Work Text:
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something worth holding onto
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middles
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It’s sort of funny, but it takes a fist coming straight for his nose for Killian to realize that things were always going to go this way.
Not being punched.
Or, well, maybe that part too. But everything leading up to getting punched.
He should have known better.
After all, he’s lived through around two centuries at this point. He should have learned by now.
But, he hasn’t. And now here he is—getting his ass handed to him because he couldn’t accept things until that moment.
His nose doesn’t bleed or anything really like that. The punch misses and hits his eye, which he knows will probably swell terribly.
He realizes something else as a million bursts of light explode across his eyelid:
Valentine’s Day is the most rubbish holiday this land has.
This too: ouch.
..
endings.
..
It happens suddenly.
Emma and Regina come back from wherever the hell they were and Emma refuses to talk about it.
They sort of just pop out of a portal in the middle of Main Street and if Killian and Henry hadn’t been walking out of Granny’s at that exact moment, it might have gone unnoticed. As it is, they look different. Changed.
Emma is in men’s clothing—baggy and outlandish here—and Regina looks frazzled when the other woman goes to steady her, practically jumping away from her as if shocked. Regina says something and then nods at him and Henry and then Emma’s eyes go wide.
She barely returns his hug, but Killian shrugs it off at first and chalks it up to shock.
Henry hugs her next, though, and she wraps her arms around him much more tightly before Regina is being led away by her son, turning her towards home. Emma watches them go and when Killian says, “You must be hungry,” she doesn’t disagree.
He buys her food to go and she eats it at the kitchen table of their house and doesn’t say a word.
.
She goes to see her parents when she’s finished eating and he doesn’t know how to keep her there, so he lets her go and nods when she calls a couple of hours later.
“I think I’m gonna crash here with my parents for the night,” she says on the phone and Killian just keeps nodding.
Says, “Sure thing, love,” and lets her hang up.
Goes to bed alone.
.
The next night, she calls from Regina’s living room and says something about having lost track of time.
Killian says the same thing as the night before.
.
By the third night, he doesn’t even answer.
He lets Emma leave a voicemail.
She doesn’t need his permission to leave.
.
He spends those three nights alone. He eats dinner alone, brushes his teeth alone, and goes to bed alone.
It isn’t as if he and Emma had lived together for very long before the Queen wished her away.
Or had Emma wish herself away—he’s still foggy on exactly what happened.
And, sure, she was gone a lot of nights—babysitting Neal, having dinner with Henry, patching things up with Regina, or dealing with the Queen.
But she usually at least came home.
He tries to get her alone with him when he does see her. He drops by the station with lunch only to find her eating leftovers Regina packed for her.
He drops by her parents’ loft only to see David asleep in the bedroom and Snow rocking her son on her hip as she helps Henry with homework. “Did you try the station?” Snow asks, but he did.
She wasn’t there.
One morning, she comes by for clean clothes and a shower and he tries to say, We need to talk, while she’s chugging her coffee on her way out the door, but she slips out before he can finish.
It’s fine, really.
Killian tells himself it’s fine.
.
“So…”
When Emma says it, it sort of sounds like she’s out of breath. The word blows across the dim living room to where he’s standing by the couch they picked out together.
His hook is sitting in the bedside drawer upstairs because he hates it these days—hates the reminder of it, the weight of it, the times he caught Emma’s elbow with it.
But, right now, he hates how he feels without it more.
How suddenly and viciously he has been left vulnerable.
Emma could say anything.
“So,” he returns and shifts his weight as he presses the fingers of his right hand into the wrist of his left, above all that empty space where the skin and bone just stops.
“My parents asked me to move back in for a couple of weeks, until we get this curse thing settled with them.”
It’s not surprising, Killian tells himself. He’s getting used to living alone again anyway. He wants to tell her that, but is suddenly afraid that it may come out sounding selfish and silly.
“Well, my mom asked,” she amends. “My dad sort of scribbled it on a piece of paper she gave me. I just think with my brother and the sleeping curse, they really…”
She trails off, as if trying to find the words, as if hoping the rest of the sentence will just sort of fill itself in.
“Okay,” he says and nods and nods.
And he sort of feels like an ass for not telling her that he doesn’t mind her doing what’s best for her.
But Emma looks relieved either way. She takes three bags of her things with her.
.
It takes another kiss of true love—one from Snow on David’s lips and another from their daughter, pressed into her mother’s forehead at the same exact time—for the curse to be fully broken.
There’s a celebration at Granny’s that night and Killian thinks it’s sort of funny that he probably looks more tired than Snow or David combined at this point.
