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He finally dreamed peacefully of her a few weeks after they buried her. Up until that point, his dreams – nightmares – had all been of losing her.  To see her so alive and happy nearly crippled him.  It had been a simple dream.  She had been right there; warm and soft and pliant in his arms, smiling at him.  Now his arms were empty and his fingers were clutching at the pillow that used to be hers.  Unable to help himself, he buried his nose in the cotton of the pillowcase, inhaling her scent.  The bottle of her perfume that he kept on hand for just such a reason was almost gone, it wouldn’t be long before he ran out.

Killian squeezed his eyes shut against the reality of his world now, trying to recapture the wisps of his dream.  Tears ran unchecked down his cheeks and he made no move to wipe them away.  Had he even been aware of the fact that he was very nearly sobbing, he still wouldn’t have moved for fear of erasing the dream from his memory.  Vibrant eyes looking at him gleefully, the scent of her shampoo filling his nostrils, soft hair sliding easily through his fingers.  Those were what he wanted to see.  To smell.  To feel.  Not the scratchy sheets of his bed.  Or the planks of wood that made up the walls of the Jolly Roger.  Or even the salty sea air that had been a balm to his soul for so long.  He just wanted his Swan back, more and more every moment.  Her absence was a black hole in his chest where his heart should be beating.

There wasn’t enough rum in all the realms to dull the agony that was now his daily existence.  Killian would find himself watching Henry struggle through the day, holding his young head up high even as the loss of one of his mothers threatened to buckle his knees.  The boy had lost so many members of his family; Killian wasn’t entirely sure how he kept going as well as he did.  He kept an eye on Snow and Charming from a distance, watching as they held it together for the young prince – their only remaining child.  He was irrationally and yet wholly jealous of the little boy.  Neal didn’t really understand that his big sister was never coming back and so was a source of light for the Prince and his Bandit amidst the dark melancholy of losing their oldest child.  Killian watched her family push valiantly through day after day, and couldn’t understand.  How could they be so resilient when he felt like every moment without Emma was stealing the very strength from his bones? 

He had never felt weaker in his long, long life.

Killian knew that Snow saw him floundering and tried to draw him under her wing.  She constantly invited him to dinner and stomped down Main Street to find him and drag him to the loft by his ear when he wouldn’t – when he couldn’t – show up.

His mother-in-law really was a frightening woman.

Emma had told him once, back in the Enchanted Forest when he still thought she was going to leave him for New York, that you don’t have a home until you just miss it.

Killian hadn’t really understood her then.  He had been ecstatic that her realization had given her the impetus she needed to stay in Storybrooke, but he hadn’t grasped her meaning.  He thought he had never really had a home other than the Jolly Roger.  And he had given that up in an instant for her.  Which probably should have been his first clue.

And now?  When she was gone and he still had his ship?  Now, he understood what home really meant.

The Jolly Roger would never be his home again.

He had tried to stay in their house after she passed.  He remembered the bleak days when she was the Dark One, prowling the halls of the home he had chosen for them at all hours of the night while she didn’t sleep.  He knew that she had soldiered on there after he made her leave him behind in the Underworld.  

It may have only been a few days that they were separated, but he knew now from personal experience that each hour felt like a lifetime.  And still she took their house and made it into the home he wanted for her.

All while he was cold in the ground.

All while she was sure that he was never coming back.

Killian didn’t know how she did it – knowing that the place she was in was meant to be a happy future for them.  When all that it could have been turned into an excruciating reminder of all that had been lost.

He had fallen in love with the idea of that house when he saw it in the newspaper.  There was some work that needed to be done to it, sure, but he had planned on using that to make it theirs.  He had looked forward to such mundane tasks as moving furniture around and picking colors for the walls.  The work and the resulting combination of his and hers into their home had been intended to bring them both hope and peace.  And it had; for a time.  They had been happy there, content to be together and undeniably in love.  He had found peace for them amidst the turmoil of Storybrooke on a Tuesday.  Their home was an oasis from chaos, and it brought them relief.

All it brought him now was pain.

Killian may have been a glutton for punishment, but even he had his limits.  And attempting to rest in their too-large king size bed where he tossed and turned throughout the night was beyond his capacity for pain.  So he had quickly retreated to the familiar, cramped quarters of the Jolly Roger.  He took solace in the fact that the small bunk was barely big enough for one.

But she was here, too.  Indelibly etched into the bare bones of his ship, Emma haunted his every waking thought.  An evening out on the bay, teaching her the constellations he had researched just for her.  The weekend spent sailing just beyond the town’s borders, wrapped up in each other and not much else.  The nights where his nightmares of his time in the Underworld sent him scurrying to familiar ground – only to wake up with her cuddled half on top of him to make room in the bunk.

