#millian ff

[piracytheorist]

A Break from Adventure

Pairing: Millian Inspired by this picture. I wrote this some two and a half years ago on a reblog, and as I was going back on my tags I decided to make this its own post.

Rating: G (with a light nudity mention)

Word count: 508 AO3

~

He wakes up slowly, the sound of birds chirping the first sensation he feels.

He moves his arm on the mattress with eyes still closed, not feeling Milah next to him. The sheets are still warm, though.

He opens his eyes, starting to focus on the soft morning light. She’s standing right in front of the balcony door, hands resting relaxed on her arms.

“Enjoying the view?” he says.

She smiles. “Good morning to you too.”

“Because I know of another view you’d enjoy more,” he says, starting to lift the sheet covering his naked body.

“Of course you do,” she says without looking at him, still smiling.

He lifts the sheet completely, not bothering to cover any parts as he struts towards her. He wraps his arms around her from behind, and she caresses them with her lean fingers. He leans in, kisses her neck and stays there, filling his lungs with her divine scent.

She leans her head on his. “Do we have to leave today? Everything feels so peaceful here.”

“Come on,” he murmurs against her neck. “You’ll start missing adventure in a couple of hours already.”

“Don’t tell me what I want, young man.”

He sighs. He can’t help loving her even when she uses their age difference against him.

She turns then to look at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and turning them both so that their sides are towards the window, sunlight reaching half of their faces.

They look at each other, and for a few moments he’s transfixed by her eyes, seemingly of different colours as the sun illuminates one but not the other.

“Sometimes I just miss the routine, the stability of a home on land,” she admits.

“Was that ever you? Having a stable home, void of adventure and new experiences?”

She looks down for a moment, then back into his eyes before she leans in and kisses him. “I guess not. But with you… I wouldn’t mind not having those.”

He raises an eyebrow, an expression that he knows she’ll see through.

“People are what make something special,” she says. “Nothing I’ve lived those past few years would’ve been the same without you.”

He smiles, feeling his cheeks go red. “Why, that’s quite an honour.”

“I’m serious, Killian. I used to wonder whether it was only your adventurous spirit that I loved. But then I started thinking, what if we ever settled down in a peaceful place like this one?” She tilts her head, an earnest smile spreading on her face. “And it’s quite a nice thought.”

He shakes his head, eyebrow going up again. “I’m not settling down, milady.”

She snorts, smile growing cheeky. “You sure you didn’t inherit any of Liam’s stubbornness?”

“You love adventure, I love adventure. You love me, I love you. What’s there to be stubborn about?”

He would be lying though, if he said that her words didn’t touch him. He pulls her in, letting her rest her head on his shoulder as he buries his nose in her hair.

[welllpthisishappening]

I Would Sing You to Sleep

Hey, uh, remember when I was like “Immmma focus on original stuff and that’ll be that.” Good joke. @lillpon wrote this incredible meta recently and, like, you ever have a thought that just grips your brain and then you hear a My Chemical Romance song one morning and you type two-thousand words in 45 minutes?

Well, that’s what happened. If you’re not here for angst or just a metric ton of Millian feelings, this might not be for you. Happy Thursday, here’s some Underworld nonsense that ignores the timeline of things completely.

-----

They can’t move very quickly.

He’s covered in blood still, every inch of him stiff and awkward even as Emma supports most of his weight. It’s not doing much to help the overall state of her knees, but she’s already used her magic to teleport them out of Hades’…torture chamber, or whatever it was and she’s not sure if she should use more. Isn’t really even sure what to do, if she’s being honest with herself, far too many twisted emotions and fears that rattle around the spaces between her ribs.

So they walk. Slowly. Methodically. Every step is a challenge and Killian’s fingers aren’t all that tight where they curl around her shoulder.

“It’s not that much farther,” Emma promises. “We’re—do you think your lungs are alright? I don’t…I’m not really sure if I can fix that, but then—you’d…we’d know, right? If something was wrong?”

She’s rambling.

It’s stupid. But Emma isn’t sure what else to do and the silence stretches heavy over both of them, oppressive and far too warm, a heat that reminds her of that cave and the fire and she absolutely cannot cry.

Not right now.

Not yet.

She’s determined. She’s impossible. He loves her for it.

He loves her.

Still.

“What is this?” Killian breathes.

Emma has to remind herself that he’s actually just said words. It doesn’t really sound that way in the moment. Because his voice doesn’t sound right. It’s not even soft, really, just a slight scrape of syllables against the inside of his throat and passing through chapped lips. There’s no lilt to it, nothing positive, exhaustion hanging from every letter and Emma tightens her hold on the back of his jacket.

There’s a fucking hole in it.

And it’s a fair question.

It doesn’t look the same, not with the hazy color of the sky behind it or how the shutters are barely hanging on outside, more than a few loose bits of wood on the wraparound porch that Emma has found herself thinking about with a startling amount of regularity.

“It, uh—well, it’s a house,” she stammers. She hates that. “Our—“ Killian tenses slightly, and Emma bites down on her lip so sharply she tastes blood. “Can you lift your legs, do you think?”

He grunts in response, even slower movements because Emma doesn’t trust her balance all that much either and they both flinch when the door to a house with less creaky hinges at home flies open. Mary Margaret’s standing there, breathless and obviously worried, tear tracks on her cheeks and Emma can dimly hear a baby crying a few feet away.  

“Oh, Killian,” she whispers, rushing forward and Emma tries to shake her head discreetly. It doesn’t really work. She’s going to blame her knees. “Look at you. Are you alright?”

And that’s an entirely unfair question with an almost too obvious answer, but Killian makes another nose low in the back of his throat.

“I’ll be fine.”

“Emma, couldn’t you—“ Mary Margaret continues.

For a moment she briefly considers yelling at her mother. But that’s just pent up frustration and her own lingering guilt and Emma has a list of people to apologize to, least of all the man still hanging off her side and there are more footsteps.

She shouldn’t have brought them here.

Not with an audience and goddamn swords everywhere. She can see Robin’s quiver of arrows in the hallway.

The house feels wrong.

“Can you just help us get inside?” Emma asks, tempering her own emotions and the small flickers of magic that lick at the base of her spine. “Please?”

Mary Margaret blinks. Her eyes jump, scanning Killian’s face and the bruises there, an eye that’s still swollen shut, but then she’s nodding and moving and Regina might mutter holy shit under her breath when she sees them.

“Emma, why didn’t you—“

She grits her teeth — something vaguely threatening, or so Emma can only hope, but then they’re a mess of shifted weight and unsteady steps and David is pacing in a living room that doesn’t look entirely familiar either.

Killian freezes.

Emma nearly pulls him to the floor with her.

That’s not ideal.

“Hook,” David exclaims, and Emma can just make out Regina’s less-than-subtle hand movements. He does not get the hint. “Where have you—we’ve been waiting and it’s…Emma, are you alright?”

She sighs. And not because it’s almost nice that her father has asked her that, but that also feels exceptionally selfish and Emma wants to get rid of the blood. She wants to do something.

She wants—

“Killian?”

He tilts his head. That’s it. No response, no words that don’t sound like words, just a slight shift and blood-caked hair that still manages to fall artfully towards his eyes and Emma holds her breath.

Milah has taken her jacket off.

And Emma isn’t sure why that feels important — as if she’s shed the costume she’s been forced into for the hundreds of years she’s been stuck in this actual hell hole, but something about it sparks in the back of her brain and her eyes dart towards Killian.

He swallows.

She can see the muscles in his throat move, the way his teeth obviously clench and how tight his jaw goes. His fingers grip her shoulder like a vice. Like he’s making sure she’s still there.

Like he’s making sure he’s still there.

Milah nods.

“Real,” she promises softly, steps that aren’t cautious or desperate. They’re balanced, like falling back into a memory and a moment and feeling, air that’s suddenly a little easier to breathe.

He exhales.

And Emma isn’t entirely sure what happens after that. Because it all seems to happen suddenly and impossibly slow, Milah’s steps crowding into Killian’s space, a hand on his cheek and his nose brushing the inside of her palm and she doesn’t flinch at the blood, Emma didn’t really expect her too and—“Are you alright?” she whispers.

Maybe it is a dream.

Emma blinks several times to make sure. She looks at her mother, glances towards her father, tries to focus on the crying baby she could probably time most of her breathing to at this point, but that would also require her to be breathing evenly and Killian shakes his head.

She didn’t expect that.

He’d told her he was fine. And she knew it was a lie — could hear the forced bravado even as he screwed his eyes shut and held onto her when the first few bits of smoke curled around their ankles, but this something else altogether.

This is—

“How long have you been here?”

“I don’t know, I—there wasn’t any light and I—“ Milah hums when Killian can’t finish the sentence, pushing up on her toes to brush the hair away from his eyes and something clenches in Emma’s chest when his eyes flutter shut.

It’s not jealousy.

It’s not. It’s something deeper, another brand of want and maybe even a few flickers of hope, trying to memorize exactly how easily his shoulders move when he takes another deep breath.

“You’re here now though,” Milah continues, “not quite sunlight out there, but sometimes if we’re lucky—“

“—You can smell the salt of the sea if the wind turns.”

“Ah, there it.”

Milah smiles, leans back as soon as Killian’s arm circles her waist and Emma is loathe to realize he’s kept his left arm trained at his side. She bites her lip again.

And part of her knows she should leave. Retreat back to the hallway and the arrows and the crying baby, but her legs feel like cement and David’s fingers have found hers, lacing them together with a soft squeeze.

So Emma doesn’t move.

She watches and listens and—

“I wanted to get out,” Killian mumbles, and those words are different. They’re not scratched out, they’re rushed over, as if he’s simply been waiting to admit to them and Milah’s smile turns understanding. Emma tightens her fingers. David doesn’t let go.

“Wanted to leave…would have done anything, but I didn’t deserve, Gods, what I’ve done, it’s—I…it was—it hurt, everything hurt and he was there and then he’d leave, but I could still hear—“

“—I know, darling—“

“—Couldn’t sleep, even when it went dark…it was always dark and—“ He takes another deep breath, eyes gone glossy and Emma should have moved. “Gods I’ve missed you.”

Milah drops back to her heels. Presumably because Killian’s knees also give up at that precise moment.

They drop down — no twisted limbs, but a few grunts of pain because his legs are cut too and there’s a rather large bruise obvious under a rip in his jeans — but Milah’s face doesn’t show anything except a quiet determination and her fingers move into Killian’s hair like there are magnets involved.

Emma isn’t sure there are magnets in the Enchanted Forest.

It’s a ridiculous thought.

Particularly when she hears the first hitch in Killian’s breath.

And the tremor that runs through him isn’t like anything she’s ever seen — no sign of Captain Hook or any hint of Darkness, not even the Killian Jones she’s come to love with every single fiber of her being, not really.

There’s nothing even remotely familiar, which is frustratingly cyclical considering the house they’re in and the place they’re stuck and Emma’s mind surprises her once more because the only thing she can think as soon as she realizes that Killian is crying is that he looks so much younger.

No jacket. No metaphorical weight. No armor.

There are no adjectives or precursors, no monikers, colorful or otherwise.

The color in his cheeks is blotchy, uneven dots of pink, Milah’s voice barely audible over the sound of his sobs and Emma can’t remember the last time she took a deep breath. Her lungs burn with the lack of it, but she doesn’t dare do anything except stand there and watch.

Her eyes trace over him, watch Milah’s fingertips ghost across his temples and the side of his jaw, dragging up the ridge of his spine and the bend of his neck, his nose burrowing into the curve of her shoulder.

Killian Jones cries.

And cries.

He mourns and mutters words into Milah’s t-shirt. Lets her push his own jacket off his arms, the leather dropping behind him with a soft thump and it takes a moment to tug the left sleeve over his hook, a terror that etches itself on his face as soon as he realizes.

“Don’t be silly,” she murmurs. And, well, that’s that.

Killian hums, head dropping back down and the whole thing starts again. Emma doesn’t blink. She watches, waits until the crinkles around his eyes disappear and the tension between his shoulder blades evaporates and—“It was so dark,” he whispers, more than once.

She’s going to need stitches in her lip.

She’ll ask Regina about a spell for that later.

“That’s over now,” Milah says, and it sounds like a guarantee. Emma hopes she can follow through.

Although she is ridiculously stubborn. Impossible, even.

Her fingers reach up to curl around the ring hanging over the front of her shirt.

And there’s more, all in rather quick succession — a glow and a voice that makes Emma’s heart jump, but she doesn’t actually cry and Milah’s smile as soon as she sees her son is enough to inspire just a bit more hope. She turns towards Killian before she leaves, another look that’s as heavy as it is light and he leans into her hand as soon as it cups his cheek.

“I love you,” she says.

He kisses the inside of her wrist, tucks a strand of hair behind her cheek. “And I love you.”

She presses up again, a quick brush of lips and then she’s gone and Killian glances over his shoulder at Emma. Neither one of them say anything, but they don’t really have to — not after all if it, life and death and quasi-life, but his eyes flash down to the ring she keeps toying with.

One side of his mouth quirks up.

“C’mere,” she says, nodding towards the couch they’ve both been ignoring. “Let me help with some of those cuts.”

[unfolded73]

Take Me Away with You (2/2) - millian ff

Part 1 | ao3

Rated Explicit, 9.5k words total (both parts). 

_____________________________________________________________

When Rumple came looking for her on Killian’s ship early the next morning, Milah was still asleep. Once they had left port Killian told her of his brief visit. “He wouldn’t fight for you,” Killian said. “He doesn’t deserve you.”

She felt a pang of regret at the fact that Killian had let Rumple believe that he’d stolen her away rather than telling her husband that the decision to leave had been her own, even if it had been in a moment when she’d been contemplating ending her life. She wondered what Rumple would tell Bae.

When she made her way up on deck, the sails were full, fluttering in the wind as the ship cut through the water. Turning and looking behind them, she couldn’t even see the shoreline of her village, and she continued to spin in a circle, taking in the view from every direction. Milah never could have imagined the desolation of the ocean’s surface, the horizon visible every way she looked. It made her mind rebel at what her eyes were telling her.

“How do you know where we are?” she asked Killian, squinting at the reflection of the sun off the water.

“I check our position when the stars are visible. I know our speed and our heading and plot it on a map. Thus, I know where we are.”

She shuddered with a pang of homesickness. This was the farthest she’d ever been from the place of her birth.

“This is your home now,” Killian murmured, sidling closer and putting an arm around her waist.

She glanced at him, surprised. “Reading my mind now, are you?”

He grinned endearingly and shrugged.

Pulling out of his embrace, Milah folded her arms across her chest. “Listen, Killian, I intend to pull my weight on this ship. Tell me what needs doing and I’ll learn to do it. I’m not just here to be your…”

Killian’s expression sobered. “All right, agreed, but I’ll not have you slaving away in the galley or doing the crew’s laundry. It must be something befitting the lady of this ship.”

“Is that what I am?”

He made a poor attempt at a wink. “Aye, that’s what you are.”

True to his word, only another couple of days passed before Killian had her sitting with his first mate, learning about the way they kept the ship supplied and how the crew’s rations were paid and logged. The first mate, a grizzled old pirate named Cooper, admitted that he’d seen better days and that he hadn’t had much of a head for numbers in the best of them, and he seemed more than happy to hand over some of his duties to her. It made Milah feel valuable, and that the freedom she’d been longing for was beginning to truly feel earned.

Late that night, still riding high from that feeling and a little tipsy from her share of the rum, she found the courage to stand up for herself in another way.

Killian was climbing on top of her in bed, and she extended her hand toward his chest, holding him at bay. “I need more than this, Killian.”

He blinked at her in confusion. “More than what?”

She smiled, not wanting to bruise his ego, and swallowed down her own nervousness about discussing such an intimate topic. “Perhaps other women you’ve been with haven’t needed… I’m not implying you’re doing anything wrong, only that I need…”

Killian’s face fell. “I don’t please you.”

“No, you do, very much!” She sat up, letting her fingers trail over his chest. “You’re…” She chuckled nervously. “You’re the most pleasing man to look upon that I’ve ever encountered in my life, and I still can’t quite figure out what you see in me--”

“One of these days I’ll convince you of how beautiful you are, Milah--”

“But that aside, if we’re going to share a bed together on this ship for… for a while, I was…” She took a deep, steadying breath and closed her eyes. She couldn’t make herself state it baldly. “I need more,” she said again.

“Anything,” he answered quickly. “Anything you need from me, I’ll give to you, I swear.”

His youthful earnestness relaxed her a bit. “Come here,” she said, urging him to lie down at her side, and he followed her lead. Blushing, she pulled his hand over between her legs. “Can I show you the way I like to be touched?”

Killian nuzzled against her neck. “Of course, darling. I would love that.”

She guided his hand to her clit, using her fingers on top of his to instruct him how to knead and rub her flesh the way she herself did when she was alone, bending and pressing this way and that until he’d copied her rhythm. The way he’d touched her before had been pleasant enough, but his focus had been on putting his fingers inside her. Killian was a quick study though, and sensation sparked more and more intensely as he worked. Milah gasped and writhed against the bedding, all the while aware that Killian was scrutinizing her.

“That’s it, love, do you like that?” he whispered, his lips brushing against her ear.

Milah shuddered. “Yes.”

It was good, so good, but after a few minutes she felt herself plateau and she squirmed in frustration. She was very close, closer than she’d ever been with Killian, but either her mind or her body or both wouldn’t cooperate.

“I know what you need,” Killian said, and he shifted down the bed, his hand still moving against her. Milah lifted her head in confusion just in time to see him replace his hand with his mouth, and then he swiped at her with the flat of his tongue. The soft, wet pressure was unlike anything she’d ever felt, and she cried out.

“Bloody buggering fuck, Killian,” she panted. He chuckled, positioning himself as if he was going to stay down there for a while. It made her suddenly very self-conscious about her body, and her hand stole down to cover herself.

Killian bent down between the legs, his nose brushing against her knuckles. “Let me pleasure you, love.” He looked up and met her eyes. “I’ve been selfish. I want to do better for you.”

Milah’s breath caught. “All right… but you don’t have to do this.”

Killian continued to regard her over the expanse of her belly and breasts. “I won’t if you don’t like it, but--” He smirked. “I think you’ll like it.”

Cautiously, she moved her hand out of the way.

The next time he licked her, he actually moaned in appreciation. Milah threw her head back, overwhelmed with the way his attention made her feel.

“You’re delicious,” he said against the crease where her leg met her pelvis.

“Don’t be daft.”

“You taste like sex, love, what could be more delicious than that?”

There wasn’t any talking after that, and Milah’s self-consciousness bled away as Killian worked her up. When he focused quicker, more intense flicks of his tongue against her clit, Milah felt like a fire had been kindled inside of her, burning hotter and hotter until it exploded, radiating out through her limbs. She clenched her teeth together, trying not to moan too loudly. Just because the rest of the crew knew she shared a bed with the captain, that didn’t mean she wanted them to know every sordid detail about their sex life.

Killian continued to lick at her until she was flinched with oversensitivity, weakly pushing him away. “Stop, stop.”

He sat up on his heels, wiping his mouth off on his arm. “Was that good?” The expression on his face told her that he wasn’t fishing for compliments; he genuinely wanted to know.

“It was amazing.” She reached for his hand, pulling until he stretched out on top of her, his hips cradled between her thighs. “You’re amazing.”

Killian shifted his pelvis and thrust deeply inside her in one stroke. “No, you are, Milah.”

~*~

“Now you look the part,” Killian said, and she could hear the grin in his voice. “A true pirate.”

Milah studied herself as best she could in the small mirror, then looked down at the red blouse she wore, and the way the corset under it made her breasts look. Pretty fantastic, she had to admit.

“I’m hardly a pirate, Killian.” She smoothed down her flowing skirts. “But thank you,” she said, then added with a sigh, “I’ve never been able to afford clothes like this.”

“It’s nothing more than what you deserve, darling.”

“Captain!” came a call from up on deck. Killian levered himself out of his chair and kissed her cheek. “Let me go see what Cooper needs; back in a tick.”