Henry does his homework while they celebrate because Regina said, “Broken curses are not a good excuse to shirk your responsibilities,” while he grumbled good-naturedly about it.
Somehow, Killian winds up holding Neal in a booth because Snow and David are talking and kissing in an awkwardly intimate display up by the counter and Regina and Emma are having some sort of hushed conversation near the hallway in the back.
He watches them, their posture and how Regina looks more closed off than ever and it’s Emma, for once, who is facing her more openly.
He hears Regina say, “Miss Swan,” in an entirely too-formal voice before she slinks away into the deep recesses of the bed-and-breakfast, leaving Emma to just kind of stand there looking torn.
Of course, his first instinct is to comfort her but it’s more than that. He wants things to go back to normal now, even if Emma’s visions have yet to be fulfilled. Even if she came back from that wish a different person than he remembers from before.
“Mind holding the little uncle for a moment, lad?” Killian asks, handing Neal off to Henry.
Henry sets his pencil down to take Neal and then looks where Killian is heading. “Might wanna give her a minute,” he says and Killian turns to him.
“What?”
“They’ve been doing that a lot,” Henry explains, cradling Neal in one arm now so he can flip through his Algebra book.
“Doing what, exactly?”
Henry shrugs. “Talking like that. Mom gets all upset and then Ma lets her go for a little before she goes after her.” He’s quiet for a moment and then, “I think something happened when they were away.”
Killian watches Henry for a minute more, weighing his choices, before he finally turns and goes to Emma.
Except she’s not there anymore.
He finds her in the back hallway, just around the first turn and he only sneaks a glance or two before he retreats.
She’s leaned against the wall beside Regina, who is sitting on the floor with her knees drawn to her chest. He stays just long enough to see Emma slide to the floor beside her and sling an arm around her, whispering, “I’m sorry.”
He’s not sure where she sleeps that night, but he goes home alone.
.
The only surprising part when Emma finally breaks up with him is how long it took her to do it.
He’s been expecting it for a good long while.
Her voice, he notices, sounds the clearest and most unburdened that he thinks it ever has.
In fact, he’s certain of it.
She seems light, standing there in front of him—free. And he starts to feel heavy in comparison.
What does surprise him is that she doesn’t mention Regina. He’s certain, standing there in what is just his kitchen now, that something has changed between the two of them while they were away, but if she’s not going to bring it up then neither is he.
“I don’t really know when I stopped being Emma Swan and just became this…Savior-person, but…I think it’s been this way for a long time and…I miss who I was, you know? I don’t know what happened to her.”
Killian stands there and presses his heels into the linoleum. He nods.
“I think we…I think sometimes, when people grow, they…they grow apart instead of together. And I think that’s what’s happened to us. I don’t think we’re making each other better, Killian. I think…I think we’re desperately trying to keep each other from changing and…”
It’s not vicious or unkind or anything other than what it is:
The end.
He packs her things when she leaves and sets them by the door.
They’re gone when he wakes up the next morning.
.
All of this makes sense to him.
He loves her, yes. He’d thought her his happy ending, of course. But he can wrap his head around being left behind.
She’s right. Sometimes people grow apart. Her following him to Hell was a lot of pressure and him coming back after her, even more.
Emma is a runner.
She runs.
And he remembers a lot of things suddenly when she leaves—all those times she tried to leave before and he stopped her with his hook around her arm. He’s not going to try and stop her anymore.
The thing he has trouble wrapping his mind around is Emma moving into Regina’s house.
David tells him one day—after a long interrogation on how he’s dealing with things—that Emma was starting to feel cramped in the loft again, but Regina had offered a guest room.
Which is fine. Emma is perfectly capable of making her own decisions.
It just feels very ironic to him. She moved out of his house and into someone else’s.
He tries to shrug this off, too. Tries to think of it as Henry probably is—both mothers living closer—but it’s hard when he remembers that night in Granny’s, them sitting on the floor together, and how Emma had stared after Regina the night they first got back.
And, yes, Emma runs, but she always seems to stay for Regina, for Henry.
Like a compass pointing true north, Emma keeps stumbling her way back to them.
Every time.
And there’s something about that correlation that he thinks is very uncomfortable and very fitting.
.
He hears things.
Keeps tabs on them as best as he can.
Henry talks to him sometimes, still, and seems happier than he has in a while.
Emma is cordial when they run into each other—nods at him across Granny’s even as she’s having dinner with her son and Regina. Even as Regina is laughing with her whole body in a way he didn’t know she could and Emma doesn’t look tired anymore.
