Summary: Modern soulmates AU. In which soulmates are rare, and those that have them stop aging at adulthood. Rarer still – and dangerously conspicuous – are those that have special abilities. Immortality and powers alike fade when soulmates come in close proximity with their other half. In which Emma's touch heals, and Killian's kills.

Warnings: Language, blood

Notes: Well, folks, this is the end. Thank you all so much for taking this journey with me. I am so grateful for each and every on of your reviews. I will cherish them forever. One day, perhaps, I will revisit this universe. As ever, my love and devotion to seastarved, is-that-what-it-is, and high-seas-swan (all on tumblr) for their help and encouragement with this fic.

Emma counts.

She counts from one up to ten, and then back down again. Her heart pounds arrhythmically in her chest, but she counts on a steady beat, fearing that the moments she stops…he'll stop. Bleeding, breathing, living.

She'd begun the moment her lips touched his.

One.

He'd been as pale as the snow around him, as stark a contrast to the blood seeping from his back.

Two.

She felt she'd imagined the spark of warmth on her lips, the heat she felt drain from her to him. But the voices in her head – the chorus of the world's collective agony that had faded the longer Killian was at her side – they'd built up to such an unbearable zenith as her lips lingered on his. She could feel blood dripping down the back of her throat as she bit down on the inside of her cheek.

Three.

Then, suddenly, there had been nothing. Nothing. The last, latent whispers she hadn't realized had clung to her until now – the cries of those in pain, something in them reaching out to something in her, begging to be healed – were silenced. It was gone. Her power…gone. She could feel the immortality dropping from her shoulders, could feel the weight of the decades peel away as the tears streamed freely down her face, as she carded her fingers through his hair again and again.

Four.

The world had never been so quiet. A vesper hush. A long pause, caught at the end of a stuttered, heaving breath. Not hers, though. Not hers.

Five.

But his. His breath. Rushing back into his chest with such force that his back bowed up from the earth. He sputtered, and the unsettling quiet shattered. She sobbed and he gasped, arching and keening and squirming against the merciless pain of being wrenched back to life. Emma has seen it before, with men and women she'd found teetering just over the edge of death. She'd wanted to ease him through it. But she was helpless to the power of her cries.

Six.

To the power of her grief.

Seven.

To the power of her relief.

Eight.

Minutes, hours, days, Emma hadn't been sure. But Killian's whimpering had faded into sharp, uneven breaths – eyes screwed tightly shut in his unconsciousness – and she hadn't the energy to do anything but lie on his chest, counting on every tenth beat. Counting, counting, until David and Mary Margaret found them, soaking wet and shivering in the cold.

Nine.

Emma hadn't been sure just how they managed to drag the both of them back to their house. She'd been near hysteria, tired and drained beyond reason, and Killian had been out cold, each breath coming slower and steadier. The journey back is disjointed in her mind, nothing but the harrowing space between the moments that she could cling to him. Mary Margaret whispers comforts in her ear as they settle them in one of the bedrooms upstairs. But it's all white noise as Emma settles back over his chest, sobs wracking back up in her chest as she falls unwittingly into half-dream state, the smell of blood still heavy in the air, the nightmarish metronome in her head still ticking back and forth.

Ten.

Back and forth.

Emma wakes to the feeling of fingers smoothing against her hair. Even before she opens her eyes, she can tell they're not Killian's. Comforting, though, as they draw up and down, over her ear and down her shoulder – a warm, steady touch as Killian's heart beats soft and steady against her cheek.

"Emma," Mary Margaret whispers. "You awake, honey?"

Emma opens her mouth to reply, but her lips are chapped and her throat his wrecked. She settles for nodding.

"Do you want me to go?"

Emma hesitates, but then shakes her head.

"Why don't you sit up," Mary Margaret says. "Drink some water."

Emma clings tighter to Killian's shoulder, but she eases herself up at Mary Margaret's gentle insistence. As she sips at a tall glass of water – one of their many dozens of Disney World cups – she notices that Killian is in a pair of sweats and a white cotton shirt. She wonders briefly at how they managed to pull her away from him long enough to redress him.

