Chapter Text
“There is nothing okay about this plan, Emma!” Killian yells, the heels of his boots practically echoing on the stone floors as he pushes his fingers through his hair, a movement that he's done so many times during the course of this conversation that parts of it are standing straight up.
“It's the only way, Killian,” she says, not for the first time, and hangs her head, refusing to turn around and look at her husband.
“It can't be the only way, and I won't — I won't do it, Emma. I'm not leaving you here.”
“There's a curse coming. A curse that's going to break us all up, take away all our memories. The wardrobe will only take two people, and I'm the princess of this realm. I can't leave my people behind.”
“But you can leave your daughter behind? Leave me behind?” She expects him to be angry, upset, incredibly pissed off — all of the things he's been throughout their whole conversation. But what she doesn't expect to hear is the sadness in his voice as it cracks while he asks this question.
Finally, she turns to him, but his back is to her, staring out the window over the ocean. By the time she makes it across the room to him, she can see his shoulders shaking as he tries to hold himself together, as he tries to hold in his sobs.
This is still something that amazes her whenever she sees it: Killian Jones, the former Captain Hook, the most villainous pirate in all the realms, who has since shed his moniker, his treachery, and his position to be with her, to marry her — showing emotion. When she met him, his only care in the world was his revenge against the Dark One, and he was willing to do whatever was necessary to finally get it. He was a hard man, an unbreakable shell of an exterior, but it did not take Emma long to get through to him and see him for what he really was: a broken man.
It had taken her a year to make him believe that she saw his true self and not the revenge-driven mask he'd worn for far too long. He's always been much more than a pirate, but it had been a few hundred years since anyone saw him that way. But as soon as he realized that she wasn't fooled by him, that she saw him for who he really was, he had already been in love with her for a few months. She was incredibly attractive, yes, absolutely the type of woman that he would have brought home to his ship for the night, but to be in love with her? That's something he hadn't thought was possible.
It took another year after that for her to realize her feelings matched his, that he was someone she was allowed to have feelings for, though it took her father a while to see it the same way. (Though Killian offering to give up his Captain Hook moniker and life of piracy in exchange for a position as naval advisor definitely helped. He was in the Navy once upon a time, of course.)
But two weeks after King David had given Killian permission to wed, they exchanged their vows in front of the whole kingdom as Captain Killian Jones and Princess Emma of Misthaven.
“Killian,” she says gently, setting her hand on his shoulder and he turns to her, startled that she is suddenly so close to him. "You know that's not true, right?"
"Well then, what is it, Emma?" The pain in his voice matches that in his eyes, and for a moment, Emma is not even sure that she can produce an answer strong enough to pull him out of his sadness. Thankfully, as her tongue seems to return to its normal size, he continues. "What is it about me and our daughter that makes it so easy to let us go while you stay behind to be cursed by the Evil Queen?"
For the briefest of moments, she wants to tell him the whole truth, the only secret she has ever felt the need to keep from her husband after five years of marriage. But she knows that it would just hurt him more, break his heart the rest of the way open knowing they have to separate, and she bites her tongue before all the words fly out. But when she doesn't produce an answer he turns away from her, back to the window, and all she can do is wrap her arms around him, pressing her cheek against his back.
"You need to keep her safe, Killian. Once the curse is cast, she will be all you have. And you will be her whole world. She's too young to remember me, and the curse will wipe all our memories, so I won't remember either of you."
With her ear pressed to his back, she hears him take a deep, shaking breath, running his fingers through his hair once more before turning in her arms, wrapping his own around her waist.
"Why do you have to be right all the bloody time?" he asks, his voice still recovering from his sobs, but he tries his hardest to smile at her.
And she tries to smile back. " Just comes with being the princess, I guess."
They stand in silence for a few moments, simply breathing in the presence of the other. But Killian's need to have his questions answered quickly wins importance over this moment.
"How long do we have?"
"Blue estimates a few weeks, at most. Geppetto is building the wardrobe as quickly as he can, it should be finished in the next few days."
