Unhappy Beginnings

It's been four weeks now that Gold was forced to leave town, no other threats have presented themselves, and the feeling of peace is almost unreal. Since the first curse has been broken, there hasn't been such a long period without a villain's scheme of some sort looming over Storybrooke.

But Emma doesn't complain; even though this period of quietude doesn't give only the opportunity for pleasurable occupations, it's still an important chance to process things, to deal with experiences that could easily leave unnoticed marks if swept under the rug. And it's so tempting to forget some of the stuff that has happened, and not so long ago she maybe would have been inclined to do exactly that, but she knows better now. Her new self is determined to quit running away, and that includes not suppressing feelings, not even unpleasant ones such as worries and fears.

So, she's trying to deal with what happened, in particular with Killian being under the control of Gold, his heart ripped out, and almost killed by his old nemesis. My oldest friend, he'd called him in cruel mockery. Emma can't even begin to imagine what that must have felt like for Killian, to be forced to do terrible things, to know his loved ones were in the very real danger to be sacrificed for Gold's quest to free himself from the dagger, and to know that his life was doomed and that his own unavoidable death would ultimately allow The Dark One what he'd always wanted: to have infinite power, be free from the command of the dagger, and keep the woman he loved... well, in his own twisted way.

Emma thinks it must have been a horrible feeling for Killian to helplessly watch all this unfold without being able to do anything about it, having to face it alone, Gold's merciless grasp on his heart preventing him from reaching out and seeking help. She feels terrible herself, and guilty... that she never bothered to check on him if everything was alright, when it clearly wasn't, because she was so caught up in everything else that she didn't pay enough attention. It's inexplicable to her now that she didn't follow her instinct when it told her that something was off with the desperate way he kissed her before the Spell of Shattered Sight hit, and then again with his behavior when he told her he'd found the portal to Arendelle. How he grabbed her arm, trying with all he had to get through to her while Gold had his heart in his hand and was speaking through him – she shudders at the thought.

She ignored it then, and now, that they are finally having a peaceful period and a lot of quiet moments, she gets to think about it often. And she thinks that maybe for a long time, she just hasn't been paying enough attention to him, Killian, the man who is always there for her to support her, encourage her, believe in her and love her when she lets him. And yes, she lets him – she lets him even make love to her, finally.

But what she maybe still has to learn is how to be that person for him, too – the person to let him know that she cherishes him just the way he is, that he doesn't have to try to be a better man for her, not physically and not otherwise. Which is what got him into that mess in the first place. But he needs to understand that he's good enough, that he's worthy of her – that he's important to her. And it's her turn to assure him of that now. I'd love to know more about your beginnings, he told her once, and it dawns on her that she barely knows anything about his beginnings. She only knows that he lost his brother after a cursed mission to Neverland when he was a young Lieutenant in the royal navy of a ruthless king, and that this turned him into an angry, broken young pirate. Later, he lost his first love and his hand to a ruthless demon named Rumplestiltskin, and from then spiraled into the darkness. But before the loss of his brother? His youth, his childhood – how had they been?

Something tells her that he must have lived through some not so happy stuff, too, and lately her mind often wanders back to a conversation from a few weeks ago; an exchange that seemed random then, but now she's come to suspect there could be more behind it, and she is determined not to ignore that any longer.

"Wounds that are made when we're young tend to linger."

"How would you know?"

"Believe it or not, I was once a child."

At that point, Emma had still been too closed off to reveal too many of the painful things of her own past that she'd been just too willing to change the subject, to make a joke of it.

So, she'd brushed him off again, "Yeah, like a million years ago."

But lately, she finds the thought about Killian as a child intriguing, and she wants to find out more about him, his past... his beginnings. She just isn't sure how to go about it – on the one hand, she really wants to know, and she also wants him to know that he's important enough to her to want to find out. On the other hand, she's aware of how similar they are in many ways, and she knows that he likes to keep things to himself, especially unpleasant things. She remembers when she asked him about his brother in Neverland, he downright refused to tell her more about it. But, of course, things between them had been different then. Since his confession in the Echo Cave, he has been wearing his heart on his sleeve.

All of this is going through her mind more often than not, and this evening it must be mirrored on her face, and of course, Killian doesn't fail to notice. He never does.

It's a balmy evening, and they've taken a walk down to the docks after dinner, to sit on their favorite bench and look out on the water.

"Is everything alright, love?" he asks softly.