“It’s nice, having her there,” Henry says when Killian runs into him being dropped off by the bus after school. He winces immediately after saying it, as if feeling guilty for the mere act of saying it.
“I’m pleased you get to see her more,” Killian tells him.
He means most of the words.
“She leaves her socks everywhere,” Henry says next, but he’s smiling and doesn’t seem the slightest bit inconvenienced by this discovery. “She did it in New York, too. Did she do that at your place?”
She didn’t. Killian says as much, and then wonders why.
Perhaps she was never around long enough to really take off her shoes, let alone leave her socks all over the place.
.
He’s walking home from the grocery store one afternoon—his bag of frozen microwave meals dangling off the end of his hook—when he sees them alone together next.
They’re on the street by Gold’s shop and Regina is saying something. He’s too far away to really hear anything, but she’s waving her hands around like she’s trying to make a point.
All at once, Emma reaches out in the space between them and grabs Regina’s hands in her own to still her, and he watches as Regina goes silent.
Emma’s voice is stronger. More careful. He hears part of it.
“—be with you, Regina. I have for…so long. Don’t try to bring other people’s feelings into this. This...thing…This is about you and me. No one else should have a say in it but us.”
The plastic bag slips off the end of his hook and spills his things on the ground. It’s not very loud, but it’s enough to make them look over at him.
Regina glares.
Emma frowns and then nods. The next thing she does is lead Regina away—up the street without Emma letting go of Regina’s hands.
Killian picks up his things, watching them go. He wants to know what that means.
That night, he can’t sleep.
Did all of that silent staring finally get them somewhere with him out of the way?
All those nights alone in that big house finally pushing them together?
And then one foggy morning, he’s talking to David—yes, he’s okay; him and Emma are getting on fine; no, no bad blood—outside of the station and the door is open. He can see down the long hallway into where Emma’s office is and, it’s dark, alright?
He’s not positive.
But he’s pretty sure that she’s back there. He can see the red of her jacket.
And there’s someone with her. Someone in heels. Someone in heels and a skirt who Emma is pressing back into the wall of the office.
He’s fine. He is.
When he calls that night after a drink or two, she answers.
She says, “Killian, hey…How are you?” and he tells her he’s fine.
Because he is.
In the background, he can hear Regina and Henry laughing and then Emma yells something that sounds like, “—beat my high score, kid, I’m gonna kill you. For real.”
“Hey, Killian,” she says next, already preparing her exit, but he cuts her off.
“Goodnight, Emma,” he says and hangs up.
He’s fine.
.
Snow orchestrates some sort of Valentine’s Day/We’re-All-Okay-For-Now party a couple of weeks after that, roughly two months after Emma came back.
David invites him, possibly out of pity, but Killian has nothing better to do besides wallow in his too-big house and drive himself crazy, so he goes.
He picks up some heart-shaped cookies from the store on his way because Snow had said to bring something.
It’s a little loud in their loft and definitely too small for the number of people there and he really only knows a handful, so he hides in the corner with his cookies and a beer David handed him after taking his coat.
The first ten or so minutes are spent trying to find a friendly face, but Henry is preoccupied with that girl from Camelot in the corner, and Snow is busy being the perfect hostess and trying to make small talk with everyone at once. David is following her around the room and Emma—
Emma isn’t there.
Neither, he notices, is Regina.
He examines the guests from afar for a while, trying to see if he’s perhaps overlooking them, but they’re nowhere to be seen.
After a while, Leroy comes up to him and knocks his own beer bottle against Killian’s.
Says, “That’s rough about you and the sheriff,” and things start to go downhill from there.
He’s been trying not to drink too heavily since Emma left, but Leroy makes it easy—hands him a new beer every time he empties a bottle and pretty soon Killian is talking about how women are never worth it and Leroy is agreeing with him, even if Killian isn’t sure he means it.
The music is too loud, too cheerful, and Killian has to get out of there because everyone looks happy. He tries not to look at them for too long because he’s afraid of seeing Emma snuggled up with Regina. He couldn’t handle it right now.
So, he makes an excuse to Leroy and stumbles upstairs in search of a quiet place to sit for a minute. Get his wits about him before he tries to make his way home.
He assumes Emma’s old room is empty, that he can just sit on her bed for a while uninterrupted, but it’s a dangerous assumption apparently.
And an incorrect one.
The bed, so he finds, is occupied.
It’s nothing too bad. He’s been in worse positions with Emma before, but it’s because of this that he knows where it must be heading.
Regina and Emma are in the bed, Regina straddling Emma’s waist and they’re kissing shamelessly. What strikes him first is not hurt but wonder that Emma is letting Regina be on top.
