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She is sure her heart is about to burst. There are too many conflicting emotions raging in her chest right now, wonderful and terrible, joy like she’s never known and despair like she’s known too often. The sensations are inexorable and overwhelming, and were it not for Killian’s strong arms around her – Are they real? Really real? – she would probably be crumpled on her knees in the soggy grass. They stand there, wrapped in each other’s arms for many long minutes, refusing to let go. She turns her face away from the coffin and tucks it into the base of his neck, her arm drifting from the back of his head to rest over his chest. She breathes in the smell of him to try to convince all her senses that he’s truly alive.
She can feel his Adam’s apple rise and fall thickly at her brow. “How did it happen?” His voice is low and grim and barely audible over the sound of the gentle rain.
Emma shudders, trying to focus on the sensation of his hand pressed solidly to her shoulder blade. “He sacrificed himself to save Regina from Hades.”
“Can we get him back from the Underworld?”
“No,” her voice cracks, and she shakes her head against him. “He’s not there. Regina says the Olympian Crystal… He’s not dead… He’s just… gone. Erased.”
He squeezes her tighter, if such a thing is possible, stroking her back. “I’m sorry, love. He was a good friend. And a good man.”
The rain continues to fall softly upon them, tepid and without any wind. Emma’s haggard breaths gradually slow as she realizes that she can hear his heartbeat in the ear that lays on his chest. She shivers, tremulous, at the sensation of the steady, subtle impulse and the feel of his warm, damp skin beneath hers as she shifts her head slightly, the top of her forehead brushing against his neck. She had given up all hope of hearing it again when she’d climbed through the portal from the Underworld, this sound that has become so intensely precious to her.
Killian rumbles with concern. “Are you cold, Swan? Perhaps we should find some cover.”
She’s not really, not as much as she is just awash in feelings, but she heaves a sigh and lifts her head up to look at him, her heart leaping again at the sight of him gazing back down at her. It’s only been a day since they said that soul-crushing goodbye at the elevator, since her heart all but died, but she cannot begin to describe how much she missed that face and the way those steel blue eyes look at her like she is the only thing in the world to him. She manages the barest of smiles and nods numbly.
Despite the fact that her brain is being inundated with thoughts at the moment, she has the minimum presence of mind to make them stop at his grave, strange as she knows it must be for him to see it. His face is initially sober, almost unreadable, at the sight of his own resting place, but surprise takes it over when she bends down and retrieves his flask from the surface of the freshly-dug earth, dusting it off, and saying, “You might want this back.”
He accepts it with a small bark of a laugh, turning it over in his hand once before tucking it away, not needing her to confirm that she was the one who placed it there earlier in the day.
They begin to wander slowly toward the town, arms around each other’s backs.
“Everyone’s at Granny’s,” Emma explains. She suddenly stops short. Oh, God (“Gods”? She guesses it’s “Gods”). How is she going to face Regina? She has Killian back now. Her true love is returned from the dead, and Regina’s just lost hers. Again. For that matter, Zelena’s also just lost her true love, though it was at her own hand to save the town. A suffocating sense of guilt rushes through her, guilt and confusion and pity and more sorrow. She can’t parade Killian back into Granny’s – a hero’s return in the midst of a wake. She knows Regina may not even be there, but she just can’t do it. It’s not right.
“Swan?” He pulls up with her.
“We can’t do this to Regina,” she says, turning to him with eyes widened in panic. “We can’t just burst in to Granny’s and turn Robin’s funeral reception into your welcome home party.”
It’s no question he gets it. His mouth is pressed into a thin line, and his eyes, too, reflect much of her own guilt back at her. “Aye.” He reaches his hand up to smooth her wet hair back on her temple before cupping her cheek momentarily, thumb brushing across the surface with reverence. “What do you want to do?”
A portion of her panic subsides at his touch and at the way he defers to her with confidence. She thinks quickly. “I have to go. They’re expecting me, and I should be there. And I need to tell at least some of them that you’re back.”
Killian nods in agreement. “I’ll wait for you.” With a gentle press of his hook hand against her back, he starts them on their way again. They have nearly cleared the cemetery, the road visible up ahead, but the other town residents are already gone. The sky is starting to dim with the dusk.
“Where?”
He considers it. “I’d like to check on the Jolly Roger,” he starts, flicking a knowing glance toward the skies, “But this rain is only going to get heavier.” He clears his throat almost shyly. “Perhaps… the house?”
His words make her heavy heart leap again as it suddenly occurs to her that they have the house. They have the house – the real house, not the Underworld version. For the first time since she bought it, it isn’t simply hers, it’s theirs. They have a common place to go home to. A home. Emma can feel her eyebrows pinch upward as her mouth opens with wonder at the idea. She can tell by his expression that he’s equally happy – happy that she’s happy. “Yeah,” she manages, feeling the burn of joyful tears threaten her eyes again, “That’s a good idea.”
* * *
He has the strangest feeling as he enters the gate of the white picket fence and walks up the path to the porch stairs. He’s apprehensive about the memories of what has transpired between them here, but for the first time he looks upon this building, this grand old house, with the same kind of hope he felt when he first saw its picture in that newspaper. This is the future he wanted. And he gets to have it. He will thank Zeus for as long as he has to live this time around, he thinks, still awe-inspired by the idea that the king of the gods has deemed him worthy of so amazing and rare a gift as a second chance at life and a life with Emma Swan.
