bloody hell!” he yelps. He looks down at her in alarm and she releases him instantly.

“I’m sorry,” Emma apologizes. “I just… Last time you made me feel so good and I wanted to make you feel good.”

Chest still heaving, Killian’s shock fades into understanding. He shifts his weight so he can take her hand and lead it to his manhood again. With her eyes on his, she tentatively grips him and rejoices when a look of pleasure washes across his face. “Nice and firm. You won’t hurt me, darling.” Emma tightens her grip and his eyes flutter closed. “That’s a good girl.”

After a minute, Emma leans up and begins to kiss him again, trying desperately to focus on two things at the same time. He returns her kisses eagerly and, perhaps sensing her discomfort, shifts his body again so they are laying side-by-side. With all her concentration on trying various rhythms and pressures on his shaft, Emma pulls away from his lips to gasp in surprise when his palm cups one of her breasts. Emma stares at him as his fingers tease both nipples and work their way down her body until he can touch her most intimate of places with the tips of his fingers.

Emma shudders and he grins.

“So warm and wet, darling.” He begins to spread her moisture across her flesh, keeping his touch from where she’s aching and throbbing the most. “And this time I shall feel your greedy cunt milk me dry. Is that what you want? To be filled with my seed again?”

She whimpers and he laughs. “Say it, Emma. Tell me what you want so that I can give it to you.”

Emma’s rhythm falters on his manhood. “I want- I liked it when you kissed me.”

The dark look in his eyes makes the ache between her legs grow. She’s forced to release his hardness as he climbs back on top of her and kisses her lips.

“You liked when I kissed you here?” Emma nods. His lips move lower and trail down her neck. “Here?”

“Yes.”

He kisses all around her breasts and draws each of her nipples into his mouth. “Here?”

“Oh! Yes!”

Slowly and torturously, his mouth works its way to her center and he grins up at her with such wickedness. “And here?” he whispers, his warm breath teasing her damp folds.

“Yes,” she says, getting bolder in the fog of her desire. “Yes, please.”

“Spread yourself again for me, darling.”

No sooner has she parted her folds with both hands than he is kissing her below as passionately as he had kissed her above. When a single finger penetrates her and a second finger soon stretches her, Emma digs her fingers into his dark hair and holds him exactly where she wants him as she sobs out her release, begging for him to never stop.

Just as it was that night on his ship, the passion is an ever-burning fire, engulfing her in flames that seem as though they will burn her alive. But she is not afraid of the fire. She relishes it, she loves it, she leaps into the danger and luxuriates in the bliss of the conflagration.

Killian is kissing the sensitive skin of her thighs as the flames die down, back to a simmering spark. The coarse hairs on his cheek make her shiver in pleasure.

“So gorgeous,” he murmurs. He is so quiet that she wonders if she misunderstands him. “So bloody gorgeous, Princess.” Killian sits back on his haunches and observes her as though she is a puzzle he must solve. His fingertips are teasing her back up again, attempting to stoke the fire, and she gives in to the sensation with a sigh and gentle bucking up into his touch. “Are you ready for more?”

Emma nods wordlessly.

He flips her over so that she is on her stomach and, with hand and stump at her hips, draws her backside up in the air.

“Bloody hell is this arse gorgeous,” he mutters, again barely audible. His hand grips the globe of one cheek and squeezes firmly, a touch that makes her shudder beneath him. “And I am going to watch it bounce against my cock.” Killian dips his fingers back inside of her and she lets out a shout of pleasure that makes her back shoot up, but his shortened left arm pushes her back down with firm pressure between her shoulder blades.

“Relax, sweetling, relax.” Killian removes his fingers and Emma feels his hardness nudge against her entrance. With aching slowness, he takes her once again, and Emma bites her lower lip and grips the bedsheets as she attempts to loosen her inner muscles to let him in.Eventually, she feels his hips against her bottom and she knows he is fully seated. Killian’s groan is low and primal and the fire begins to burn her in earnest again. He takes her with slow and shallow thrusts, and once her body has relaxed, her teeth have released her lip and her fingers have let go of the bedsheets, Killian nearly pulls out all the way and then thrusts back in to the hilt, and Emma lets out her own low groan.

“How does it feel, darling?”

His voice is strained, and though Emma wishes that she could see his face, this new position is just too delicious, and she begins to push back against him before the words come to her.

“So damn deep, Killian!”

He laughs. “Are you going to fall apart for me like this? Squeeze me until I fill you with my seed?”

The edge of her pleasure is getting closer with every stroke. Emma nods and breathes, “Yes.”

“Tell me you want me.”

“Fuck. I want you.”

“Tell me you’re mine.”

He gets faster and rougher, their flesh beginning to smack together and creating an obscene symphony. Of course she’s his. She’s been his since the moment he picked her up and protected her from Regina, when he held her in his arms and refused to give her away. Before they made the deal, before they schemed to fulfill their contract. She’s been his ever since, and it is embarrassing how much she’s craved his presence and his care in the meantime.

Emma’s back arches and he hits a new place inside of her. “I’m yours.” I’m safe. I’m wanted. I’m cared for. 

“Only mine, Princess.” Killian’s fingers dig into her hip, helping her to thrust back harder, stronger. “You don’t know what it does to me that no one else will ever have you. That you are mine and mine alone. No one else gets to taste your sweet cunt or fuck you like this.”

The fire is about to scorch them both, the blaze too high to be contained, the pleasure ready to rise over both of them. As she feels his magic pull her over the edge - or perhaps her magic does it to him - she whimpers, “Tell me you are mine, Dark One.”

If he obeys her request, it is drowned out by the boiling heat of their ecstasy touching every nerve ending on both of their bodies. She feels his pleasure just as well as she feels her own, and when her eyes open again, she is almost surprised that the entire room has not been lit by the fires of their passion.

Killian murmurs her name over and over and over again as he kisses the sweaty skin of her back as his thrusts become gentle and slow, his fire having burnt down and leaving behind a flickering candle of desire. Too tired to say or do anything more, Emma gives into the sensations, collapsing flat on her stomach when he slips from her.

Eventually, she realizes that he’s saying more than her name. He’s calling her beautiful, a marvel, the most amazing woman he’s ever met. Emma melts into the praise and wishes that she had the strength and the words to return his exaltations. She finally manages to say his name and he stops instantly to roll her onto her side and fit himself behind her.

“I’m here, darling.” A blanket lands, soft and heavy and warm, across her body. “I’m not going anywhere.”

And those are the words she’s been longing for. The thing she’s needed most to hear. The promise she’s craved. She wanted an ally who could never leave her and she has found him.

As Emma drifts off to sleep, dreaming of learning more about the ways a man and a woman can fit together, can draw passion from one another, she does so with the confidence that Killian will be there when she awakes.

She falls asleep to the sound of a lullaby in her ear.

Chapter Text

Sharing a bed with Emma on dry land, away from the tortuous enchantments on the Jolly Roger, Killian has no need to keep his skin on hers . But he does so anyway. He holds her tight and hums a lullaby in her ear until she falls asleep, nestled in his arms. When she shifts, he shifts with her, following her movements throughout the night. If he were not the Dark One, they would drift apart as they sleep, or perhaps she would accidently strike him in a moment of fitfulness. But staying up all night means that he does not lose a moment of the pleasure of holding Crown Princess Emma of Misthaven in his arms.

Tell me you are mine, Dark One. 

Her words, whimpered at the height of her passion, echo in his ears as he holds her. She’d told him the previous night that she liked when he said that she was his. It made her feel safe. But the idea that it flows both ways, that she wants him to be hers - it is mind-boggling, to say the least. And then there is the use of his dark title. 

Where does Killian end and the Dark One begin? Is she more interested in the darkness, which is fighting tooth and nail to get her on the throne, or the man who kisses her temple and hums a lullaby in her ear? Which one is hers ? Which one does she want to claim?

Which one can give her what she needs?

It is the middle of the night, when Killian is softly stroking Emma’s hair, hoping his movements are gentle enough that she remains asleep, that he feels the tug deep inside his gut. A disgusting lurch in the core of his being that makes bile rise to the back of his throat. Killian is filled with a sense of hopelessness and helplessness that he has been without over the past month.

His dagger.

It has been stolen.

He clothes himself as he travels, transporting himself to the hallway with a hidden door that leads to the vault. He took Emma here once, only once, in order to enact the blood magic that would find her parents. But she couldn’t have-

Before he can cast the magic that will reveal the secret entrance, he falls to his knees as his whole body is ripped from his will. And then he hears the very worst words in the world, said by the very worst person.

“Dark One, I summon thee,” Regina purrs in his ear.

Killian curses how he had left Emma asleep in her bed. He can only resist an order from someone who wields the dagger for so long. If he had stayed by her side, he would have been able to wake her and warn her. As it is, he can only grit his teeth and give in, sending out his magic and letting it take him far from the only home he’s known since he left the Jolly and straight to the greatest force of evil since he slew Rumpelstiltskin.

Regina is sitting on her throne when he arrives. No, it is Emma’s throne. Their child’s future throne. Regina is not even worthy of groveling in this throne room. A growl rises in his throat as he takes in her dramatics and the dagger she surveys with a grin.

“Sorry I missed the wedding,” she drawls.

“You’re wasting your time, Regina.”

“Is that any way to greet someone who has given you a gift?”

Killian spits and the wad of saliva lands heavy on the tiled floor. “We want nothing from you.”

“But you shall have it.” Regina’s grin grows wider and she finally stands to stalk toward him, avoiding his spittle. “My gift to you was your happy, happy day. Now our work begins. You’ve made your vows; now I make mine. Soon, Snow and her husband and her brat shall be destroyed. At your hand.”

Regina smirks triumphantly and Killian begins to laugh. Seeing how it infuriates her, he laughs harder, louder, roaring belly laughs that echo around the gilded chamber and make it seem like a whole chorus of Dark Ones mocking the Evil Queen.

When he stops, Regina holds the dagger aloft. “Dark One, I order you to kill Princess Emma.”

Killian does not move. But there is no pain at his refusal to obey. On the inside, relief washes over him that his plan has worked and the dagger’s magic seems to have no hold on him. On the outside, he begins digging for nonexistent dirt under his nails with the point of his hook, the picture of boredom.

“Did you hear me, you idiot? I told you to kill the brat.”

“That you did, Regina.” Killian quirks a brow and keeps his eyes on his work. “And I ignored you.” He looks around the empty throne room. “Are we done now? I have a honeymoon to return to.”

Losing her cool, Regina storms across the distance separating them until her glare is an inch away from his pleased smile. “Why didn’t it work?” Her fingers tighten around the dagger and he braces himself for an order. “Tell me.”

Killian clenches his jaw in his attempt to remain calm. This time he must obey her, but he doesn’t want her to see how it pains him to hold back, even for a moment. “Because I have already made a deal with the Princess, making it impossible for me to betray her.”

Regina’s eyes flare with anger and the shout she lets out brings all the torches in the chamber to life for an instant before she snuffs them out again with a deep sigh.

“You cannot betray her.”

“No. I cannot hurt her or impede her cause in any way.” He does not disguise his satisfaction and Regina whirls around to take in his pleased expression.

“What, exactly, was the deal?” Regina holds up the dagger. “Tell me.”

Killian has no shame about the vows he exchanged with Emma. He is proud of them, in fact. “I promised to help secure her bloodline back on the throne. And in exchange, our child will one day sit on that throne.” He nods at the seat Regina has just vacated. 

In a moment, Regina’s talon-like hand is pulling his head back while her other hand holds the dagger against his neck. “If I kill you, then that deal will be broken.”

“And if you kill me,” he grits out, “then you become the Dark One. And I can tell you from experience that such a fate is worse than death.”

Regina hesitates and Killian wonders if she will just give in, slash his throat, and use her new powers to overtake Emma and her parents and all of their allies. If she does, then all of his efforts have been in vain. Emma will continue to be hunted by Regina, who would no longer be barred from the Dark Castle. It is only a matter of time before she would once again imprison Emma and exile her parents, or decide to just finish the job and execute all three of them. 

Finally, the Evil Queen exhales and releases Killian. For another long minute, she surveys him, obviously strategizing, and eventually her jaw clenches and her eyes flash.

“To the dungeon with you, Dark One, until I decide how I can best use my new pet.”

And in a plume of purple smoke, he is sent away, far from Emma and all his hopes for the future. The only thing that keeps his heart from breaking is the secure knowledge that he will not be able to hurt Emma, no matter what Regina does.

Minutes turn into hours that bleed into days. Left locked in a dungeon with no windows and ordered to stay put, Killian has no way of marking nor passing the time. He is left to stare at the cold stone walls and contemplate the various failings of his life.

The drinking that nearly cost him and Liam their chance at freedom.

The loyalty to the crown that killed his brother.

The arrogance that gave the opportunity for Rumpelstiltskin to kill Milah.

The selfishness that allowed his crew to be tortured for hundreds of years. 

The rash murder that made him the Dark One.

The carelessness that meant Regina’s spy could steal the dagger and bring it to her.