After a minute, Milah felt the ship change direction, and for the first time she was able to compensate by shifting her weight without stumbling. Giving herself a little metaphorical pat on the back, she looked out the windows in their cabin, but the view from the stern of the ship only showed the churning wake that trailed behind them.

It seemed like they were increasing speed as well. Curiosity getting the better of her, Milah climbed the stairs and opened the hatch to see what was going on.

Killian was at the wheel, shouting orders to his crew. The men below hauled on ropes, adjusting the sails in a choreographed dance that still mostly mystified her.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

He gestured toward the prow. “Spice traders have found themselves in the wrong part of the sea at the wrong time. We’re going to make them regret the error.” He had a flinty gleam in his eye as they bore down on the smaller vessel.

Milah watched, apprehensive, as the Jolly narrowed the distance with the other ship. This would be the first time they’d engaged in actual piracy since she’d been aboard, and she had no idea what to expect. It struck her how incredibly rash her decision to run away aboard a pirate ship might have been.

“What are you going to do to them?” Her voice trembled.

Killian glanced at her, then summoned his first mate and handed him the wheel before pulling Milah aside. “See the flag they fly?” he said, pointing. She looked, but could only make out a smudge of blue in the distance. “That trading company is notorious. Opium, slaves… no merchandise is off limits if they can profit from it.” He grinned. “They’re one of my favorite targets.”

He didn’t say ‘only’ targets, she noticed.

“Will you kill them?”

“If I have to to protect you and my crew, aye. But if they surrender, I won’t hurt them. I’ll just unburden them of whatever they have in their hold.” He lifted her hand and kissed it. “Stay below until we’ve secured the vessel.”

Milah nodded, wondering as she returned to their quarters if she should add sword-fighting lessons to her daily routine.

Whatever Killian had meant by securing the vessel, it didn’t take long. After several minutes of nail-biting while she listened to shouts from above, a crew member named Johnson opened the hatch and shouted down to her. “Cap’n says it’s safe for you to move about freely, m’lady.”

They called her that: my lady. The irony that she had to run away from her husband and commit adultery with another man to be afforded such an honor wasn’t lost on Milah. She thanked him and mounted the stairs.

When she was up on deck, Johnson continued. “It were easy pickings, this ship, and it’s a rich prize.” He gestured toward the planks connecting the two ships. “You can go over and see for yourself. Cap’n’s over there now.”

Milah eyed the planks, which looked terribly narrow when she thought about crossing high above the water. Still, her new mantra since she’d joined the crew of the Jolly Roger was ‘I can do this,’ so she steeled herself for traversing one of them. Perhaps she could help Killian inventory the loot and divvy up each crewman’s share, thereby showing herself to be useful when they raided other vessels. She was so focused on not falling into the ocean and on what she might do to help the crew that she hardly noticed the blood on the deck of the other ship. It was only when she almost tripped over the body lying face up on the boards that she stopped, a scream caught in her throat.

The unknown crewman from the trading ship was young, probably no more than twenty. His eyes stared unseeing at the sky, his blood continuing to seep out at her feet.

Milah wondered if he had a mother somewhere, worrying if her son was safe.

~*~

“You all right, love?” Killian asked. His cheeks were red from the wind above deck, or perhaps from the rum he’d been drinking. She could hear the men celebrating as loudly as ever as the night wore on.

Milah took a swig of her own rum. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Just thought you might join us on deck for some revels, that’s all. Nicholson is asking after you; I think he might have a crush.”

“Killian, when you decided to become a pirate, why did you do that?”

His brow furrowed. “I told you, it was because of Liam.”

“Yes, because of Liam. Because you didn’t want to serve a king who could throw lives away the way Liam’s life was thrown away. Because you wanted to be free. That’s what you told me.”

She could tell he was starting to pick up on her mood. Folding his arms across his chest and leaning back against the stairs, Killian nodded. “Aye, what’s your point?”

Milah took another drink of rum. “So where does killing merchants fit into that worldview?”

“I told you, the trading company they work for--”

“Yes, you told me, but that wasn’t a ship of slave traders, Killian. Those were just… just middle men transporting cinnamon. That dead boy--”

“He attacked me with a sword, Milah; forgive me if I defended myself.” His eyes flashed with anger. “And those men were just as much a part of the system that killed my brother as anyone. What do you think kings and queens fight their petty wars over? Trade routes and profits.”

She sighed; this wasn’t an argument she wanted to have. “Today was the first time I’d ever seen a body run through with a sword.” Taking another drink, she added. “First time but not the last, I suppose.”

Crouching down next to her chair, Killian’s face softened. “I’m sorry, love. I should have shielded you from that.”

“There’s no point in shielding me from it -- it’s your life. And I suppose now it’s mine.” She shook her head and emptied her cup, longing for the rum to numb her pain. “I’m just missing Bae today, that’s all, and it’s making me churlish.”

Killian reached out and stroked her hair. “We could go back for him. Take him with us.”

Milah blinked, shocked at this offer, at the fact that Killian was so willing to make it. It showed a level of commitment to her that she hadn’t until that moment realized he felt. “We can’t bring a little boy on board a pirate ship. It’s too dangerous.”

“Perhaps when he’s older, then,” Killian countered. “We could offer him the chance to join us in this adventure when he’s a lad of, say, twelve.”

Again, the easy way that Killian seemed to imagine the two of them still together years from now knocked her flat. “As if he’ll ever forgive me for leaving him,” she scoffed.

“He will if he understands your reasons. We can make him understand, love.”

“Okay,” she agreed distantly, swayed in the moment by Killian’s earnest arguments. “Perhaps when he’s older.”

That night, she dreamed of the dead merchant lying in a pool of his own blood, but in her dream the merchant had Baelfire’s face.

~*~

Milah stood nervously, awaiting her turn to speak to the old woman in the market. She knew Killian was in one of the town’s shops at present, probably paying too much for dried beef and hard tack and limes, but today he’d have to manage without her, as he clearly had for a long time before she’d come on board.

Finally her turn came and she approached the woman. A push-cart containing of glass bottles full of the woman’s wares stood between them.

Hiding her nervous hand-wringing in the folds of her skirt, she said, “I need a potion to prevent me from getting with child. Word is you have something like that.”

“Aye, I have such a potion, but it will cost you,” she said, eyeing Milah with skepticism. “Few can afford it. Does your husband know you’re here?”

Milah almost laughed. Her husband hadn’t known where she was for almost three months. She hefted her coin purse. “I can pay,” she said, electing not answer any questions about her marriage.

She had been as cautious with Killian as she could be, paying attention to her cycle and insisting that he pull out during the times when she was more likely to get pregnant, but Milah had known plenty of women who had grown heavy with child doing exactly the same. She couldn’t risk it any longer. Not only was a pirate ship the worst place to raise a baby that she could possibly imagine, but she feared that Rumple’s promise to sell their second child to the shaman who saved Bae’s life might apply to her regardless of who fathered the babe. And who knew what sort of magic that shaman was capable of. When she’d finally shared that fear with Killian, he’d set sail for the port city of Boralus, where the local apothecary was known to be a powerful witch.

“Fair enough,” the witch said, crouching down and rummaging for a few seconds beneath her cart before emerging with a bottle. Milah handed over her gold and listened to the witch’s instructions. Tucking her purchase safely away in a satchel, she heaved a sigh of relief and turned back toward the town square to meet Killian.

Before she reached the meeting place, the sight of a set of charcoals and paint brushes in the window of a shop brought her up short. Looking down at her coin purse once more, Milah grinned and went inside.

~*~

She sat at the table in their quarters with her paper and charcoals arrayed before her, trying not to giggle. “This is ridiculous, Killian, I can’t draw you like this.”

Killian stretched his arms above his head before repositioning himself on the bed. “Why not? Don’t you like looking at me naked?”

Milah rolled her eyes. “Stop fishing for compliments. I just mean I’ve never drawn a man’s…” She gestured toward him, her cheeks heating up.

He trailed his hand down his chest and took the part of his anatomy she was referring to in hand. “What, this?”

Picking up her charcoal, she began drawing lines to approximate the way his broad chest tapered down to his waist and hips. “Don’t touch it; I’m definitely not going to draw you sporting an erection.”

Killian laughed and released his cock, returning his hand to his thigh. “Is that better?”

“Yes, now be still for half a minute, please. You fidget more than a little boy.”

“Oy, way to damage a man’s ego, calling him a little boy when he’s naked and vulnerable.”

Milah continued to sketch, looking up at him intermittently. “I don’t believe you’ve ever been vulnerable, naked or no.”

“You didn’t know me when I was an indentured servant,” he said lightly, but she could tell there was darkness underneath his words, and she immediately regretted the joke.

“I’m sorry, darling,” she said softly. She knew the bare outlines of Killian’s backstory, but she’d never thought much about how a childhood spent in servitude might inform the person he was today. It was probably no small part of the reason he’d become a pirate. So that no one would ever control him again.

She was working to get the fall of his dark hair across his forehead just right when he beckoned to her. “Take a break and come join me, Milah.”

She huffed, standing and stretching out her aching back. “Was modeling for me just an excuse to try to get me into bed in the middle of the day?”

He grinned, taking his cock in hand once more. “Perhaps. Is it working?”

Standing up to rinse the charcoal from her fingers in their washbasin, she hid a smile of her own. “Perhaps.”

Killian padded over behind her, wrapping one arm around her while he moved her hair aside with his other hand to kiss her neck. “The longer we’re together, the more I want you,” he whispered. “Why is that?”

Shaking her head, she closed her eyes and let herself enjoy the sensation of his lips on her. “I don’t know.”

He undressed her reverently, dropping to his knees at one point to press kisses to her breasts and abdomen. The adoration Milah saw in his eyes when he looked up at her had become familiar, and that itself was remarkable. No one before Killian had ever looked at her that way. She felt a rush of desire for him as she threaded her fingers through his hair.

He made love to her slowly, bringing her close to the edge with his fingers before sliding his cock inside her. He stayed up on his knees, looking down at her with that same adoring, rapturous expression while his fingers worked against her clit in time with his thrusts. Climaxing was easier for her now -- it was like so many other luxuries that being with Killian had made commonplace in her life. She cried out as she came, uncaring who might hear her. Killian stretched out over her, changing the angle so that they were chest to chest, thrusting harder and deeper until he followed her over the edge with a groan.

He held her close after, their sweat-slicked skin pressed together. “Gods, I love fucking you,” he said, nuzzling against her cheek.

Arching an eyebrow, she commented, “That’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Killian ignored her gentle gibe. “I should go up and check on our heading, but I can pose again for you later if you want.”

She snorted. “It’s not always going to lead to sex, Killian.”

“Can’t blame a man for trying,” he said with a shrug and a wink. “But if you don’t find me to be an acceptable model, would you consider drawing a self-portrait? For me?”

Milah wrinkled her nose. “If you want a picture of a woman, I’m sure I could sketch the next buxom barmaid we come across in our travels.”

He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “I don’t want a picture of a barmaid. I want a picture of my love.”

~*~

It was a several weeks before she made an attempt at the self-portrait, and when she did every drawing ended up crumpled into a ball and thrown into the corner. She deeply regretted ever attempting to draw her own face, but she regretted it even more when Killian joined her in their quarters that night and picked up one of the discarded drawings, smoothing it out to look at it.

“Killian don’t, that’s not--” She sighed. “I didn’t want you to look at those.”

“I apologize, darling.” He frowned with contrition, but stole another quick glance at the drawing before Milah jerked it out of his hands and ripped it up.

“Do you have any that you haven’t discarded? That you’d be willing for me to see?”

She hesitated for a moment, and then opened her sketchbook to show him the one drawing of herself she hadn’t completely hated. She’d perhaps made her hair a little more perfect and lush than it was in reality, and drawn herself looking a bit younger than she thought she looked when she regarded herself in the mirror. The vanity of that made her blush, and her fingers itched to crumple the page up like the others.

“This one is beautiful too,” Killian said, holding it up to look at it in the light. “But you look so sad, love. Is that the way you see yourself?”

Milah wasn’t sure what to say to that. “I suppose I am sad,” she said.

Worry washed over Killian’s face. “What can I do to make things better, love?”

She shook her head in frustration. “I’m not saying that… The sadness doesn’t come from a thing that’s happened that you can fix, Killian. Sadness is just… it’s a part of me.”

He dropped to his knees next to her chair. “I thought… I mean, I know you miss Bae, but I thought being with me made you happy.”

That pierced her heart. Milah shook her head quickly, taking his face in her hands. “It does! It does make me happy, I swear. I’m not talking about that kind of sadness, I’m not talking about the kind of sadness that comes from unhappy events, I’m talking about… I’m talking about the monster.”

His brow furrowed with confusion. “What monster?”

Milah winced. “It’s a thing I started imagining when I was a girl, when a voice in my head would tell me that I was useless or lazy or… you know, that inner voice that berates you?”

Killian nodded. “Aye, I know it.”

“I imagined that it was a little monster, riding around on my shoulders, its tail curled around my neck. Whispering things in my ear to justify why I deserved the beatings I got from my father. Why Rumple’s cowardice was the cause of all my unhappiness, or that I was a terrible mother who should never have brought an innocent child into the world.”

“Or that your son would be better off it you were dead.”

Milah nodded, a tear slipping down her cheek.

“But if you know it’s that inner voice, then you know that it’s just your worst fears and doubts. You know it lies.”

“They’ve never felt like lies to me.” She let go of Killian to wipe at her tears. “It’s funny, even though I know it’s not really a monster, there was a part of me that thought I could outrun it with you. That if we traveled far enough and fast enough, to another part of the globe, that it wouldn’t be able to follow. But that was nonsense, of course.” A watery laugh grated out from her throat. “The monster is a part of me, it’s not something I can run away from.”

Killian leaned up toward her, taking her head in his hands, kissing the tears from her cheeks. “Don’t lose faith yet, my love. We’ll find a place where it can’t follow you. The wind in our sails and and the whole world in front of us. Put your faith in me and we’ll outrun that monster. Together.”

Absorbing the fierce love in his eyes, Milah could almost believe him.

[jackieorioncat]

Canon Millian FIC

So I just mapped out a 5 chapter story chronicling all the stuff we didn’t see between Milah x Killian in like 2 hours here, which includes her final fate in the river of souls being resolved. My hands are killing me and my head is still going on. Someone want to be a Beta or an early reader on this when I’m done? or heck a collaborator at this point? otherwise I hope to post by the weekend. 

[mryddinwilt]

I have a lot of Millian feelings right now so if you're still taking prompts, can you write Millian + Milah dressing for the first as a pirate, pretty please ?

I’m trying to answer all the old prompts in my inbox. I didn’t know where this was going but I kinda loved how it turned out. Let’s call this Milah’s first day on the ship. 

1.1k | T | Millian

The boat rocked and gulls cried above as Milah watched the only home she had ever known disappear on the horizon. She clenched her jaw, determined not to cry. She had made her choice and there was no going back. The whole village thought her the ship’s whore and if she returned they would all shun her or worse solicit her. There was nothing to go back for. Unbidden the image of Baelfire sleeping in his bed came to her. She took a deep breath of the salty air. She wouldn’t think of him either.

“Milah.” Killian called to her from the helm. She brushed away the tears and turned and hurried to his side.

“Yes, Kill–er Captain.”

A smile tugged at the corner of his lips even as he fixed her with a serious look. “ Enough of your lollygagging. Go below decks and find Smiley. He will put you to work. I’ll have no freeloaders on my crew.” He spoke sternly, an air of command she had only seen briefly in the tavern when he broke up fights or gathered his men at the end of the night.

She swallowed and nodded. “Yes, Captain.”

He made a shooing motion and she hurried away. He had told her that if she was going to sail with him she would have to become part of the crew, not just a passenger but she had assumed he would give her at least an hour to adjust to her surroundings. He was strange, this man she was half in love with, a mixture of laughter and dark moods of playfulness and stern authority.

Smiley seemed to be expecting her and wasted no time with pleasantries. The wrinkles in his dark skin and grizzled grey hair gave him a fatherly air but he was quick and spry and Milah found herself struggling to keep up. He took her all over the ship explaining duties and how things worked. He introduced her to any crew they happened upon, some she knew from the tavern but many of the faces were unknown to her. Before she knew it the sun was sinking low in the sky and her brain and muscles burned from all she had seen, learned, and done.

She had just finished mending a sail, a job that she at least had some experience with, when Smiley came up and dumped a pile of clothes in her lap.

“Do you want me to wash them?” She asked as she fingered the fine black linen shirt.

He gave her a crooked grin. “They’er for you.”

“Thank you but my clothes are fine.” She didn’t want his charity.

Smiley chuckled. “That may be but we can’t have ye in skirts when there is riggin to be climbed.”

“Oh. I hadn’t thought of that.” There was so much she hadn’t thought of when she had decided to run away.

“Captain said you could change in his quarters.”

Milah nodded not trusting her voice, suddenly overwhelmed. Smiley seemed to be waiting for her to move and so she clutched the clothes to her and went below decks and into the Captains Quarters. She shut the door and sagged against it as the tears started to flow. She did her best to ignore them as she threw the clothes on the table and began unlacing her bodice. It was stupid but she couldn’t help feeling that once she changed into the shirt and trousers her life would never be the same.

“Damn it this is what you wanted.” She muttered to herself as she viciously pulled down her dress and stepped out of it. Hoping that by moving quickly she could prevent herself from feeling too deeply she yanked on the leather trousers under her shift.

They were soft and supple and felt new. She was surprised how well they fit and paused to wonder just where Smiley had found them. She fingered the shift. It had been a wedding gift and over the years had grown threadbare in places. Rumple had often said he would buy her a new one but when they had money he always seemed to forget or find something more pressing to purchase. Milah let out a short bark of laughter. Why was she clinging to that life? She pulled off the shift and dropped it on top of the dress.

As she pulled the black linen shirt over her head she caught the scent of rum and spice that she associated with Killian, it was rich and heady. The shirt was much too big for her and she realized that it probably belonged to him. Warmth rose up in her. It was such a small thing but it had been so long since someone had thought of her needs.

As she finished buttoning the shirt, she looked at the pile of her old clothes and for a moment she wanted to hurl them into the sea but instead, she found herself folding them neatly, and wondering if she would ever wear them again.

There was a knock on the door.

“Coming.” She said as she turned only to see the door opening. She caught her breath as Killian stepped into the room. He smiled, taking in her new appearance.

“I quite like you in leather.” His voice was smooth and his eyes danced.

She surprised herself by blushing like a maid, he had that effect on her. “Thank you for the shirt.”

He waved away the thanks. “It looks better on you.”

“That’s because I do up all the buttons.”

He chuckled and then moved toward her. “Here let me take those.” He reached for the folded clothes but Milah pulled them to her chest.

“I want to keep them.”

He paused and cocked his head, reading her with his eyes.

“Of course. Would you like to store them here? There isn’t much room for personal items in the crew quarters.”

“Alright.”

He smiled gently and then moved past her and bent down to open a drawer under the bed. She followed him and knelt down, feeling ridiculous for wanting to be the one to place the bundle in the drawer. As she laid them down she couldn’t help but notice the bright blue of a naval uniform already there.

She straightened and looked questioningly at Killian.

He shrugged. “I’ll never wear it again but I can’t quite get rid of it either.”

She swallowed a lump in her throat, the feeling of being understood so foreign to her. Their eyes stayed locked and after a long second he cleared his throat.

“If you ever want to wear them again. That is if you ever feel that you no longer want to be a disreputable pirate.”

Milah reached out and grabbed his hand. “I want to be here, with you.”

He smiled, the same blinding smile from the first night they met and Milah felt calm for the first time since she had stepped aboard. Whatever came next she felt ready to face it.

[gusenitsaa]

Charlotte (Part 1 / 2?)

Prompt: "How do you think things would have been different if (Killian) and Milah had had a child?" 