And in so doing…touching him.

"Wait," she says, as it dawns. "How…"

Mary Margaret reaches out, and grasps Killian's wrist. Emma holds her breath, then releases it on something caught between a laugh and a sob.

"Your power must have been hanging on by a thread. If I had to guess, I'd say that you were – " She gestures vaguely at Emma. " – and the he was – " And then gently shakes Killian's wrist. She looks so hopeful, so heartfelt, Emma has to look away. Mary Margaret sighs, not unhappily, and adds, "Looks like both your powers went out – for good this time – with kind of a bang."

Emma figures that must be the understatement of the year, but she's too busy being positively overwhelmed by the last twenty-four hours to comment. She sets her glass haphazardly on the nightstand, water sloshing over on her hand as she reaches up to grasp at Killian's face. She's desperate to tell him, to see the look on his face when he realizes that it's over. That she was right. He's not cursed, not caught in the vortex of some cosmic punishment, just older than most, his power sticking to him with a centuries old tenacity.

But not anymore.

"God," she whispers. "Will you just wake up already?"

David appears in the doorway, shuffling awkwardly, eyes dancing around the room, landing on anything and everything but her as she runs her fingers over his chest, the other threading through his hair. David crosses his arms over his chest as he leans against the jamb.

"Welcome to mortality, kid," he says.

Emma smiles, but it falters the longer she rakes her eyes over Killian's face. The relief begins to wear away, replaced by images not unlike this. Him, prone, blood on his hand, slick on his leather…

Mary Margaret seems to sense her distress, and reaches out, patting her shoulder, resuming the comforting motion of her hand over her hair.

"Emma," she says. "What happened?"

Emma drags her eyes away from Killian to look at Mary Margaret. "Didn't they tell you?"

David pushes himself off the jamb and sits in a chair by the bed. "They?"

Emma frowns. "Weren't you, you know…being held hostage?"

The Nolans exchange a look of mirroring confusion.

"Um, no," David says. "We've been on the back forty since this morning. We came looking for you because it was past lunchtime and you weren't answering your phone. Better that than watch Mary Margaret raise a new barn, or something."

"But…" Emma trails off. Fucking Gold. Worry sparks, and flares into anger. He'd played them from start to finish. And he'd practically won.

Practically won, she reminds herself.

Emma recounts the tale as best she can, from Gold's sudden appearance –

David gasps. "Killian worked for evil Xavier, basically."

Mary Margaret rolls her eyes. "David, oh my God."

– to the horrific, rigged swordfight. As the words pour out of her mouth, she can hardly believe it herself. That she watched two centenarians fight to the death. That Killian had lived, despite it all. That they're free. Elation bubbles in her chest, though it's quickly staunched by the echo of Gold's control in her mind. She shrugs her shoulders, stretching the joints around and around. She itches to move, to run –

Just let me run, love. If only for a while…

"Shit," she says, the words slipping out as Killian's erratic behavior when they'd first met settles into sharp focus. Minutes under that demon's thumb and she's half a mind to run in random circles, if only to prove that she can do whatever the hell she wants.

Mary Margaret hums and David nods, adding an awed, "Yeah."

Something like dread pulls at the hairs at the back of her neck, Gold's sinister shadow still hanging overhead, but – as she watches Mary Margaret reach out and pat Killian's hand before she and David excuse themselves to whisper fiercely at one another down the hallway – in all the ways that matter at this very moment, they're...

"Free," she whispers. Of their power, of immortality.

And she's fucking terrified. Of losing him, of losing herself, but she buries it, and she curls around protectively around him. She grasps tightly, desperately at the ring around her neck, and falls into an uneasy slumber, the warm, steady puffs of Killian's breath against the top of her head.

Got you.

Killian wakes with a start, coughing as he gropes blindly in the night. There's a warm weight on his chest, and he's set to scramble away when he feels the familiar weight of Emma's long, chilly fingers against his cheeks.