All the events mix and swirl together so that he can dwell in enough self-loathing for the darkness to gnaw on, a sizable feast for what the evil inside of him craves.

Killian is lost in the last memory of his father before his betrayal when the dungeon door creaks open and a Black Knight glares down at him, eyes obscured by his helm.

“The Queen bids you come with us.” Sprawled out on the floor, Killian smirks up at the guard, prepared to argue that the dagger has already bid him to stay where he is, when his stomach lurches and Regina once again whispers in his ear.

“Listen to my Black Knight, Hook. I have something for you.”

Whatever has her so pleased could only mean more pain for Killian. Wincing, he stands up and limps behind the Black Knight, muscles stiff from disuse. He is led through the dungeon, up a set of winding stairs, and down a dark hallway. It seems to be nighttime, but Killian has no idea how many days have passed since his wedding and his capture. He wonders what Emma thinks had happened to him and how she and her loved ones have continued on in his absence. They were poised to attack the castle and overthrow Regina and her Black Knights. Surely they will be here soon? Or have they already charged the walls and been defeated? Has Regina summoned him to gloat?

The Black Knight leads him up another set of stairs, this one finer than the ones coming out of the dungeon, carpet plush beneath his filthy boots, and down a dim hallway. The guard stops at a door, knocks twice, and steps aside. Obviously, Killian is to enter the room. He prefers to reach for the knob and obey the unspoken command before the dagger’s magic causes him pain. Once the room is revealed to him, any anticipatory suffering melts away and is replaced by complete and blinding rage.

He has entered a bedroom. Nothing at all remarkable about the room, except that it contains finely-crafted furnishings and large windows with exquisitely intricate stained glass. But lying upon the four-post bed is a sight that fills Killian with a dread that drains him of any hope.

Princess Emma.

Naked and gagged and bound to two of the bedposts with shackles secured around her wrists.

Killian races in the room to release her from her torture when a cool, “Stop right there, Hook,” and a harsh jerk on his magic nearly makes him fall over when his feet freeze to the ground.

Emma’s eyes, which were already large with fear, somehow double in size, and she stares at him and the dagger-wielding Regina in astonishment.

“Let. Her. Go.” he chokes out.

“I don’t think that I will.” Regina readjusts her grip on the dagger. “And I don’t think that you will either, Hook. In fact, I forbid you to remove her chains or her gag.” The magic seals across his soul, nearly ripping his heart in half. Killian flings out his arm and uses his magic to throw her against the wall. Instead of injuring her, Regina grins down at him with amusement and triumph in her gaze, and purrs, “Let me go.”

He drops her and hates that she catches herself so gracefully.

Regina twirls the dagger playfully, expertly, and looks back-and-forth between the glaring Dark One and the trembling princess. He is bound in place by the dagger, she is bound in place by her chains. Caught in Regina’s web.

“Imagine my surprise when my Black Knights found my former ward wandering around near the dungeons an hour ago. Searching, I suppose, for her wayward husband, though why anyone would want to marry a one-handed pirate with a drinking problem is beyond me.”

Killian clenches his jaw to avoid rising to Regina’s bait. Once again, she is wholly unoriginal.

“You claim you cannot kill her, but it never hurts to check.” Regina hoists the dagger higher and her voice gets deeper and stronger as she commands, “Dark One, I order you to kill Princess Emma.”

He waits for the magic to pull him toward his wife and force him to hurt her. When it does not, he lets out a sigh of relief and gives Regina his own look of amusement and triumph.

“So little trust, Regina? After all these years?”

She gives him a piercing glare. Her heels click on the smooth slate of the floor as she begins to circle him. In her wide black dress adorned with feathers, she looks like an oversized bird of prey, prepared to attack and devour him. She is ruthless and careless and pure evil. The darkness inside of him feels her own darkness, and it is just like the night they faced off in the Dark Castle. He longs to be her ally, to pull her into the darkness, and he is repulsed by her evil and the deeds she has done.

“I have decided to be merciful.”

Killian forces himself not to look at Emma, not to betray how much he is worried for her. “That would be a first,” he drawls.

“I will keep the princess here, under my protection, where she rightfully belongs. And you can stay here with her, Hook.” Her eyes flash and Killian’s stomach sinks. It cannot be that simple.

“The only reason to marry her off was so I could breed another royal welp to raise, this time from the start. I cannot very well dissolve a marriage that was witnessed by half of my enemies and a quarter of my people, so go ahead and start working on that little heir for me, Hook.” Regina raises the dagger and places the point of it in the hollow of his throat. She traces the tip down the center of his chest, past the buttons of his vest, to the laces of his trousers and to the place between his legs where his cock resides. Regina digs the dagger in slightly, enough for him to feel it against his flesh through the leather, and the tip of her tongue dances behind her top front teeth.

“Time to earn your keep, stud. Fill her with your seed, Dark One, and make it hurt.” Regina puts the dagger in a sheath at her side and her voice drops when she coos, “My Black Knights say she likes it rough.”

With a final glance at the trembling princess, Regina leaves the room, the door bolting from the outside behind her, sealing her two puppets inside for a pantomime of love.

Killian leaps on the bed beside Emma and conjures up a thick nightgown, hoping the warmth will stop her from shaking. Now that he is beside her, she seems to tremble even harder, and her eyes are screwed shut as tears pour down her cheeks.

“Emma,” Killian groans. Every second he does not take her, does not hurt her, causes him immense pain. The enchantment of the dagger is torturous, but he grits his teeth to give him just a minute to talk to her, to explain.

“Emma, my darling,” he says, just a little stronger. He hesitantly lays a hand on her wet cheek and she recoils from his touch. “Emma, please,” he begins to beg.

She shakes her head and the little sounds she lets out around her gag are sounds of protestation and rage and uncontrollable terror. She is clearly struggling to breathe, and at this rate he fears that she will faint. And though such a thing would make it easier for him to accomplish Regina’s vile order, it would be anathema for him to take her in such a fashion.

The darkness wants to yell at her to just bloody calm down, but the man takes a deep breath of his own, lays down beside her, and gently strokes her hair and begins to hum the lullaby he would sing to her aboard his ship.

It is the song his mama would sing to him as a boy, a melody that has stayed with him though the words were forgotten centuries ago, and it never fails to relax him. Praying that it will do the same for her, Killian shoves aside his pain and softly sings the tune in her ear. Eventually, she turns toward him, her chest still heaving in panic, but her eyes searching his. Killian manages a smile.

He can feel her open her magic to him, wanting to communicate that way and bypass the gag, but Killian winces and shakes his head. Emma’s brow furrows in confusion.

“I am- I am in too much pain right now, darling. I won’t bring any more on you.”

She only looks more confused and Killian sighs. “The longer I go without obeying Regina’s orders, the more it hurts.”

Emma draws back slightly, or as much as her bound position allows, and Killian imagines that if not for the chains she would be across the room, cowering in fear.

Killian grits his teeth. “I have to take you, Emma. And soon. And-” he stumbles over the words. “I have to make it hurt.”

She draws her legs up to her chest as though he has threatened her, and, in fact, he has, and it causes another jolt of pain to mark his heart. He was supposed to save her, protect her from all harm, and he is being commanded to bring her worst nightmare to life and take her against her will.

“Emma.” He wipes the tears from her cheek and places his hand on the warm flesh. “I can put you to sleep if you want. When you wake up, you will have no memory of any of this and it will be like you are seeing me again for the first time since I left.”

She looks at him for a long time, as though seriously considering his offer, but then she shakes her head, and he lets out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. He thinks he would hate himself even more if he fucked her and took away her memory of it, as awful as it will be.

Another wave of agony shoots through him and Killian curls in on himself, muffling the sound with his fist in his mouth. When the worst of it passes, he meets her eyes again and is shocked to find concern there.

“Please,” he begins to beg. “Please, let me take you. I will- I will be as gentle as I can, but I don’t know how much longer I can hold out before the darkness takes over and it will not be gentle.”

Emma nods slightly and it is enough for him to lean forward and kiss her soft cheek. She shudders slightly and Killian trails his lips down her jaw and down the column of her neck.

She is going to hate him. Hate him so horrifically that she will go to great lengths to cancel their deal and end their marriage. He failed to tell her about his one weakness and it has led to him becoming the instigator of her worst nightmare.

“I am so sorry,” he murmurs into the soft skin above her breasts. He gently licks her skin and moans at the taste of sweat that lingers there, the saltiness of her exertions. His mouth moves back up and he begins to work a bruise into her neck. The harsh cry that leaves her throat is enough to banish some of his pain. He has had to trade his torture for hers and he hates himself for it.

But the reward is a clearer head and the ability to open his magic to her. He invites her in, begs her to come closer, and tries to shove aside all of his pain and anxiety so she can feel the love that he has for her.

Tentatively, Emma’s magic touches his, and it nearly makes him cry.

“Darling,” he gasps. Now the desire to take her is not built on Regina’s vile order, but on the wave of longing that has swept over him and pulled his own longing out of his soul and straight to the surface. “I missed you too.” Killian shifts so that he can hover over her and gaze down at his love, his bride, his partner. “I missed you every minute of every hour of every day, Emma.”

The gag does not allow him to kiss her, so he rains kisses across her damp cheeks and closed eyes and furrowed brow, then down her neck and to a place under her ear where he bites down again. She gasps in surprise and pain.

“I am sorry,” he apologizes. “I don’t want to hurt you, I promise. I had hoped to show you how pain,” he drags his teeth gently down the column of her neck, “enhances pleasure. But not this way, Emma.” He pulls away so she can see the sincerity in his eyes. She searches him, touches him with her magic, and nods in understanding. 

“Can you trust me? Please?”

She nods again, though she is trembling, and he loves her all the more for her bravery. Killian nuzzles against her neck and whispers his thanks as he magics away his clothes until he is as naked as she had been. He holds his hook in his hand and carefully places it in her bound left hand. 

“Drop my hook at any time for any reason and I will stop, I promise.” He wraps her fingers around his moniker and squeezes. Emma nods once more. 

Killian pushes her conjured nightgown up and past her hips and considers his two options. He could just take her now and be done with it. His traitorous body is already showing signs of response to having a naked Emma splayed out beneath him. But most of the pain that he would inflict would be on her tight, dry, clenched quim. She may forever fear lying with him. 

His other option is to take his time, prepare her body, but stave off his pain by inflicting pain on her. Killian pauses in his perusal to take in a fresh bruise on her rib. It seems to be the same place as the one she had when she first came to him. Killian covers the ugly mark with a trembling hand. 

“Did a Black Knight do this to you?” His voice shakes but he manages to meet her eye. Emma nods and his heart breaks some more. “Do you know which one?” Another nod and Killian clenches his jaw. The darkness whispers that this would be a convenient place to hurt the Princess. A strategic pinch or slap and he gets quite a lot of pain for minimum effort. 

Killian leans down and brushes his lips across the angry red bruise. Never again.

He covers her stomach with more of his kisses, and when his pain starts to rise he nips at the skin at her waist and hates how he loves the gasp she lets out. He does it again and it clears his head completely so he can trace his fingertips across her thighs with soft teasing. 

“She said to make it hurt, but I do not want it to hurt here,” he explains, moving his touch to her folds. Killian carefully circles his fingers. “You’ve always been so wet for me, Emma. I need you to do it again.”

Killian spreads her open, gathers saliva on his tongue, and licks a long stripe across her to begin to prepare her. But she is not completely dry. There is a hint of her arousal, salty and satisfying, that lingers on his taste buds, and he groans at the realization. 

“Bloody hell,” he murmurs into her flesh. He laps at her again and the taste is stronger. A few more licks and she is dripping on his tongue in earnest. “You are doing so good, darling. Perfect, wonderful, marvelous woman.”

He can only kiss and suck and lick her for a few minutes before his pain starts to rise again. He must hurt her. Soon. Or take her, but he needs a little longer to be ready, to minimize the amount of time he is inside of her. 

Killian grazes her sensitive nub with his teeth, eliciting a shout, but it isn’t enough. He pulls away and shifts so that her lower body is twisted and he can see her lovely arse. Killian sinks his teeth into the soft flesh and bites down. He sucks and bites until a fresh bruise appears and she is squirming in his touch and against her bindings. The darkness loves this, and the pirate does too. He gets a vision of Emma littered with bruises and love marks and the red imprint of his hand on her flesh. 

It makes him harder and he hates himself. 

He returns her to her back and dips his fingers inside of her to stretch and prepare her. This time the sounds she makes around her gag are ones of pure pleasure and he breathes a sigh of relief. His hook is still in her hand. The pain has not been too much. He settles his stump on her shoulder as his fingers set a gentle rhythm. 

“I am so sorry, darling.” Her magic reaches out to him again and as he lets it wash over him, he feels the longing she has to comfort him. It nearly knocks him clear across the room. “Emma,” he says in a daze. “Emma, you should hate me.”

She shakes her head so emphatically that her shackles rattle at the movement.

“Emma?”

Her magic hits him again, rolling across him, covering him, drawing him closer so that he drapes himself across her body. His hardness settles between her thighs, where she is warm and soft. And there is a tear falling down his cheek, landing on the bodice of her nightgown. She looks at him again with concern and love and he is simply overcome. 