There was no place safe from her memory, and Killian endured each hot lash against his heart when the recollection faded and she was still gone.  Buried in the town’s cemetery next to his own headstone.

He lingered in every memory he had of her – the monumentous ones where she declared her love for him and the mundane ones where she was simply content to be at his side.  Holding his hand as they walked down Main Street and giggling quietly as she mussed up his hair.  Pouring all of her love into her kiss when she finally understood the depth of his feeling for her and stopping him simply to tell him she loved him with no strings attached.  Pushing him away as she plunged the dagger into the Darkness to save them all and putting Excalibur through his chest to save him from that same Darkness that she had saved him with almost at the cost of his soul.

But those memories come with a cost.  And each tear that he paid in penance burned a trail straight to his heart.

He wouldn’t trade a minute of knowing her for all the riches in all the realms.

Helpless against the pain, Killian had ventured at one point into the Dark One’s shop, begging the man to put him out of his misery.  Here’s your chance to finally put an end to me, Crocodile, he had taunted.  Take my heart and crush it to dust like you’ve wanted to for so many centuries.  I took Milah from you, stole her away right under your nose.

Rumplestiltskin had cackled with glee when he refused.  It would be far more thrilling to watch the pirate suffer mindless grief for years.

Killian wandered aimlessly through the days without her, putting one foot in front of the other with no drive other than making it from sunrise to sunset.  When Liam died, he had righteous indignation to buoy him – the lure of piracy giving him reason to fight.  When Milah was taken from him, he had revenge in his heart that masked the pain of losing his first love.  But Emma’s death was different.  He couldn’t hide behind resentment or hatred any more.  Her loss left him naked against the onslaught of grief.

He tried to be strong.  He tried to push on and find purpose in watching over her family.  He tried to be the good man – the hero – she always insisted he was.

But he never believed that he was worth that praise.

He spent almost a year of trudging through the days, rum soaked as they were, when Snow mentioned that she had gone up to the house.  He hadn’t even set foot near that part of town since moving back to the Jolly Roger and as far as he was concerned, the building and everything in it could go up in flames.  Snow had laid her petite hand on his back, rubbing gentle circles over his shoulder blade as she pressed something cold and metal into his hand.

The compass that was supposed to lead them home.

“I found it in her things; she’d want you to have it.”  Snow left him at the docks that day, sitting on the edge of the pier and staring at the needle that spun endlessly in circles.  It seemed the compass had even less a heading than he, himself, did.

Her birthday had been the worst.  A day meant to honor her and no one else – a day that had brought him nothing but joy when she was there for him to dote on, to celebrate her and pamper her until she was red with embarassment.  Now, the day passed in an endless drag of tears and memories until Killian had abandoned all pretense and drained his flask with alacrity.  The burn in the back of his throat matched the burn of his tears as they streamed unchecked into the scruff of his beard.  He had no idea how he made it from the Charmings’ loft to the docks, even less how he managed to sail the Jolly Roger into open water until there was nothing around him – not even the moon’s reflection or this realm’s constellations.  There, completely alone in the world, he screamed his grief into the abyss until his throat was hoarse and the cries that erupted from his very chest were little more than breathy wheezes.

Killian turned his back on the sea, collapsing into the bow of his ship and cradled his knees to his chest.  With his head thrown back against the enchanted wood behind him, the agony in his chest was almost bearable.  He had lost her in this very spot, had held her body close to his chest, whispering his love in her ear until the paramedics had come and David and Snow had pulled him away.

He listed until he fell to his side, curling up in a ball with one arm clenched across his stomach and the other hand pulling hard on his hair – the pain no less than he deserved for losing her and then turning into a shell of a man.  He couldn’t do this any longer.  He had tried to soldier on – to find meaning in being a part of her family and find strength in the ties that bound them.  But he had lost so much more.  He had lived so long and he was tired.

His mother.  Liam.  Milah.  Emma.

Emma.

He was never supposed to be the one to survive.  And yet he was the only one left in a world where he no longer had a place.

Killian lay on the deck until his tears dried and his heart tried to knit itself back into some semblance of the organ that gave him life – he imagined it was little more than a scarred rock in his chest.  He had nothing left to give, no strength to pick himself up and sail back into the harbor. 