"Hey, hey," she says. She reaches over and flicks on a lamp. The room he's in is strange to him, and his head is starting to spin, but he hones in on the drag of Emma's hands over his neck, down his chest, tickling over his belly before reaching back up for his face.

"It's me," she says.

"Emma," he croaks. His mouth is stale, and there's a terrible metallic taste on the tip of his tongue. His bones feel as though they're made of stone, dreadfully heavy as he pulls himself into a sitting position. Emma shifts along with him, apparently more than a little unwilling to move from his lap as her legs fall on either side of his hips. She presses a glass of water in his hands and he drains it clear to the bottom. Her hands wander, quicker than he can register, reaching again and again for the ring that dangles from her neck, then back again, anchoring in his hair as he blinks up at her.

"Fuck, I was…" He trails off, licking at lips, so chapped they're sore, pulsing with every beat of his heart.

"Dead?" Emma finishes for him.

They both wince. The expression on her face – usually guarded, even in the quiet moments – is raw, open. Her eyes are sunken and red-rimmed. She's grasping at him like he might disappear, drinking him in like it's her last chance. He sets the glass aside and reaches up, brushing the hair from her shoulder, tracing the curve of her jaw, thumbing at the corner of her mouth.

"Dead," he whispers, and her face falls, so he adds, quickly, "But not anymore."

Emma hums, and the devastation in her eyes gives way to…apprehension? They fall into silence, and while it's not exactly uncomfortable, it's not pleasant either. If only because of the way she's looking at him, and the way he imagines he's looking back. The seconds drag along, and the apprehension dissolves into a familiar restlessness, echoing in the way she shifts atop him, thighs tensing and relaxing, then again as her fingers dance arrhythmically along his chest.

Gold.

It's like looking in a mirror, and his gut twists, his stomach clenches. He thinks of everything he'd ever done, against his will. Then he thinks of Emma, subjected to the same fate. His blood heats.

"Oh, Emma," he says, and he presses hard at her thigh with his blunted arm, his hand tangling in her hair. "Did he hurt you?"

She looks pointedly at his chest, fingers grazing over his sternum, and he feels a phantom pain jolt through his body.

"Yes," she says, simply. She drags the fabric of his shirt up, just enough to uncover…nothing. Only a faint line. One that he may very well be imagining. He grasps her fingers.

"But," he starts, and he wonders why he didn't notice sooner. Too preoccupied, he imagines, with the woman draped over him, clinging to her as he presses down on the crushing feeling of claustrophobia that follows on the heels of Gold's influence.

Still, he wonders aloud, dragging their joined hands along his chest, "How?"

Emma leans back, and looks down. "I sort of…kissed you?"

He quirks a brow. "Aye, that much I remember."

She sighs, and looks back up at him. "David was right about that whole last hurrah thing. The longer I kissed you, the colder I felt. And then the warmer you felt. I was healing you, and at the same time, you were…" She waves her free hand, searching, he knows, for something that won't hurt him. She finishes, lamely, "…draining."

He knew it was coming, but still, he frowns, guilt surging, his breath hitching. "It's never worked on you before." He imagines it, pressing his fingers against her throat as he had countless others, falling to their knees before him. What once was empowering, harrowing.

"God," he says. "Emma, what if – "

She clamps a hand over his mouth. "I know, but stop it. I don't want to have to punch you in the face so soon after you died."

He smiles despite himself, his lips brushing against the skin of her palm. She pulls her hand away, but she doesn't venture far, fingers anchoring once more in the hair at the nape of his neck.

"And besides," she pauses, takes a deep breath. Then, quietly, "It's gone."

Killian frowns, brow furrowing. "Gone? What do you mean?"

"I mean," she starts, and she finds his hand with hers, his wrist with the other. "David and Mary Margaret dressed you."

He wrinkles his nose, caught somewhere between embarrassment and indignation when realization sinks in. And he says, voice pitching so low, even he hardly recognizes it,

"Touched me."