He says her name again, filled with awe for this angel beneath him. How could she still care for him? Killian kisses her cheek a final time and sits back to line himself up at her entrance. This time there is no need to remind her to relax, because she is more than ready to receive him. Her quim is wet and velvet soft. When he is fully seated, they let out twin sighs of desire. 

But as wonderful as it feels to be inside of her, taking her and claiming her, it was too easy. She needs to hurt again. 

“I have to-” Killian chokes out, waving a hand to remove her bunched-up nightgown and bare her again to his gaze. He ducks down to capture a pert nipple in his mouth, teasing and tugging until she cries out and the darkness is sated. 

He begins to set an easy rhythm, something to let her adjust to him, and from the way her eyes close and her legs lock around his waist, it feels as good for her as it does for him. Killian holds her hip for purchase and begins to thrust harder. He is torn between the desire to keep apologizing for violating her and praising her for her bravery in the face of her fear. He settles for giving voice to the pleasure coursing through his body, the fire that is licking both of them with flames of desire.

“You feel so bloody good, wife,” he gasps. “So warm and wet. Always dripping for me.” Every thrust is adding to the blaze and he knows he could fall soon, but he also feels her lust, and he will not leave her unsatisfied. “I have missed your cunt wrapped around me. Have you missed my cock, darling? Dreamt about me taking you again?”

She nods, eyes still closed, and when she clenches around him he almost erupts. The darkness is screaming at him again, so Killian slows his pace and leans down to tug on her unabused nipple. He bites down and teases and suckles harshly until she shouts out once more, thrashing in his hold. Again his head clears and it allows him to hold her in place with his stump and move his fingers to her hidden nub.

Her entire body shakes this time as he spreads her moisture across the bud. “Do you think you can come, darling? Will you let me show you stars?” The nod she gives him is eager, her eyes open but glazed-over with rapture. Killian is able to push aside the darkness for long enough to fuck her steadily, toy with her carefully, and watch the fire of her passion blaze through her body, her cunt squeezing him and her back arching and her cries so loud that he imagines she will soon grow hoarse.

Killian fucks her through her orgasm until her body relaxes, but her quim is still trembling around him. He has held off as long as he could. The darkness comes rushing back in, whispering suggestions about how to give in to his deepest desires. Ways to hurt Emma. He twists her lower body, pulling one leg up and draping her knee over his shoulder. It allows him to once again grasp her arse in his hand, grip the firm flesh, and draw his hand back to strike her.

It rends a satisfying crack that echoes around the room the instant before Emma cries out again.

He hits her a second time and her response is quieter, as if she expects it. He continues a series of strikes across her backside until she is whimpering and quivering in his arms, her cunt still soft and receptive as he pounds into her.

“Bloody. Fucking. Hell,” he pants, punctuating each word with a thrust that sends him closer to his edge. Her sweet arse is pink now. The darkness loves this. Loves the deal he’s made and the opportunity it’s given him to take his pleasure from her exactly as the pirate craves.

He lets the darkness take over as his ecstasy crests over him. Killian gives her arse a final smack and digs his fingers into the fat so that her screams join his growls of her name. And he can sense, through the overwhelming fire of his completion, that she is ablaze too, affected as well, their pleasure and pain all wound up into one. 

He fills her with his seed and immediately all the darkness flees. He has completed his task. The stud has filled the broodmare. Killian is left hollow and empty and terribly, terribly guilty. 

Almost afraid of what he will see, Killian looks over at Emma’s left hand and is relieved to see the hook still firmly in her grip. She had not dropped it. She had not attempted to signal that his pain was more than she could handle. Killian reaches up to take it from her hand, wanting to communicate that he will not hurt her anymore.

Killian is still hard when he slips from her silken grasp. He kisses her neck, her breasts, and her stomach as he slides down her body on his way to attach his mouth to her cunt. Her fire is astonishing. He expected her to be trembling with fear but instead she is teetering on her own precipice, eager to fall, moaning and whimpering around her gag. Two fingers enter her and his tongue runs lazy circles across her flesh and she’s falling again, set ablaze. He groans at the bliss of the taste of their combined essences. 

“Emma, my Emma, my love, you are so amazing,” he murmurs as he works his mouth back up her form and covers her limp body with his shaking body. Just like the first time they laid together - the first time they made love - he can feel her magic wrapping around him, pulling him closer, offering him comfort as his mind returns to earth. 

“Emma I am so proud of you darling. You are so brave, so strong, so magnificent,” he murmurs into her neck. He conjures up another nightgown for her and another pair of soft trousers for himself, cognizant of her still-trembling limbs. But she shakes her head and lets out a grunt of protestation, and it takes a look in her eyes and a touch of her magic before he understands. 

When he makes their clothes disappear again and their skin can touch, she lets out a sigh of contentment. He chooses to conjure a thick blanket instead, one to drape across both of them, and he shifts and adjusts until he is holding her as best as he can, stroking her hair or her face or her side, offering her sweet kisses, and hoping she feels through their magical connection how very very sorry he is. How thankful he is to be with her again. How much he loves her. 

“You shouldn’t have come for me,” he finally whispers. 

Emma shakes her head. 

“This could have been even worse,” he says more firmly. Killian moves to examine her wrists, and seeing that they are red and chaffed, he brushes his fingers across the flesh to heal her. He settles back by her side and gives her a level look. “I’m not worth it, Emma.”

Emma shakes her head again. 

Killian only frowns and stares at her, wondering what else he can say, how else he can protect her. He nudges her nose with his own and drops a kiss on her cheek. 

“I should have told you about the dagger. It is the weapon I used to kill Rumpelstiltskin, and when I did, it bound me to the darkness. It is the only thing that can kill me and the only thing that can control me.” He sighs and searches her eyes for condemnation. But he only sees pity that makes his heart ache. 

“At some point before or during our wedding one of Regina’s spies took the dagger from my vault and brought it to her.” Killian toys with a limp curl. “I didn’t- I didn’t want to leave you that night,” he says shakily. 

Her eyes fill with tears. From the start she had been reluctant for him to be parted from her. He often felt her need for him to be near, her fear of being separated from him. He’s become a bit of a crutch as she has been coming into her own. Being pulled away by Regina only a few hours after consummating their wedding vows was a special kind of cruelty and he wonders if the Evil Queen timed her actions on purpose to inflict extra pain on her former ward. 

A tear slips down his own cheek as he cups her face in his palm. Her pain cuts through his heart. “I didn’t want to leave you, darling. Do you believe me?”

She examines his expression and finally nods and it makes his heart grow lighter. He kisses her again, curls up next to her and drapes his arm across her, praying that Regina will leave them alone for the night. 

“Can you sleep? Rest? If Regina-” he stumbles over his words “-when she returns I will wake you up, I swear. I will say goodbye this time.”

Emma takes a deep breath and stares back at him. When he begins to hum the lullaby again, her eyes flutter closed. He watches her body slowly relax as sleep and exhaustion claim her, until finally she falls asleep and he watches her, half filled with hope, half filled with terror, and hating how content he is just to be with her again, no matter the circumstances. 

Emma wakes up to Killian’s bark of, “Stay back!” and the warmth of another nightgown being summoned to cover her body. She had fallen asleep to Killian’s gentle touch and that is now gone. Her eyes fly open in fear.

Killian is standing at the foot of the bed, dressed once again in the clothes that he wore the night she first met him: a heavy leather coat, dark trousers, and sturdy black boots. He strikes an imposing figure and she can feel his fury directed at the open doorway. 

It takes a moment for Emma to know what has brought about Killian’s storm of rage. She peers around his form to see two Black Knights have entered the room. Killian is all anger, but seeing two of her tormentors close the door behind them and walk closer to the bed has her fear return full-force.

She had often had nightmares about this very thing happening: Black Knights storming into her room, touching her, hurting her, taking her against her will. It was only Killian’s gentle lullaby in her ear that had kept her from running from him each morning on his ship. Emma stares at the two Black Knights and prepares for them to throw her husband out and have their own way with her. Would Killian be able to stop them?

He’s vowed to protect her. His soft touches, amidst the darkness’s wicked bites and strikes, made him a man of his word. But the reprieve seems to be over. Regina never promised that she and Killian would not be parted. 

“If you value your pitiful lives, you will keep your hands off my wife,” Killian growls. Emma draws her legs to her chest in preparation to kick out if attacked. Her panic is rising, jagged streaks of lightning and pain, and she appreciates how, through his anger, Killian’s magic touches hers and offers reassurance that he will not be leaving her side without a fight. 

One of the guards removes his helmet and a cascade of thick brown hair, streaked with white and red, tumbles over the shoulders of the uniform. 

“You told me he was easy on the eyes, Emma, but I didn’t expect your husband to be so protective.” Emma’s godmother grins at her and takes another step forward. Like a dance, Killian moves to block Ruby’s advance, and when Ruby stops again, her grin is even wider. “Oh yes, I am so glad to see that it isn’t one-sided.”

Emma feels her cheeks color in embarrassment and Killian turns to look at her, flummoxed by the disarming Ruby. “Emma?”

She relaxes in her bindings and reaches out with her magic. She touches him with something soft and safe. Something so he might know everything is fine. Killian blinks at her in surprise. Ruby attempts to cross to her again and this time Killian lets her. She makes her way to Emma’s side and tugs off the gag. Emma sighs in relief, so glad to finally be able to breathe again.  

“Far be it from me to judge someone else for their bedroom activities, but is there a reason that my goddaughter is tied up and gagged?”

Emma’s tongue probes the corners of her mouth and gently runs along the tender and torn flesh. She clears her throat and speaks with a voice still hoarse from both her screams of protest before Killian arrived and the cries of pleasure as he followed Regina’s orders. 

“Regina did this. And ordered Killian not to free me.” As Emma had expected when Ruby revealed herself, her companion removes his helmet to reveal the soft brown gaze of the only Black Knight who’s ever protected Emma during her years of captivity. “Graham? Do you happen to have a key somewhere?”

Killian doesn’t even attempt to block the man Emma addressed by name. He just steps to the side as Graham moves to release Emma from her confines and she sighs in relief and moves her sore muscles. 

Ruby is still frowning at Killian. “And why, exactly, did you listen to Regina?” She moves to Emma’s other side and runs her fingers along the tender flesh of Emma’s wrists, healed by Killian but quickly chafed again while she slept. Emma pulls her hand back and prepares herself to wash away another wave of Killian’s wrath.

But the storm never comes. Instead, Emma sees shame flash in Killian’s eyes, and when she reaches out to him with her magic she finds that he’s hidden himself away again.

“Killian couldn’t help it,” Emma explains. Ruby helps her off the bed and pulls her into a hug. “Regina’s got a way to force the Dark One to follow her orders, so all Killian could do was minimize the damage.”

It seems the best way to explain what had transpired in the room, and though Ruby still looks dubious, eyes lingering on the love bites neither of them magicked away, she shrugs and steps to the side. Emma would like to greet Graham and thank him for bringing her godmother to her rescue, but from the way Killian is folding in on himself she knows she’s got to talk to him next.

Emma wraps her fingers around his hook and tugs him toward her. He’s still looking at the ground and that is frustrating. With a grunt, Emma drags his arms around her, circles her arms around his shoulders, and pulls him in for a kiss.

He responds in an instant, his lips soft and gentle and loving - everything he was not able to be as they laid together. But everything she knew was under the surface. Everything she trusted could not be torn away from him, no matter what special power Regina wields. She cannot do and say everything she wants in this moment, with an audience, so Emma settles for ending the kiss and pressing her forehead to his.

“I forgive you,” she whispers. She’s not sure if she has the bravery to admit how much she enjoyed the coupling, including those moments when he gave in to the darkness, but she knows that this is what he needs to hear. That she holds no ill will toward him and does not hold him responsible for his actions. “There is nothing to forgive, but I do forgive you, Killian.” She kisses his cheek.

He draws in breath to protest again so she only covers his mouth with her hand and glares at him, shocked at her audacity to silence the Dark One. With her palm still pressed to his lips, Emma turns back to the two others in the room and smiles at them brightly.

“Killian, I would like to introduce you to my godmother, Ruby. Regina’s been keeping her kind on the run since my parents were taken so she didn’t hear about our wedding until after the fact.”

The coolness of his hook wraps around her wrist and draws it away from her mouth, eyes no longer contrite, but a little annoyed, like she’s a petulant child. “Her kind?”

“Werewolves,” Ruby replies breezily. Killian doesn’t recoil, which is a rarity for those who meet Ruby. Instead, his brows rise in surprise and she would almost say he looks impressed.

He turns his attention to Graham. “And you are not a Black Knight either, I suppose?”

“Oh no, I am.” Graham’s response is soft and ashamed. This time, Killian does recoil, and his hook twitches at his side like he wants to sink it into Graham’s chest. There’s an anger that brews and Emma carefully dries it up.