He climbs the stairs to the front door and pulls out the key Emma has given him, his hand shaking ever so slightly as he inserts it into the lock and turns the bolt back. This is their home now. This is where he belongs. With a deep breath, he pushes the door open.
It is mainly as he remembers it, though thankfully free from the trappings of Emma’s royal infancy that littered the first floor of the Underworld house. The furniture is still Spartan, and the telescope still stands in the front window ready to give him that gorgeous view of the sea. He takes a moment to leave his sopping wet shoes and socks by the door, his feet chilled to the bone. He removes his hook long enough to shrug out of his dripping coat and hangs it, too, by the door. The daylight is fading fast, but he manages to find the light switches, the lamp in the turret’s sitting area and the sconces above the fireplace throwing a welcome warm glow across the front room, unlike the colder white light of the pendant light above the side door.
He glances at the basement door briefly, quickly deciding that they can figure out what to do about what lies down there later and together. He considers waiting to explore the house until Emma returns to show him around, but it’s only early evening, and he has no idea when she’ll be back, and after a moment he decides to venture upstairs for the first time, having never had the opportunity. The stairs creak slightly as he ascends, switching on more lights as he goes. It doesn’t take him long to locate the master bedroom at the far end of the upstairs hall. It occurs to him that she may not have furnished it, seeing as she never had a need to sleep while she was a Dark One. The memory of the constant wakefulness, the unnatural lack of fatigue, the relentless thoughts of revenge and madness that he himself experienced while a Dark One makes him shudder, until he turns on the bedroom light. The room is indeed furnished. An enormous four-poster bed sits against the far wall, made up with clean white linens. An old wingback chair constitutes a seating area in the turret, and a simple bedside table and a low, wide chest of drawers make up the rest of the furniture pieces. Two rectangular white boxes, the kind that Emma uses for paperwork at the sheriff's station, sit next to the chair by the window. He cocks his head and pads over, kneeling to examine them. Killian realizes immediately upon lifting the cardboard lid that one is the box she used to keep at the station, the box filled with the last vestiges of her early years, the familiar fluffy white baby blanket with purple ribbon overlying the rest of the contents.
His breath catches as he opens the second box. It contains his belongings, the personal effects he had left in his rented room at Granny’s. It isn’t overflowing – he’d learned over his hundreds of years adventuring to travel light and keep his most important possessions on his person at all times – but there’s his pocket watch, a small stash of gold coins, his spyglass, his phone, various small purses he’d used to stash things in his coat filled with bits and bobs, the worn leather insignia flap from Liam’s old satchel, his newer clothes, and the clothes he wore in the Enchanted Forest. His long black leather duster, old boots, and sword and scabbard are missing, but he suspects he’ll find them behind the closed door of the bedroom closet. His heart aches as he imagines Emma having to gather these things up and bring them here after his death. It’s possible her family had done it to spare her the pain, but he knows it was probably her, that she would have insisted on doing it herself. He wonders whether she knew when she brought these things here that she would go to the Underworld to try to bring him back; did she have hope that he’d see these things again?
He sighs and shakes the thoughts out of his head. Between the dampness of his clothes and the emotional fatigue that is rapidly catching up to him, he suddenly feels extremely weary. Technically it’s supper time, but he is not hungry in the slightest. Pulling his toiletries and the pair of cotton sleep pants from the box, he proceeds to the adjoining bathroom where he abandons the rest of his wet clothes to the clawfoot tub, slips on the pants, and brushes his teeth. The familiarity and normalcy of the bedtime routine, despite being in unfamiliar surroundings, is comforting and reassuring. When the lights are turned off, he slips into the bed, by far the most luxurious one he’s ever been in, the soft cotton sheets gliding silkily over his skin, and he is lost to a dreamless sleep in mere moments.
He rouses to the soft sounds of someone moving about in the room, though the fact that he did not wake when they first entered the room is a testament to just how tired he must have been. His foggy mind registers Emma’s presence immediately, her silhouette in the light from the bathroom door obvious to him even half-asleep. Her coat and boots are gone, and he can tell she is wearing loose pants and a sleeveless camisole of some kind. He lifts his head slightly off the pillow and grunts drowsily, but she immediately shushes him as she extinguishes the lights once more and approaches.
“Go back to sleep.”
“What happened at Granny’s?” he slurs.
“It was mixed. I’ll fill you in in the morning,” she says quietly. She climbs into the bed with him, both of them recognizing the other’s exhaustion and silently choosing to overlook the momentousness of their first time sharing a bed. He somehow knows this is the first time she’s let herself really rest since becoming a Dark One months ago. They immediately gravitate to the center of the mattress, sighing as they make contact with one another, as though they’ve both been holding their breath while apart. Emma curls up into his side and he rolls to envelop her, his chest against her back, pulling her close with his left arm wrapped around her middle.
“Sleep,” he orders her. “You promised you would sleep.”
She hums acknowledgment, which is the closest he knows he’s getting to acquiescence. “I love you,” she murmurs.
He takes in the scent of her hair as he begins to drift off again. “I love you.”
The sound of rain beating down on the roof above them sings them into oblivion.