The current plan is that part 1 will take us all the way to Neverland. (oh yes, still) and part 2 will take us to storybrooke (yes YES,  still!) CS eventually, but most of this story does take place long before Emma is born and focuses on Killian!  

Thanks to @pirate-owl , @justmilah and @queen-mabs-revenge for headcanon angsting with me and inspiring me to put this on paper!  

Read on FF!

It wasn't like the first time.

When Milah learned she was carrying Baelfire it was a time of hope and limitless possibilities. This time… they'd talked about it and Killian had accepted her decision. It was too risky. She couldn't bring a child into the world when some magic she didn't understand and hadn't agreed to might bind the child to slavery.

But here she was, despite all their best precautions.

She wished she could feel pure joy, wished she could draw a little girl with her curls and her father's eyes. Wished all she had to fear was how rough seas might exacerbate her nausea. An infant on a pirate ship? It was absurd, even Bae- Her heart clenched at the thought of her first child, still so young. Still too young for the life they had chosen?

She didn't tell Killian.

He knew something was wrong, asked her to trust him and she did. She did trust him, but she could barely handle her own emotions, she wasn't sure she could handle seeing his eyes light up before he remembered. That look of worry that would settle onto his face, the way his eyes would go distant as he tried to find a way out. A way to protect their child from an enemy they couldn't see.

It took him nearly two weeks after she figured it out before he finally cornered her in their cabin. She'd been avoiding him, quite the feat when you're on a ship and the man you are trying to avoid is also your captain.

"Milah, please talk to me-"

"I can't-" she didn't quite meet his eyes and tried to leave, tried to escape before he saw. She'd nearly made it out of the cabin before he spoke, a note of desperation in his voice.

"We will find a way to protect the child." She froze, closing her eyes, and heard quiet steps as he came up behind her. She turned, burying her head into his chest the tears finally falling.

"How did you-" she started but shook her head. Of course he noticed. His arms tightened around her. "What if we can't? What if someone steals her from us." She hadn't noticed until that moment but was suddenly certain that it would be a little girl and he didn't question her.

"Then they will learn it is unwise to steal from a pirate."

"So we just wait?" she knew she sounded panicked but now that he knew the emotions she'd been bottling up exploded to the surface. " Do we just wait for someone to come and-"

"Shhh, Milah, love, we will not just wait. And tomorrow we will discuss the logistics at length. But tonight-" he pulled away just enough to kiss her softly. "I know it's not what we planned but, Milah are you… are you happy?" There was a nervousness in his eyes and she smiled in spite of herself.

"I'm scared, Killian. But yes, yes I'm happy too."

Returning to her small port again after all these years was surreal. She didn't think it was possible but somehow it seemed even smaller. She leaned against his desk with her arms folded glaring at him as he belted his scabbard around his waist.

"We agreed to this days ago, love," he told her, not needing to look up to feel the heat of her glare.

"I've changed my mind," Milah snapped, "You can't go alone. They say he's a healer but what kind of a healer deals in children."

"All the more reason for you to stay here. We do not know what magic he possesses, if any. What if he has a way of knowing you are with child? He may consider the child his due already. Promise me, love? That you will not seek out the healer? Give me one day. One day to find out the terms of that deal. To determine the situation, remedy it if I can."

She nodded glumly and he took her hand, pulling her closer, "I love you."

"I love you too, Killian. Please be careful."

"Always."

It was nearly nightfall before Killian found Fendrake. The man lived in a tent which was inconveniently mobile. He just seems to find you, was all anyone could say when he told them he sought the healer.

When he stepped inside the man looked unsurprised as though he'd been waiting.

"You made a deal with a man named Rumplestiltskin," Killian said, he hooked his thump through his belt loop, close enough to his blade need he draw it but with a facade of calmness.

"I did."

"I wish to know the terms of that arrangement."

"And why should I yield such information to you."

"Because you do not want me for an enemy," Killian replied tersely.

"Perhaps not," Fendrake smiled though and did not look worried in the slightest. A document appeared in his hand and the man looked it over. "What is it you want to know pirate?"

"What did he promise you?"

"A child. His second born child."

"His second born child?"

"Am I to understand congratulations are in order?"

"He has no second born child."

Fendrake sighed, "usually I don't have to bother reminding people that this is a binding contract until there is a second child," he grumbled irritably and the document vanished. Killian turned to go and Fendrake spoke from behind him. "Ah, he doesn't... But she will."

Killian turned slowly, his face a mask.

"I'll admit, it would be a stretch but deals can be funny things. Interpretation is everything. Let's talk, pirate, perhaps we can make a deal. To ensure my interpretation is to your liking." Killian smirked, he knew a blackmailer when he saw one.

"What is it you want, healer?"

"Your second born, of course. Your second born to ensure the safety of your first. I mean you may never have another child, so it's really-"

Killian moved so fast that the man didn't finish his sentence, letting out a small choking sound as Killian's blade flew, impaling the man through the heart. The man sagged and Killian pulled free the blade.

"Goodbye, healer." Fendrake collapsed, eyes wide and staring. Killian cleaned the blood from his blade with the sleeve of the dead man's tunic and sheathed it, leaving the tent without looking back.

When he got back to the Jolly Roger he found preparations to make sail underway, Milah hurried to meet him at the gangplank, her eyes flicking over him to ensure he was unscathed.

"Well?" she asked worriedly.

"It is done. The man told me that it is Rumplestiltskin's second child who is promised." Milah sagged in relief. "Then he told me it was a matter of interpretation and tried to interest me in the same deal. My second-born for my first."

"Killian, tell me you didn't-"

Killian shook his head. "He will be making no more deals." He glanced around at the men preparing to make sail and looked back at her with eyebrows raised. "What is this, Milah, I thought you'd want to stay. To go see your lad?"

"I did," she admitted.

"You… did?" Killian's face was confusion for a few seconds before his eyes widened. "The boy is below isn't he?" Milah nodded. "Your husband… let him go?"

"Not exactly. But I told him that this was best for everyone. What is he going to do if the soldiers come to take him away in a few years? Beg for mercy? I told him if he wished me to stop he'd have to make me stop. He didn't."

Killian nodded, "and the preparations?"

"Just in case. He's not… well liked and he won't fight his own battles so…" she shrugged. "Killian would you like to meet him?"

"Very much. What have you told him, about his father?"

"Not much. That his father loves him, but he can't protect him from the ogres on land, so we're going on an adventure at sea."

Killian nodded and Milah led him to their cabin. Bae was by the window when they came down looking over the water towards the port. He looked nervous but he smiled when he saw Milah.

"Are you sure Papa cannot come on an adventure with us?"

"No, my sweet boy. But we'll have fun won't we, you won't believe all the amazing things I'm going to show you." She ruffled his hair affectionately and he smiled. "I'd like you to meet someone, Bae," she looked over towards Killian who stepped forward now. "This is Killian, he's the captain of this beautiful ship."

"Welcome aboard the Jolly Roger, my boy."

They'd planned on being back in port by the time their child was born but the storm had raged for the better part of a week, blowing them off course and with only storm sails, their progress slowed to a crawl.

It would have been fine. If their child (daughter, Milah insisted,) hadn't decided she'd had quite enough of her sheltered life. She came several weeks earlier than they were expecting her and really he should have known Milah's daughter would be as eager to see the world as her mother.

But bloody hell now? The storm had been raging for days and everyone was exhausted. And to make it worse the midwife who had been sailing with them for the past month was seasick thanks to the storm. Killian slipped into the cabin, shaking wet hair from his eyes. The cabin pitched and there was a groan of discomfort from the midwife. She still looked a little green but she seemed better than she had been this morning thanks to her near constant nursing of ginger tea in his borrowed flask.

"I'm sorry, love," he said taking Milah's hand, "we should have been in port weeks ago in case-"

"You should be topside-" Milah hissed, squeezing his hand tight. The ship pitched again and he tightened his grip on the cot to stay upright.

"Aye love, I just wanted to see you."

The contractions would return soon, she'd been counting in her head and Killian had picked the worst time for a visit. "Killian, I love you-" Milah started.

"I love you t-"

"But if you do not get out of this cabin within the next 45 seconds I might just rip your spine out through your throat, understand?"

He kissed her hand, "Understood."

"Captain-" the midwife called as he made for the ladder. "Some fresh water and maybe some more ginger tea?" she asked and Killian nodded.

"I'll send someone with both. Anything else?"

"It would be pretty helpful if you could keep the ship steady-" she grumbled under her breath.

"I'll do my best, love," Killian replied.

The storm raged for three hours longer before finally beginning to calm and Killian almost wished it hadn't. Without the sound of wind and rain he could hear Milah's cries from the cabin and it broke his heart.

He hurried below to the hold to check on Bae. The boy had gotten his sea legs quickly after a rocky start the first few weeks and now he could sleep through near any storm. But not, apparently, through the muffled sounds of his mother's cries.

"Is she going to be okay?" Baelfire asked the second Killian opened the door to the hold.

"Aye, lad," Killian assured him, "she'll be alright" Baelfire dove forward into his arms and Killian stiffened at first, unaccustomed to such affection from the boy.

Things were not smooth between them at first, it was difficult for the boy not to feel like Killian was trying to replace his father when they had to explain to him that he was going to have a younger sibling.

Killian rubbed his back calmingly. "She's going to be just fine," he repeated, hoping desperately the nervousness didn't creep into his voice.

Their daughter comes screaming into the world and into the first sunlight the crew had seen in a week. Some of the more superstitious of the lot spin tales already, already wrapped around the finger of the child who calms the storm.

Killian is not particularly superstitious compared to some of the men, but the moment he sees his daughter wrapped up in her mother's arms something in him shifts, a subtle thing that he doesn't fully understand until later. He presses a kiss to the top of Milah's head.

"I was right," Milah teased lightly, "she's beautiful isn't she?"

"Like her mother. What's her name?" They had talked about names for her a few times but he left the final choice to Milah in this moment. After all, it's bad luck to name the babe before she arrives… (perhaps Killian is a little superstitious.)

"Charlotte," Milah said quietly.

Milah had been worried about having a child so young aboard a ship but Charlotte had never known anything else. She was not prone to fitfulness but the first time they took her on land she screamed like a banshee until her mother relented and took her back to the gentle rocking of the ship at harbor.

"Just like her mother," Killian teased when Charlotte relaxed, calmed by the familiar movement under their feet.

She'd gotten her father's eyes, to Milah's delight and though her hair curled like her mother's it was lighter and sun streaked. She thought it odd at first and asked Killian about it. He smiled and tousled her hair affectionately. It was the same color as Liam's had been.

Bae adored his baby sister. Watching them together, Killian couldn't help but think it was Bae who reminded him of Liam, even more than the girl with her uncle's curls. Bae was quickly developing a protectiveness of the little girl that reminded him so much of his own brother it made his heart clench.

By the time Charlotte is six years old she's the apple of not only her family's eye but of the entire crew.

There are men in Killian's crew who would gut a man as soon as look at them but they are all politeness when they finally receive their invitation to the little pirate princess' weekly tea party.

Killian is half buried in a chart, his attention split between checking Bae's calculations and his little girl, who is currently reminding "Mr. Donovan" not to put the teacup down too hard or he might break it.

"Oh, right, of course," Donovan says apologetically and is rewarded with a bright smile.

"Thank yooooou!"

He glances up again when she she gasps in dismay and she is staring intensely across the table.

"Mr. Jacobson!" she chided, "That was the salt you just put in your tea!"

He struggles to bite back a smile and glances across the desk towards Bae who is not even bothering to hide his adoring smile. He's 14 now and starting to take on more duties around the ship starting with this. Navigation is not his favorite subject but when he puts his mind to it he does quite well.

"Well done, mate," Killian affirms when he finishes looking over the boy's work, Bae nearly glows with pride and Killian ruffles his hair affectionately, "we'll make a navigator of you yet!"

There is the sound of a scuffle from above and Killian tenses. The hatch opens and a man calls down.

"Unfriendly company captain-"

Killian shoots to his feet and looks at Bae, "stay here, watch after you sister."

Bae nods and Killian glances at the men who had been having tea with Charlotte, he jerks his head at them and they follow him topside.

Milah is talking to a man with his back to the when Killian gets onto the deck but he can read it in her posture, she's afraid. He hurries to her side and when he looks up at the man his blood runs cold too.

"Rumplestiltskin-" he says quietly and the man giggled.

"It's always nice to make an impression. You may have heard of me under a different name now, pirate. The dark one. Oh! I see my reputation precedes me."

Killian stiffened but Rumple continued. "Do you know what it's like to have your wife stolen from you? To feel powerless to stop it? It feels like having your heart ripped from your chest. Actually, let me show you." He reaches out and shoves his hand into Killian's chest. Killian doubled over with a hiss of pain. .

"No!" Milah cried, stepping forward. "Please don't hurt him."

"And now you beg for the life of your true love, the pirate. I didn't realize the power of true love before. It is impressive. I'd hate to break it up. Actually, no. I'd love to," he squeezed Killian's heart for emphasis and Killian fell to his knees with a groan of agony.

"It's not him you're angry with Rumple."

Rumplestiltskin chuckled and released Killian's heart. "I assure you I can be angry with more than one person at a time. But you're right… priorities. Do you know what it was like walking home that night…"

"Rumple…"

"Knowing I had to tell our son…"

"Please."

"that his mother was dead?"

"I was wrong to lie to you. I was the coward. I knew that."

"But that wasn't enough for you. You came back. You stole my son.I want my son."

"He's not here," Killian broke in quickly. "A seafaring life was too dangerous for a boy so young."

Milah nodded, latching onto the tale, "We asked a fairy to take him somewhere safe, to a realm far from the ogre war. Somewhere he'd be safe until he was old enough."

"You told me I couldn't keep him safe," Rumple hissed at Milah, "and then you send him off with some fairy."

"We just wanted to keep him safe-" Milah said carefully.

"Oh did we?" He glanced at Killian with unconcealed disgust. "We could have kept our boy safe, together," Rumple hissed, "but you tore our family apart."

"Our family was a miserable prison," Milah snapped, anger and desperation rising in her voice.

"Why were you so miserable?" the dark one sneered.

"Because I never loved you!"

In an instant Rumplestiltskin's hand is in her chest emerging with a glowing red heart. "Milah! No!" Killian charged towards Rumplestiltskin but is shoved backwards by an invisible hand. Ropes snake around him and he struggled against them, finally managing to free himself. He catches her as she falls and cradles her gently. She reaches for him, her fingers a gentle pressure on his cheeks. There are a thousand words in her eyes, sorrow, worry, fear, an apology. They are all left unspoken save one.

"I love you."

Rumplestiltskin's hand clenches and Milah stiffens for a moment before relaxing in his arms.

"No-" he mumbles. He lowers Milah gently to the deck, his hand brushing gently along her cheek for a moment before turning enraged eyes on Rumplestiltskin. "You may be more powerful now, demon, but you're no less a coward."

"I'll have what I came for now," Rumplestiltskin sneered. "You see, I think you're lying. I think you do know where my son is. I think you're going to tell me where he is-"

"You'll have to kill me," Killian spits, reaching for his sword.

"Ah, ah ah-" In a moment of agony fire explodes up his arm and he collapses in pain his left hand and a growing pool of blood on the deck. "Not until you tell me what I want to know-" Killian grabs a hook, driving it into Rumplestiltskin's chest but Rumplestiltskin just giggles.

"Killing me is gonna take a lot more than that, dearie."

"Even demons can be killed. I will find a way," Killian growled.

Rumplestiltskin raised a blade to his chest, settling the point above Killian's heart. "And how will you do that if you're dead? Tell me what I want to know, pirate, and maybe I'll let you live long enough to try to kill me. Otherwise this is just going to get really messy."

Killian hisses in pain as Rumplestiltskin leans forward, the point digging into his chest above his heart but unable to back away, held in place by some magic.

"NO!"

Killian's eyes widen in shock as Bae's voice echoes across the deck.

The magic releases him and he falls, his head spinning from pain and blood loss. In a moment Bae is in front of him, standing head held high between the dark one and Killian.

"Bae-" the dark one says quietly, his eyes softening slightly.

"You like deals," Bae said, only the slightest tremor in his voice. "Here is my offer. I will come with you, you will leave Killian and this ship alone. You will not harm him or anyone else aboard."

"Baelfire, no-" Killian murmured in horror.

The dark one looked genuinely perplexed for a moment. "Bae, don't you want to come home?"

Home? Baelfire's eyes slipped to where his mother lay on the deck and he fought the tears that threatened to come.

"That is the deal," Baelfire said. "You can take me by force, you can kill Killian and sink this ship but if you do I will run. Any and every chance I will run."

The Dark One nodded and Baelfire turned, kneeling next to where Killian had fallen leaning close. Killian wrapped his good arm around him, his embrace too tight, as though he could stop this just by holding on tight enough.

"I'm sorry, papa," he whispered in Killian's ear, too quietly for the dark one to overhear. "Take care of Charlotte."

And then Bae was gone and Killian fell forward, the place he had been only a wispy smoke remained.

For a moment no one moves then he shifts closer to Milah his remaining hand reaching for her as for a port in the storm. She's gone. Bae's gone and Charlotte- A sudden bolt of panic strikes through him and he's on his feet again. His mind has gone fuzzy from the pain and grief and loss of blood but he makes for the cabin anyway, the last place he saw her. He stumbles below, horrified that at any moment he'll find her beyond his reach like her brother, or worse... still and broken like her mother

The cabin is empty, the table still set for her afternoon tea party but she's gone. Half delirious with pain and grief he sinks to his knees.

Gone. They're all gone.

A hatch opens and Charlotte comes flying out and into his arms, he clings to her tightly, terrified she'll vanish if he lets go.

"I'm sorry papa, I know the rule, Bae told me not to come out until I hear the safety word but-"

He just holds her tighter, not trusting his voice.

Later he'll regret it, letting her see him like that, bleeding and terrified, but at this moment he can't do anything but cling to her. Darkness is creeping into the edge of his vision and he can feel the blood seeping into his clothes from his left arm, still hidden under his coat from Charlotte's view. She knows he's hurt, and he can see the tears slipping down her face. Doubtless she can smell the blood, see it seeping through, probably she can feel him shaking but he keeps his arm hidden beneath his coat, he can't stand the idea of her seeing that.

He wants to say something, to tell her he loves her but the words get caught in his throat. With the state he's in, he knows he's got about even odds of closing his eyes and not opening them again. She'd be alone and unprotected and his last words to her will break her heart just as Milah's had broken his.

Finally he lets the doctor pull him away from his daughter. Some part of him wants to try to protect her by letting the crew take her away, but he knows that's not the kind of protection she needs right now.

"I need you to do something for me, little love," he says gently. His voice comes out gruff and weaker than he'd like but she nods immediately, her face tear-streaked and determined. "Close your eyes." She obeys and he pulls her close again. "Don't look, alright, can you promise?"

"I promise, papa," she nods, eyes still closed. She buries her head into his shoulder and he finally takes his arm from beneath his coat, the sight nearly making him nauseous. He looks away, focusing on his daughter's curls as they tie leather straps around the stump to slow the bleeding.

At first he thought he was being strong for her when he choked back his cries of agony, but she clings to his good hand and whispers that she loves him into his chest and he realizes that she's the strong one. Just like her mum.

The bleeding stops eventually and the wound is cleaned and wrapped. He's feverish and woozy and there are times when the pain and the grief tempt him to despair, but he feels her hand in his and decides right then and there that he is a survivor. He refuses to leave her alone.

He heals, or part of him does. The brace and hook cover the missing piece of his body an icy chilliness covers the missing piece of his heart. Or tries. But for Charlotte he had no doubt he'd had spiraled into the abyss long ago. But the darkness never truly takes hold in his heart, thanks to his one little light, his beautiful daughter with her uncle's hair.

But Bae… Killian wants to keep Charlotte safe, keep her away from that monster. But Bae- He could not have loved that boy more if he were his own flesh and blood. Thinking of Bae trapped with the man who stole his mother right in front of his eyes makes him sick.