“Graham has been a Black Knight since my mother was a girl. He saved her life and ever since he’s been protecting my family in secret.” Emma finally lets Killian go to cross the room and give Graham a hug. “All these years as Regina’s prisoner were awful, but I know it would have been ten times worse without Graham here.”

He flushes a little, which is typical for Graham, never wanting attention on himself, but allows her to wrap her arms around his familiar form. When she pulls away, she’s pretty sure he’s tearing up, and turns back to her godmother to give the former huntsman privacy.

“You’ve got a way for us to get out of here?” 

Ruby nods. “New guards arrive in about fifteen minutes so we need to move fast. You come with me, your husband follows Graham, and we meet-”

“I must stay here.”

Killian’s cool command startles them all and Emma feels his dread as strong as if it is her own.

“What?”

Instinctively, Emma steps further away from him, hit by the same insecurities that hit her when she woke up alone in the middle of her night after consummating their marriage. He said that didn’t want to leave her, that it was against his will, but now that they can rescue him, why wouldn’t he come and be free?

“Emma.” Her name is a plea and it feels like a knife in her heart. As if from a distance, Emma hears Ruby and Graham excuse themselves, reminding them that time is short, and once the door closes behind them, Killian has his arms wrapped around her once again, burrowing her head into his neck.

“Darling, I cannot go anywhere. Regina will immediately summon me back. It is fruitless. I must remain here and stay away from you so that I cannot hurt you again.” He pulls back and his eyes are pained. “I cannot hurt you again. You may forgive me, but I won’t be able to forgive myself.” The darkness swirls across his features, a flash of the depth of his pain.

“Killian-”

He shakes his head. “You must promise me that you will not waste your time in trying to rescue me again. It could have been so much worse.”

Emma’s temper flares. She steps away from him so that she can offer him the full force of her glare. “You think this was a waste of time?”

There’s a face he makes that reminds her of her father when her mother asks him a trick question. A scared, trapped look.

“Well, no, but-”

“Do you know what I’ve been through, Killian? What I endured before you found me chained up and helpless? Because I haven’t been sitting around idle, you know.”

“I never said that you-”

“When I woke up hours after consummating our marriage vows, to a cold and empty bed, and wandered the castle until the sun rose, fruitlessly searching for you, I was forced to assume that you felt your end of our contract was fulfilled and it was up to me to birth and raise a child that you may or may not ever deign to meet.”

Killian’s eyes flash to her stomach, a look of horror on his face, and though she can feel his magic probe at her, asking her questions he might not want the answer to, she reinforces the wall between them and straightens her spine even further.

“So I was forced to continue on, husband. ” Emma infuses the title with as much disdain as she can manage. “We began to work on infiltration plans, relying heavily on Graham’s intel. Well, imagine my surprise to find out that my supposedly all-powerful ally, my husband and protector and defender, is sitting in one of the cells of the dungeon, not even being guarded by any of the Black Knights, like a fucking obedient puppy dog!”

She’s reached the zenith of her rage and even though Killian’s attempting to turn her storm into a gentle rain, she gives him no opportunity to do so.

“And now you’re telling me that rescuing you was a waste of time?”

Emma’s surprised she hasn’t blasted him across the room with the force of her magic and her anger. She usually has trouble controlling her powers in such moments of intense emotion. Having lobbed her final question at him, she waits for him to answer and anticipates that it will send her into another tirade.

Instead, his voice is soft and broken.

“Are you with child then?”

Emma flinches and the anger finally washes away. “No. I- I began to bleed several days after you left.” She pushes aside that part of herself that wondered if they had conceived and the shock of his betrayal had made her lose the child. Emma supposes she will never know. She has enough love for him to conceal that truth and keep him from her emotions just a little longer.

Killian’s hand grasps her elbow and she looks down at it, confused, uncertain. “I need you to leave me here. For your own protection. For your own safety.” His grip gets tighter and she moves her eyes to his pained expression. “And you need to tell me that revealing Graham’s true loyalty would make it impossible to take the kingdom back.”

She gives him a curious look and finally opens her magic to him again. Just a little bit. She doesn’t want him to know how pained and abandoned she felt, but she will admit that she missed him.

“Of course. Graham is essential to our plan.”

He nods and there’s an expression of relief on his face. “Then I won’t be able to tell Regina about him. She cannot make me obey an order that goes against our deal. Anything that keeps your bloodline from returning to the throne or keeps you from carrying my child.”

Emma’s hand drifts up to her stomach against her will and Killian follows the movement. His feelings have not been concealed from her since he filled her with his seed and accomplished Regina’s ordered task. She has felt his care for her and clung to it like a life line in a storm. That longing for a child and for a family has returned. He lays his hand over her own as though he is sealing her womb from danger.

“I hope that we didn’t-” he begins.

“I hope that we did,” she counters. Emma pulls her hand from under his and covers his hand with her palm, pressing his hand firmly against her midsection. “Because you are a man of your word and I intend to be a woman of my word. I know that you’ve worked hard to make the first part of our deal come to pass. Now I must focus on the second part.”

His lips meet hers with a delightful passion that she can feel down in her toes. This is what she had missed when he took her earlier in the night. His sweet and sensual kisses, the delight of his tongue dancing across hers and his hand cupping her cheek as he leads her exactly as he wants her to move. His kisses set her ablaze and make her forget her name and where they are and how much time has-

Emma pulls away abruptly and tries to sense how much time has passed since Graham and Ruby left them alone.

“You must go, darling,” Killian says with a pained expression. The hand combing through her hair is in contrast with his words that say she should leave. “And the nature of my curse means I must stay.”

His phrasing stops Emma in her tracks. Emma’s mind starts to spin and she surveys him, thinking about everything he’s told her about how he became the Dark One and how it changed him.

“Curse?”

He answers, oblivious to her sudden interest. “Aye. It is a curse, though there are some that crave this power enough they would be willing to-”

“But it’s a curse? So it can be broken?”

Killian stops mid-sentence and looks at her with confusion in his eyes. “Well, I suppose that is possible…”

“By the most powerful force of all? True Love?”

She feels so silly for even saying it aloud. Killian cares for her, she knows that to be true, but he’s never professed a love for her or anything that goes beyond fondness for her, passion for how their bodies can fit together, and the work of fulfilling their deal. Love? True Love, even? She’s a foolish, naive little girl for even suggesting it. Emma’s face grows hot and she can’t look at his astonished expression any longer, choosing to step back and survey the room as she closes herself off again.

“Sorry, that was stupid of me,” she says meekly. Instead of wanting to take Killian with her, now she desperately wants to get out of this room, out of this conversation, away from the moment when she suggested to the Dark One that his love for a helpless princess might be worth it to take away his incredible powers.

How could she even suggest such a thing?

“Emma?”

The tip of her tongue tucks into her cheek and she bites down on it to try to stave off the tears that are burning the corners of her eyes.

“Darling?”

She hums in the back of her throat and looks over his right shoulder, unable to meet his eyes. She is such a damn coward. Emma is so focused on not showing any weakness that when Killian’s hand and hook land on her hips she jumps in his arms, having not noticed he even moved.

“I’m sorry,” she blurts out again.

“No need to apologize.” The curve of his hook draws her chin up but Emma shuts her eyes tight to avoid his pitying gaze. “It was a brilliant thought. But already I know you do not return my love.”

Emma’s eyes fly open at his words and she searches his expression for a mocking that is not there. The blue eyes blinking back at her are full of so much sincerity that she thinks she might fall over backwards from shock. He is not lying. He is… in love with her?

“You are in love with me?”

Killian hesitates and then she feels his magic nudge against hers, inviting her closer, offering her something he’s never shown her before. It has a depth and a breadth and a wideness that makes her breath catch in her lungs. It is love , so overwhelming and powerful that her knees would give out if not for his hand at the small of her back. She stares up at him in shock and her mouth cannot formulate any other questions.

“I didn’t want to frighten you,” he explains quietly.

She shakes her head, wondering why on earth she would be frightened and she can feel his magic close off again, a gate inside of him folding in half, then in quarters, and then again in eighths to protect the hidden place inside. Emma rushes to wedge it open and beckons him to see the place she’s been keeping from him. That place she poured all of the love she had thought was futile and childlike and silly.

Emma is looking in his eyes the moment he realizes it. His pupils grow wide and he stares back at her as though he can scarcely believe it. As if her loving him is the most extraordinary, unexpected thing.

“Emma?” he asks. She knows the rest of the question.

“Of course,” she answers. She reaches up to hold his face in her hands and lets him deeper into the place where she loves him. “How could I not?”

And with their love around them and in them and flowing through them, Killian brings his lips down to hers and she hopes that their love will be enough to break the curse.

Chapter Text

Her magic winds around him. 

The first time their magic had touched in this way, when he had twisted their magic together in an effort to banish Regina’s guard dragon, it had been a knitting together of their powers. She’d offered him a single strand, a thread pulled taut, and he’d caressed the trusted gift before winding it around his own. One-by-one she gave him more and more of her magic and carefully, methodically, lovingly, he’d connected the threads to his own until they were a tapestry of silver and gold, light and dark, night and day. 

Today, it is all gold. As golden as the strands of her hair, a curtain of light and love. Today, her magic reaches out to his magic. As he runs his tongue along the seam of her lips, he hands her a thread. When she sighs against his mouth, he hands her another one. Again and again and again as her hands fist the fabric of his shirt at the small of his back and his hand lands on the swell of her arse, he gives her more and more of his magic. But rather than make him stronger, make them stronger, he feels the loss of his dark magic like a gaping hole in his armor. 

He begins to grasp for his silver cords again. 

No. 

He can’t. 

He needs the darkness. 

What was he thinking?

Emma’s magic tries to subdue the tide of fear but it is too late. He is terrified. Terrified to lose their connection, terrified to lose their deal. 

Who is he if he is not the Dark One?

Who is he to her if he no longer has the ability to protect her? What about the spell he cast around the Dark Castle? What about his ability to fell all the Black Knights with a single sweep? His vow to enact vengeance on Regina and whatever guards dared to mar her perfect skin with bruises?

How can he keep her safe if he does not have his powers?

Any of the soft submission that had begun their kiss becomes a desperate grasp to hold on to his magic. Killian pulls away from her lips and releases her waist and stumbles away like a blasted idiot. 

He cannot give up his magic. 

He cannot leave her vulnerable. 

He would not be able to live with himself if his inability to keep himself in check meant she could not reclaim her birthright. 

Emma’s hands, small but strong, grasp his elbows and keep him from falling. “Killian?” she gasps. She sounds as though she has been running for hours. 

“Emma, I’m sorry I can’t-”

Her fingers squeeze tighter as her magic tries to pull him close but in a panicked attempt to protect itself, the darkness shutters itself away and builds a wall and throws away the damn key. 

He can’t. He’s weak and he’s a coward. 

“But you…” Her voice trails off before she can vocalize what he has done or could do. And that is for the best, because it would be a lie. He closes his eyes tight as the darkness pitches a bloody fit against the attempt to kick it out. It makes his head ache. 

“I’m sorry. I thought you wanted the curse to go away,” Emma says quietly after a minute.

Killian sighs. He opens his eyes and he doesn’t need a magical connection to know that he’s hurt her. Killian steadies his feet beneath him and reaches for her again, shocked when she doesn’t flinch from his touch. It is easier to just pull her close and rest his chin on the top of her head. He allows himself a moment to hold her in his arms, carefully concealing his self-hatred from her. But time is running short.

“You need to go, darling. Now. Before you lose your chance.”

Emma sighs and burrows closer to him. “And you?”

His heart leaps that she would still care about him after his abysmal failure. How can she still care about him when he’s shown how weak and unlovable he is?

Killian summons his fortitude. “I will be here, waiting for you to defeat Regina. And when you do,” Killian loosens his grip and looks down at her to waggle his eyebrows in exaggerated innuendo, hiding his pain behind swagger, “that’s when the fun will begin.”

She uses her magic to transform her nightgown into a Dark Knight uniform, helmet tucked under her arm, and, with a soft, lingering kiss to his cheek, she slips out the door and locks it behind her. Emma’s final words wrap around his feeble, broken, undeserving heart.

“I promise I will find you again. I will always find you.”

His fingers graze the place where a chaste kiss meant so much more than a darkness-soaked embrace a few hours ago. He feels the promise in it. The assurance. And, for the first time, her love. He can scarcely believe it, but Princess Emma loves him. Him. He’s already witnessed what she’s capable of doing for the parents that she loves. Regina may have gotten the upper hand this time, but Killian knows that Emma will soon triumph.

A smile spreads across his face as he contemplates how Regina will soon discover the Princess is safely away and her plan did not prosper. Witnessing her wrath shall be delicious.

He chooses to shackle himself between two bedposts for the big reveal, remaining clothed because the sight of his own naked body splayed across the bed is a pleasure he’d rather save for his wife and not her tormentor. He smirks at the woman when she flings open the locked bedroom door and the look on her face is simply priceless. Wide eyes, slack jaw, hair nearly standing on end. Killian emblazons it all in his mind, contemplating if he would be able to paint it for his future amusement. Emma would love that. 