She nods, her eyes shining. And now that she's said it, he can feel it. Or the lack of it. The low hum that had coursed through his blood, pulsed in his fingertips. The echo of voices in his mind, all the people he's touched – still rasping along the ruined edges of the man he came to be, the man he came to hate – now dulled. Though he could touch her before, he pulls his fingers from hers and presses at the line of her jaw.

"Say it again," he begs, his voice cracking.

She smiles. So radiantly, that he can't help but laugh. Regardless of everything that's happened, everything that he fears will happen, he laughs, and she laughs along with him, giggles really. He feels like a child again, splashing in the waves under his mother's watchful eye, the evening sunshine casting diamonds out in the bay.

"It's gone, Killian," Emma says. "Forever."

"Forever," he repeats. And he kisses her. It's an unholy mess of teeth and tongue – a jumble of words falling from both their mouths as she trails her lips up his jaw, as he presses his tongue to the patch of skin just beneath her ear – but he can taste the promise on her lips. Eternity has fallen away, its unforgiving, amaranthine grip crumbling before him as he clings to the woman he loves.

Several days pass, and relief begins to give way to the grudging acknowledgement of the shadow that yet hangs over their heads. Drunk on his power, likely reveling in his success, Killian is certain they'll have a months long reprieve from Gold and his vengeful machinations. Emma, he knows, is not so certain, and in the dead of night, she drags her fingers through the hair on his chest, over the faint scar on his chest and then back again. There's a glint in her eyes when she does, liquid steel darkening the shades of green. But she doesn't say anything, content for the time being to curl around him, and he around her, still disbelieving that he'd fucked up so royally.

He's plagued by nightmares, wakes up feeling like there's string threaded through his flesh, knotted around his elbows and shoulders and knees, pulling him this way and that, pain erupting in his sternum, Emma's hand slipping from his fingers, dark words of dark purpose spat in his ears. Emma wakes him, and shushes him. And he her, when her face crumples, when he can see the same nightmares staring back at him.

It heals. Wordlessly. It's always quiet, save for the whisper of his skin against hers.

David and Mary Margaret, on the other hand, talk incessantly. They assure him again and again that he needn't apologize, that they trust him, that they'd be willing to face his fate alongside him.

"That's what family does," they'd said.

Emma's fingers curled in the loop of his belt, David's hand on his shoulder, Mary Margaret's impossibly genuine gaze – he hadn't had the heart to protest. In fact, he'd almost believed he could stay, allowed himself to imagine it.

But now, as cold reality sets in along with another string of snowstorms, Killian wonders how he could be so selfish. To stay, never mind the consequences. Or maybe it's the other way around. That he is exactly that selfish. Enough to take her wherever he wanders. To never let go.

It's early in the morning on a Sunday, and Emma must sense it, feel it in the way he looks at her over his coffee. She coaxes him outside, wrapping a scarf around his neck and pulling a hat over his ears. He murmurs a protest or two, but they catch in his throat when he feels the tremor in her fingers.

Once out the door, they trudge through shin deep snow, meandering the barren gardens with her arm looped in his. He watches as she kicks at the snow – his darling Emma, beautiful Emma, heart thudding in his chest. The words – we have to leave – are tripping on the tip of his tongue, falling silent each time he opens his mouth, lost on a wet puff of breath in the frigid air. She looks so at home, so –

"Hey," she says, gently. "If you brood any harder, it's going to start raining on us."

He smiles, though it feels a mite out of place. "Apologies, love. Just…"

Emma stops, and turns to face him. She reaches out, grasping the lapels of his coat. She pulls him closer. He can feel her breath fanning over his face, and not for the first time, he wonders at the years he spent without her, how in these moments, they feel so far away.

"Just…" she echoes, and she tilts her head, eyes narrowing as she scrutinizes him. "Just thinking about how we've got to leave?"

Killian can't help it. He laughs. "Aye. Exactly that."

The corners of her mouth twitch, but she doesn't smile. She shuffles forward, her boots nudging against his. She looks up at him, and the emerald in her eyes darkens, a shadow passing over face.