He seeks out the dark one, tracks the dark one's movements, follows him from port to port. Always careful to keep Charlotte out of sight but desperate for a chance to save his boy.

Killian caught up once, saw him through the crowd, tagging behind Rumplestiltskin with his eyes on the ground. The Dark One kept him physically safe, destroyed any that should even accidentally harm the boy in the most vicious of ways. But Killian cringed to see the bright eyed boy he loved so well with his eyes locked on the ground in front of him.

Killian tracked them through the crowds all day, waiting for his chance and it finally came when Bae waited outside as the Dark One finally went into a tavern to broker a deal. Killian slipped his hand over the boy's mouth and pulled him out of sight into an alley. Baelfire struggled viciously but Killian was too strong, when they'd put some distance between themselves and the busy street Killian finally relaxed.

"Be quiet, Bae, I mean you no harm," Baelfire stilled instantly at the familiar voice and Killian took his hand away from his mouth.

"Killian?" he whispered.

"Aye, lad," Bae spun around and launched himself at Killian who closed his arms around him tightly.

"You shouldn't be here," Bae mumbled into Killian's chest, "if he sees you-"

"He won't see me," Killian assures him. "The man inside, talking to the crocodile, It's Donovan. He'll keep him busy. Sadly they will be unable to come to terms in the end but he'll be busy for a while."

"Charlotte?"

"Misses her brother."

"I miss her too,' Bae said quietly.

"Say the word Bae, and I'll take you away, we'll run."

Bae shook his head, looking so much older than his 15 years in that moment. "He'll find us. If I break my deal, he'll break his. His magic…"

"I will find a way, Baelfire," Killian insisted. "We will be a family again. Do you believe me?"

Bae nodded. "There's a dagger," he said quietly. "It's the only weapon that can hurt him." He dug into his jacket and Killian saw a small secret pocket sewn into the lining. His mother's stitchwork. He pulled out a folded piece of paper and handed it to Killian.

"How did you know to carry it today?" Killian asked, the paper disappearing into Killian's own jacket.

"I've carried it every day since I found out. I knew you'd find me eventually." Bae shrugged, "I have to get back. He has a way of knowing when someone isn't serious about a deal. Donovan may be the best poker player on the Jolly but it won't take long for him to be found out."

"We're not giving up on you Bae, we're tracking his movements," Killian said quickly.

Bae nodded, a small smile flickering onto his lips for a moment and he hugged Killian once more. "Love you," he murmured.

"I love you too, lad. Keep your chin up, we're always nearby."

"Tell Charlotte I love her too?"

"Of course."

Bae nodded and scampered back out towards the street. Killian leaned back against the wall. His nails dug into his palm. Every instinct told him to follow, to get him back, damn the consequences. But damn the consequences was an almost certain path to his own death and more importantly, Charlotte's.

He dug into his pocket and pulled out the scrap of paper. On it was drawn a dagger impaling a human heart, clearly drawn in Baelfire's own hand. He stared at the drawing for a few moments before putting it back in his pocket.

He had a stop to make on the way home.

When he returned to the Jolly Roger his forearm was carefully wrapped. Under the bandage Baelfire's drawing was faithfully inked into his skin with only one addition of his own. Her name, a permanent reminder of what he had lost, (and what he still had to lose.)

Killian seethed silently, pacing back and forth along the deck. He'd come topside to try to keep from waking Charlotte.

It had been months since they'd learned that Rumplestiltskin had let Baelfire fall into a portal. As much as he hated that Baelfire was now alone in some unknown world without magic, he'd realized this was perhaps the best chance he'd have. If he could get there before the crocodile… Rumplestiltskin could not hurt them in a world without magic. That was a place where Killian could truly protect them.

But crossing realms was not easy under the best of circumstances and- he paused his hand going to his blade as a bright light began to move towards the ship. By the time the light reached the deck of his ship his blade was leveled at a woman in blue who dusted herself off and looked up at him.

"I mean you no harm, Killian," she said, hands raised. "I'm here to help. I've heard your wish. And I mean to right a mistake that I made."

"Who are you?"

"You can call me blue," the woman said, inclining her head slightly when Killian sheathed his blade.

"What mistake?"

"I heard Baelfire's wish too. Gave him a magical object that would help him reach a world without magic. He meant to take his father-"

"The dark one is not his father," Killian hissed.

Blue nodded, her expression conciliatory. "He meant to take the dark one there, where he couldn't hurt anyone else. I tried to help him but in the end he passed through the portal alone.

"You created that portal?" Killian asked, voice tight with anger.

"Not precisely. But I have something which can create another. You can follow h-"

"And you're offering this now? It has been months."

"The magic I offer is not easy to find even for one such as me, you know this."

"And what price will you extract for this magic?" Killian asked suspiciously.

"The journey is its own price. I have only one magic bean, your path home will likely be most arduous. And the land Baelfire has been taken to is a dangerous place filled with dark magic. A place called Neverland."

Killian's blood ran cold, "Baelfire is in Neverland?" Killian hissed, voice tight with horror.

"You've been there?" Killian nodded tersely. "Then you know what dangers lie in that place."

"Then I must hurry."

The blue fairy reached out a small glowing bean in her hand. "Once the portal opens you need only think of the place you wish to find and you will be there. Good luck, Captain."

Then Blue was gone and Killian closed his hand around the bean.

Neverland. The one place he never wanted to set foot in again, was now the one place he desperately needed to go.

"To Neverland."

Off to Never-never-land!

Also tagging @mryddinwilt​ , @theonceoverthinker​ , @ouat-and-spn​ and @arandompudley​  because I’m pretty sure this is the millian headcanon that I was being asked about though admittedly I am not sure.

On to chapter 2

[spartanguard]

the dutchman must always have a captain

based on a prompt and artwork from my darling @cocohook38: what if Deckhand Hook became captain of the Flying Dutchman, a la POTC? (mainly some whump—both physical and emotional—and a bit of Millian; possibly more to come!)

4k | FF | AO3

What was that pirate phrase again? The one everyone liked to repeat, particularly when feeling malicious?

(In that respect, he'd never been a very good pirate. In any respect, for that matter.)

Oh, right—dead men tell no tales.

If that was true, then perhaps Killian Jones wasn't as dead as he thought. For though his heart resided outside his body, he still had quite the tale to tell.

There was another phrase: all magic comes with a price. And it seemed that whatever curse he now bore was the ultimate price for the magic of having love for once in his godforsaken life.

There wasn't much love to go around for a slave boy on a merchant ship. Well, there had been, but then Liam left.

There was even less for a one-handed man on a pirate ship, especially when he only ended up there as a result of a lost bet. But he could handle it now. Though Blackbeard always had some barb or another for him, his skin was thick from years of such torment, both verbal and physical, so it never had much impact.

His jaded, aimless existence was relatively monotonous, and he expected it to be that way until the day he died, however long or short that might be. (It was seemingly without purpose, too, but frankly, he was just too cowardly to die.) Until the day it wasn’t—until the day he met her.

Milah was everything he wasn’t: spirited, brave, determined, fierce...he didn’t know enough adjectives to accurately describe the amazing woman he’d met in a tavern. She’d ignored the catcalls of the rest of the crew and settled herself near him, and he was a goner. And somehow, she fell for him, too. To the point that she stowed herself away on the ship one night in an escape mission, hiding in the cargo hold until she saw him and begging for his help in running away from her husband.

He agreed—of course he agreed; he was far too weak to deny her anything—and suffered the lash once Blackbeard discovered the stowaway. But dammit if she wasn’t a better pirate than he was, and soon it was she looking out for him instead of the reverse.

Those few years were easily the greatest in his insignificant existence, and it seemed like he might actually have something to live for.

But then, one day, the skies turned black, and the sea churned, and a fearsome ship of myth rose from the depths—the Flying Dutchman. Any good sailor knew to avoid that ship of death and the damned souls who sailed it, captained by the one and only Dark One.

Who, as it turned out, was Milah’s husband. And he was angry.

He magically appeared in the ship in a haze of smoke, every bit as fearsome as the legends foretold. Scaly green skin covered what they could see of his body under the leather he wore, and if Killian wasn't mistaken, a crocodile’s tail trailed behind the demon—fitting for such a reptilian man. The term “crocodile smile” took on new meaning when the man bared his garish teeth, a sinister grin taking over his features and reaching his unnaturally gold eyes.

Blackbeard looked scared; Killian had never seen the man so frightened. But he attempted to do his duty as captain and drew his sword on the Dark One, questioning his uninvited presence on another man’s ship.

Quicker than anyone could react, the Dark One plunged his claw-like hand into Blackbeard’s chest, ripping out the pirate’s heart and crushing it to a pulp. Blackbeard barely had time to cry out before his eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed on the deck. The Dark One shook his hand free of the remains of the other man’s organ and turned his attention on Milah.  

“You thought you could hide from me on the seas, dearie? You didn't think I'd be able to track down my heart?”

Reflexively, her hand went to the pouch tied to her belt; she'd never told Killian what was in it, only that she had to make sure it never fell into the wrong hands. He instinctively shifted closer to her, sliding slightly in front to shield her. It was the first time in his life he’d ever felt protective, but he’d be damned if he let anything happen to the best thing to ever come his way.

“Imagine my surprise when I arrived home only to find it empty and abandoned, my wife and son gone,” the Dark One continued monologuing. “A decade I’ve waited! Ten years! And then—nothing?”

“What did you expect, Rumple?” The man flinched, clearly unused to hearing his given name. “Did you actually think we’d wait contentedly without you that long? That I’d be happy being your little wife at home while you sailed the seas off on adventure?”

“It’s not an adventure; it’s a—”

“I know damn well what it is and I know that you’ve abused it. Look at yourself. You’re a monster.”

The Dark One fell silent at the insult, and Killian took that opportunity to firmly place himself in front of Milah. The crocodile’s angry eyes shifted between the couple until a look of realization took over.

“Oh, so that’s what this is.” His expression turned giddy. “Wait, wait, don’t tell me—it’s twu love!” he sing-songed, teasing.

Shakily, Killian drew his blade and held it aloft. Around the deck, others followed suit. Milah continued to stare the demon down.

“Well, well, seems like you’ve found the family you could never have with me.” Milah’s silence was an affirmative answer. “I suppose that makes you a pirate, eh?”

Killian spoke, with words coming from some unknown and as-yet untapped place of bravery deep within. “Aye, she’s one of us, and we look out for our shipmates.”

A wicked grin slowly took over the Dark One’s face. “Then that makes you sailors.”

A chill ran down Killian’s spine. They all knew what the Dark One did with sailors who ran afoul of him. Before he could shout “No!”, they were engulfed in a cloud of magic.

The next moment, they were on the deck of a different ship. But it took only a brief glance at the aged wood and barnacle-encrusted crew to know they were on the Dutchman. The fear that had so briefly left him was back full force as he saw the unfriendly faces all around, save for one that looked oddly familiar.

He couldn’t focus on it long before the Dark One spoke again. “How’s this, then? I let you live, but as members of my crew. It’s a bit different than what you’re used to, but...it grows on you.” Several crewmen (if they were indeed still men) chuckled darkly.

Milah squeezed Killian’s arm above the brace of his hook, gave him a reassuring look, and stepped forward. “Your issue is with me, Rumple; leave him out of it.”

“So, you’re going to save your twu love, the pirate.” He began to circle them. “I’d never realized the power of true love before. It is impressive. I’d hate to break it up.” His cheeky grin as he mocked them quickly turned dark. “Actually, no; I’d love it.”

In the blink of an eye, the Dark One’s hand was now inside Killian’s chest, squeezing his heart. He’d never felt such agony, and collapsed against the deck. He could feel his heart pounding against the intrusion, blood seeping from the wound, but still the Dark One didn’t let go.

“Rumple, stop!” Milah shouted, her pleas falling on deaf ears. “Wait. I have something you want.” Through his blurred vision, Killian could see Milah dangling the pouch she had long protected.

Suddenly, the pressure on his heart was gone and the Dark One removed his hand. Killian slumped against the deck and pressed his palm to the wound over his heart, sure it was fatal, but he had to make sure Milah was safe.

“The heart in exchange for our lives,” Milah begged, gesturing to the parcel.

“You’d really do that?” the Dark One asked, voice full of awe. “You’d give me that power?”

Killian sat up as best he could to watch the scene unfold. Milah nodded. “Do we have a deal?”

“I want to see it first,” the demon demanded.

Finding Killian with her eyes, Milah opened the satchel and produced a human heart, still beating despite its unnaturally dark color and the obvious fact that it had been in a leather pouch for well over a decade.

The Dark One made a move to grab it, but Milah was too quick and tossed it to Killian; his reflexes were never great, but at least they didn’t fail him now. With a hiss of pain as he removed the hand that was covering the hole in his chest, he caught the morbid organ.

“You asked to see it; now you have,” Killian stuttered out, wheezing through the pain. The Dark One was staring daggers at him.

“Do we have a deal? Can we go our separate ways?” Milah asked, drawing his attention back.

The hole in Killian’s chest began to throb again and agony began to blur his senses. He could see that Milah and the Dark One were in some kind of standoff, but it took all he could to remain conscious, let alone hear their conversation. Slowly, he got to his feet, rising just in time to hear Milah tell the man, “I never loved you.”

A tense moment passed as the former couple stared at each other. And in the next, without warning, the Dark One plunged his hand into Milah’s chest.

“Milah!” Killian shouted, stepping forward, until some unseen force shoved him back and lashed him to the mast with the ship’s lines. The jolt made his chest ache even more, though whether it was the gash or for what was happening to Milah, he didn’t know.

Dramatically, the Dark One pulled out her heart, examining it. Milah collapsed on the deck, finding Killian with her eyes. He struggled to get to her, but the ropes held strong.

He could see her lips moving, saying “I love you,” and then her face contorting in pain as the Dark One crushed her heart.

Oh so cruelly, the ropes then gave way and Killian surged forward, but it was too late; she was gone. He collapsed at her side but she’d gone still. Now he knew the pain in his chest was due to heartbreak.

The Dark One’s sinister voice broke through his grief. “I’ll have what I was promised now.”

“You’ll have to kill me first.” Killian didn’t recognize the angry voice that came from his lips, but he didn’t give himself time to think about it.

“A wound like that, you’re going to die anyway. Painfully, too, just like she did.”

Bile rose in Killian’s throat and he saw nothing but red. Filled with a rage he’d never experienced, he launched forward at the evil man, weaponizing his hook for the first time as he dug it into the Dark One’s chest.

The man flinched, but then started laughing. Killian removed the hook; it didn’t even have blood on it.

“Killing me’s gonna take a lot more than that, dearie.”

Then, Killian remembered what was in his hands: the heart. In a moment of brilliancy—or, more likely, lunacy—he dropped the heart on the deck and stabbed it instead, pinning it to the planks with his hook.

It worked; the Dark One let out an unholy scream as he stumbled back, clutching his chest. The heart itself began to shrivel in front of Killian’s eyes, its beating growing staggered and inconsistent, until it stopped altogether and turned to dust. The Dark One followed suit, collapsing on the deck and disintegrating into little more than seafoam.

Killian unlodged his hook from the wood as shock took over. He killed a man. And not just any man—the Dark One. His breathing grew labored as the adrenaline wore off, and the throbbing pain in his chest came back tenfold. He knew he was indeed about to die, but if it meant that he’d rid the world of that terror, then it wasn’t for nought—his whole worthless existence would finally have some meaning, and he'd get a long-overdue reprieve from this life.

He didn’t notice the crew closing in on him as he fell back on the deck, next to the body of his love; not until they surrounded him. But he was losing consciousness fast and could feel his blood seeping out. Through the fog, he could have sworn he heard his father’s voice; it had been so many years since he had, but he supposed it was appropriate as a hallucination before death. For a moment, he even had hope that he'd see Liam again.

The voice said, “The Dutchman must always have a captain.” The face that matched it swam into Killian’s vision, hovering overhead—the same man he thought he recognized earlier.

“Father,” he whispered, not sure if he was asking a question or saying a greeting.

“The Dutchman must always have a captain,” it repeated, and the figure above him produced a jagged, rusty-looking dagger that grabbed Killian’s focus.

The man raised the dagger as if to strike. In the back of his mind, Killian’s fight-or-flight instinct kicked in, but he was too tired to comply, and too confused. If he was about to die anyway, why would they try to murder him? An act of mercy?

Before he could figure it out, the man—his father, it had to be—brought the blade down into the open wound. And then came the true agony.

The knife seemed to be made of fire as it rooted around in his chest, and he could feel every move of the rusted metal within his flesh. He was sure his bruised heart was about to combust and was certain the skin around it was charred, though he smelled no smoke.

A tugging sensation followed and he was fairly certain he screamed in pain. To his horror, the next image he saw was of a hand pulling his heart from the now-gaping cavity in his chest. And it was still beating.

He had a moment’s reprieve from the misery as he watched the surreal scene: his father was gently cradling the organ in both hands, studying it and seemingly waiting for something. Another pair of hands produced a pouch—the same one Milah had carried—and his father gently placed it inside.

After that, Killian lost all track of time and space and entered a world of pure torture.

The second his heart hit the hide of the pouch, a shock lanced through him, starting in his chest, going down his spine, and flying down his limbs. It was as if acid had been poured into his veins, and felt both like fire and ice at the same time, making it impossible to search for relief.

The next sensation was of a lash falling against his neck. He was used to how it felt on his back, but it was a hundredfold worse against the sensitive skin of his neck, and he writhed at the feeling of his skin being split open, in stripes on either side.

Meanwhile, the entirety of his skin felt as if needles were pricking it, or possibly branding irons; whatever it was, his flesh no longer felt recognizably human. It was as though he was being melted down into something new.

Through the haze of torment, it seemed as though he'd been placed on a rack and was being stretched; his spine ached with an odd pull, almost as it it was being extruded through his lower back and various other points.

And on top of it all were the unmistakeable jabs and tugs of a wound being closed. It was similar to the feeling of his wrist being sewn shut but magnitudes worse as someone closed the hole over the empty cavern that had once housed his heart.

For all he knew, the entire ordeal was instantaneous and over in a matter of minutes. But it could just as easily have been hours or days until the reprieve of unconsciousness finally arrived, and he passed out into a dead sleep.

His dreams were...strange. He was familiar with nightmares, but these weren't quite that, at least not his normal ones. Usually, he saw grotesque versions of the men he'd served growing up, lash in hand; the storm that took Liam reimagined as a vicious kraken; and now, an actual crocodile tearing out Milah’s heart and eating it while he was helpless to do anything.

But then it all became twisted. Suddenly, he was the one with the lash and past crewmates recoiled in fear; Liam’s ship went down at his command, despite his brother's pleas; and his hand was the one crushing Milah's heart as she looked at him in disgust.

And somewhere in his mind was his father’s voice, telling him, “That's my lad.” But he didn’t want to be that man—he’d never been that man, never had it in him, and certainly wasn’t about to.

What happened to him?

Again, he heard the voice of his father. “Killian, my boy. It’s alright, I’m here.” Those words brought him back to another nightmare—real, not imagined, of being abandoned on a ship in the middle of the night after hearing the same man say something similar. He remembered feeling so small and so alone, even with Liam there, and so confused and hurt by their father’s betrayal.

That was what finally roused him. He’d been moved to a room below decks it seemed. The bed he lay on was far more plush than anything he’d ever touched before and the room was clean if a bit gaudy, with gold decor everywhere.

“Are you awake, son?” Killian turned his sore neck at the voice and there, sure enough, was the man he hadn’t seen in decades. Fatherly concern was etched on Brennan Jones’ face, which while no older than Killian remembered it being, was clearly sea-worn and dotted with algae, like a piece of driftwood.

“Father?” Killian’s voice was rough with disuse, but was childlike in wonder and hurt.

“Aye, it’s me.” Brennan squeezed his hand. “How do you feel?”