Regina has her Black Knights beat him purple and blue and orders him to “Take it like Emma did,” a sharp command that doesn’t hit him quite as she had likely wanted. Because his Emma took it with strength and dignity and grace. She did not back down from the pain he inflicted upon her, and, with the sound of her pleasure still ringing in his ears and the taste of her eager cunt still on his tongue, Killian mentally blocks out the abuses of the Black Knights until one finally, mercifully, kicks him in the face and he can embrace the darkness that he deserves.

He wakes up back in the dungeon, empty stomach retching up bile, his entire body aching from the beating courtesy of the Black Knights.

“No healing yourself, Hook,” Killian can hear Regina laugh in his mind. “If I am going to suffer, you’ll suffer with me.”

He passes his days cataloging every bump and bruise and scrape, watching as they slowly heal themselves, and contemplating his many many failures. All of them centered on Emma. Most of all, he hates the way he tricked her into falling in love with him, presenting himself as the one and only avenue to her freedom and reclamation of the crown, rather than sending her straight away to one of the neighboring royal families who would have made a much better alliance with the vulnerable princess. He had let the darkness get the better of him and made a deal that both man and monster had wanted so desperately.

It led to him torturing her. Abusing her in the very way she had always feared she would be abused. And the brave woman is so hungry for love and affection she has been unable to see how this should be the final straw, the nail in the coffin, the reason she should wash her hands of him.

He spends his days hating himself. And he spends his nights recalling her final words to him.

“I promise I will find you again. I will always find you.”

Princess Emma is a woman of her word. She will. He knows she will and he both longs for and dreads the day she will fulfill her promise.

His bruises are mostly healed, except a stubborn one below his ribs that he suspects was a gift from the same Black Knight that inflicted a similar bruise on Emma’ perfect body, when he’s startled from his self-deprecating musings by the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard in his life.

“Killian, I summon thee.”

He’s transporting himself before the darkness even begins to suggest pain at ignoring her bidding. The dark red smoke swirls around his body and he deposits himself on an elevated walkway on the wall of the castle. Below him, Killian can hear the cries of hundreds of soldiers fighting one another in the courtyard of the palace and pouring out into the field and the forest beyond. But he focuses his gaze on the two women entangled in a magical battle, shooting fire and sparks of lightning at one another. The Dark One’s dagger is held in Emma’s trembling hand, but from the set of her jaw, he’s fairly certain she only just overtook Regina to take it from her.

“Please,” Emma cries, sparing him a desperate look before ducking down to avoid one of Regina’s attacks. “Please stop this.”

She doesn’t even understand what she’s doing, the power that she wields in her strong but delicate hand. Emma could have him conquer the entire kingdom for her in a moment - their deal would make this an even easier order to obey - but the hurried words betray how she is running on instinct now, not strategy.

Killian lifts his hands to immobilize Regina and Emma snaps, “No, not her, stop them.” She jerks her head below, to where another battle is raging, and there’s fear rising higher in her eyes. “All those innocent people, I don’t want them to-” Her further explanation is cut off by the firebolt that rips into her shoulder. Killian’s fury at Regina hurting Emma is tempered by the pain of not doing her bidding.

With his own growl of frustration, Killian turns away from his worst nightmare to focus on the combat below. Carefully, methodically, he sends each Black Knight and conscripted soldier down to the ground. He would just as soon kill them all, but David’s words about vengeance and mercy still ring heavy in his mind so he spares them. For now. It takes entirely too long to meticulously remove all of Regina’s minions from the skirmish, the time made worse by the knowledge that, at any minute, Regina could take back the dagger or kill Emma. Or both.

Finally, once he’s satisfied, Killian turns back to Emma, whose brow is furrowed in concentration as she sends a windstorm at Regina. The woman cackles evilly and bats it away with little effort. But she made the mistake of not paying attention to Killian and noticing when he finished his task for his new mistress. Killian reaches out for Emma’s magic, triumphing when she accepts his offer without hesitation, and he fuels her windstorm so that it doubles in size and strength. It engulfs Regina and, when she begins screaming in fury, Killian suddenly stops the spell and wraps her in unbreakable silver bindings of his magic, lashing her arms to her sides, her legs together, and her mouth closed.

He steps forward to gloat, a smirk already on his lips, when he’s stopped in his tracks not by the dagger, but by gentle fingers around his forearm.

“Killian.”

He turns in surprise and reads the gratefulness in her expression. The love and the acceptance. The excitement to see him that he knows he doesn’t deserve, and it fills him with pleasure even as his stomach fills with his own regret.

“Emma,” he breathes, unable to help himself. Killian runs his fingers down the soft swell of a cheek he hadn’t truly dreamt he would be able to touch again. “Are you hurt?” His eyes catch on the torn fabric of her sleeves before he turns to the black dragonscale armor that covers her chest. “You- you wore the armor I gave you,” he stutters in surprise.

Her smile is a sight to behold. To bow down before and worship. “Of course I did.” Emma nods at the immobilized Regina. “Is she secure?”

“Aye.”

“I want to talk to her.”

A flick of his hook releases the bindings around Regina’s mouth and Killian gestures that Emma is welcome to step forward for her own gloating. She’s certainly earned it. To his shock, she tucks the dagger into her belt, takes his hand, and brings him with her. She doesn’t take this moment of triumph alone, she invites him into it.

Once again, he’s humbled beyond belief.

“I don’t believe I ever offered you my congratulations, Princess,” Regina snarls before Emma can say anything. “Although I am confused at why you would possibly want to marry a bloodthirsty pirate when you could have had an elegant baron.”

The storm of Killian’s rage rises in an instant but Emma calmly blows it away with a soft breeze. Gods but he’s missed her. 

“We both know Baron Conomor was not a suitable match,” Emma says with much more poise than Regina deserves. 

She shrugs. “He was a starting point. You could have had others. A silly, sweet, titled thing to bandage your wounds and allow you to feel powerful for once.” Her eyes flick to Killian. “But I suppose since you were used to rough treatment, every slap feels like a caress. How could you be happy with real love when all you’ve known is loneliness?”

Now it is Emma’s fury that coalesces. Killian doesn’t even waste his energy on trying to make it dissipate. Her hand trembles in his own and though the darkness gives him insults to level against Regina, he bites his tongue. 

“I feel sorry for you, you know that?”

For an instant, Regina’s hardened demeanor cracks and Killian can see the naked shock at Emma’s words. But then she scowls and coldly retorts, “And why would that be?”

“Because you obviously don’t understand love.” Regina’s jaw clenches and she makes no response. “You see someone like Killian, who has just as much darkness as you do-“ his breath leaves his lungs, waiting for Emma’s condemnation “-and you assume that he must be as weak as you are, unable to fight the darkness. But you’re wrong. I have seen him battle it every day.” Her grip becomes almost painful but her faith in him releases the pressure on his chest. “My parents taught me that everyone deserves a second chance. That no person is beyond redemption.”

Regina scoffs, breaking the spell of Emma’s words. “Adorable. You found yourself a little second-chance pet. He beats you and you go crawling back to him. You really should have given Baron Conomor a chance, Princess. At least his bruises would have come without the stench of rum.”

He cannot hold back any longer. Killian storms across the elevated walkway to glare up at the woman, bound and suspended by his magic. With a twist of his hook, the ties around her tighten, and Regina takes a gasping gulp of air.

“I think it is time you had some bruises of your own, Regina,” he growls.

“Killian,” Emma says behind him, voice thick with warning, but he pays her no mind. Another twist of his hook tightens the ties even further and he gives Regina a maniacal grin.

“Better yet, we can just close that mouth of yours for goo-”

“Killian! Stop.” This time, Emma’s voice is firmer, and he feels the cords of her magic and the dagger’s magic wind around his arm and halt him from inflicting the killing blow he so desperately craves.

He turns his head and sees the dagger - the bane of his existence - held aloft in his love’s hand. Once again, it trembles in her grip, but her mouth is set in a resolute line.

“Don’t kill her,” Emma says with a strength he’s rarely heard from her. It makes his heart swell with pride and it makes his stomach drop to be commanded this way. He loves it. He hates it.

“Emma,” he groans. He’s so bloody proud of her. He’s so infernally frustrated with her. “Emma,” he says again. “Darling, this is your opportunity.” He weaves his way across the distance between them and pulls her into his arms. Forgetting about Regina, he draws her into a kiss. Her desire sparks to life - she cannot hide it from him - and he takes advantage by deepening the kiss, swallowing her gasp of surprise, and covering her with his own flames of passion. 

“You can finally have your revenge,” he whispers seductively against her soft pink lips. “Kill her and the throne is yours.” Her usually-free hair has been pulled back and braided, a practical hairstyle for battle, and he smooths his palm across her scalp before cupping the back of her head. He stares into her forest-green eyes and purrs, “Kill her and we can live happily ever after.”

Emma pulls away as though she’s been slapped and, confused by her reaction, Killian steps back as well. 

“Darling?”

“No.” Her eyes are focused over his shoulder, at the suspended evil Queen, and his temper flares. 

“Emma,” he snaps, desperately grasping to keep his anger in check, but it is no use. “Kill her and this ends everything. Do you want to spend the rest of your days waiting for her to come after you again?”

“Killing her won’t-”

Killian grabs her shoulders with hand and hook, forcing her eyes back to him. “Killing her,” he grits out, “will give you peace of mind and ensure that our child will not have to look over their shoulder their entire lives, waiting for Regina to attack.”

“Is that what you plan to teach our child? To seek revenge no matter the cost?”

The cool words send a shiver down his spine and wrap around his heart. There is no mistaking her meaning. His vengeance against Rumpelstiltskin that led to his downfall. His curse. He draws himself up to his full height and brushes aside those parts of him that are wounded by her accusation. “I plan to teach our child to be strong. I do not intend to raise a victim.”

Emma’s magic forces him to release her and she turns on her heel, striding away from both of her dark captors. Emma’s working to carefully conceal her true emotions from him, but the tenseness of her shoulders and the way her hands are fisted at her sides betrays how his words wounded her as well. He struck where it hurt and the darkness shrieks in glee with a laugh so much like his deceased nemesis that it turns his stomach.

“Did you know that the Dark One is immortal?” Regina’s question is coated with cloying sweetness. Emma stays still except the way her head cocks slightly, clearly listening. “You breed with him, raise his child as your heir, and his bloodline sits on Misthaven’s throne. How many generations before he exploits that and just takes the throne for himself? Do you think he’ll give you the courtesy of waiting for your death, Princess, or is he just too damn impatient?”

Emma’s response is quiet and wary. “Just because you would do that does not mean Killian would.”

Except he would. The darkness has been whispering that very suggestion from the beginning. Killian quickly hides his embarrassment. He stalks back to Emma and growls in her ear, “She is stalling for time, trying to divide us so she can escape. If you don’t have the stomach to kill her, let me do so, darling. I can keep your hands clean of this mess and secure you the throne - exactly as our deal stated.”

“He’s not afraid to murder to get the throne. Pay attention, my dear. He’ll do it again to your own child or grandchild.”

Impatiently, Killian sends a wave of magic behind him to stop Regina’s constant stream of maleficence. He sighs and places his hand on Emma’s shoulder. His magic politely knocks on the door of hers and waits. She stays frozen for a long time before she slowly opens up to him, a crack in a stony mountain, and when he steps through, he winces at the flashes of pain he experiences.

But it isn’t physical pain, it's mental and emotional pain. Her rage against Regina at odds with the lessons her mother taught her about mercy and forgiveness. Her love for him at odds with Regina’s warnings about his true aims. Killian takes it all in and sighs again, swallowing back his darker emotions so he can show her what he wants her to see.

“Emma, darling,” he whispers softly in her ear, moving his hand from her shoulder to her waist and pulling her back against his chest. “We may not agree on how to handle Regina, but please never doubt that I love you.” He reminds her of the depth of his own feelings, the endlessness of his love for her. Emma sighs, leans against him, and nods.

“I want to kill her,” he confesses. “I vowed to kill her. For you. It would be an act of mercy to do it quickly and not torture her for months on end as the darkness suggests. She deserves the torture, Emma. She deserves to be tormented as she tormented you.”

She remains silent and he struggles to remain patient. “Emma, just order me to-”

“No.”

“You will spend the rest of your life-”

“No." Emma turns finally and he sees the strength in her eyes. His terrified, frightened, wounded princess has transformed into a queen. She refuses to be cowed, even by her husband, even by the Dark One. He knew she would come into her own, and he admires her for it more than he hates her for the way she lifts up the dagger and firmly says, “No, Dark One, I forbid it. You shall not kill this woman.”

The order sinks into his body, becoming law, becoming part of his magic. As long as Emma wields the dagger, he will not be allowed to murder Regina. Killian scowls at her. “You make our deal more difficult to execute.”

“You are a very clever man.” There’s a smile on the corner of her lips. “I have no doubt you will be able to protect me for many years to come… husband.” Her final word is hesitant, a testing of the waters, a lingering uncertainty of who and what he is to her. 