"We ought to track the bastard down," Emma says. "Give him a taste of his own medicine, chop his hand off."

He sighs, and reaches out, his fingers pressing gently at the hollow of her throat, trailing up to her jaw. "Swan…"

She huffs. "I'm serious, Killian. He thinks you're dead. What happens when he finds out that you're not?"

"Believe me, love. Vengeance is intoxicating." He swallows, hard. Then, quieter, "To say the least. I've had my fair share of it…"

He trails off, memories sparking unbidden. He chokes them down as her fingers trail up his neck, thumbing at the curve of his cheek.

"But it's hollow," he finishes.

Emma shakes her head, leaning forward, her chest pressing against his. He can feel her heartbeat against his, and he blinks sluggishly as she speaks, "You can't tell me the world wouldn't be a better place if he were dead. If he'd done to me what he did to you, I'd want to run him through."

"Emma…"

The expression on her face is so fierce, the set of her jaw so beautifully rigid, he allows himself to imagine it. What it would be like – what it would have been like – to have her by his side in the heat of vengeance. Killian drowns in it for a moment, red bleeding into his vision, the sharp crackle of gunpowder and smoke in his nose.

But he's lived long enough to know that he can't. They can't. That it isn't worth it. He knows he'll lose himself to it. Judging by the doubt in the curl of her lips, he knows that she knows this too.

"Emma," he repeats, reaching out to thumb at her chin. "Perhaps he'll return. Perhaps he won't. I fear we'll spend the rest of our lives chasing him down. I don't know about you, love, but I'm tired.

He sighs, and repeats, "I'm so tired."

She exhales, heavy through her nose. She's certainly never looked her age before, but the color in her eyes dulls from emerald to jade, and he can hear every one of her days in the sound of her voice.

"I know," she says. "So am I."

Her eyes fall to his chest, one of her hands reaching for the ring around her neck. She leans forward, slowly, teetering on the tips of her toes. He wraps his arms around her, nudges the small of her back with his prosthetic. "How am I supposed to argue with you when you're being stupidly reasonable?"

He smiles, wanly. "Revenge is ancient, Swan. An ocean of blood could not force time to run backwards. But we can always start new. Spit in the face of what lurks behind. Live in the quiet moments."

Emma hums, thoughtfully. "And when he comes back?"

"If – "

"When." Her fingers curl, tight and fierce in the lapels of his jacket. She grits her teeth, and looks up at him. "When he does."

"At least it won't be here. Where your family lives."

She chews on her bottom lip, uncertainty in her eyes. She looks over her shoulder, back at the cottage nestled in a dip in the earth. Back at the farm house atop a little jut of a hill. The snow picks back up, little flakes falling silently around them, and on them. He looks down at her, at the twitch in her fingertips, the fall of her hair when she shifts from one foot to the other. The sun hides behind low, dark clouds, and the wet chill settles into his bones, numbing his hands and his toes. But he just watches the snowflakes catch in her hair, the gentle rise and fall of her chest as she breathes. Silence descends, and even though she looks over her shoulder, she falls into him, and he knows she's saying goodbye to the only home she's ever known.

Then, slowly, she turns back, leaning up on the tips of her toes to press her chilled forehead against the skin of his cheek.

"Okay," she whispers. "I'm freaking out a little bit right now, just so you know."

Killian laughs, and he can feel her answering chuckle against his ear.

"But okay," she says. And he can feel the future falling into place – even as it shatters in the wake of the unknown – in the press of her lips against his.

Emma resolves to tell David and Mary Margaret that same night, though not before she finds a weak excuse to drag Killian just beyond the tree line, to press him into the nearest beech –

He smiles. "You have a fondness for this sort of tree, eh, Swan?"

"Would you rather I shove you into that thorny locust over there?"

– and to memorize the look of him, the feel of him, the taste of him in the place she's learned to call home. The way the snow melts in his hair, scatters it across his forehead. The touch of pink high on his cheeks as he leans back against trees she's come to think of as old friends.