Killian closed his eyes to take stock. While he was no longer in the worst agony of his life, he still didn’t feel good. Everything seemed wrong and like it wasn’t his, oddly enough save for the hook that was still strapped to his left arm. It hurt his neck and chest to breathe, and his skin felt stiff and too thick, like after a terrible sunburn. Though he lay on his side, he could feel sharp aching knots in his back and elbows, as if there was some deformity that prevented him from laying flat. And he was so thirsty.

“What the bloody hell happened to me?” was all he could manage, hoping that conveyed his feelings well enough.

“I'm so sorry, Killian.” His father sounded truly remorseful, which only made Killian all the more fearful.

“What. Happened?” he demanded, more forcefully.

“The Dutchman must always have a captain,” Brennan said sadly. “And now, my boy, that's you.”

Killian jolted upright. Only the Dark One could captain the cursed ship, while bearing a curse of his own—everyone knew that. There was no way it could have fallen to Killian—he couldn't—he wasn't—

But then he saw his hand, where it was gripping his knee. Maybe it was just the light in the cabin, but the color didn't look right. He lifted it to inspect it, and there was webbing between the digits that wasn't there before, like he was some kind of mercreature. And the texture of his skin was all wrong, as he followed it down his forearm—it was like that of a shark, turning the color and striped pattern of one nearer to his elbow.

He gasped when he looked at the joint, straining his airways again. Deformed was right—there was now excess cartilage extending from his skin in the shape of a fin. His left arm had it too, right between the straps of his brace.

Reaching behind him, he held in a yell at discovering an even larger fin protruding from his bare back. Though he couldn't see it, it felt large and imposing. In itself, it didn't hurt, but he could feel it resist his every move and his spine didn't quite bend like it used to.

He huffed in frustration and confusion, and again felt an odd, unpleasant sensation at his neck. He reached up to massage it but wasn't prepared for what he felt there (even though he probably should have). There were raised ridges running the width of his neck, and they flared painfully with each breath. Gills; he was no better than a fish now.

Or perhaps he actually was one now. He looked down at the bed to finally address the unfamiliar feeling coming from the base of his spine. Much like the Dark One had the tail of crocodile, there lay one of a shark, gray and tapering down to a two-pronged fin. Killian could feel the warmth of his palm through the rubbery skin when he touched it. In a move that was both horrifying and oddly intriguing, he gave a conscious thought to flipping the new appendage—and it moved. So he did it again, slamming it against the cot, and the jolt from impact ran all the way up his spine, nearly knocking his breath away.

Somewhere in the back of his brain, there was a voice that wanted to panic, and normally, this was the kind of situation that would induce hysteria. But he wasn’t panicking. Where, in the past, his heart might have raced and his breathing would have grown erratic, he felt unusually calm, though still perturbed by whatever had happened—even more so because of how much he wasn’t reacting to it.

Then he remembered—his heart. He placed his hand over the spot on his chest as visions from what could have merely passed as a fever dream flooded back. Glancing down, he saw the jagged line that ran diagonally from his collarbone down to his sternum, carefully stitched shut. He pressed on it, eliciting an involuntary gasp as the skin pulled at the sutures, but there was nothing beneath it: no pulse, no rhythm of the organ that should be there.

“Where’s my heart?” he demanded, voice darker than it had ever been.

With a forlorn look on his face, Brennan reached within his jacket and pulled out that same leather satchel that Milah had carried all those years; that cursed pouch that had held the Dark One’s heart. And Killian could feel that it now held his.

“No,” he shouted in horror. “No no no!” He stood, finally feeling a strong emotion for the first time since waking: anger. He had so many questions, but the only one he managed to ask was “Why?”

“You were going to die, Killian; I couldn’t let that happen.”

His own father had cursed him; he wanted to be surprised, but he couldn’t. “You should have. I never wanted this.”

“I told you, the Dutchman must have a captain! It was the only way to save you!”

“So now you care what happens to me?” Anger for the boy he was—the boy this man had abandoned—burst forth. “You’ve never cared about me, Father; don’t pretend like you do now.” Outside, he could hear waves splashing against the hull of the ship and somehow knew he was responsible, as if the ocean was reacting to the anger in his body, in tune with the boiling sea water that now ran in his veins.

“I’m so sorry, Killian.” To his credit Brennan did look and sound apologetic, and that momentary rage subsided. It wasn’t the first time Killian had resigned himself to his fate, but hopefully it would be the last.

He hung his head and picked up his vest from where it lay on the floor; a large rip ran through the back, likely where his dorsal fin now jutted out. He slipped it on and headed toward the stairs up to the deck, grabbing a flask of water off a table as he went.

“Where are you going?” Brennan asked, seeming confused.

Killian nearly scoffed. “Haven’t you heard? I’m the Dark One now.” He sighed, readying himself to pay the ultimate price for what had been the best part of his life: his now-cursed afterlife. “It’s time I go captain my ship.”

There’s a good chance that more will eventually come...all curses can be broken, after all!

tagging some loves: @kat2609 @thesschesthair @optomisticgirl @fergus80 @xpumpkindumplingx @shipsxahoy @its-like-a-story-of-love  @mryddinwilt  @annytecture  @wingedlioness @fairytalesandtimetravel @disastergirl @laschatzi @ive-always-been-a-pirate @jscoutfinch @nfbagelperson @killian-whump @stubble-sandwich @phiralovesloki @athenascarlet @kmomof4 @ilovemesomekillianjones

[unordinary-modern-princess]

||ok… so @justmilah and I are evil Angst Queens when it comes to Millian-Captain Swan… so… enjoy…

Just a Memory Now posted on AO3 Millian centric with Captain Swan

After he loses Milah and goes on a 200 year quest of revenge, occationally his journey brings him back to port. The same port and tavern where he first met her… his Milah. His crew never noticed the lost look in their Captain’s eyes as they disembark the Jolly Roger and head to the tavern for drinks. Of course he joins them, nursing the same mug of rum all evening until finally everyone is gone except him and the old barkeep who is half deaf and ignores the lone pirate in the corner. He swirls his mug as the liquid sloshed and he hears it… barely a whisper. Its a woman’s laughter. That sound he hasnt heard in a handful of years. Not since… not since her. He closes his eyes and listens to the shrill of happiness before he finally looks up and just out of the corner of his eye, the tavern is no longer empty. Dark hair filters past as the woman slams her hand on the table, laughing as the dice before her show her exactly what she wanted to see. Killian looks directly there but just like a dream is destroyed by sunlight, the image fades away.

He’s back in port soon enough on a supply run for his crew and the demon and once again he stays past closing. He hears the same laughter that haunts his sleepless nights and this time he keeps his eyes downcast, afraid that if he looks she will be gone. “I went to Agrabah again…” He starts just as he always did all those years ago when this port was still her home. He continued to look down at his mug as he retold the stories of his adventure to the land of sand and jewels. He felt his lips curl as the ghost across from him smiled and asked what it smelt like. Lost in his dream, he looked up yo smile at her and just as before, she was gone.

Years turn to decades and decades to centuries. The enchanted Jolly returns to port on buisness a few times a year. And those times, the dreaded Captain Hook remains much after closing in the corner booth, talking to his mug of rum as he tells stories of his travels. It continues like this for nearly two centuries. He learn to keep his eyes cast down or to the side, never able to look directly at her knowing once he does, she will vanish like a dream. Of course, he knows shes not really there but a small piece of his heart holds onto hope.

Its been a while since The Jolly Roger was spotted in port. The last anyone heard it was sailing to Wonderland with the Queen of Hearts as a passenger. It wasnt until another curse ripped everyone back to the Enchanted Forest, that the ship once again makes port. Crew drunk and merry on the docks, one man sits alone in the darkened corner of the worn tavern. The lanterns are dimmed, and the barkeep has long since retired to his own chambers. But there the Captain sits. His single mug of rum almost gone by the time the early rays of sunlight filter through the dinghy windows. He stares into his drink, heart aching as he remains alone. She didn’t come. He closed his eyes and looked up as the sun streamed into the tavern, casting golden beams of light across the dusty floors. He glances to the side as he rises to return to his ship when he sees it just in the corner of his eye; a flutter of golden silk. His heart clenched in his chest as he turned to get a better look but its gone as soon as he does. A single word walls from his lips as he closes his eyes to fight off the sting of tears threatening to fall. Swan…

[phiralovesloki]

Phira’s WIP Fic Rec: War By Other Means

Today’s Phira WIP Fic Rec is War By Other Means by @thisisevenharderthannamingablog!

(If you’ve got Tumblr posts for this, b, let me know; I couldn’t easily find them, but I’d like to reblog them if I can!)

I think many of us know This because of her extremely thorough and entertaining meta-writing, but she’s a talented fiction writer as well. This fantastic story is not a CS fic, which is why I think a lot of folks have passed over it.

However, fans of Killian Jones and Liam Jones will really enjoy this story, the premise of which involves Killian making a deal to save Liam’s life. When Killian eventually meets Milah, his life circumstances are quite different, and it’s lovely to see their blossoming relationship.

Milah and Millian fans, this is SUCH a treat of a story. We get into her head in such a brilliant way, and I think This really captures the complexity that Rachel Shelley recently spoke of.

Give this story a read! You won’t regret it!

[piracytheorist]

Drawn Closer

Pairing: Millian Inspired by this picture. Another fic I wrote and added to a reblog here, and now decided to make it its own post.

Rating: G

Word count: 682 AO3

~

The air smells differently here. Not of spices, as Killian said once about some places he’d visited, but not bad either. Just… different.

Starkey says it’s because it’s warmer here. But Milah can’t help also looking at the new flowers, ones she’s never seen before, and imagining their scents combining together to create this unique scent.

She’s bought a new sketchbook, determined to fill it with new memories. Quite literally turning over a new leaf… despite how hard it is to forget. Sketchbook in one hand and coal in the other, she climbs on a half wall looking over the sea. She closes her eyes and lets the scent of the sea fill her lungs. Even the sea smells differently here.

She opens her eyes and looks at the opposite side of the gulf. The sunset is so beautiful, she wishes she’d bought colours instead… but a coal sketch will have to do for now. She leans over her sketchbook and starts imprinting a new memory.

She’s half done when she hears footsteps on her right. Without leaning back, she turns her head slightly to see Killian walking to her. She opens her eyes wide at the sight. He’s unbuttoned his shirt fully and taken his jacket and vest off, and the black fabric of his shirt is waving with the wind, barely however covering the… assets of his upper body.

She only realizes he’s wearing his sly smile when he’s right next to her.

“I’m happy to see you draw. Thought you’d given up on it,” he says, leaning on the half wall the way only he does.

She sighs. “It was a way to escape the lack of change in the village. I hadn’t known it would… mean something to immortalize the new memories too,” she says and keeps on drawing.

“I used to draw, when I was little.”

She turns to him, studying his face. “Really?”

He nods, turning to look at the horizon.

“’Used to’?”

He smiles softly. “Things changed. It wasn’t always easy to procure drawing materials, and… let’s just say I didn’t have the patience to teach myself from scratch.”

There’s something in his expression, that same thing he has when he both wants and doesn’t want to share something. It takes a tortured soul to see one, she thinks… but judging by her own case, she knows not to push for more. She turns back to her drawing, but doesn’t miss it when he buttons his shirt again.

“I could teach you,” she blurts out without stopping or looking up.

She sees him turn to her. “You would?” he says.

“It’ll take practice. But I don’t see why not.”

“Huh. I’d be honoured to.”

She snorts. “Perhaps you should see what you’re signing up for.” She points at her drawing.

He leans in to look, closer to her than he needs to… but she doesn’t mind. She feels her heart flutter slightly when his breath lands on her exposed arm, and she has to contain herself to not turn to look at him. She knows he is looking at her now, but she… she needs some time. She swallows hard and points to the place where the land meets the sea on her drawing.

“You always have to mind the perspective,” she says, and sees him turn his eyes back to the drawing. “And the- the light sources.” She points at the shadows she’s painted on the hills. “Of course, it depends on what you’re drawing, but it’s a good starting lesson.” Without thinking, she turns to him.

They look at each other’s eyes for a moment, but when his eyes drift to her lips, she turns back to the paper. “Perhaps I can finish this off quickly and you can give it a try?”

“Aye.” His voice sounds harsh, so she expects him swallowing hard. “Can I watch until you’re finished?” Without waiting for a response, he climbs on the wall next to her.

“Of course,” she says with a smile.

Perhaps this memory will be immortalized as more than a new place.

[searchingwardrobes]

Start of Time: 3/?

In this chapter, Emma (going by Wendy) meets another character in a surprising way. I really hope Emma’s amnesia and her going by “Wendy” isn’t too confusing. I keep writing “Emma” by accident, then having to change it!

Summary: Killian and his son are driving through a bad snow storm when they find a disoriented woman walking down the road. The question is, how can they help her get home when she has no idea who she is? Written for @teamhook​​ on her birthday.

Rating: T

Words: About 2,000 in this chapter

Also on Ao3

Tagging: @snowbellewells​ @whimsicallyenchantedrose​ @kmomof4​ @thislassishooked​​ @teamhook​​ @bethacaciakay​​ @xhookswenchx​​ @let-it-raines​​ @shireness-says​​ @spartanguard​​ @scientificapricot​​ @sherlockianwhovian​​ @superchocovian​​ @ekr032-blog-blog​​ @kday426​​ @tiganasummertree​​ @jennjenn615​​ @welllpthisishappening​​ @wellhellotragic​​ @optomisticgirl​​ @distant-rose​ @stahlop​​ @resident-of-storybrooke​​ @nikkiemms​​ @vvbooklady1256​​ @profdanglaisstuff​​ @branlovestowrite​​ @hollyethecurious​​ @ultraluckycatnd​​ @snidgetsafan​​ @delirious-latenight-laughs​​  @winterbaby89​​

Come tomorrow I’ll be in the ocean, I’ll be rising with the morning tide

Wendy awoke the next morning when the sun was just beginning to tinge the edges of the darkness. She felt warm and comfortable in her bed, her bumps and bruises slight aches now instead of sharp pains. Even her headache had finally subsided. She lay there in Alice’s narrow twin bed, however, staring at the ceiling. It was painted a dark blue, and glow in the dark stickers of planets and stars dotted its surface. She squinted as she studied them. She didn’t know her constellations very well, but even she could identify the big dipper. Whoever had decorated the ceiling, it wasn’t Alice. Her father perhaps?

She ran her fingers through her still damp hair. She probably shouldn’t have gone to bed with it still wet, but the shower had sapped her energy, and she had been unable to resist the call of the soft pillow and mattress. It had felt absolutely luxurious to slip beneath the sheets clean and fresh. Wendy continued to stare at the simulated night sky above her, trying to remember something other than this house and endless snow, but it was useless.

Wendy knew she wasn’t going to be able to get back to sleep, so she sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She gathered the fleece lined leggings and the purple sweater one of the kids had dropped off in her room the night before. At least, she assumed it was one of the kids, judging how they had been tossed haphazardly on the bed while she was in the shower. Wendy slipped into them, the sharp scent of cedar filling her nostrils. These had obviously been in storage for a while. Had they belonged to the children’s mother? Where was she?

Since her hair was a tangled mess of wild curls from sleeping on it wet, Wendy grabbed a hair elastic from one of the drawers in the bathroom. It was small, and clearly belonged to Alice, so it would only go around her hair twice. Wendy twisted her hair in a messy bun instead, and it held. It would have to do.

She slipped into a pair of thick socks that had also been left for her, then padded softly out of her room, down the hall, and down the stairs. The house was quiet except for the hum of the central heating. It looked like she was the only one up. She crossed the living room and sat down at a desk that sat against the far wall. A laptop sat on its surface. Killian said it was the kids’, and that they were only allowed to use it here in the living room (to which Henry had groused which defeats the purpose of having a laptop). He also said Wendy was welcome to it as soon as the wifi was back on. The laptop’s password and the wifi password were both scrawled on a sticky note affixed to the screen with the message “In case you need it - Killian.” She smiled as she peeled it off.

As she booted up the laptop, she thought about the man himself. He seemed like a wonderful father, even in the short time Wendy had observed him. He was affectionate with the children, and he spoke to them with respect and seemed to value their opinions, yet he was also clearly protective as evidenced by his rules with the laptop. Not that she was judging him for that - the internet could be a scary place, especially for kids. She typed in the password and leaned back in her chair. Alice also had a menagerie of pets, and both children were obviously well read. Wendy smiled. Yes, they clearly had a good father.

Wendy clicked on the wifi and entered the password, but frowned when the words “no connection” blinked on the screen. She let out a breath of frustration as she closed out of the computer and rose from the desk. She paused in front of the fireplace, staring into the cold hearth as she chewed on her lower lip. She had calmed her fears last night by telling herself she could search the internet for missing persons in Maine. Now what?

She knew what Killian and Mary Margaret would both say - “be patient, the snow will get cleared soon.” It was easy for them to say, though! She wondered how Mary Margaret could be so calm being snowed in away from her husband and young son. Of course, she’d called them on her cell multiple times, and Mary Margaret had explained that she could get back to the farm on her snowmobile long before the roads cleared up. Killian said the sheriff and the doctor could get out here the same way. How far north was she? Even though she couldn’t remember her life, she got the distinct impression that she wasn’t a small town girl. Remote cabins, horse farms, and snowmobiles all felt foreign to her.

Of course, that wasn’t saying much. A lot felt foreign right now.

Wendy let out a sigh and headed for the kitchen. If she couldn’t search for her identity, she had to occupy herself some other way. Killian had cooked three amazing meals yesterday, and she felt maybe she could return the favor. She did remember one thing about herself - she couldn’t cook anything but breakfast. She didn’t know her real name, but she knew she could make some awesome pancakes. Bizarre.

She opened the pantry and smiled to find a box of pancake mix. (Hey, she never said her awesome pancakes were homemade.) She set the box next to the stove, then went to pull milk and eggs out of the fridge. It took her a few tries to find the right cabinet, but eventually she located the frying pan and bent down to pull it out.

“Who the bloody hell are you?”

Wendy screamed and dropped the frying pan when she saw a strange man in the middle of the Jones family kitchen. The sound of metal hitting the tile floor was painfully loud in the still house. Above her, she heard feet pound and a door slam. The man before her was tall and broad, with curly, light brown hair. His arms were crossed over his chest as he glared at her.

“Who the hell are you?” she yelled back, coming to her senses enough to snatch up the frying pan and hold it up like a weapon.

“Me? You’re the one standing in the middle of my brother’s kitchen wearing his dead wife’s clothes.”

“Liam!” Killian’s sharp voice came from over Wendy’s shoulder.

She relaxed slightly and lowered the frying pan. “Brother?”

“Aye, brother,” the man - Liam, apparently - moved his hands to his hips, his scowl just as intense despite Killian’s sudden presence. “I live in the apartment over the barn. Where the hell did you come from?”

“Liam, for the love of God, would you stop yelling at her? How’d you get over here anyway?”

“The snow’s melted just enough for me to shovel out a little. Then I walked over here on my snowshoes. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, little brother, who is this woman?”

“Younger brother, and Henry and I came across her on our way home when the storm hit. She’d been in an accident -”

“She is standing right here and can speak for herself!” Wendy snapped.

“Okay,” said Liam smugly, “fill me in. What happened? Who are you?”

“Don’t grill her like that!”

“I’m asking her a simple question!”

“Stop!” Wendy shouted, dropping the frying pan again and pressing her hands to her head. Her headache was back, and it felt as if it were splitting her skull in two. She couldn’t keep back a groan of pain.

“Wendy!” Killian cried as he rushed to her side. “Is it your head?”

“Uh huh,” she bit out. She couldn’t even open her eyes. The lights in the kitchen were too bright. Killian put his arm around her and made to help her out of the room. When she stumbled, he scooped her up into his arms. It was only then she realized he was shirtless. His skin was warm, and when she rested her hand on his chest she found it covered in thick, soft hair. Her temple rested against a strong collar bone, and the arm around her waist flexed with muscle. If not for the splitting pain in her head, it would have been . . . nice.

Okay, nice was an understatement, but she was currently trying not to puke all over the man. She could daydream about his strong arms, solid chest, and masculine scent later.