The sky had lightened in the early morning hours, and the colors of the sunrise reflected all around him.  He always loved this time of day, when everything was fresh and new with possibility.  He looked to the East as the sun peeked over the horizon, and all he saw was the austerity of another day.  The future looked bleak and he wanted no part of it.  He didn’t want to sail back to Storybrooke to watch the townsfolk move along without their savior.  He didn’t want to see the Charmings learning to smile again.  He didn’t want to run into Henry out with Regina.

He wanted to see Emma.

He climbed slowly to his feet, bracing himself against the gunwale with his hands gripping the familiar wooden rail.  As his head bowed under the strain of being so successful at surviving, he was drawn to the way the morning’s light glinted off of the metal hanging from his neck.

His hand leaves the railing of the Jolly Roger – just one more thing that should have remained in his brother’s care – to grasp the small circle of silver.

This is your lucky ring.
The one that always gets me home safe.

It helped me then and it led me to you when Hades had you.  

You know I’m a survivor.  Well, this ring is why.  I’ve had it for years, it’s the reason I’m alive.

Liam’s ring.  Her ring.  Now his once more. 

He gave it to Emma to keep her safe.  To keep the part of her that was still fighting against the Darkness protected from the evil that was trying to vanquish her.  He wanted her to come back to him so they could begin their life together.

But he lost her anyway. 

Nothing in his long life was ever meant to stay, and he had forgotten that.  His curse was to watch everyone he loved be torn from him.  Foolishly, he had let himself believe that the savior had broken that curse when she stole his heart.

He should have known better.

The edges of the metal cut into his palm as he tightened his fist.  The pain in his hand was dwarfed by the anguish that surged through him.  She left him behind.  Just like everyone else had.  Hot, fiery anger built in his chest until the chain around his neck snapped and the broken pieces draped over his fingers.

Killian clenched his eyes shut against the flow of tears and forced a breath through his nose.  He finally glanced down after a moment to look at the ring resting innocently between his fingers.  He had told her this ring was the reason he survived for so long.  This ring was the reason he always came back safe.

He didn’t want to be safe – to survive – any more.

Rearing back, Killian put all his fury behind the throw, watching dispassionately as the symbol of his luck sailed through the air and far away from the ship.  Liam’s ring arced high into the sky before it finally hit the water with a distinct “plonk”. 

The metal sunk quickly below the waves and took the last of Killian’s spirit with it.

Robotically, Killian moved away from the bow and back to the helm.  He steered the Jolly Roger back to the harbor in a dazed fog until he berthed her at the dock.  Crouched on the pier in a stupor, still holding the bowline he had tied to the cleat, Killian had no purpose.  There were no tears on his face, nor any left to cry.  Emma was gone and he had nothing left inside himself.  His only intention was to climb back aboard his ship and make his way below.  There, away from prying eyes, he could curl up in his bunk until… well, he wasn’t entirely sure what he was going to do after that.

The helm beckoned silently to him and Killian heeded the call.  He ran his fingers over the etchings in the wood where he had once taught Baelfire to sail.  He caressed the lines tied so efficiently.  Standing behind the helm, Killian imagined the first time he had manned his station here, the world spread before him as he navigated on a compass’ heading.

Reaching into his pocket, Killian grasped the cool metal of Emma’s compass.  When he opened the hasp and pulled the lid away, he wasn’t surprised by what he saw.  The needle didn’t point in any one direction, but rather spun wildly with no clear heading.  The compass was supposed to help the bearer find home – Killian’s home had gone where he couldn’t follow.

Closing his eyes against a fresh bout of tears, Killian shut the top and clutched the compass to his chest.  Unable to stand strong, he dropped his head to stare unseeingly at his feet.  He wanted nothing more than to find Emma again, to be at her side and revel in her love.  For all the times Killian Jones had stared into the face of death and laughed, he wanted nothing more than to embrace it this time.  He wanted his suffering to end.  The rending of his heart in two seemed to agree and with that, he absolutely knew what to do now.

Slowly, Killian turned his back to the sight of the deck spread before him and sank down until he was resting against the polished wood of the helm.  His arms fell to his side and long fingers splayed out against weathered planks below him, the compass rolling away from his grasp. 

“I’m finally coming to find you, Emma.” 

The weight of his long, long life sat heavily on his shoulders, and he found it difficult to even summon the energy to draw in a breath.  He managed, but only just.  His heart beat out a haphazardly slowing rhythm of grief and it was all simply too much.  Killian closed his eyes and let his head fall back against a spoke of the ship’s wheel.  The air expelled from his chest, and then all was still.

 And after he finally let go and followed her into their afterlife, everyone who knew them began to tell the story about how Killian Jones, self-proclaimed survivor, died of a broken heart.