Maybe one day it will be over. Maybe one day, she can bring him back for good, and they can settle and slumber and wile away the hours, the years, lost in one another, with gray in their hair and creases in their skin. But not today. Not tomorrow. Probably not for a handful of years. And, strangely enough, it feels right. Not like they're running away, or even toward something.

Just running. Anywhere. Together.

Mary Margaret seems to understand, though there are tears in her eyes as she clings first to Emma, and then to Killian – who, after several long, tense moments, relaxes into her embrace, his cheek brushing against hers as he leans down.

(Emma wonders briefly how long it will be before he can accept casual touches from anyone besides her…she quickly squashes the thought down. She'll have enough to cry about over then next several days.)

David, on the other hand –

"Why can't you report this guy to police? Why do you have to go? I don't like this. Mary Margaret, tell them we don't like this."

Mary Margaret sighs. "David…"

"Just a shot in the dark," Emma says. "But I'm not sure reporting a thousand-year-old master manipulator…" She waves her hands, searching for an appropriate descriptor. "…guy to the police is gonna do much good. He could make them forget, make them see someone else."

Killian looks grim, though his mouth twitches as he grabs at one of her flailing hands. "Look, mate, this is as much about starting new as anything else – "

Emma interrupts, " – and we'll be back to visit – "

" – before you know it."

David grumbles as he's led away, casting pleading looks between the lot of them. They set to leave the following Sunday, just a week away. Long enough that she figures David will turn over both figurative and literal tables trying to find away to keep her, to keep them. But not long enough to succeed. And by the hunch in his shoulders, Emma can tell that he knows. That no amount of hemming or pacing or questionable Google searches will put everything to rights. He spends half of the morning glowering at them from the upstairs window when they're outside, and from a dark corner of the living room when the sleet forces them indoors.

By dinnertime, he apparently realizes his mistake, hiding his tears with embarrassingly fake coughs.

By Wednesday, he's become their shadow. He joins them at breakfast, and hovers outside while they walk, and claims to need help chopping down a young ash tree. He stares sadly at their chins whenever they talk, seemingly unable to meet their eyes, and Emma already misses him.

By Saturday, he's forced them to take ownership of the truck –

"If you tell me you were planning on taking the bus, I'm forbidding you from leaving."

Killian scratches nervously at the back of his neck and blurts, "Eh…the train?"

Emma rolls her eyes. "Try plane, but okay."

– which she's sure is filled to bursting with hidden money.

When Sunday comes, it's both too soon and not soon enough. Emma drags Killian back to bed three different times. He doesn't complain – is rather enthusiastic, in fact, judging by the urgent press of his fingers, the rigid bow of his back as he moves under her, over her, beside her. But she can see the subtle downturn in his lips, the uncertainty in his brow as they gather up what little they (she, really) owns.

"This is the right thing to do," she says, as much her as for him.

"Aye, love," he says. "But I don't want you to regret it."

"Regret you, you mean."

He looks down.

"I'm about to jump town with you," she says. "Not that it isn't totally necessary, but I've never…" She trails off, feeling a bit shy, which is a bit ridiculous, considering she's not wearing a shirt. She sighs as she holds his scarred wrist to her chest. "I've never gone anywhere because I wanted to. I was too desperate to heal, to shut those stupid voices up…" She swallows, hard. Then, softer, words nearly lost to the snap of the fireplace, "And…I love you."

He looks back up, as if he's surprised. But how could he be? She clutches at the ring around her neck as he speaks, leaning forward until he's whispering into her mouth, "Emma, God."

Suddenly his hand – having been hanging rather dejectedly at his side – is all over her, roaming the curve of her back, his lips against hers as he answers her in kind,

"I love you."

Bed for the fourth time now.

Several hours later, their haphazard little family stands silent on the edge of the biggest change Emma feels she's ever made. She's moved, loved, lost, wandered both figuratively and literally until her heart could no longer stand it. But this is different, and while it doesn't sit quite as heavy on her shoulders, it still sets a lump in her throat and a knot in her stomach. And surprisingly, not because of the fact that a power obsessed executioner lurks somewhere in the years that lay ahead. But because of the people the live in the light they're leaving behind.