He deposited her gently onto Alice’s bed, then went to fetch her a cool rag. She murmured her thanks when he pressed it to her throbbing temple.

“I’m so sorry about my brother,” he apologized. “He can be a bit overprotective, even more so since my Milah passed.”

“Was she your wife?” she managed to choke out.

“Aye.”

“So I am wearing her clothes.”

“Don’t worry about that right now. Stress can aggravate your head injury. Just rest, okay?”

“I was trying . . . “

“Shhh,” he admonished gently, brushing her hair back. It had somehow fallen out of Alice’s hair elastic.

“I was trying,” she continued stubbornly, “to make pancakes. For you. All of you.”

Her eyes were still shut tight, but she felt him take her hand and squeeze it. “That was a lovely thought.” He lifted her hand and brushed his lips across her knuckles. “But let us take care of you. We don’t mind. I promise.”

Something about his voice was soothing, and Wendy felt sleep pulling her under.

**********************************************

Killian stopped in his bedroom to grab a tshirt, and chuckled to find Alice flung across his bed, still fast asleep despite all the noise downstairs. He hadn’t heard Henry stirring either when he’d fetched the cloth for Wendy, so he hurried downstairs to confront his brother before the children woke. He knew this wasn’t going to be pretty.

When he saw his brother still standing in his kitchen, his hand in a box of Cap’ n Crunch, his anger returned in full force.

“What is your bloody problem!” Killian roared, bending to pick up the frying pan.

Liam’s eyebrows rose to his hairline. “I think the proper question is what the bloody hell are you thinking?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You brought home a strange woman? With your kids here?”

“She was wandering around without a proper coat with a gash on her head! What was I supposed to do? Leave her out there to freeze to death?”

“So you thought dressing her up in Milah’s clothes and giving her free range of the house was a good idea? What will the kids think?”

Killian rolled his eyes. “They think exactly the same thing I do - that she’s in trouble and we’re helping her. And as for Milah’s clothes, they were the only women’s things I had. They’re not doing anyone any good sitting in a chest in the back of the closet.”

“Do you even know anything about here?”

“No, actually,” Killian mumbled running a hand through his hair. “She has amnesia.”

“Oh, that’s convenient.”

“It’s true!”

“You need to call the cops!”

“Of course I’ve done that,” Killian snapped. God, sometimes Liam acted like he was still a boy. “They’re just as paralyzed by the storm as everyone else. Graham said he’d get out here to talk to her as soon as a snowmobile could make it through. Vincent will do the same and check her injuries. In the meantime, we’re just trying to make her as comfortable as we can.”

Liam deflated somewhat and tossed another handful of cereal into his mouth. “Well, I guess all that makes sense,” he conceded after chewing and swallowing.

“I don’t need your approval,” Killian ground out.

Liam sighed and set the cereal box down on the counter. “I’m sorry if I freaked out. I just worry about you, that’s all. I’ll never forget the shell of a person you were after you lost Milah.”

“You never approved of her.”

“I didn’t approve of how it began, but once you adopted the kids . . . “ Liam shook his head. “She loved you, that was always clear, and I never would have wished cancer on her. Surely you know that.”

Killian ran a hand wearily over his face. They had talked this subject to death, and he was sick of it. “Look, can we just leave Milah out of this?”

“Okay, but be careful.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Liam tilted his head. “The way you carried her up the stairs? I’ve seen that look on your face before.”

“I just met her!”

Liam stepped closer and put a hand gently on Killian’s shoulder. “You’ve been alone for a long time. So like I said, be careful.”

Henry burst into the room then, excited to see his uncle and pestering Killian about possibly going outside. Killian was glad for the reprieve as he turned to the stove to get breakfast started. Liam was off the mark on everything, clearly.

I’ve seen that look on your face before.

Killian massaged his brow and suppressed a groan. Yes, his brother was clearly off the mark.

[unfolded73]

Take Me Away with You (1/2) - millian ff

My take on Milah and Killian’s early days. This part ~5k words. Rated Explicit.

This fic includes descriptions of alcohol abuse, depression, and suicidal thoughts. It arose out of a desire to write about Milah's state of mind when she left Rumple and Bae, so she's in a very dark place. I’m also picturing Killian as the young man he would have been at this point and not quite the way Colin looked in flashbacks.