At the word husband, Killian swallows back the biting darkness. He takes one step forward, so he can reach for her again, and brushes the apple of her cheek with his thumb before cupping her face in his palm. It is easier to banish the darkness this way. Easier to obey her and not the voices in his head. He keeps his expression soft and Emma returns his smile.

“Protecting you would certainly be no inconvenience, wife.”

They are just about to kiss again, Regina almost forgotten, when her parents burst onto the wall walk, breathless. Snow’s eyes grow wide when she takes in her tormentor for decades and David’s eyes narrow. Killian would wager that if he had to obey the King’s orders, Regina would already be dead. It seems that the two women have already consulted about what to do with the self-styled Evil Queen, as they instruct Killian to banish her to a certain hovel in the forest, a place where Snow herself once hid from Regina.

“Might I make a suggestion?” Killian asks. Snow gestures for him to continue. “Let me take her heart and it would allow us to reign her back if she ever escapes.”

“No,” Emma says strongly. “I will not stoop to her level.” She pauses, considering, and then - “But you may take her magic. Keep her from using it to hurt anyone ever again.”

There’s a way that Regina howls when he takes her magic that contrasts so mightily with her silent resignation at her banishment. It makes Killian wonder if the punishment of taking her magic is worse than taking her freedom. If it is, Killian does not understand why. Because Killian’s been without magic and he’s been without freedom, and he’s found, for the most part, that a lack of freedom is far worse than a life without magic. And the way that Emma falls into his arms once the woman is banished, he recalls that the very worst is a life without love.

In Killian’s experience, such a life has never been worth living.

Her parents, ever the politicians, go right into damage control mode. Utilizing their best leaders, they create a medic station for all of the wounded - rebels and Black Knights alike - and gather any advisors who can give them an idea of how Regina’s managed and mismanaged Misthaven in the past two decades.

Prince Philip is among the warriors fighting on their side, and Emma’s eyes are drawn to his methodical cataloginging of the names, families, and particular skills of Regina’s Black Knights, as well as offering them each a chance to sign a statement to transfer their loyalty to the restored regime.

“Has Junior been keeping your bed warm as I’ve been away, darling?”

If her husband is trying to tease her, he needs to learn how to better disguise his insecurities. Emma squeezes the hook in her hand - as though he would somehow be able to feel it - and shakes her head. “Junior is utterly terrified of you.” To prove her point, Philip Junior turns to them, locks eyes with Killian, and swallows heavily before turning back to his work, quill shaking slightly in his hand.

“Good,” Killian retorts in a clipped but pleased tone. Emma scoffs.

“The only one I want warming my bed is you, Killian.” She tugs on his hook, leading him into the castle. He stays silent as she guides him through the endless-but-familiar maze of hallways until they reach the most familiar one of them all. Killian hesitates at the door but she pushes it open and crosses the threshold to face her fears.

“This was your childhood bedroom, wasn’t it?”

Emma turns from the four-post bed where she had been chained up and nods. Clever, truly.

“And she made me-”

He does not finish the sentence, and for that she’s grateful. Emma nods again. In an instant, Killian is pulling her against him, wrapping his arms around her as if he could block out the memories of all she had endured in this room. And he does, for just a minute. She loses herself in that scent of him that’s always made her feel safe and forgets about the last twenty years, the last time they were in this room, the weeks without him. 

Emma steps away and for a moment he looks confused. It is an adorable look, a sweet look. She tugs once more on his hook, pulls him to the bed, and with a word from her magic, he understands she wants to curl up in his arms again.  

“Can you sing to me?” she asks shyly. “That song or whatever it is?”

Killian nods and kisses her brow. “Of course, darling.”

He begins to hum and slowly, carefully, hesitantly, she finds the bravery to open the window and throw down a rope to the tower she’s hidden from him, from the place she’s hidden from anyone. The place of nightmares and loneliness. The place where she was beaten. The place where she was forgotten. The place of taunts and cruelty. This place. She lets him see and feel it all, giving it all to him, hand over fist, desperate to share it and be rid of it, and the tears are pouring down her face and soaking into his shirt until she has none left. 

Until she has nothing left. 

“I’m here,” Killian says, as if he can read her thoughts as well as her emotions.

Emma chokes out a sob. 

“You’re alright, love, you’re alright. It is all over now. There is nothing left to fear. You defeated her, you marvelous woman. Nothing else to fear.”

At some point, overcome by emotion and exhausted by all the magic she expended, she falls asleep, once again safe in her husband’s arms. 

She wakes up in her childhood bed and there’s only a single instant of panicked confusion before Killian’s scent hits her and the song he’s still humming calms her frantic heart. 

“I’ve never seen you fall asleep so quickly, darling.”

Emma pushes away from him and rubs her still-wet eyes and though she knows she shouldn’t be embarrassed, she is. She sits up and straightens her clothes. 

“I’m shirking my duties,” she mumbles. “I should be out there tending to the people or talking with advisors or-“

“Emma.” He sits up beside her and pulls one of her hands to his lap. “Before you go back to proving what a brilliant Queen you’ll make, there’s something we must discuss.” A muscle in his jaw twitches and despite the lightness to his tone, she can tell he’s struggling to get his words out. His magic reaches for her as well. 

He needs her help. He needs her strength. There’s a cloud of darkness around him so she lights a candle to banish it away and as soon as she does, the words come tumbling out of his mouth. 

“You can use the dagger to force me to break our contract.” Killian’s are the eyes of a desperate man fighting to keep his head above water. 

“What? But Regina never-”

“Regina never asked. I never told her."

Killian’s hand is squeezing hers so tight she begins to lose feeling in her fingers. Her mind races. “You want to break our deal? You don’t want-?” Emma’s voice falters. 

He swallows heavily, obviously still struggling. The darkness doesn’t want him saying any of this. “You’ve been held prisoner long enough.” His implication is clear. Life with him would be another imprisonment. She will have traded one dark captor for another.

Emma pulls her hand free so she can cup his face with both hands. “I’ve been alone long enough.” Why doesn’t he see this?

Killian shakes his head. “And you are no longer alone. Listen to that, Princess.” Emma holds her breath and strains to hear, but there is no need. The sounds of the wounded being treated, the Black Knights being commanded to turn in their weapons, the celebrations and songs of victory - they echo on every wall of the castle and float into her room like its own soothing lullaby. “You don’t need me,” Killian grunts. He begins to sweat and his breathing is worse than when they faced Regina. “You have your family and your kingdom, just as you wanted.”

And what of his longings? The ache for family and love and togetherness she sensed in him the day they made the deal? The like recognizing like, the kindred nature of their souls? Emma reaches for the last reserves of her strength.

“You’ve fulfilled your end of our bargain. I plan to fulfill mine.”

“Emma, you can’t.”

She holds his face in her hands as though she’d be able to convince him this way. As if, like when they traveled on his ship, a single touch will be enough to make his pain go away. “What about what you want, Killian?”

His eyes close in anguish. “That’s the problem. Regina was right. What I want is the throne. You cannot let me have it. Don’t give the darkness a foothold.” Killian’s hook pulls her hand away from his face and leads her to the dagger still in her belt. She’d fallen asleep for at least a few minutes with it in her possession but Killian hadn’t stolen it. How much willpower had he exerted to leave it alone? Emma’s fingers grip the hilt and she removes it from her belt to hold it aloft and examine the writing on the blade.

Killian Jones

“What would you have me do?” she asks, voice small, eyes on the dagger.

“Break yourself free of our contract and move on with your life. You can claim I was mortally wounded by Regina. Command me to stay out of the public eye for a few generations and you’d be free to make a more fitting match for yourself. Junior’s already shown his aptitude for cleaning up when others have done most of the work.”

He attempts to keep his tone playful but Emma can hear the anguish in it. He’s only been the Dark One for a few years, only hidden himself for a few years. And now he wants to shut himself away for generations? No. Emma licks her lips as she contemplates how to move forward. The reality is, she doesn’t need the deal to uphold her end of the bargain. 

“Dark One,” she begins, feeling rather strange addressing him with this title, trying to make her voice strong, “I command you to release me from our deal.”

Emma holds her breath as a plume of dark magic swirls around them, breaking the chains that bind them to one another and setting Killian free from the bonds of their connection. Once it dissipates, Emma’s light magic takes its turn, checking for wounds and pains and attempting to repair what is broken. 

When it is over, Emma doesn’t feel any different. She still loves him. She still wants him to stay. Emma offers him the dagger and though his hand reaches out for it, his hook loops around his own wrist to pull his hand back. The sudden movement has her blinking in surprise. 

“No. It is better out of my keeping. Use it to subdue me or send it far away, just keep it from me and maybe no one else will get hurt.”

Killian’s eyes land on the head of the bed and the implication is clear: he hurt her. He regrets how the dagger was able to hurt her though him. Killian closes his eyes as if he can bear it no longer. With a sigh, Emma banishes the dagger to a hidden location and feels some of the tension leave the room. 

“If you want to know where I sent it-”

“No. Please don’t tell me, darling. I beg you. It is better for it to be far away from me.” His expression is so troubled that Emma moves closer to him so she can take his hook and hand in her grasp and she reaches out with her magic to hold him tight. He lets her, thankfully, and she sends out her light to cover those cracks in his spirit. She’s not sure how it happens, but she finds her forehead pressed against his own and they are breathing in unison, sharing the same air and - she wouldn’t be surprised - the same rhythm of their hearts.

His voice is quiet. “You are welcome to use the Dark Castle as long as you need. I can find somewhere to reside in the meantime.”

Every word tells her he wants her to leave. And every muscle in his body, every hint his magic reveals, tells her he wants her to stay. Emma takes a deep breath and he opens his pain-filled eyes as if he is waiting to be banished. Emma lets go of his hands and the pain transforms to resignation. But before it can coalesce, she swings her leg over his so she can straddle his lap and cup his face in her hands, forcing him to look up at her. Killian swallows deeply and his brows knit together.

“You shall reside here. With me. As my husband.”

“That is exactly what the darkness wants. And we cannot allow it.”

Emma gently presses her lips to his, nothing more than a flickering candle of desire with a depth much deeper than the way that their bodies can fit together. Killian stays frozen beneath her, frightened, she would guess, although the idea of the Dark One being frightened is as ridiculous as the idea of the Dark One being in love. Her thumb on his chin encourages him to allow her to deepen the kiss. It is a soft exploration, a careful re-education of how to kiss him, and when he moans against her, the flame of the candle burns brighter. Emma digs one hand into his hair and the other slides down his back so she can pull their chests closer together.

For a few minutes, as they kiss, she forgets about their separation and their dilemma. The only thing that matters is him, here with her, and this moment when they are together again. Desire pools deep in her belly and when she finally allows him to break the kiss, she does not allow him to move her off of him.

She feels his magic so interwoven with her own that she isn’t sure where his magic ends and hers begins. Emma takes a shallow breath and whispers into the space between them as though the darkness would not be able to hear them.

“Do you want to break this curse? Do you want to be free of the darkness and the magic?”

His response is so quiet that she almost cannot hear it. “Yes.”

Emma kisses him again, fortifying him, and she senses that now is not the time to try to pry the darkness and the magic away from him. Even admitting his desire to be set free has taken so much out of him.

“Do you still want me to be your wife? Even with our broken deal?”

His response is stronger this time, quicker to be spoken. “Yes.”

Another kiss, this one for courage. She pours it into him and receives it back in return.

“What about children? Not as heirs, just… just as children. Family.”

He hesitates for so long that Emma stops breathing, but finally his eyes flicker to hers and he whispers, “Gods yes.”

Emma sinks into her relief like a hot bath after a long day. She inhales deeply and her lips are curled into a smile when she gives Killian a final kiss. It is more passionate than the others, revealing more of her desires she’s been without during his absence, and if not for the very pressing matters waiting for them in the courtyard and the public spaces of the castle, Emma would be dealing with the matter rising up in his trousers and pressing into the place where she wants him.

“Good,” she beams at him. Emma kisses the tip of his nose and he gives her a look of confused bewilderment. “Because I do not intend to let you go. We do not intend to let you go.” His bewilderment only grows until she takes the hand steadying her hip and slides it to her stomach and gives him a significant look.

“We?” he asks, naked shock coloring his handsome face.

“We,” she confirms with a grin. “I told you I am a woman of my word.” Emma covers the back of his hand with her palm. “Our child on Misthaven’s throne.”

His face is clearly torn between elation and concern. Emma attempts to alleviate his concern with another kiss, and when that doesn’t quite do the trick, she adjusts on his lap and presses her forehead to his.

“Our child will sit on Misthaven’s throne. And I intend to break this damn curse so that you are never tempted to take it from them.” Emma reluctantly climbs off of her husband’s lap and offers him a hand to stand off the bed. She’s never seen him look so out of sorts. He stares at her as though she might be an illusion. 

“We are having a baby?”

“We are having a baby.”

Killian leaps off the bed and lifts her into his arms. “We are having a baby!” he shouts, twirling with her legs wrapped around his waist. She laughs at this rare picture of Killian’s utter bliss and he laughs back and she wonders why she ever doubted that this is what he wanted. 