"And when will the fairies come back from their journey?"
"As long as she was right about how long it would take, they should be back tonight."
Killian flicks his tongue out of his mouth to wet his bottom lip, nodding slowly, and if Emma hadn't learned that this particular combination signified her husband lost in his thoughts, she would have leaned forward to capture his lips with her own.
But after a moment, his eyes find hers again, suddenly much brighter than they were just moments before. "Do you think your mother would be able to watch our little lass tonight? So we can spend one last evening on the Jolly, one last evening to ourselves before we get have to separate?"
Emma smiles up at him, always amazed at his ability to find a silver lining in every situation. "I think I could probably talk her into that."
The next afternoon, everyone is gathered in the council chambers, Killian holding their swaddled daughter in his arms, everyone waiting for Blue to begin, having called the meeting immediately upon her return.
"First thing first, Geppetto will be delivering the wardrobe tomorrow with some of his most trusted men. As he originally intended, it will hold enough magic to transport two people to another realm, away from the curse. Have you decided who is going to join the child?"
Killian and Emma share a glance, a soft, sad smile on her lips, and she watches him as he turns back to the fairy hovering above the center of the table. "Aye, I'll be taking her through the portal."
Emma looks across the table and meets her mother's eyes. She seems surprised at this answer, even though Emma gave her the very same excuses she gave Killian: her dedication to the kingdom, her need to stay with her people. But, also like Killian, she has kept her secret from her mother, the real reason she is too afraid to go through the portal herself and be with her daughter, even knowing that Killian would do anything to find her again.
“Good,” the fairy says as if it were just another meaningless decision like the ones that are usually made at this council table and not the hardest thing Emma has ever had to do. “Do not leave this room before I can speak with you, Captain Jones,” she adds. Killian nods, and Emma watches as the muscles of his jaw harden as he grinds his back teeth together. “Next, it seems the Evil Queen is a few days closer to casting this curse as we originally intended.”
“How many days?” Emma asks quickly, voicing the question on everyone’s mind.
“Quite a few, actually. We can probably expect the curse to be cast by the end of the week.”
“The end of the week?” Snow asks, amazed by just how quickly everything is falling apart, and a few others around the table voice similar concerns, but Emma just keeps her eyes fixed on her husband, who turns to face her, his expression awash with sadness.
“What do you mean the end of the week?!” Grumpy, the loudest of all the dwarves, jumps out of his seat, slamming his fist against the table. “You said we had a few weeks left, and now you’re giving us no more than a few days!”
The expression on the fairy’s face stays unfaltering. “I apologize, I really do,” she says as loudly as she can, trying to regain control of the council room, which only takes a moment. “We were not expecting the Evil Queen to act this quickly, but now that we know she has, we can take all necessary precautions and be as prepared as we can when the curse is finally cast.”
The room erupts into chaos once more, everyone in the room talking at once — except Emma and Killian, who sit silently next to each other, Emma’s hand on Killian’s leg as they both stare down into the bright blue eyes of their daughter.
Even if her life depended on it, Emma is not sure that she could recall any of what happened at the council meeting after that, besides the fact that every few minutes, it erupted into a cacophony of screaming voices outraged at the news Blue was sharing with them. But it is not until the members of the council begin to file out of the room that Emma even realizes that she was no longer paying attention, focused intently on trying to memorize every feature of her daughter’s face, of her husband’s.
Because, in a few days, no one could be sure when she would see them again.
If she would ever see them again.
“Captain Jones, I have a few things I would like to tell you in private if you don’t mind?” Blue asks, her wings carrying her slowly towards them across the table.
“Of course,” Killian says softly, not sure that he has enough in him to say much more, and holds the swaddled baby out to his wife with as much of a smile as he can muster, though it barely lasts a moment before it fades. Once Emma has closed the doors of the council room behind her, he turns his attention back up to the fairy, who is now hovering just a few feet from his face.
“Your journey is not going to be easy,” she says, and Killian barks out a laugh.