If you’re reading this on mobile, I apologize for the wacky line spacing. Feel free to go read on ao3 and then come back and reblog here. :)

~~~~~~~~~

“Take me away with you.” All it took were five simple words to change her life forever. Five words she spoke on impulse with no foresight, no planning. Five words that tilted the whole world on its axis, although no one knew that then. Least of all her.

~*~

Sometimes Milah tried to tell herself that she had loved Rumpelstiltskin once: that her love had died on the vine because of the shame he brought down on them and the financial hardship that followed. But in her more honest moments, even before Killian Jones awoke her frozen heart, she knew that wasn’t true. The fact was, she had probably never loved him. Liked him, yes. Thought he’d be a decent father, yes. Thought he’d provide an exit from the home where her father drank too much and hit her, well, that was the crux of the matter, wasn’t it? A woman desperate for escape can’t always be choosy about the mechanism of that escape. Rumpelstiltskin was her escape.

She’d never been someone who could keep her feelings from being written clearly across her face. She could barely keep them from spilling out of her mouth most of the time. Alone in their tiny hut, Rumpelstiltskin out trying to sell his wool or begging for scraps to keep them fed, she would put the baby down for a nap and then collapse on her own bed, her teeth clenched tight as if to try to trap in the words. But it wasn’t invective against her husband that she muttered into her pillow, tears leaking from her eyes.

“I hate myself,” she’d whisper in those moments, wishing she could wail it at the top of her lungs. Imagining finding a high cliff and hurling herself from the edge of it. “I hate myself.”

Then Rumple would come home with a meager few coins or a loaf of stale bread, and the self-loathing monster she carried would wheel around and lash out in his direction, perhaps just for a change of pace. “How can we go on living like this?” she’d ask. “How can you be so useless?”

Milah’s days dragged on as her baby grew into a boy, her box of paints and charcoals shoved in a corner for longer and longer stretches. Most of the time she felt like she was wading through treacle, constantly tired, returning to bed at even the slightest hint of illness. She had traced the wood grain of the wall next to her bed so many times with her fingernail that the softer wood was eroding. It left a slight indentation, giving the natural grain a three-dimensional structure. The artist in her appreciated it, even if it was evidence of her boredom and discontent.

Bae had the limitless energy of the young, and only his childlike innocence and wonder were capable of raising her from her mental stupor during that time. She would walk down to the pond with Baelfire’s small hand clutching her own and sit on the bank, watching as he stood in the shallows and tried to catch darting minnows in his fists. Those were the good days, when warm sunshine burned away the cobwebs from her brain, and she could recognize that she’d done at least one good thing in her life, bringing this child into the world. On days like those, she thought she might even want another baby, if only they could manage to scrape enough money together that another mouth to feed wouldn’t be too burdensome.

That was before Rumple sold away their potential second child, which was the beginning of the end. That was before she met Killian.

Even in the midst of her desperate worry about Baelfire’s illness, she felt a pull toward that charming man in black and red who defended her honor so easily, who gracefully took a seat next to her as he offered her a drink. He smelled of leather and rum, the warm tavern causing sweat to gather in the depression at the base of his throat. She didn’t think she’d seen anyone in her entire life, man or woman, who was as… beautiful as he was, for lack of a better word, and she found it genuinely startling. Perhaps she couldn’t forget her worries (and shouldn’t, not when her son’s life hung in the balance), but she was momentarily distracted from them by this man. This man who kissed the back of her hand for just a moment too long but politely withdrew when she told him she was married. When she closed her eyes that night, it was his blue eyes she saw as she drifted off to sleep.

It was weeks before saw him a second time.

Milah’s ears would perk up whenever there was a whisper in the market about pirates in port, but the men she saw in town were grizzled and dirty, missing teeth and limbs, a far cry from the handsome Captain Jones. Then the day came when she was carrying a load of washing -- menial work for a meager few pennies, but at least it would put some food on the table -- and she spotted him across the street. She dreaded that he would turn and look her way and see her laboring under her heavy burden of laundry: sweaty, disheveled, her hair a mess. Not that he should want to look upon her under the best of circumstances; she was too old and too plain for a man like that. Milah put her head down and walked faster. She resolved to stop looking for him and stop thinking about him.

Her resolve lasted about five hours.

Knowing he was probably still in port, that night she put on her nicest blouse and tamed her hair and walked down to the tavern, if for no other reason than to see his face again.  There he was, laughing and drinking with his crew, but he continually scanned the room and he noticed her within a few minutes of her arrival. Clapping a crew member on the back, he approached with a wide smile. Milah’s heart galloped.

“I was hoping I’d see you again,” he said, standing just a bit closer to her than was proper, swaying from side to side on his booted feet.

“I didn’t think you’d remember.”

He seemed genuinely surprised at that, and as the flirtatious smirk fell away she was struck by how young he was. Younger than her, to be sure.

“Of course I remember, how could I not?”

She didn’t know what to say to that. She felt so plain next to him, the embroidery on his vest finer than anything she had ever owned, the dark lines under his eyes dramatic and sexy. Why did he notice her at all?

He swayed closer still. “I’ve thought of you often during my lonely nights at sea.” An eyebrow waggle completed the innuendo, and she found herself laughing. Milah couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed.

“Can I buy you a drink?” he asked.

Milah shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

~*~

They met a few more times in the tavern after that, but there was nothing but a harmless flirtation between them at first. He taught her to cheat at dice and cards and to drink rum, always with a smile on his lips that made her think about what kissing him would feel like. When she was in the tavern with him, she felt like a different person. She felt like someone who was adept at holding the attention of a man. She almost felt happy.

But Killian’s visits to their port were separated by absences of days or weeks, and during those times the monster on her shoulder became bolder. Telling her how worthless she was every time she couldn’t muster the energy to play with Bae. Telling her that her drawings were a waste of time and energy and money, canvases an extravagance that she didn’t deserve. Converting her self-loathing into a fuel to feed the flames of her antipathy toward her husband, and then berating her when their arguments made Bae cry or shout at them to stop.

Liquor made the monster quiet down, she had learned. And it wasn’t like she had to spend any of her own meager coin in the tavern, not when a certain pirate was in port. A few drinks and she could feel the monster coiled around her shoulders drift off to sleep. The release was a kind of euphoria. She would gamble with the boys -- Killian always spotted her a stake and covered her debts if she lost, but let her keep her winnings if she didn’t -- until the table began to swim in her vision and she leaned too heavily against the Killian’s shoulder, unable to hold her head up any longer. Her memories of him seeing her home (not all the way to her door, of course, but close enough that he could ensure she got inside safely) were jagged and fractured with drunkenness, but she knew he never took any liberties, even when she stumbled and let her hand drag across the back of his leather pants.

She would pay for her behavior the next day, often too sick to get out of bed. Rumple would take Bae with him into town, perhaps to give her some peace but more likely so he wouldn’t see his mother retching into a bucket. And of course her monster would awaken, refreshed from its sleep, and tear into her for being a drunk and a layabout. The old images of jumping from a cliff would return, and Milah would lie still in her sweat-soaked bed, too empty to even weep.

~*~

“May I walk you home, Milah?” Killian’s elbow pointed in her direction. The tavern was closing, but somehow she was less inebriated than usual. Killian himself had filled up her senses, distracted her so completely with his charm and his flirting that for once she forgot to drink herself into senselessness.

“You can walk me anywhere else but home.”

He arched an eyebrow at her as if he was trying to parse her meaning.

“Take me to see your ship. I’ve never even seen your ship,” she said, desperate not to return to the dirty hovel where she lived. Not really thinking about the implications of her request.

He did as she asked, but she could sense the tension rolling off of him as they walked through the night to the harbor. The first thing she spotted were the masts with their furled sails against the backdrop of the night sky, a full moon impossibly bright behind them.

As they walked up the gangplank, she could make out brightly colored paint along the gunwale and on the hull, yellow and red and blue. “It’s beautiful,” Milah remarked.

“Aye, that she is.”

“Sorry, ‘she’s’ beautiful.”

He smiled at her, leading her up some stairs to the large wheel which she presumed he used to steer. She could imagine him out on the open ocean, his dark hair tousled by the wind as he gave orders to his crew and bore down on another vessel. She dragged her fingers over the wooden knobs of the wheel, picturing his long fingers gripping them. “Is it difficult, sailing?”

Killian shrugged. “There’s a lot to learn, I suppose. How to deploy each sail to get the most out of the prevailing winds, navigating using the stars, reading the weather… but I grew up on ships.”

He had never spoken to her of his childhood before, and she was suddenly desperate to learn more about his beginnings. “Was your father a… a pirate?”

“My father was too much of a coward to be a pirate,” he muttered, turning and lifting a hatch. “Come below, darling, and let’s have a nightcap.” He descended the steep steps before her, turning and reaching a hand up to assist her. Milah paused. She knew what nightcap was often code for. Milah might be a lot of things -- a drunk and a gambler and a poor excuse for a wife and mother -- but she wasn’t an adulterer. She could go now, and perhaps Killian would be disappointed, but she didn’t think he would hold it against her. He wasn’t that kind of man. She could go home where she belonged, with her husband and her son.

Taking his hand, she allowed Killian to help her down the stairs.

The chamber was dark but he quickly lit a lantern, revealing a fairly spacious room. There were cabinets filled with books and trinkets, a large table, and a bunk in the corner. The white walls reflected the lamp light in shades of yellow, giving the space a homey feel.

“This is nice. Larger than I imagined,” she said as he pulled a decanter of wine from a shelf.

“Well, I am the captain.”

Milah flinched. He was the captain, and a man like him could have his pick of women in every port. Likely did have his pick of women in every port. She flushed with embarrassment at her notion that he wanted to bed her. Perhaps he merely wanted to drink with her, his matronly friend whom he felt sorry for because she was destitute and lonely. Perhaps he was at a loss for what to do with her now that she was in his chamber, and was trying to figure out how to get rid of her without hurting her feelings.

Killian handed her a cup of wine and clinked his own cup against it. She sipped from the cup, feeling awkward, regretting that she’d come here. Regretting that she’d ever met Killian Jones. Killian was the only thing in her life that made her feel anything, but she wasn’t sure if her current discomfort was worth it.

“I’d best be getting home,” she said, and she watched Killian’s face fall.

“To your husband,” he said flatly.

“Yes.”

He walked over to the windows, looking out into the night. “Do you love him?”

“Does it matter?”

Killian turned and met her gaze. “Aye, it matters a great deal to me, love.”

She tried to ignore her pounding heart. “Why?”

Approaching her slowly, his lips quirked up in a half-smile. “Do you not wonder why I can’t seem to stop myself from returning to this port, Milah?”

She didn’t know how to answer, and she swallowed on a suddenly dry mouth.

He put his large hand on her arm. “I can’t stop thinking about you. I can’t stop dreaming about you.” His eyelashes fluttered as he dropped his eyes to the floor. “If there’s no chance for me, then please just put me out of my misery now, love.”

She wasn’t sure who initiated the kiss. At first it was just an imperceptible lean toward him, a sway into close orbit, and then suddenly his mouth was on hers. It was a tiny thing, the touch of one human’s flesh to another’s, and it was everything, an explosion of sensation and emotion the likes of which she had never experienced.

“Stay with me tonight,” he whispered against her lips, and she was so fuzzy with desire that she couldn’t quite process what he was saying. Without even realizing how it happened she found herself seated on the edge of his bunk, her skirts bunched up as he stood between her legs, his mouth everywhere on her neck as his hands cupped her breasts.

Even as they undressed frantically between heated kisses, she was certain this couldn’t really be happening. It felt like a daydream. Surely this worldly young man couldn’t want her this way. And if he somehow had convinced himself that he did, the sight of her body with its blemishes and stretch marks would put him off.

Milah kept thinking this even as his naked body covered hers, his desire evident in the thrust of his cock against her. Only when he was inside her did it click in her head with sudden clarity. She was fucking another man.

He was beautiful above her, dark hair on sun-kissed skin, his toned muscles flexing and voice breaking on each push into her. It felt good, a gentle, diffuse pleasure, the not-quite-enough pleasure that sex had always been for her. She clung to his shoulders and watched as Killian lost himself in his body’s demands.

“Gods… Milah,” he gasped.

“Don’t come inside me,” she said. “You can’t--”

“Aye,” he grunted, seeming to understand. She brought one hand up above her head and braced herself on the wall as his hips pistoned into her again and again until the last possible moment when he pulled out quickly. Two pumps of his fist and he groaned, his seed landing harmlessly on her stomach.

The gentle kisses he pressed to her shoulder after he’d cleaned them up and settled at her side should have been comforting, but they just made her feel worse. She didn’t deserve such tenderness, not after breaking her marriage vows so completely.

“I need to go home,” she whispered.

“Not yet,” Killian said, his voice husky, his hand trailing over her skin and making her shiver. “Don’t go just yet.”

The simple affection made tears well behind her eyes, something that in and of itself was remarkable; she’d started to think herself incapable of the genuine emotion that could bring about tears.

Shaking her head, Milah rose from the bed and began to quickly pull her clothes back on. “I’m sorry.”

~*~

By the time Milah returned to town the next day, the masts of the Jolly Roger were gone from the harbor. As she moved through the streets, she felt as if everyone’s eyes were on her, that they all must be whispering that she’d become a pirate’s whore. Never mind that the fact that she drank and gambled with pirates was enough to make people whisper -- now that she was guilty of the crime she had likely been accused of some time ago, now she felt the full weight of their stares. A part of her wanted to turn and scream at anyone within earshot that yes, she’d fucked the pirate captain. And that being his whore was preferable to the life she’d been consigned to.

It was weeks before Killian returned, empty, grey weeks through which she sleep-walked. Milah would lie awake at night, closing her eyes only to find her thoughts plagued with what his mouth had tasted like, what the drag of his skin had felt like against hers. She started to believe that once he’d bedded her, Killian didn’t plan to return. Perhaps he only cared for her as much as a she had been a conquest, a wife and mother seduced away from her home and into his bed. Now he had no further use of her.

She became so convinced of this that when she heard whispers that his ship had returned, Milah didn’t bother to go to the tavern. The next morning, however, his cabin boy approached her on the street as she made her way to the market.

“Captain wants you to come to his cabin, missus.”

Milah’s heartbeat sped up, but at the same time she felt a flare of anger for being summoned as if she had nothing better to do than wait upon Captain Jones.

“I have errands to tend to,” she responded.

“Then come as soon as you are able, if it please you.”

She waited until dusk, late enough that she wouldn’t be seen boarding a pirate ship in broad daylight, but early enough that he wouldn’t be out carousing yet. The pirate standing watch at the gangplank allowed her to board with a nod and a relieved smile. Another escorted her below.

Killian swept her into his arms immediately. “Milah, my love, I missed you.”

She held herself tense, uncertain how to feel. “You did?”

“Aye.” He pulled away a fraction but continued to hold her. “We had to sail many leagues to find a worthy target this time. Finally I was able to run down a royal galleon. It took us days to follow it into the straits so that we could overtake them without being outmaneuvered. I wanted to return right away, but the winds were against us.” Shooting her a sheepish smile, he added, “Still, at least my ship’s coffers are full now. I’ve been returning to this port so often lately, I knew I had to find a rich prize on this outing or risk a mutiny.”

“Why have you? Been returning to this port so often lately?”

He reached up and stroked her cheek. “I think you know the answer to that, love.” Then his eyes widened. “Ah, I just remembered!” He let go of her and turned back to his shelves, unlocking a safe with a key he’d pulled from his pocket. He removed a small bundle with some reverence, unwrapping the cloth to reveal a pair of large, turquoise earrings. He held them out to her. “A gift for you.”

Milah gaped at them. “Those are worth more than everything else I own put together.”

“All the more reason I want you to have them. Wear them, or sell them if the money would do you more good than the jewelry.”

“Killian, I can’t accept a gift like this from you.”

“Of course you can.” He took her hand and turned it palm up, putting the earrings in her hand. “Take them. I want you to.” She met his eyes. “Why?”

“Because I thought you deserved something nice.” He gave her a self-deprecating smile. “Because I saw them and thought of you. Because I’m very fond of you, Milah.”

Closing her fist, she tucked the earrings into the pocket of her skirt. “Thank you.”

He took her in his arms again. “Can you stay a while?” he murmured, leaning in for a kiss.

The sex was much like before, and though she wanted it, wanted him, she found it no more satisfying than the first time. Milah knew there were women who claimed to enjoy sex as much as men, and she’d always thought that Rumple was the reason that she got more enjoyment from her own hand than she ever did from their coupling. Now she had to face the fact that she was the problem, that this was one more way that she was deficient. Either that or her pirate lover was no more adept than her husband.

Killian trailed a hand over her abdomen and Milah twitched, still keyed up and sensitive. He seemed oblivious to the way her body was still aching for release. “Can you stay the night this time?” he asked.

Milah imagined Bae waking up for a cup of water in the wee hours of the morning and finding her gone. She shook her head. “I can’t. My son…”

Giving her a sad smile, Killian murmured, “You’re a good mother.”

Pulling away, Milah shot him a look of disbelief. “Is that a joke? I’m a terrible mother. You can tell on account of the fact that I’m having an affair with a pirate.”

A quick, inappropriate grin flashed across his face before he could suppress it. “So that makes you a bad wife, perhaps, but I can tell you love your son.”

“Love isn’t enough.” She chuckled darkly. “My son would be better off if I were dead and gone, anyway.”

Now it was Killian’s turn to pull away. “Why would you say that?”

“Because, Killian! I’m worthless! I drink too much and I don’t--” She sat up and began to pull her clothes back on with hurried, jerky motions. “I don’t have the energy to do the most basic things for my family. And at least if I were gone, my son wouldn’t have to see Rumple and me fighting all the time. He’d be happier in the long run.”

“I’m sure that’s not true, Milah.”

She sighed heavily. “I assure you, it is.”

~*~

Milah followed Rumple and Bae back home from the tavern like a recalcitrant child. It had been a low blow by her husband, bringing Bae to the tavern to guilt her into coming home. She squeezed her eyes shut as a flood of shame coursed through her, stumbling slightly in the doorway of their pitiful, one-room hut. While Rumple put the boy to bed in his cot behind a simple partition, Milah flopped down on her bed. Misery and drink weighed her down like twin stones tied to her ankles. The room was too hot, the fire stoked too high, and sweat broke out on her face as she lay there, staring at the ceiling.

Milah reached up and touched the turquoise earrings that dangled from her earlobes. Any other husband would have asked her where she got them. Any other husband would have demanded to know what she’d done in exchange for such a gift. Any other husband, faced with evidence of a wife’s infidelity, would have struck her, but Rumple would never do that, even if it was what she deserved. That’s what her father had often told her.

When Rumple emerged from putting Bae to bed he brought up the ogre war again, asking in a soft voice if she truly wished he’d died. She felt a sudden surge of pity and something almost like affection for him. It wasn’t him that should have died, this sad, cowardly man who was so kind and patient with their son. She was the one who didn’t deserve to live in this world. She begged, not for the first time, for them to leave the village and start over. Perhaps the monster who plagued her wouldn’t follow her to a new place. She could remake herself into a better person, she thought desperately. Other people would respect them, and she could become the wife and mother she’d once imagined she could be. More importantly, the temptation of a certain pirate’s bed would be removed from her life.

Rumple refused her, as he had many times before, and said they could be a family here, in their home.

“At least try. If not for me… then for Bae,” he said.

As always, Rumple seemed to find the idea of venturing outside their village so terrifying that he’d rather they spend the rest of their lives as pariahs, as outcasts, barely able to scrape together enough coin to survive. Milah closed her eyes and pretended to sleep.

When Rumple had finally fallen asleep at her side, his soft snores filling her ears, Milah stole out of bed. She crept over to Baelfire’s cot, watching his small chest rise and fall in slumber, his innocent face relaxed. A tear rolled down her cheek.

“I’m sorry, Bae. I’m sorry I couldn’t be the mother you need.”

By the time she got down to the docks, the moon had set but dawn had yet to hint at its arrival, and the water in the harbor looked black as pitch. Milah took another swig from the bottle of cheap corn mash liquor she’d swiped on her way from a man passed out in an alley, continuing to stare down into the depths. She wondered how far it was to the bottom. She wondered if it would be better to step off the dock or to jump. She wondered if she could drink enough to dampen any instinct toward self preservation that might kick in once she was actually drowning.

She wondered if her body would float to the surface after, to be dragged out by the townsfolk and gossiped over.

“Milah?”

Swinging around at the sound of her name, she stumbled, her foot slipping on the wet boards.

“Whoa, love,” Killian said, darting forward and grabbing her arm. He pulled away from the edge of the water. “Take care before you fall in.”

“That was the idea,” she mumbled, jerking out of his grasp.

“What was the idea?”

She opened her mouth, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell him what she’d been contemplating. Instead what she said was, “Take me away with you.”

“What?”

Milah clicked her teeth together, shocked at her own utterance. Any doubts she had about Killian’s feelings for her were subsumed by her desperation in the moment. “I said… I said, take me away with you. On your ship.”

“What about your son? Your husband?”

She laughed bitterly. “Do you really care about my husband?”

“Not particularly, but I thought you did.”

“I told you, they’re better off without me.” She wasn’t sure who she was trying to convince.

“Your son will miss you terribly, love.”

“Killian, if you don’t want me, just--”

“Of course I want you,” he said, frustration evident in the lines of his brow. “I’ve hardly wanted anything else since we first met. But love…” Conflicting emotions performed an impromptu battle across his face. “I lost my mother when I was very young. It was the first loss of many in my life, but in many ways it cuts the deepest. I don’t want to be responsible for another boy being left with a failure for a father, as much as a part of me is desperate to steal you away and have you all to myself.”

“My husband has a lot of flaws, but if there’s one thing I know, it’s that he loves our son. He’ll look after him. They’ll look after each other.” She felt tears well up and fall, and she swiped angrily at her cheeks. “If I stay, I’ll drag Bae down into the depths with me. My son will be forced to watch me wither away and die. How is that better?”

He studied her face for a moment and then nodded. “Come on, then. We’ll cast off tomorrow.”

Milah looked down at the black water once more. With a flick of her wrist, she tossed the bottle of cheap liquor into the harbor, watching as it sank out of view.

Part 2

[ohcaptainoblivious]

Milah WIP Update

I’m more than 40,000 words into the fanfiction I said I would write about Milah’s life and her adventures with Killian, and I’m nowhere near finished. This one is getting a little out of hand. I didn’t expect it to turn out this long, but I’m pumped, so that’s good.

I’m not gonna post it before it’s done because I want a chance to revise it properly, and because I don’t want the pressure of updating it regularly to interfere with my writing. But I might post snippets from time to time to give you a taste of what’s coming.

So here’s an update to let you know that I haven’t forgotten or abandoned this project, it is just taking more of my time (and sanity) than I expected.

Hope you are all keeping wellin these crazy times, stay safe!

[thejollyroger-writer]

Bottom of the Ninth, Two Outs, Full Count

Part Two of Opening Day, Starting Pitch, which is a prologue for Love, Baseball, and Other Things (Part One // Part Two)

Also on AO3

WARNINGS: This story contains both Millian and abusive Swanfire. Sorry if that's not your cup of tea, but this is a prologue, and I'm obsessed with traumatic backstory. This also contains death of a character, grief, alcoholism, verbal and physical abuse, and abandonment. It starts exactly where part one left off.

Thanks again to @welllpthisishappening and @profdanglaisstuff for prompting this story into existence, @ultraluckycatnd for reading over it, and @kmomof4 for flailing so much over this little verse that has become the only thing I can think about. If you'd like to be tagged for future installations, let me know!

(also, sorry there's no cut, I'm on mobile and apparently Tumblr hates me anyway.)

-----

By the time Milah’s birthday rolls around in the middle of April, he has the ring tucked inside a box of letters from his brother and a reservation for the night she turns 26 at her favorite restaurant across town. He even bought them a night at the quaint little hotel next to Washington Square, so they don’t have to trek back across the river to get home that night. And he has the whole thing planned out: dinner, then a show at the Walnut Street Theatre before taking her dancing and taking her back to the hotel through Independence Square, finally lit up for spring, where he’ll stop and ask her to marry him. It’s a perfect plan, really, and he realizes when he calls the restaurant two nights before to confirm the reservation that he has never been this excited for anything in his life.

His friends can tell, too. David is happy for him, planning to propose to his own girlfriend while they’re on their post-graduation vacation, and Emma pokes fun at him regularly about the smile that is always on his face.

So when two uniformed officers knock on the door to his apartment three days before Milah’s birthday and ask if he’s Killian Jones, emergency contact for Milah Smith , it takes all his strength not to lose the contents of his stomach all over their finely-polished shoes.

“Yes, I am,” he says, pulling himself together enough to talk to them, to make sure that he’s not overreacting. “Why, has something happened to her?”

The way their emotionless faces seem to fall at his question causes him to lose his balance, and he reaches out to hold on to the doorway before he falls at their feet.

“There’s no easy way to say this, Mr. Jones,” the one to his left says, and Killian doesn’t fail to see the irony behind the fact that his name is Marry . “I’m afraid Milah was involved in a car accident on the Ben Franklin Bridge this morning, and by the time the paramedics got to the scene, there was nothing they could do for her.”

“Oh, god,” he groans, his shoulder hitting hard against the doorway, the only thing keeping him standing. “No, no, no, no.”

“We’re terribly sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” he chokes out, starting to close the door before the men standing on the other side of him see him fall apart. But once the door closes, he loses the strength to stay on his own two feet, and he falls to his knees, his head resting on the cool wood of the apartment door.

In losing Milah, he lost everything. Three days from spending the rest of his life with her, and now he would have to live with the question of whether she would have said yes for the rest of his life.

Of course she would have said yes , he tries to convince himself, but it’s useless. He’s learned to never assume even the easiest of things, that’s how he’s survived everything that’s happened so far in his life. So that little voice in the back of his head keeps telling him over and over that there’s a chance she may have said no.

He has no idea how long he stays seated against the door. He does know that the sun has swung across the sky and begins to shine brightly through the front windows, and that by the time he pulls himself back onto his feet, his legs are numb.

He wishes the rest of him was just as numb.

So that’s exactly what he makes happen.

It started with one glass of whiskey, then turned into three, then six. By the time David and Emma come back from visiting their mother for the weekend, the sun has turned the sky a dark shade of crimson, and he is passed out on the couch, what remains of the last glass still in the cup his hand is wrapped around.

“Killian!” David yells, rushing across the living room to make sure he’s okay. He’s breathing, but refuses to budge, and once Emma finds the now-empty bottle of Jack on the counter, they figure out why.

“I hope he’s okay,” Emma comments, adding the bottle to the pile of recycling under the sink. “He usually doesn’t drink this much, and especially not whiskey.”

“Either something happened, or he just randomly decided he was in the mood for half a bottle of Tennessee whiskey.”

“Well, given that he usually refers to it as ‘number 7 swill,’ I doubt he decided just on a whim.”

David turns his eyes down to Killian, his whole face painted with worry, but there’s nothing they can do for him until he regains consciousness, so they leave him there, returning to the piles of papers they left spread across the kitchen table. They study in silence for a few minutes, the ticking of the clock over the stove driving Emma insane, so she speaks, her eyes flitting up to her brother for just a moment.

“I, uh, need to stay here again,” she says quietly, her eyes glued to the paper in her hands so they don’t have to reach what she knows is a worried glare from her brother.

“Neal again?”

“For fuck’s sake, David, don’t say it like that.”

“When are you going to leave his sorry ass for good?”

“I love him, David. I know you know this, and I know you understand. And he loves me, too, he just has some issues he needs to work out and everything will be just fine.”