She opens her mouth, means to tell them –

Thank you.

I'll miss you.

Don't worry about us.

I love you.

Instead, she sighs, and she offers the most fearless smile she can manage as she reaches, compulsively, for Killian's hand.

"So – " Killian starts, but his voice catches and he stops, looking at her with such hopeful melancholy, she has to look away.

David rubs at the back of his neck. "Alright, so…"

Mary Margaret smiles faintly. "We've got something for you, Killian."

He tilts his head. "You what?"

They then, rather unceremoniously, walk away, breaking the solemn tension. Emma turns, watching the confusion twist across Killian's brow. She feels a bit lighter as she watches him huff in amusement. He waits in silence for a long minute before he turns to her, his fingers tightening around hers.

"Am I to be in suspense forever, then, Swan?"

She smiles, faintly, and her voice feels think in her throat when she answers, "Hell if I know."

"You're a terrible liar, Emma."

She rolls her eyes, and leans forward on her toes, appreciating the levity in his tone.

"First," she says. "Take that back. Second, I'm surprised you don't already know what it is. Mary Margaret can't keep a secret to save her life."

Killian hums thoughtfully, looking down at her, one eye to the other, down to her lips and back up again. Reading her. "And neither can you, I'd wager. Now why don't you tell me what it is."

"Ugh, no. You'll get it in like two minutes, can't you wait?"

He pouts. Just a subtle downturn at the corners of his lips. This is, apparently, all it takes to do her in.

"Alright, fine, it's a hook."

He makes a soft, curious little noise in the back of his throat. "A hook?"

Emma looks down, suddenly feeling sheepish. She scuffles her boots against the ground, scratching an imaginary itch into her left elbow.

"Well," she says, looking up at him from underneath her lashes. "You mentioned that you'd had one, you know, before, and how useful it was."

Killian looks at her for a moment, blankly. Emma's quickly making a mess of her elbow, now, as she really digs at it, worried she's crossed some sort of line. Before she can apologize, though, he smiles. It's tentative, lips pulling back over his teeth, then faltering. His eyes brighten, shining in the dull afternoon.

"Aye, love…that I did." He swallows, and adds, softer, "Thank you."

Oh God, is she about to cry over a hook?

Turns out, she is. Especially when – once Killian enthusiastically discards his prosthetic in the truck in favor of the hook, allowing Mary Margaret's fingers to attach the brace to his arm – she and David pull her into a crushing embrace, then Killian as well. She can feel the chilly metal on the skin of her back as the force of David's arms around her smush her coat up under her neck. It feels so Goddamn right, that her unsettled heart quiets in her chest. As they bid a final farewell, as Killian helps her into the driver's seat, hook outstretched –

"You're gonna find any excuse to use that thing, aren't you?"

"Would be bad form to underappreciate so fine a gift, love."

– and as they pull away.

Emma reaches up to fiddle with the ring around her neck – feeling, as she does, that she has her hands curled around it more often than not. Her nerves creep back in as they pull out of the driveway, as the house she's called home for the past three years disappears from view, along with the only family she's ever known. She finds it horribly ironic – all the times she'd considered leaving this place, bag half packed when the sheer…normalcy of routine and friendship and card games on a Saturday night had driven her to panic – now that she's actually leaving it behind, her first instinct is to dig in her heels. Her hands grip tight to the steering wheel as her fear mingles with her sorrow

"How sure are we about this?" she says.

It's not the first time she's said it over the past several days. Usually colored with little more than curiosity, now they hang heavy with something like grief.

Killian turns in his seat and reaches out, his hook on her thigh. It's not quite how she imagined it would be, the hook, when David had oh so casually mentioned that he just happened to know a friend of a friend who specialized in that sort of thing. Less pirate than would perhaps suit him, but he wears it as if he's had it for years, and even as she flushes with a bit of last minute indecision, she smiles, and reaches down blindly to curl her fingers around it. It's cool to the touch, rounded at the tip, a grasping mechanism at the base.