He was never given such a liberty.
He says as much, which is stupid.
They spring apart and Emma is suddenly saying, “What the hell are you doing in here?” while Regina slides off of her and tries to hide her face.
Killian doesn’t fully understand because Regina is usually never one to hide.
Emma gets to her feet and steps between him and Regina, as if trying to protect her.
“Well, Swan,” Killian hears himself saying and he winces at the annoying tone his voice has taken on suddenly, “I can see it certainly didn’t take you very long to find the next willing body to warm your bed at night. I’d say congratulations are in order. That certainly was fast.”
And then Emma punches him.
.
He doesn’t actually blame her for it.
Of course not.
He was being an ass and she punched him.
She was always one to stand up for those she loves. This is no different.
It ruins the party a little, though, and Snow looks scandalized—David unsurprised.
He hands Killian his coat at the door and Snow gives him a bag of peas and a pat on the shoulder for the road.
.
At his house, he sits on the stairs and cradles his aching head—presses the peas into his eye.
When there’s a knock at the door a couple of minutes later, he knows it’s Emma before he answers.
“You’re an ass, you know that?” she says, crossing her arms.
“Aye,” Killian mumbles.
He knew that part already.
“Regina isn’t some…rebound,” she says next and he winces again, remorseful and a little pained. “I…When we were in the…” She trails off and shakes her head.
Killian mimics the gesture, says, “It’s fine, love. You don’t owe me anything. Not even an explanation.”
She looks up at him, as if realizing the truth of that statement for the first time. It’s quiet and then, “I did love you. I followed you to Hell and back…Literally.”
It’s not funny.
He laughs anyway.
Thankfully, she does, too.
“Are you happy, at least?” he asks next when they’ve stopped, very quietly. As if embarrassed to be witnessed asking it at all.
And the thing is, Emma gets this really dazed look on her face like she doesn’t even really have to think about the answer to that question, but likes to anyway.
She looks down at her feet and kicks at something nonexistent and then uncrosses her arms. “Sure you wanna hear the answer to that?” she asks.
And Killian laughs again without a bit of malice in it. This time, it is funny.
Funny because yes, he really does want to hear it.
He nods.
“I didn’t think I could be this happy,” she says simply.
And, well. That’s that.
She leaves—returns to the party and her life and lots of things he’ll never truly understand—and he finds himself sort of coming to peace with the whole thing.
That part is surprising too.
.
The next time he sees Emma is a couple of days later when he’s at the grocery store.
She’s with Henry and Regina, looking through the discounted candy and holding up a heart-shaped box of chocolates to Regina and saying something that makes her laugh and push Emma’s arm a little. Henry makes gagging noises at them when Emma presses a kiss to Regina’s cheek, but the box goes in the cart either way.
“Disgusting, isn’t it?” someone says behind him.
It’s Tinker Bell, standing by the deli counter and frowning and he grips his basket a little tighter in his right hand.
“They’re so happy,” she says and it’s clear she’s joking, based on the grin. “I tried to get Regina her happy ending years ago and now here she is. Without so much as a thanks. Bet you’re pleased you got out of that while you still could.”
He laughs. “I appreciate the—” he starts, but, “Actually…” She’s still smiling and he lets himself appreciate what she’s doing. “Actually, yeah, I hate those chocolates. The whole holiday actually.”
“Who doesn’t? I don’t understand this world,” she says and she turns, as if to leave but he stops her.
Not with his hook on her elbow—he left the hook in the bedside drawer for the day—or by his hand on her arm. He just says, “Would you—” and she turns, already smiling.
“Yes?”
“Would you like to get some dinner sometime? On me.”
He remembers how she’d once turned him away because his thoughts had been on Emma. He supposes they are still now—what with her smile burned into his eyelids—but in a much different way.
Tink nods and apparently sometime means now to her. She says, “Lead the way, Captain,” and he does.
Dinner that night is easy in a way he hadn’t expected.
The only time Emma comes up in the conversation is when Tink says, “I think the only part of Snow White’s party anyone is going to remember is her daughter hooking up with the Evil Queen during it,” and he laughs.
Lets himself. Doesn’t even try to stop it.
..
beginnings.
..
The next time he sees Emma, things are a lot different.
She’s holding Regina’s hand as they cross the street while talking to Henry and he’s going the other direction to Tink’s apartment near the library.
Emma is the only one of the three to see him, walking there, and she nods and smiles.
Companionable.
Fond, even.
Killian waves a little.
Smiles back.
Keeps moving forward.
…