“Everything is not just fine , Emma,” David growls, his back teeth grinding together angrily. “You think I don’t notice the marks he leaves on your arms? The fact that you’re always crying after you talk to him? You need to leave him, before he does something that he can’t just apologize for.”

“I can’t just leave him,” she says, her voice soft, and when she adds, “Not anymore,” he drops the textbook he was balancing on the edge of the table.

“What does that mean, Emma? Are you— did he—”

“I’m pregnant, alright?” she says bitterly, throwing the paper in her hands back down on the table so she can hold her head. “I’m almost three months pregnant, and I’m too afraid to tell him because I know when I do, he’ll just leave. Is that what you wanted to hear from me?”

“Christ, Emma,” he whispers, and as soon as he realize that her shoulders have started to shake with silent sobs, he pushes his chair back to walk across the table and wrap his arms around her. She turns in the seat, burying her head in his shoulder. “I can’t — I’m sorry.”

While they stay like this, David shedding a few tears for his sister, as well, Killian begins to slowly wake on the couch, head pounding and stomach churning, and when he slowly makes his way to the kitchen to find some water, he is surprised to find David and Emma, but when they see him, they begin to break away from each other.

Sitting down across the table from them, taking very careful sips out of his glass, he finally says, “I take it this means you heard about Milah.”

When they both seem to be more confused by this statement, he realizes he must have made an error.

“Is she alright?” David asks, and somehow Killian smiles instead of breaking down once more, but it only lasts for the quickest of moments.

“No, quite the opposite, actually. She was killed this morning in an accident on the Ben Franklin.”

“What a fucking day,” Emma says under her breath as David moves back across the table to pull his friend in for a hug.

Four days later, the day after Milah would have turned 26, they hold her funeral in one of the nicer churches in town. After asking Liam and David to wait outside, to give him a minute alone with her casket, there is nothing comparable to seeing her laying there, lifeless, surrounded by silk and flowers. Pulling the small velvet box out of his pocket, his hands grip the edge of the wood, the only balance he can find.

“I was — I was going to give this to you,” he chokes out, doing nothing to stop the stream of tears that fall down his face. “I still… I’ve been trying to decide whether I should give it to you, or keep it as a reminder of just how damned much I love you.” He reaches up to tuck his index finger under the buttoned collar of his shirt, pulling out the chain that holds his mother's ring. “But I think, now that I'm here and thinking about it, that I will keep this, both as a keepsake of you, of the years we spent together, and a reminder that my life has been torn apart one too many times from letting people into my heart.”

He holds the ring out in his palm, staring down at it for a moment before he closes his hand around it, feeling the edges of the diamonds cutting into his palm.

“I love you, my darling,” he whispers, leaning down to press his lips against her forehead, a sob fighting its way up his chest when he feels the coldness of her skin against his.

The pain overtakes him. He spends the next three days numbing himself, a dangerous combination of rum and whiskey and whatever else he can find in the apartment, only leaving the confines of his bedroom to find the next drink or relieve himself. On the fourth day, Emma, Neal, David, and Mary Margaret are sitting around the table in the kitchen, actively ignoring the subject of the grieving man who has locked himself away from the world.

Emma knows that David is worried about him — he’s told her that much at least a dozen times since Killian first told them of Milah’s death. The fact that her friend is struggling so much, so obviously, and no one is trying to reach out to him, though, just angers her.

So she decides she can’t take it anymore.

“Christ, enough of this,” she says, slamming her empty water glass down on the table. “That man in there needs help, and if I have to be the one to give it to him, then I will be.” She pushes her chair back, jumping to her feet, but before she can walk away, she feels Neal's hand wrap around her wrist.

“No.”

She whips her head around to face him. “Excuse me?”

“The darkness that took over Neal's face lightens, but his grip on her wrist does not. “He'll be fine, just give him time. Stay here.”

“What? No, he's — he's not okay, Neal. And on the off-chance that he is, he can be the one to tell me that, not you.”

Even if David wasn't watching his every movement intently, he would have noticed how hard Neal pulled on Emma's arm to get her to step back to the table.

“I'm not gonna tell you again, Ems,” he growls, his fingers beginning to leave marks on Emma's wrist. “I don't want you to go in there.”

“Good thing that's not your decision to make,” David says, his whole body tense, but when Neal snaps his head to face him and he sees some of the tension leave Emma's shoulders, he knows it was the right moment to step in.

“Well, it certainly isn't yours.”

“That is my sister that you have your hand around, if you'll remember.”

“David, please,” Emma says softly, and Neal smiles up at her, though that smile scares her more than anything else.

“Yes, David, please,” Neal repeats, the wicked smile still spread across his face when he turns back to him. “Emma knows how this works, and she knows what happens if she doesn't listen to me.”

“You son of a bitch!” David yells, jumping out of his seat angrily enough that it clatters to the floor behind him.

“David!” both Emma and Mary Margaret yell, but he's already halfway around the table, his hand flying out to grab the front of Neal's shirt.

Neal still hasn't let go of Emma's wrist.

“You're going to take your hands of my sister and never, ever touch her again, do you hear me?”

Neal is still smiling.

“And what, exactly, are you going to do to me if I don't?”

David pulls him out of his seat using the front of his shirt. His hand around Emma's wrist tightens further.

“See, that depends on just how angry you make me, because right now, I want to rip your fucking throat out.”

Mary Margaret has turned so white in her seat that Emma fears she may pass out — but she seems to be the only one that's noticed.

“Can I — can I ask you something, Nolan?” Neal asks, his voice free of any of the fear David was hoping to instill, but Emma feels the way his hand trembles. “Why the Knight in shining armor act all of the sudden? This can't be the first you've learned about me — “

“David, please ,” Emma begs, but David either fails to hear her or chooses to ignore her, taking the bait he's laying in front of him.

“She's pregnant, you bastard,” David practically yells, the secret that he's been trying so hard to keep, not even sharing it with Mary Margaret. “She's carrying your child and you're too goddamned selfish to care about it one bit.”

“David,” Emma whispers, and she is finally able to pull her hand out of Neal's grasp, that's suddenly loosened.

“Oh, Emma,” Mary Margaret says at the same time, her big brown eyes full of both excitement and sadness.

Neal turns slowly to Emma, who has covered her face to hide the tears that have started falling, and David finally releases his fist from his shirt. “Is he — is he serious, Ems?” He has the nerve to soften his voice so much, to suddenly take all of the anger it's always full of away, and it just hurts her all the more. She's so afraid of his anger, his temper, his fear of commitment, but he's —

She nods, a glimmer of hope lightening the pounding in her chest. Opening her eyes, she darts to look at him, and she can tell that he is thinking over something.

And then he shakes his head, raising his hands in surrender, and backing away from the table. “I’m not — I can’t —” he sputters, but his coherency is gone. “I’m sorry.”

The three of them watch, stunned, as Neal grabs his jacket from the back of the chair and walks out of the apartment.

Everything is silent. Still. David and Mary Margaret are too afraid to move, knowing that as soon as they do, everything will crumble.

Emma will crumble.

But instead of either of them breaking the silence, disrupting the stillness, it comes instead from a bright-eyed and uniformed Killian Jones coming from his bedroom. The three of them dare to move enough to turn their attentions towards him, and when he finally senses the tension that has filled the apartment, added only by his escape from his bedroom, he raises his eyebrows in question.

“Where are you going?” David asks the question they’re all thinking.

Emma asks the other: “Are you okay?”

He pushes the front of his hair back to slide his baseball cap over it. “I, uh, have a game. I can’t wallow in grief forever, so I’ve decided instead to focus on my pitching game. It’s what…” his voice drops off, his eyes falling to the floor as his hand reaches up to grasp the same chain that always hangs around his neck, which they all see holds another ring beside his mother's. “It's what she would have wanted.”

The engagement ring , Emma realizes. It's what Milah would have wanted.

For a moment, Emma is inspired. Sure, it took him four days to get there, but he's pulled himself back together after losing Milah — and really losing her, not just having her walk out like she knew Neal was going to do. He's turning the energy he's been using to destroy himself back into something more productive.

She can do that, too.

Grabbing her jacket off the back of her chair, she slings it over her shoulder and follows Killian out towards the living room.

“I'm going with him.”

“What?” Mary Margaret asks, at the same time David says, “Stay here, we can talk about it.”

She turns to Killian, his bright eyes lighting up the shadow the brim of his hat lays across his face, and shakes her head, turning back to David.

“I don't want to talk about it. It's over. He did exactly what I expected, so there's nothing to even talk about.”

“Emma—” David starts, but she walks out of the kitchen, leaving the three of them bewildered.

“No,” she calls through the doorway. “I'm leaving.”

“Yeah, uh, me too,” Killian says, a million questions on his lips, as he follows her out of the apartment.

Their walk down the steps and out to the street is silent, and it continues that way for a few blocks, Emma's hands stuffed into the pockets of her jacket and Killian's fidgeting with the strap of his duffel bag slung over his shoulder.

He has almost decided on how to ask the question lingering on the tip of his tongue when she speaks instead.

“I'm really proud of you, d'you know that?”

He turns to her, but her eyes are still set on the sidewalk at her feet.

“Come again?”

“Your whole world crumbles down around you, and you took a few days to grieve before you pull yourself back up and focus on something productive.”

“Thanks?” he asks, her words igniting a warmth in his heart that he wasn't sure he would ever feel again. “I watched my father drink himself half to death after my ma passed, and when I looked in the mirror last night, I realized I was doing the same thing. The only thing I ever wanted in life was to not end up like my father, and I saw myself doing just that.” He tugs at the chain around his neck, threading his pinky through the ring that has just been added. “And that's not what Milah would want. She always told me to — to stick with the things I enjoy the most, and I realized the reason I stopped focusing on my pitching game was in hopes of finding a career to sustain us. Now that I… now that I no longer need that, I can go back to doing what I love without the fear that it's going to be enough.”

Emma has no response to this, so they walk in silence again for a few more moments.

“Neal's gone.”

Killian breathes out a small chuckle, though once it's out, he can't figure out why. “How long do you think it will be this time until he comes running back?”

Emma flattens her hands against her stomach, but since her hands are in her pockets, Killian doesn't see it. “He's not coming back this time.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Well, for one, David threatened him. I believe the exact promise was to 'rip his fucking throat out,’ and I wouldn't put it past him to follow through on that.” They both allow themselves to laugh at this, a small release of some of the tension built around them after all that's happened in the past few days.

“And for two?” Killian asks, and when he sees Emma turn to look at him out of the corner of his eye, he returns her gaze.

“He’s too afraid of commitment to stick around and become a father.”

She watches as Killian's eyes grow wide before turning down to her stomach, a smile growing across his face.

“You're pregnant?”

He's relieved so see her begin to smile, too, as she nods her head. Stopping them on the sidewalk, he wraps her in a hug — and she realizes just how excited she really is, even if Neal is no longer in the picture.

Maybe it's even better this way.

“And you know you're not alone, right? You have David and Mary Margaret to help you, and me.” He leans back, his arms still wrapped around her shoulders, and when he smiles at her again, she believes for the first time since she saw that positive sign that everything might actually be okay.

[gusenitsaa]

So sometimes I try to screw with entertain @justmilah while she’s trying to type responses by sending her horrifically angsty headcanon stories while she’s trying to make lighthearted replies over at askonce...  

So I maaaaaaaay have sent her this the other day regarding the days immidiately following Milah’s death

Slightly cleaned up but mostly left in rambling form for authenticity and published here mostly for the entertainment of @killian-whump

The Calm AFTER the storm.  

I’m not thinking about the moment after that cut scene by the way…definitely not.  You know the moment after Rumplestiltskin vanishes the adrenaline starts to fade and the anger is slowly replaced by a mind-numbing exhaustion.

And the crew is watching him,  waiting for a sign, for some idea how to move forward.  But he can’t see anything but her.  and he hates how she looks so… discarded.  

So he sinks next to her and pulls her into his lap.  Someone is trying to say something to him,  trying to get access to his arm but he ignores them and holds her until his mind begins to go fuzzy with the pain and the blood loss. At some point someone must have managed to wrap his arm, though he doesn’t know when that happened. He only notices it when the bandages begin to turn red. And then she’s gone and he must have passed out because he’s back in his cabin. 

She’s gone.  And he screams at anyone who will listen to take him to her and it’s too cold in this room and that doesn’t explain why he’s sweating so badly

Finally his 2nd lieutenant slips into the room and tells him that ‘the boys are taking care of her, Captain.  We won’t leave her alone.  But we need our Captain.  We need you to rest’

The fever broke after four days. four days of nightmarish visions and pain like daggers stabbing through a hand that was no longer there and each time he woke he was certain it had been a horrific dream. That he’d turn over and she’d be there, sleeping safely on the other side of the bed and he’d reach for her but  then he’d see the empty space where his hand should be, feel the pain that lanced through invisible flesh and he knew it wasn’t a nightmare.

The day after she fell his fever was still high but in one of his rare moments of lucidity he demanded to be taken to her.  The men have laid her out on a piece of fresh linen.  Most men might have received a worn sail for a shroud but not Milah  

He’s not stitched with his right hand in a long while, having long since begun to rely on his left again after years of having the tendency trained out of him in the Royal Navy. But now he’s no choice.  Because hell if he is going to let some other man do this.  He hadn’t done it in so long,..   not since Liam.

The stitches are awkward at first.  Hesitant,  with each stitch a memory of love treasured briefly and handed over.  It was common for personal belongings to be added to the shroud, or if no personal belonging were owned, rocks for the added weight.  but stones wouldn’t do for Milah.

Instead he offered her bits of shining gemstones and colorful bits of pottery.  Things she’d seen in markets and bazaars in every realm they traveled to, jewelry and bright fabrics and all the things that made her smile.

By the time he was done his remaining hand was shaking with exhaustion and the fever was back with a vengeance.  His second had had to near carry him back to his cabin, but it was done.  

Tomorrow they’d lay her to rest.

Now just imagine trying to write a lighthearted reply about Milah drawing unicorns on the corners of Liam’s maps in the underworld while seeing that out of the corner of your eye.   @justmilah has skills.  

I should have left in all the wailing and name calling though... .would have been funny :P

[capnjay21]

doubt truth to be a liar (never doubt I love) 1/1

I have missed writing for CS, so this is me throwing something back out into the ether and seeing who yells back.  In the weeks that follow their return from the Underworld, Killian begins to question the new revelations that have changed everything. CS, with effusively referenced Milah/Killian. 

Rating: T Words: 2,992 AO3

Even now, weeks on, Hell still clutches at his back.

It murmurs in his ear, brushes white hot caresses down his spine until he spasms, and conjures the scent of smoke and rotting flesh no matter how long he spends scrubbing his clothes to get it out. His neck occasionally smarts with phantom pain, and in hostile, fleeting flashes, the streets of his home burn in a mirage of orange and he panics, clutching at whomever is near to him to pull him back to the world above. In his quieter moments, he can hear the ground whispering, beckoning him back into the darkness underneath.

Zeus had put him back where he belonged, he daren’t doubt that; the souls of the departed do not always agree.

No matter how many times his friends suggest it might help, he does not return to the park. Not when a drop of his blood into the lake, the blood of a man restored, might lure the unworldly mist and summon the only beings with the power to drag him back to the Underworld. When he considers it, he cannot stop his breath from catching.

These are some of the new truths for Killian Jones. Not all, but some.

Others are far more pleasant.

Like the way he can wake up beside Emma in a house they call their own, and have her only tuck herself deeper into his side. The way he can join the Charmings for dinner at Granny’s without remark, how he can take Henry sailing when the weather is fair, how willing Regina is to trade barbs over a game of darts instead of a clash of wills; after their ordeals over the past year, he is finally a proud, welcome member of their family. It wasn’t just Emma’s quest to rescue him, it was all of theirs. He is happy. And when his soul burns red Killian can make love to Emma and she will be right there with him, loving him, begging for the sun to rise.

He loves Emma more than anything in any realm. This is not a new truth for Killian Jones.

What is, however, is the strength of that love. True Love, capital T, capital L. Emma lying atop him as an ancient door creaks open, you chose me. The most powerful magic of all, and he and Emma share it. That knowledge bolsters their interactions, pulls smiles from a light inside of him whenever it is mentioned, becomes the foundation for many a teasing jest mumbled into the juncture of her neck while she giggles into his shoulder.

Other than that, nothing feels different.

And it’s been gnawing away at him.

Emma Swan is his True Love. True Love like the kind that meant Snow White and Prince Charming could share a heart, the kind that could revive Henry from a sleeping curse, that could rescue entire worlds from darkness. With as much as he loves Emma, this does not feel entirely beyond the realm of reason. When they are together he feels like he can make entire kingdoms collide. That said, there wasn’t some shining moment he decided what he felt for her was pure — it built, it pounded against him gently first until it cascaded to a roar that nearly overwhelmed his senses. He didn’t know he felt it until he realised the ringing in his ears had already been there for what felt like centuries.

The only trouble is, this isn’t the only time he’s felt this way.

“What is it that makes love True?” he queries one afternoon, when he can suppress the question no longer. Beside him Snow starts, and he realises that although his thoughts have been full of their usual tumult, they had been working quite pleasantly in silence.

After lunch, David and Emma had been called away on some minor emergency on the other side of Storybrooke, and after they had insisted they would not need any assistance he had volunteered to stay with Snow and finish clearing up. They settled easily into a routine, her washing and him drying, and as he watched her he couldn’t help but imagine she was some sort of authority on the subject of True Love; she and David were the staple pair, surely. The story of Snow White and Prince Charming was practically synonymous with the concept. So, without thinking, he blurts the question forward.

When Snow turns to look at him curiously he feels a warm flush creep up from his collar, so he busies himself with putting a plate away, balancing the cloth on his hook.

“What do you mean?” she asks, not unkindly.

Killian offers an abashed shrug. “Just — this whole True Love palaver. I’m not entirely certain I understand it.”

Snow laughs. “I don’t know if there’s anything to understand,” she smiles as if he’s a child making a funny remark about something straightforward, and it irks him slightly. “You just feel it. You must know what I mean, you and Emma have it.”

“No, I do, I do feel it,” he says, drawing out the word, “I would do anything for Emma and she for me. What I mean is… who decides? Who decides when the love a heart feels is True or — or just regular love?”

(Is it wonderful, she had breathed, to travel so much?

He had told her of the air filled with spices, of distant queens in fleeting kingdoms —

— Sometimes he thinks he may have loved her even then.)

“Is there such a thing as regular love?”

“Well,” Killian scratches behind his ear, “not every impassioned couple has the ability to break a curse.”

“It’s not about that,” she turns fully to face him, drying her hands on a dishcloth. “It’s about building something together over time, it’s about sacrifice.” She lets out a long sigh. “I’ve never loved anybody like I love David. It’s just more. And those are all the answers I have, I’m afraid.”

She nudges his shoulder playfully with hers, and he knows she means to lighten the mood, but all she has said only vexes him further.

“I’m not a young man. I’ve loved before Emma,” it’s not quite a confession when the entirety of Storybrooke knew about his feud with the Crocodile, “fiercely. I would’ve easily given my life for her — I tried to, she didn’t let me.” He leans heavily against the counter, and although he can see Snow’s expression shifting into one of sympathy, he presses on. “But with all this talk of True Love, of its rarity, that you should consider yourself lucky to have felt it once…” Killian shrugs helplessly. “What does that mean for Milah?”

He feels a squeeze on his upper arm, sees Snow’s hand resting there. “Oh, Killian.”

“Did I not love her, then?” Three hundred years of all-encompassing grief and a vehement desire for revenge would, to him, suggest the contrary. Which left another possibility clutching suddenly at his insides with anguish. “Or did she not love me?”

The mere idea of it makes him seize up. She had risked Hades’ wrath to help Emma and the others get to him in the Underworld, and had lost her soul to eternal torment in the process. Even the satisfaction of knowing that Hades had been destroyed isn’t quite enough to soothe that particular ache. What if she had never truly loved him?

“Have you spoken to Emma about this?” Snow asks gently. Killian frowns, shakes his head. He doesn’t exactly think bringing up his past love is the most romantic of conversations. “I think you should.”

She’s probably right.

“But I will say this,” she continues, “what you and Emma have… it’s special. But it doesn’t make what came before any less so. We are all who we are because of our experiences.” She rises on her tiptoes to press a kiss to his cheek. “You’ve fought hard for your happiness — please remember to enjoy it.”

She leaves him in the kitchen then, her words having done little to soothe his troubled mind.

-/-

Killian takes a moment to observe the house they have built together as Emma rises from her position nestled into his side on the sofa. She reaches for their discarded plates, and heads out into the kitchen.

The room had felt enormous when she had first welcomed him inside it, all bare walls and scarcely populated floor space — it had been a reflection, really, on the darkened state of her mind that found itself projected onto the even colder space around them. Even when she had led him to the telescope and the stunning view of the sea he found it hard to imagine making a home out of it. Yet, on their return from the Underworld, they had done exactly that.

A fire burns in the hearth, bright and warm, golden light flickering from memory to memory across the room. The once exposed walls are now lined with Henry’s schoolwork, with photos of the Charmings, of Regina, of Robin. Robin. The man whose soul had been lost because of Emma’s quest to save him. They both owe him so much, it had felt important to honour him some way as they moved forward; he would never be forgotten.

Killian had never even considered finding a home apart from the sea — he had been abandoned first on the ocean, lost his brother to its lure, it was hard to even fathom another person becoming a reason to maroon himself away from its natural pull. Yet when he sees pieces of the life he and Emma are just beginning to stitch together from their rags of broken things, it is impossible to ignore the reality. Anchored, but exquisitely happy.

Lost in thought, Killian only just realises Emma has been speaking, her voice floating above the running of the tap in the next room.

“I told him if he wanted that kind of ‘favour’ he’d need to ask Regina — and whaddya know, he asks to stay at hers an extra night. He’s as transparent as they come. Still,” she continues, and he can hear the padding of her socks on the floor bringing her nearer, “we don’t mind the extra night on our own, do we?”

Mary Margaret’s advice rings quietly in his ear, like a murmur. When Killian lifts his head to see her standing in the doorway, he is as always stunned by her beauty. Even dressed down for an evening spent in their house, she could not appear lovelier.

“Emma,” he says softly, and maybe it’s his tone or his mood all evening, but the utterance gives her pause, “may I talk to you about something?”

“Of course,” she responds automatically, and as she crosses the room and drops down next to him he can see the light furrow in her brow. He wants nothing more than to smooth it over with his thumb, kiss the uncertainty from the line of her mouth. Trepidation stays his hand.

When he doesn’t immediately respond, Emma turns to face him on the sofa and reaches a hand across to squeeze his arm. “You were thrashing about in your sleep again last night.”

Hades had him dangled above the river of lost souls, only that time Emma had not made it before he found oblivion.

“Is it —?”

“Aye,” he says, partly to stop her dwelling on the subject. They had spoken enough of his ordeal to last a lifetime. “But I find my mind is frayed with thoughts of a different kind.” She waits, her expression open and kind. It is so far from the walls she threw up the moment they met that his heart squeezes with gratitude — it becomes stifling to even consider revealing that which he had quietly admitted to her mother that morning. “I don’t want to hurt you, Swan.”

(And perhaps maybe a year ago, that comment may have spooked her.)

Emma lifts his hand and squeezes it. Quietly determined. “Go ahead.”

“Recently,” he starts, and it is difficult to find the words, “recently I can’t help feeling… I love you,” he hastens to assure her, “and I know you love me. That this love is true. We have proof of that.”

“No broken curses in sight but we did open a creepy old door.”

Killian breathes out a laugh to match the glimmer of amusement in her expression, the way her mouth is tugged gently into a smirk. He feels some of the tension in his shoulders ease away even as he is drawn back into solemnity.

“I just — recently, I can’t help but feel this… veneration of what lies between us makes me a traitor to an old love.”

Emma’s eyes dawn with understanding. She nods slowly once.

“Milah.”

“It sounds ridiculous.”

“Hey, I met her, remember?” Emma sidesteps his attempt at a dismissal with ease. “She was kind, and brave, and nothing about you wanting to honour her memory is ridiculous.”

Killian slips his hand out of Emma’s, runs it through his hair.

“I find myself doubting even that which I’ve always taken for truth. Did she and I not love each other as much as you and I do? Why is one hailed as True where the other just… was?” He sighs. “I even pestered your mother today, such is the extent of my anxiety.”

Was he merely a fool?

Emma had turned her face slightly away from him, staring into the hearth with a soft frown, thoughtful in its most open corners. It makes Killian squirm to see it, and he instantly wishes he hadn’t been so thoughtless as to follow Snow White’s advice.

(Of course she would advocate for total honesty, spilling secrets was practically her modus operandi).

“I’m sorry.” He means it with a depth and severity he cannot measure, and reaches for her hand again. “I want to just enjoy what we have. I wish I weren’t thinking this way.”

“I love that you are.”

A damn lucky fool.

Killian’s bemusement must have shown on his face, because Emma smiles kindly as if he were Henry asking for help with a particularly challenging mathematical problem.

“You think I haven’t had similar thoughts?” she muses. “I loved before you too, you know.”

A vision of Baelfire stuns him then, the familiar rush of guilt and anguish and sorrow coming to the fore before he attempts to soothe them with thoughts of the peace of their last encounter. With Emma’s love, quietly earned and steadfastly valued. He knows the young man would approve — he can feel it in the deepest chambers of his heart.

“Neal might not have always been brave, but he was when it counted. He died for me and Henry. You and me, we’re…” Emma hesitates, and he can see her searching for the right words to pluck from the space between them. “We’re different to Mom and Dad. They fought hard for their love, sure, but they’ve never lost. Not really. Not the way you and I have.”

(I love you, she had whispered, before crumpling into his arms —

— the beast had laughed, cackled, taunted the extent of his despair —

Is it wonderful, she had breathed, to travel so much?)

“I never thought I would love again after Neal. I imagine things were the same for you.”

He had spent 300 years convinced he never would, he never could. Had foregone all else in his pursuit of revenge.

Until he met her.

“Aye,” he agrees, needlessly. She knows the answer already.

“Then maybe —” Emma begins with a renewed sense of purpose, adjusts her position next to him, demands his full focus as she tosses some of her hair over her shoulder impatiently. “Maybe it’s not some secret power or magical authority that decides what’s different this time. Maybe it’s just us.”

He frowns, waits for her to continue.

“We chose each other, Killian. After everything that’s happened to us.”

He thinks back to the test that had engulfed him in flame, how Emma had launched herself at him instead of her own heart.

“You chose me,” he echoes that moment with wonder, his mouth beginning to lift into a smile.

She mirrors it. “And you chose me.” As she leans forward he meets her halfway, allows the gentlest press of her lips to his before she pulls back. “I wanted to believe in us, so I did. And here we are.”

And it’s a damn near perfect place to be.

“Here we are.”

“It doesn’t mean we loved them less. It just means we loved again.”

He has no idea if they have reached a real conclusion – whether the breadth of True Love can really be measured in such a way — but he figures if mystical scales buried under miles of rock beneath the mortal realm are authorised to make that judgement, then so are they. It mutes the stir of his mind, in any case. The Milah of his soul can continue to smile, unimpeded by the cloud of his own uncertainty. They had loved. Bloody hell, they had loved. And they had lost.

Zeus had made it clear enough; he was where he belonged now.

“I like that,” he decides, kissing her again because he can’t not do it.

“Me too.”

“I like you.”

Emma laughs, and it’s an open and honest sound. “Yeah, the feeling’s mutual.”

As the embers die he finds comfort with her long into the night. When they make love he watches stars burst around them, feels her warmth carry him into a dreamless sleep. With her, he need not worry where his home might be anymore. The earth does not beckon him beneath its shell, and as the dark stretches until morning he does not again doubt that the sun will rise.

He knows it with a certainty, a surety, one only born of the privilege to deeply love, and be loved deeply in return.