The first thing he feels is nothing.  No pain, no grief, no heartbreak; nothing.  His soul had been shattered so completely, in the dark days without Emma there to soothe the jagged pieces back together, that the absence of that agony now jars him enough to open his eyes.

Bright light assaults his retinas and he has to squeeze his eyes tightly shut once more against the burn of the sun’s rays.  He has learned the sounds of Storybrooke’s harbor well enough by now to know that he is no longer there.  The wooden planks at his back are familiar, however, and he has a momentary panic when he thinks that he and the Jolly Roger have been swept through a portal instead of where he had hoped he would have traveled.  This is definitely not the Underworld.

But then a soft, accented voice calls out in scarcely more than a whisper, “welcome home, little brother.”

Liam’s shadow buffers him against the bright sky so that he is able to open his eyes and focus on the man standing, tall and proud, in front of him.  His older brother looks younger than when they’d met in the Underworld.  Time seems to revert when you finally complete your life’s journey, because this is the image of Liam as he was the day they set out for Neverland – young and carefree.

A soft smile graces Liam’s countenance as he reaches out a hand to haul Killian to his feet.  The ship beneath them rocks easily in the tiny waves, the sea mostly calm all around them.  He takes a minute to drink in the smell of the ocean, of clean, salty air filling his lungs and relishing the ease with which he breathes.  Killian looks around the ship distractedly, taking in the men that scurry around completing their duties, the way the sails billow in the breeze that cools his skin.  There is a pile of unused sails stowed in the bow of the ship, and Killian looks confused for a moment at the haphazard storage place.  Liam was usually far more meticulous than that.

Then he has no more time to contemplate the change as Liam’s patience runs out and Killian is tugged into a firm embrace, his head guided gently to the crook of his brother’s neck.  This he had missed in all the centuries since Liam had passed – this was the family that had been lost to him for so long.

But this was also the family he had been given, not the one he had taken and painstakingly carved into the very essence of his being.  It had been the Jones brothers against the world for so long, but those days were in the distant past.  This still doesn’t feel complete – not anymore.

But Killian Jones has never thought of himself as a strong man, so he doesn’t lift his head from Liam’s shoulder for a long moment.  He has missed the simplicity of being the little brother.  He has missed the feeling of safety that his brother always provided.  He has missed this.

Liam obliges him for as long as he needs, so the two stand silently at the helm of their ship until Killian manages to settle his equilibrium - to find his sea legs, so to speak.  His older brother is here, and he will find Emma.  He has all the time in the world, now.

But regardless of how overjoyed he is to be reunited with his older brother, there is still a sense of melancholy about him.  He had thought – he had hoped – that it would have been Emma waiting to greet him.  To usher him into the peaceful eternity they both deserved.  Killian had tried so damned hard to be strong for her after he lost her, to go on with his life and surround himself with her – with their family.  But in the end, her siren’s call, like always, was just too strong to resist.  So he had let go, praying that when he opened his eyes again, blonde hair and green eyes would be hovering above him - that smile she reserved only for him welcoming him home.

Curly hair and blue eyes, as much as they reminded him of home once, just don’t bring the same sense of peace.

The same sense of home.

Too late, he realizes that Liam has finally moved away from the helm, pointing out various changes to the ship and additions to their crew.  Killian stumbles over his feet trying to catch up.  His brother laughs easily at him.

“Ah, yes.  I do remember the disorientation of showing up here, little brother.  Even when you’re expecting to see the white sails and calm seas rather than red skies and smoke, it can be a bit off-putting for a moment.  I’ll save most of the introductions of the crew for later then, after you get your sea legs about you.  But I did want to introduce you to my first mate.  You two will have to decide between yourselves who gets to keep that title now that you’ve finally come aboard.”  Killian cants his head to the side at the playful tone in Liam’s voice.

“Who is it? Starkey?  Or Mullins?  Not Bill Jukes.”  All three sailors were men who had followed Killian from the Jewel of the Realm to the Jolly Roger, who he had lost to Pan in Neverland, and who Liam had trusted implicitly back when he’d been their captain.

Liam just shakes his head, still smiling.  “Come and see, little brother.”

Killian grumbles at the moniker, but it doesn’t have the sting it once had.  How can it when he is finally, finally, back where he belongs – one step behind his big brother and at the right hand of his captain.

The only thing that would make this version of the great beyond perfect would be…

Killian’s thoughts trail off as his jaw drops.