He hums as she fiddles with it, watching her for a moment before he answers,

"Not even a little bit, Swan."

She laughs, cackles really, startling herself. "That's the worst answer ever."

She catches his smile out of the corner of her eye. "Aye, but it's the truth, stark as it is. Isn't that what you needed to hear?"

Yes, she thinks. It's exactly what she needed to hear. That familiar, smug expression – eyebrows waving, toothless smile – falls over his face, and she shakes her head.

"How do you do that?"

Killian smiles, wider, just as the trees give way to open, rolling fields, and the ache in the pit of her stomach eases.

He answers, simply, "Soulmates."

They're in Illinois before they stop for a rest. Miles and miles lay behind them, and they peel away along with the lonely years they've lived apart. Long, lingering shadows nip at their heels, but it feels more like they're chasing the sun –

"Well, we kind of are chasing the sun."

"It's a metaphor, love."

– the light stretching further into evening as they head straight west. The sheer volume of coffee she's consumed has set a jitter into her fingers, there's a cramp in her left thigh, and she longs to see the look on Killian's face. They'd sunk into a warm, comfortable silence, and he'd turned his head towards the window, watching the glistening scenery roll by, his hook pressed against her leg. When the light pours in just so, she can steal a glance of his reflection in the glass. But she wants to watch the tension ease. She wants to see if relief has overcome his fear. She wants to think of the man she met weeks ago, slinking towards her across the slatted wood, the wild spark in his eyes making him seem cornered, wounded. She wants to think about him as she looks at the man she loves.

"Alright, love?" he asks, when he opens the door for her, wordlessly urging her to take hold of his hook as she steps down.

"I'm fine," she says. "My ass, on the other hand."

He laughs, and makes a point to slow his stride as he walks behind her so he can take her hand in his.

"Is as lovely as ever," he says.

She huffs a laugh, but she doesn't bite back. Just stares at him. And he at her. They look at one another, amongst the gentle ripple of the plains, blanketed with white, stretching on towards the horizon, and glittering in the late afternoon sun. The hush of winter settles over and between them as they slowly begin to wander out towards the idyllic landscape stretching out beneath their feet.

"You know something?" she says, quieter than she means to, a near whisper. But he turns to glance at her as she lets go of his hand, reaching up to clutch at the lapel of his jacket. Snow and ice crunch beneath their feet as they wind among dormant tufts of prairie grass, the winter-grey stalks still despite the breeze, sentries against the wind.

Killian hums, a bit absentmindedly as he reaches out to pluck at the blades with his fingers. "What's that, love?"

"I don't really know how to explain this, but…well, I used to be able to feel people hurting. Not literally, it was just like I was drawn to it. And I healed them – because it was the right thing to do, obviously – but also because…because I….God, I'm terrible at this."

Killian watches her, stopping them by a rusting, broken chain-link fence that curls at the end of the field. He leans forward, and she can feel his breath on her face, as he looks her over intently – one eye, the other, back again.

And then, finally, "Because each person you touched, it felt powerful. Liberating."

He shuffles forward, his feet nudging between hers. He leans down, pressing his forehead into hers. He catches a loop of her jeans with his hook, his hand trailing along her waist before crawling up the skin of her back, fingers gripping at the ridge of her spine.

"Bloody addicting, it was…but never quite enough – "

"It was you," she interrupts, speaking, now, against his lips. "Drawing me in. It was you – "

He kisses her. Even as the words are still hanging on the edge of her tongue, he kisses her, breathing in as he licks at her bottom lip, then out with a groan as she scratches at the back of his neck.

Emma pulls away with a sigh, but she doesn't go far, burying her face in his shoulder

"Where are we going, anyway?"

Killian laughs, and it rumbles against her chest. She closes her eyes, allowing her legs to go a bit slack as he hugs her tight to his chest. "Home, my love."

Emma smiles. "I'm already there."