She sensed it from the start. He craved love and family and companionship. And he’s allowed her to give those things to him. The lost little orphan who didn’t have any of those things either. 

“We’re having a baby,” she giggles when he stops spinning them. “But I’d suggest that we go out there,” she tilts her head toward the window, “and resume our duties so one day there is a throne for our child to inherit.”

Killian kisses her again and sets her down reluctantly and offers her his arm to escort her out of the chamber. She will be asking the servants to prepare a different bedroom for her tonight. She has spent her last night in this room of nightmares and, at long last, it is time for a happy beginning. 

Chapter Text

Try as she might, Snow White cannot pry her granddaughter, Princess Hope, from her father’s arms. 

“We shall be home by tomorrow morning, little love,” Killian attempts to soothe, knowing it will do no good. “I’m sure Grandfather can be convinced to give you your bedtime story if only you will-”

But any of his other reassurances are cut off by the five-year-old’s dramatic wails. For the utterly spoiled princess, this is undoubtedly the worst day of her life. Her large tears soak the front of Killian’s shirt. Though he knows he should push harder, the depth of his daughter’s love for him is always his greatest weakness. 

“What if I am only caring for them because the darkness is planning to use their love for me against them?” he asked Emma a few days after their second child was born. 

Emma gave him an exasperated expression as she settled in beside him on the bed and prepared to pass out in the way he only saw in extreme stress and the first few months after childbirth. 

“You mean what if they grow up knowing nothing but unconditional love from their father? I would say that’s a good thing, Killian.”

Emma began snoring less than a minute later and Killian turned his attention to the baby in his arms and his task as the night guard. After all, being married to an all-powerful being that doesn’t sleep does have its advantages. He held the baby closer and began humming a familiar lullaby.

Two-year-old Isabelle looks at her big sister with detached confusion from the safe distance of her mother’s arms. “Ho sad?” she asks Emma. 

His wife nods and pulls Isabelle closer to kiss her temple. “Yes, Hope is sad. Is Izzie sad?” The girl hesitates, pondering this deep question, and shakes her head. 

“Zee happy,” she proclaims. 

“Oh, I’m glad,” Emma chirps - or Killian thinks she does, as it is hard to hear over Hope’s wails. Emma’s voice rises in volume. “Because happy little girls get an extra slice of cake with dinner.”

The sounds of anguish stop. And a tiny voice pipes up from Killian’s chest. “Cake?” 

Killian holds back a guffaw. “Aye, cake. But Mama and Papa have to leave now or no cake for anyone.” Finally offered a deal she can live with, Hope pecks her father’s cheek and scrambles out of his arms and to her grandmother’s side. Emma hands Isabelle off to her grandfather and Killian takes her hand. 

“Why don’t you girls go up to the tallest tower and when Papa and I get to the Dark Castle we’ll send you a note via paper bird? One for each of you.”

Emma and Killian barely have time to wish them a good night before they’re across the courtyard and dashing into the castle. She turns to her parents and lets some of her bravery slip away. 

“Home by morning?” David asks hesitantly, his own mask of courage fading. Emma goes to her father and accepts his embrace. 

“That is our plan. Belle’s been researching this for years and she feels confident about breaking the curse.”

If he isn’t mistaken, Snow’s eyes are teary as well. Killian raises a brow and, as he had expected, she flings her arms around his shoulders and gives him a surprisingly strong hug. He pats her back until she releases him, kisses her daughter’s cheek, and sinks into her husband’s arms for fortification. 

“And Belle is certain you will both be safe?” Snow wipes away a tear and gives them a shaky smile. Killian forces himself not to look at Emma. Belle never claimed that releasing him of the curse would be safe. In fact, she warned it would likely be dangerous and come at a high cost.

Killian has spent years debating the benefits and detriments of making this attempt. The whispers of the darkness have grown faint, but it continues to call out to him in the dead of night, when his family is all sleeping soundly. It reminds him that he is still that little boy abandoned by his father and sold into slavery. It tries to convince him that the only way to be safe, the only way to make sure he will never be enslaved again, is to find the dagger, bide his time, and one day take the throne from Hope.

When the hissing annoyance of the darkness gets to be too much, Killian will usually burrow in closer to Emma, digging his face into the place where her neck meets her shoulder, and sing her a lullaby until she wakes up in confusion. She turns in his arms and kisses him lazily for a few minutes until she falls back asleep, and in the morning she makes no mention of the way her love had banished the darkness. He’s fairly certain she’s unaware of what had transpired, and he likes the thought of her dreams being so filled with him that, if he wakes her up, she thinks she is still dreaming.

But the darkness is not the only reason to break the curse. There is also the matter of immortality. Emma’s developed some new laugh lines since they met, signs of a life newly transformed. But Killian hasn’t aged a day. He wants to grow old with Emma. He’s outlived a love once before in his life, and he’s not sure if he has it in him to wait another few centuries to find another woman like Milah or Emma.

Most days, it feels as though these benefits outweigh the risks. The greatest risk, of course, is his own demise. Since that day years ago when they found Belle holed up in the library of the Dark Castle, pouring over tomes and calmly informing them that she intended to find a cure for the curse that had tortured the man she loved, Killian has been preparing himself for the inevitability. The only way out of this curse might be death. And so he’s cherished every chubby fist wrapped around his finger, every tottering first step, every late night of lovemaking, and every early morning stroll around the castle grounds.

He’s lived them all knowing that this was never a happy ending guaranteed for him. He’s never deserved a lick of it. And if he dies today and pulls the darkness down with him, clawing and scraping and begging for another chance to terrorize another soul, he will have done something else right in his mistake-riddled life.

As Killian pulls Emma into his arms and they transport themselves across the forest to the Dark Castle, he again steels himself against the other vow he’s made; If it comes down to a battle between him and the darkness, he will protect Emma at all costs , including his godforsaken soul. She’s been through enough sorrows and deserves to live out her days in the celebration and joys of her hard-earned victories.

They land in the garden, which is a little overgrown without any official gardener or his own magic tending to it. He has no reason to spend more than the occasional afternoon at the Dark Castle. But Belle’s mere presence keeps some of the more rudimentary maintenance spells functioning. The roses, in particular, appear to be flourishing.

“Swans, you think?” Emma smirks, summoning two scraps of parchment and holding them aloft.

“Gods forbid we give them two different birds,” Killian grouses, taking one of the parchments and applying the spells that will fold it into a swan. Emma completes hers before him, having become quite proficient at this spell in particular, and with pursed lips and a puff of breath, she sends the two flying across the forest and toward Misthaven’s royal castle.

“How long do you figure they’ll wait for their birdies?”

Emma snorts and leans against him. “Hope’s probably already climbing back down the tower to ask about that cake. But Izzie’s gonna be the patient one. My guess is she waits for both birds and then refuses to give one to her sister.”

Killian can picture it all so vividly. “Sounds about right.”

She turns in his arms, her face bright and hopeful and so filled with love that Killian wonders what on earth he did to earn her affection. “That was probably your last swan. I should have let you do both of them.”

He shakes his head and nudges his nose against hers. “Nah. I will simply have to learn how to fold them the non-magical way.” Killian widens his eyes and affects a sad sort of tone. “Promise you’ll heal all my paper cuts, darling?”

Emma’s lips are smiling when she kisses him, which somehow makes the kiss taste even sweeter. He takes it in including that familiar fire that always covers them when they touch, and he knows he will miss this more than any silly paper animals. Their magical connection was what brought them together. It is such an integral part of their love and their marriage that he knows he will struggle without the ability to use his magic to communicate with Emma. As if she knows what he’s thinking - and she usually does - Emma caresses his jaw when he pulls away, and she whispers, “You don’t need it, you know.”

“The darkness?”

She rolls her eyes. “Well, yes, but also the magic. I don’t need this,” Emma’s magic pulls his closer and lets it wrap around her, “to know that you love me.”

He nods uncertainly and she kisses him again, as if that will be enough to convince him. And, perhaps, it is. The sweet taste of her love and the memory of their conversation from only a few weeks ago.

“I want another baby.”

“Egads, woman, don’t you know I am more than a sex slave?”

Emma straddled him at that moment, gently rocking into his hardness and proving her point that he’d happily be her sex slave.

“I want another baby,” she repeated. “But before we do, I think we should get rid of the darkness. Hope’s young enough she might not even remember that you were any different.”

His insecurities shot through his spirit like bolts of lightning and she grounded each of them with a roll of her hips and her tongue on the seam of his lips until he opened his mouth and allowed her to deepen the kiss.

“You are a perfect father, Killian. I promise. But we can’t put this off any longer or I’m going to eventually look like your grandmother and our children will be older than you are.”

After a few more teasing comments and jokes, Killian had made himself appear two decades older, with wrinkles and streaks of silver in his hair, and from the enthusiastic way Emma made love to him, running her fingers through his hair and grinning, he set aside more of his insecurities and started to allow himself to picture what it would be like to actually grow old with his Emma by his side.

“I don’t want to break up the moment, but are you two ready?”

Belle’s hesitant voice breaks up their embrace and the way her cheeks are red beneath the hand covering her eyes, Killian would suspect she’s been standing in the garden beside them for a fair while. Emma hums in the back of her throat and he can feel her desperate attempt to throw sand and grit on the passion between them, and, for once, Killian aids her in that work.

“My apologies, Lady French. We are ready whenever you are.”

She chances a look, and finding them holding hands instead of trading kisses, her awkward grimace becomes a soft smile and Belle holds up the book under her arm and flips to a page with familiar ease. 

Killian had never imagined a world where he would regret Rumpelstiltskin’s death, but seeing the brilliant Lady French determined to do what she hadn’t been able to do for the man she loved, to banish the darkness and let love flourish, it makes him wish that Belle can find her own happily ever after. 

“Alright. We will need the dagger. Emma, can you bring it here?”

Emma’s hand lifts up in the air as though she’s reaching for the treetops, and she brings it down gracefully with the dagger clenched in her fist. Killian’s stomach clenches in response. He hasn’t seen the blasted weapon for six years. If not for the few times Emma let some of her words get too forceful during a fight or disagreement, he would have been tempted to forget about the dagger altogether. 

“Okay, good,” Belle says mildly, as though Emma isn’t holding the most dangerous weapon in all the realms. “Now,” Belle squints at her massive book, “the next step is to use the dagger to cleave the darkness from Killian.”

“You want me to stab him?” Emma snaps. There’s a moment when she glares at Belle and Killian wonders which of them is actually the Dark One. Belle shakes her head, seemingly unaffected. 

“It says to cleave the darkness from the host with the dagger. Ordinarily, that would cleave the host’s life as well. But this entry suggests that it is possible to remove only the darkness in a way where it can be defeated.” Belle adjusts the book in her grip. “I am hopeful that because you are so intimately aware of both Killian’s self and his magic, you’d be able to thread the needle, as it were, and make the precise cut needed.”

“So I need to separate the man from the darkness?”

Belle nods. “If anyone can, you can.”

“And, ah,” Killian tries to put on a playful expression, “if this doesn’t work? What happens to me?”

She flips to a new page and turns the book so they can look at the image: a grotesque depiction of a human sprawled on their back with another figure above them, a ghastly apparition leaving one person and going to the other. 

“If Emma takes your life, it will be just as when you took Rumple’s. She becomes the new Dark One.”

Horror fills Killian’s body and the resulting thunderstorm inside is hardly affected by Emma’s calm reassurance. It takes him a minute to find his tongue and snap, “No.”

“Killian, we should try.”

“No.” Killian rounds on his wife. “The only thing worse than me enduring this curse is you enduring it. Thank you for your hard work, Belle, but-”

“What happens if I don’t cut out all the darkness?” Emma interrupts. “I was never much with needlework.” Emma hoists the dagger higher. “Or with knives.”

Belle reveals another page. This one shows three different figures. The first looks like an ordinary man, the second has the narrowed eyes and shifty gaze of a Dark One, and the third shows an additional aura around the Dark One. 

“As you can imagine, the darkness does not take kindly to threats.” The voice screaming in Killian’s mind agrees with Belle’s assessment. “It might be that the darkness would retaliate, trying to claim even more of your soul.”

Emma pales and her hand tightens in his. “We’ve fought that fight before. We could do it again if we needed to.” He’s astounded by her confidence in him. It far outshines his confidence in himself. 

Belle reveals a final page. A figure of a Dark One. A figure of an ordinary man. “Or you can cleave the darkness and then defeat it that way, without any more risk to Killian.”

“Darling.” Killian turns to his wife with pleading eyes. “Emma, I know you want to do this but the risks are too great.” His magic leans against hers, the unseen embrace they constantly share, and there she strokes the long line of his back as her hands slide up his arms and anchor at his shoulders. 

“Killian. I know every inch of your magic as well as I know every stretch of your soul. I know the man I love and I know the darkness you battle. I can do this. I need you to trust me, sweetheart.”

Her fingers stroke his jaw in the way that makes his knees weak and he knows he will give in. He always gives in. Killian leans forward so their foreheads touch and eventually he nods in resignation. 

“Save me. Please.”