The bow of the ship is occupied, and by more than just the pile of sails he had originally thought were stored there.  Bright blonde hair billows in the breeze, the loose tendrils flying free from any constraint.  Vibrant green eyes lift from the tear in the sail that nimble fingers are mending.  A soft smile – that smile – so often directed at him in life lights the world between them.  Two spots of healthy, rosy red draw his attention to full cheeks that strain with that grin.  There is a slight sunburn highlighting freckles spattered across a face he had only seen in his dreams of late.

If Killian weren’t sure that he had passed on from his earthly life, he would swear his heart has stopped beating at the goddess sitting in the bow of the Jewel of the Realm.  She outshines the ship on her best day of sailing.

“I’ll leave you two to get reacquainted, brother.  Come find me later and we’ll catch up.”  Liam claps him on the shoulder, giving him a light shove forward when Killian forgets how to work his legs.

“Swan,” her name is a whisper, a plea on his lips, a benediction and prayer all in one.

He staggers for a few steps, like a cabin boy in his first storm.  But his Swan rises gracefully from her perch on the deck, smiling all the more brightly for his incoordination.  “Oh, Emma.”

His feet are rooted to the spot as she steps over the fabric forgotten at her feet.  There is no hurry in her movements, no desperate need to join them together in an embrace.  There is only the serenity that the two of them create between themselves.

There is only their True Love.

Then her arms wrap tightly around his neck and his hands fall automatically to her hips.  He breathes in the scent of her, burying his face in her hair.  They aren’t close enough, they can never be close enough after their forced separation, so he locks his hands around her back and lifts, determined to erase all of the space between them.  It has been far too long since he was able to revel in her like this.

He treads carefully into the mass of sails, sitting her on the gunwale at the bow and stepping easily between her knees.  Emma looks up at him, her eyes soft as she smiles.  Killian’s lips twitch upward in response.  She’s easily the most beautiful creature he has ever laid eyes upon.  Deliberately, he bends forward until his forehead rests against hers, his fingers moving to tangle in her hair, the silky locks sliding effortlessly between them.  As he looks down, he can see Liam’s ring resting against her chest, where it has always belonged.  His ring, her heart.  They are entwined as they should be.  Together.

Emma is quiet, her arms wrapped loosely around his hips, patiently allowing him the time for his heart to heal.

He takes the time to drink in this familiar feeling of comfort, of love, before he breaks the spell.  Meeting her gaze, Killian moves slowly until his lips touch hers reverently.  It’s just a brush of a kiss, a brief fluttering of her lips against his, but it brings about the most powerful flash of emotion welling deep within him.  He is so in love with this woman that it borders on painful.

He doesn’t realize that tears are coursing down his cheeks as freely as the day she died until Emma brushes them away with the pad of her thumb.  She guides his head to her shoulder, carding her fingers soothingly through his hair.  Her lips brush his ear as she whispers, “Get all your tears out now, my love.  They are the last ones that you will ever shed.”

It takes a few long moments, but his cheeks finally dry and his heart feels lighter for the momentary lapse in strength.  He smiles gently at her, dragging his thumb over her lips before he leans in once more.

This kiss is deeper, more passionate, but no more powerful than the last.  He pours every last drop of the misery that has been his only real company into it, purging it from his soul until it is little more than memory.  When they are forced to pull back for air, there is only love between them.  Love and utter joy.

“Is this your happy ending, love?” He asks, already knowing the answer.  They are, after all, in their own private version of eternity.

Emma smiles coyly at him.  “Don’t you know, Killian?  It’s you.”

He is in her embrace.  He is surrounded by her.

He is home.

His brother comes to find them a while later, while they are cuddled together amidst the torn sails Emma had been in the process of repairing.  They are speaking softly to each other and it is only when Liam clears his throat that Killian remembers that there is a world outside their little bubble.  He smirks unabashedly at his brother’s raised eyebrow.  “Did you need something, Liam?” he asks, a trace of the smug pirate leaking into his query.

Liam rolls his eyes.  “I was coming to ask if you’d like to take the helm for a bit.  But I can see you’re otherwise occupied.”

Before Killian can make a retort, Emma jumps to her feet with a childlike grin on her face and tugs on his hand impatiently.  He obliges, following her hurried pace until he stands behind the wheel, his hands grasping the spokes over hers and her back pressed against his chest.  Together, they turn her into the wind, watching happily as the sails billow in the breeze before filling out.  The Jewel of the Realm lurches forward in response and cuts through the water with ease.

They are headed into the unknown, a future filled with nothing but possibilities, family, and their love.  After all his centuries of fighting, Killian has finally found what he has always wanted.  And he has Emma at his side to share it with.

He leans forward, kissing the shell of her ear as he adjusts their course directly into the sunset.

“Well, Swan, this will be an awfully big adventure.”