“Aye, really? Leaving my love behind to get cursed, knowing that our little girl is going to be raised without a mother? History sure has a damned ironic way of repeating itself, doesn’t it?”
“This child will have you , Captain. And you will have her. But one day in the future, she will be the key to breaking the curse, to finding your family and being together again. Do you understand?”
Killian swallows as a sudden chill inches its way down his spine. This is new information for him, knowing that it is on him to raise the little girl who will piece his life back together. “How will I know when it is time?”
“That is a question I do not have the answer to. All I can say is that when it is time, she will let you know. Keep hope close at hand, Captain. The day will come.”
“Excellent. Nothing like incredibly cryptic messages from a bloody fairy.”
“I am sorry I cannot be more straightforward with things of this nature. But find solace in the fact that she will break the curse when the time is right.”
Much to everyone’s dismay, only five days pass before dark purple smoke is seen on the horizon, moving quickly towards Misthaven.
The time has come.
Killian collects the few things they have decided to bring with them packed in a satchel slung over his shoulder. But before he turns to the bassinet where their daughter is sleeping, completely unaware of the chaos that her life is about to become, he turns to his wife, standing unmoving in the middle of the room, paralyzed by shock.
Quickly, he fills the space between them, resting his palm against her cheek just in time to catch her first tear with his thumb. “I will do everything I can to find you, darling,” he whispers, trying to will her eyes to raise from the floor and meet his, needing to take one last look into the entire world hidden behind them before he can depart. After a moment, she does just that, her chin quivering against his hand as she is unable to contain the tears that have welled in her eyes.
She opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. Instead, she lunges forward and hugs him as tightly as she can, burying her face in the crook of his neck, trying to breathe as much of him in as she can. He does the same with her, deep breaths through his nose trying to memorize the smell of her, the feel of her hair against his cheek, as much of her as he can, just as he has been trying to do since the curse was first announced to them.
“I knew you were going to have to leave, have to take her with you, but I didn’t — I was trying to avoid believing that I was actually going to have to say goodbye.”
“Aye, love, I know how you feel. I cannot begin to express just how damned much I will miss every single thing about you, you know that?”
“I love you,” she whispers, her lips wet with tears but finding his anyway.
He couldn’t care less, just focused on feeling her against him, her lips against his for the last time in who knows how long. “I love you. Not a day will go by when I don’t think of you.”
She laughs, though it quickly turns to sobs. “Good.”
He pulls her tight against him once more, knowing that they are running out of time, but he never wants to let her go.
“Emma, darling,” he mumbles finally, no part of him wanting her to move a muscle.
But reality quickly sinks in when the door to their room crashes open, David’s face red and the king breathless.
“What are you still doing here?” he yells, and Killian pulls himself away from her, the single hardest thing he has ever had to do, letting her turn instead to her father. “Take her and go! You’re running out of time!”
Killian nods at the king, a man that he has grown closer to than he ever would have thought possible, then reaches down and pulls his daughter out of her bassinet, turning back to Emma and David for one final look before he pulls the door to the wardrobe open and steps through it, closing it behind him. For a moment, it’s just dark, the smell of freshly-felled wood thick in his nose, but then the world begins to spin around him and all he can do is hold his daughter against his chest as tightly as he can.
“Don’t worry, darling, I have you,” he whispers, his eyes squeezed shut, and then his feet are on hard ground again. When he opens his eyes, all he can see is trees.
It worked.
Back in Misthaven, as the purple smoke begins to weave its way through the castle, Emma clings to her father, finally voicing the secret that she so desperately wished she didn’t have to keep from her husband: “I’m pregnant. I couldn’t tell Killian, he would have refused to leave, would have refused to let me stay here, but I couldn’t — I was too afraid, and now this baby will never know his father.”
Her emotions are finally too much for her, and even though David is trying his best to hold her up, she collapses to the floor, her sobs echoing off the cold stone of the castle as the curse reaches the deepest depths of the realm.