Emma doesn’t look at Belle, doesn’t wait for any more instructions. Grounding herself in some kind of instinct, Emma kisses him, hopefully the final time their magic embraces like this, and then slithers around his body so she can lean her chest against his back. Emma’s cheek presses against his shoulder blade at the same moment he feels her fingers tangle with his own, linking them together. Then, before he can luxuriate in the feeling of the woman he loves embracing him, the cool steel of the dagger digs into the tender flesh of his throat. 

“Dark One,” Emma murmurs behind him, her golden strands of magic encircling him like a lover’s caress, like a hangman’s noose, “I order you to leave this man.” Her sun-dappled cords each grasp one of his moon-soaked cords and begin to tug. “Now,” she says more firmly. 

For each tendril of darkness trying to hide, there is light seeking it out. Emma removes the ones at the surface first, plucking them like weeds, almost effortless in her uprooting, but buried down deeper is another layer. She pulls those out next with fingers tightening in his grasp. Emma grunts and digs for more. With each layer revealed, it takes more effort for her to extract the darkness. 

After a while, the hand holding the dagger to his throat begins to tremble. The darkness is screaming for him to pull away from her magic, save himself, tear her apart, and the blade to his neck is the only thing keeping him from protecting the darkness. 

“There’s more,” Killian grits when he feels her begin to sag behind him. “Gods, Emma, there’s more but I need you to-” he digs the darkness out himself with a shovel and flings it at Emma, feeling her catch each strand and cover it with her light. 

“I can handle it, sweetheart,” she grunts against his back. “I promise I can handle it if you’ll let me take this burden from you.”

“It’s too much,” he pleads. He clings to the last little bit, the deepest bit, the worst of it, as if it is the air in his lungs and the blood in his veins. “It isn’t the darkness that took me over, it’s the darkness that was there the whole time.”

Emma’s fingers suddenly release their tension and she leads his arm in a graceful arc as her magic gently plucks the last of it, the deepest of it, the worst of it. 

It is his quest for vengeance. The fertile ground that had allowed the darkness to take root and grow so prodigiously. It is the part of him he’s never been able to run from. And Emma scoops it up carefully, wraps it in her golden magic, and sighs against his back. 

“I’ve got it, Killian. I’ve got it all.”

The blade drops from Killian’s throat and he feels it too. The loss of the darkness. The space where goodness may once again enter. Killian feels lighter. Set free. A tear falls down Killian’s cheek and he breathes deeply in tune with Emma behind him.

“You got it all?” Belle asks, speaking for the first time in ages, and Killian’s eyes flicker open to once again look at the woman.

“Yes,” Emma says behind him.

Belle taps a page of the book. “Is the darkness trying to attach to you?”

She shakes her head and Killian tightens his grip on her fingers. “No, I think I’ve got it under control. But it’s… it’s not gonna stay here for long.”

“Send it out of you, then. Give it some form to defeat and if you destroy that form, you destroy the darkness for good.”

Emma is trembling and now it is time for Killian to act on his own instinct. He pulls Emma in front of him, anchors his brace at her stomach, and kisses her cheek before their entangled fingers sketch a shape in the air. It forms beneath a plume of milk white magic, and though Killian can feel Emma’s relief once the darkness is no longer under her purview, the shape keeps getting larger and larger and larger.

“Bloody hell,” Killian swears under his breath when he sees the hint of flashing scales beneath the white plume.

“Shit,” Emma adds.

Belle is a bit more tactful with her “Oh goodness.”

“Did we just-?” Emma asks.

“Aye.”

“Did you mean to make a dragon? Because I didn’t.”

“Don’t blame me!”

Belle furiously flips through the pages of her blasted book. The dragon’s rumbling roar throws her off her feet, however, and separates the woman from her tome. Scrambling backwards toward the nearest door to the castle, Belle says nervously, “Well, the book says defeating the form defeats the darkness. So… I suppose the darkness is ready to fight back!”

Killian and Emma are still frozen right in the sightline of the dragon.

“Emma, darling, I believe your magic has grown strong enough to defeat this creature. All you must do is-”

She shakes her head and turns in his arms. “No I can’t.” Emma tilts her head to the snarling creature eyeing them suspiciously. “Killian, that’s not just your darkness and magic. It’s mine too. I couldn’t figure out any way to separate out your magic-”

“-when it was so wrapped around your own,” Killian finishes for her, completely understanding. Theirs is the story of the light loving the darkness so much that she is willing to sacrifice every piece of herself in order to rid him of the worst of him.

She’s given up her magic for him. The only friend she had when she was held prisoner by Regina, the last bit of safety and protection against any other menaces that might threaten their family or Misthaven.

“Do you think we could get your magic back somehow?” Killian flicks his eyes to the dragon and waits for it to strike.

Emma shakes her head again. “No. It isn’t worth it. Let’s defeat this the old-fashioned way.” She lifts the weapon still held in her left hand, but instead of a dagger, it is now a sword, bearing the same scalloped edging. And instead of his name Killian Jones etched on the blade, his name is now beside Emma’s own. “But I’m shit with a sword, so you get started and I’ll grab something from the armory.”

Killian takes the sword she offers him, along with the bruising kiss she offers him, and pushes Emma behind the shield of his body so he might square off against the terrible beast.

Bloody hell it has been almost a decade since he’s swung a sword without the aid of magic. The weapon feels heavy and unnatural in his hand and he inspects the dragon for weak spots even as he adjusts to the weight of the weapon.

Whatever reprieve the creature had given them dissipates as soon as Killian hears Emma’s footsteps echo across the courtyard on her way to the armory. The dragon roars, a sound he feels in his very soul, and Killian lifts both sword and hook and dashes toward the beast. It is like finding his sea legs again after so much time on land - his first few slashes are slow and dulled. He swipes at the creature’s underbelly and attempts to dodge the giant legs that want to crush him.

But there is a reason he gifted Emma with dragonscale armor so long ago. Killian’s blade merely scrapes against iridescent pearl scales, making no headway on injuring the creature. He searches in vain for the soft spot, a place between the scales where he might sink his weapon into the tough flesh. After several minutes of frenzied slashing, he thinks he sees it, a place without that sheen of scales, near the place where the neck blends into the belly.

Killian throws his weight against a reptilian leg to knock the dragon off-balance and then sprints toward the neck and the soft spot. Before he makes it there, the dragon pivots and hits him with the spiky part of its tail, throwing him across the garden where he rolls to a landing right next to the bloody rose bushes he admired a half hour before.

“Buggering hell,” Killian mutters to himself, pulling himself up and finding that, besides a few sore spots on his body and some scrapes on his face, he’s mostly unharmed. “You’ll have to try harder than that!” he shouts at the dragon. “I’ve battled you for a decade and I’m determined to-”

The rest of his battle cry is lost in another earth-shattering roar of the dragon, this one accompanied by a long burst of fire that gets startlingly close to the rose bushes. It dampens the force of Killian’s taunts, somewhat, but he shakes it off and sizes up the creature once again. He’s a survivor, after all, and now is the time to prove it. Killian bends his knees, preparing to rush into battle once more, but the dragon rears up on its hind legs, flapping its wing with enough force to knock him on his arse again, and he knows that he will never be able to reach the soft spot if the dragon stays at this height.

“Need some help, Captain?”

Emma appears by his side as if by magic - he’d been so distracted by the dragon that he hadn’t spared any attention on her movements anymore - and she’s breathing hard in a way that reminds him of the nights when they’ve made love for hours. He has to swallow that thought down to focus on other, more life-sustaining, issues, but from the smirk she exchanges with him before she too focuses on the dragon, their lovemaking is never far from her mind either.

There’s a gap where his magic used to be. Where her magic used to be. He’s lost another limb, but this time it is standing beside him, still able to interact with him, but not connect with him in the same way again.

Emma holds up the bow and quiver in her hands. “I think Mama left this here the last time we came to check on Belle. I’m not as good as her, but-”

Killian shakes off her self-doubt. Ordinarily his magic would fortify her, but now his words must do it on their own. “Nonsense, darling. You’re nearly as good as her now.” He nods at the dragon. “Aim for the wings? They’re weaker, and if you can get it back to four limbs I can get this,” he lifts the sword, “in the tender spot.”

She doesn’t spare a moment to agree with his plan, she just nocks an arrow, aims, exhales, and sends it into the center of a flapping wing. Her next four shots hit their mark as well, each one making a wing wrinkle until it is hanging limply at the dragon’s side and the creature roars and shoots fire in retaliation. The other wing is flapping at double speed to keep it aloft, but three more of Emma’s arrows rob it of that ability as well.

Once more land-bound, the dragon screeches and sends fire even further than it had before. Both Emma and Killian have to jump out of the way to avoid being burnt to a crisp. Killian instinctively throws his wife behind him, making her weapons clatter in her hands.

“I’m going for the soft spot,” Killian yells.

“I’ll try to keep it distracted,” Emma yells back. She has another arrow up in a moment, focused on the creature’s face, and before he can wait to see how true her aim might be, Killian dashes toward the dragon as fast as he can. It all happens quicker than he can process. One moment he is running, the next, the creature is whipping its neck from side-to-side, obviously trying to avoid Emma’s arrows. And then Killian is holding the hilt of the dagger-turned-sword behind his head, giving him momentum to fling it over his head and across the distance so that it sinks into the soft, unprotected spot at the base of the neck.

The dragon shudders and writhes and, with a groan of fury, tips over and collapses in the middle of the garden, knocking its head into a peach tree and sending the ripe fruits rolling around the stone pathway. One of them comes to a stop only a few inches from Killian’s foot and he bends down to pick it up and examine it for bruises. Finding it still perfect, Killian turns to his sweat-covered and wide-eyed wife and offers her the peach.

“Fancy a bite?”

Emma shakes her head and Killian sinks his teeth into the soft flesh instead. It is sweet and perfect and such an utter contrast to not only this last hour but also the entire rest of his life. It has been almost ten years since Killian ate anything to survive. Once he finishes the peach, Killian’s stomach growls, as if making up for lost time, and he tosses the pit into a bush and reaches for two more peaches.

By the time he hands her another fruit, Emma’s sunk into a bench and some of the shock has worn off her face. She accepts the offer and takes her own hearty bite. Belle staggers over, finally leaving the safety of the castle doorway where she had watched the battle, and he gives her the second peach before scrounging up one of his own.

“Are you two alright?” Belle asks, swallowing a bite and wiping her sticky mouth with the back of her hand.

Killian nods and he sees Emma do the same out of the corner of his eye. Smiling, he finishes the last of his second peach, rids himself of the pit, and pulls Emma up and into his arms. He almost expects that this kiss will not feel right, that this missing connection will make it lack that all-encompassing attraction he’s felt every time they embrace. But it is still there, still pulling him toward her, still making his heart race and his stomach jump and his lips smile as they press against hers.

But this time she tastes like peaches. And it is the sweetest thing he has ever tasted in his long life.

“It’s gone,” Emma says finally. “All of it. Killian’s magic, my magic - it’s all gone.”

Belle looks around, likely for that damn book of hers, but not seeing it in the debris of the dragon battle, she shrugs. “All magic comes with a price.” It is the motto of magic users and it was the special motto of Rumpelstiltskin before him. Killian had never liked to echo his adversary, and so he never said it much himself, but he had felt the truth of the adage deep in the place where the magic and the darkness had dwelt.

All magic comes with a price. This time, the price was Emma’s magic. His darkness and her light bound up together, not able to be separated after all these years of being entwined.

“All magic comes with a price,” Emma echoes. She turns away from Belle and back to Killian. Her gaze and the fingers toying with the hair at the nape of his neck tells him that the price was worth it for her. Her kiss tells him the same.

“The sun is nearly set,” Belle says, drawing their attention back to her and then to the pink and purple beauty of the sunset behind the Dark Castle. “If you want to stay the night, there is more than enough room. Well, you know that already.”

Even without magic, Killian knows what Emma is thinking. He pulls her head to his chest and they shake their heads in unison.

“We have to get back home before morning,” Emma explains.

“Our girls will be expecting us,” Killian adds.

There’s a sly something about Belle’s smile before she walks forward to wrap her arms around both of them. “Then you’d better get going now,” she says when she’s stepped away. “Neither of you has magic anymore and it looks to be quite the walk between here and the royal Castle.”

Emma’s head swivels to look at the castle on the other side, catching the full meaning of this new life without magic, and she laughs against his chest. “Well,” she looks up at him with a twinkle in her own eye, this one of remembrance, “I’ve made half of this journey on foot before. I suppose it is time to make the other half. Are you ready, Captain?"

Killian lifts one of her hands with his hook and brushes his lips across her knuckles. “I am ready to follow wherever you lead, darling.”

They bid Belle farewell and offer their thanks for her help. With Emma’s hand gripping his hook and her eyes fixed on their home, their future, their happily ever after, Killian follows her lead and allows Emma to guide him home again. He has a promise to keep to two precious little girls - and promises to keep to his wife; to give her another child and grow old by her side. 

Killian Jones has yet to break a promise or break a deal and he has no intentions of starting now.