And there it is again: his first and foremost concern is always she. "Oh... yeah," she replies, "I was just thinking..." She lets her voice trail off and looks at him pensively. "Remember I showed you that box with my... old stuff?"

He frowns in slight confusion and smiles. "Of course. What's with it?"

Emma shrugs. "Well, I was wondering... do you have one, too?" she inquires. "A collection of old... things? From your past?"

Killian blinks, and it's clear he didn't expect anything like that – and he really didn't. Briefly, he thinks of the very few things that were dear to him, that he retrieved from the Jolly Roger before trading her to Blackbeard, small tokens that fit into his satchel: the drawing from Milah, Liam's ring, the tiny wooden piece of the rigging he took. He averts his eyes and looks down at the rings on his fingers, keepsakes from his dark past, gone from bloody trophies to reminders of hope. But Emma doesn't need to know that. Then he shakes his head and lifts his gaze to hers again. "No, afraid I don't."

She scrutinizes him searchingly, knowing he's telling the truth, deep down also knowing there must be a reason he has no token left from his childhood. She tilts her head and suggests almost shyly, "You can still just... tell me?"

He doesn't understand. "Tell you what, love?"

She licks her lips a little nervously. What if he doesn't want to tell her? Would that mean he doesn't trust her enough? "About your... beginnings," she explains after hesitating briefly. His eyes widen in surprise about her request, and it sends a pang of guilt through her. "Before you joined the Navy?" she adds quickly, and he swallows and scratches behind his ear.

"It's not exactly..." he sways his head, "an uplifting tale."

"But it's your story," she points out. She doesn't add, and therefore it matters to me, but the intention is clearly readable on her face, and it warms his heart, even if his past is not something he's eager to talk about. But he's aware that she's trying to give him something here, a clear sign that he means more to her than she can express in words at the moment, but that she still wants him to know.

Killian smiles briefly to show her he understands and appreciates her message, then he nods almost curtly and swallows. "Well," he begins almost a little reluctantly, "most of the time it was only my brother and I."

"What about your parents?" Emma wants to know.

He averts his eyes for a moment. "We... lost them early."

"How old were you?" she asks softly.

"When my mother died," he pauses for a second to wet his lips, and it's clearly still painful for him to talk about, "I was about six years old, and Liam was ten." For a moment, his gaze gets lost in the distance, and the profound melancholy in his eyes tugs heavily at Emma's heart.

"Was she sick?"

"She simply caught a fever." He tilts head in a shrug. "There weren't any antibiotics back in the day."

She sighs in compassion. "And your dad?"

A shadow wafts across his handsome face, and a muscle in his jaw twitches. "He tried," he replies in a flat voice, "at least for a while. But he didn't do well."

Emma hesitates for a moment, because it's obvious that this isn't easy for him to talk about, and she doesn't want to cause him distress. But she also knows – and he's partly responsible for that insight – that burying painful things and keeping them hidden away doesn't really ease the pain or heal the wounds. And she wants to help him heal, or at least show him that he doesn't have to deal with his demons alone anymore.

"What happened?" she finally urges gently.

Killian purses his lips briefly in a dismissive gesture. "He became a thief. Crossed the wrong people and got into trouble. We lost everything." Emma cringes at the thought of one parent letting their kids down when they already lost the other one. "One day," he continues, "we boarded a ship to another land. Father said we'd start a new life there. A week later, we awoke in the middle of the night to find him gone."

That came unexpectedly; her eyes widen. "He died?"

He shakes his head once. "No. He'd got wind that in the next port, authorities were waiting for him to have him answer for his misdeeds. We weren't heading to a new life." Briefly, he looks down at his hand, restlessly fidgeting in his lap, and snorts. "We were fugitives. So... he took one of the row boats and... left." He lifts his eyes back at Emma's, but only for a little moment, before he looks away again.

Emma gasps. "He left you behind?" It was surely worse than she thought.

"Aye," Killian answers without offering further explanation, and she's at a loss.

"But you were..." she tries to wrap her mind around it and shakes her head. Sure, her parents gave her up, too, just like she gave up Henry... but both times it had been done to give the child their best chance. On the other hand, she thinks, it probably was for the best of Killian and his brother, hard as it must have been, they probably were better off without that kind of father. "So you and your brother ended up in an orphanage?" she asks gently.

She remembers very vividly how he, much to her dismay, recognized her as an orphan on the very day they met, remembers what he told her: I spent many years in Neverland, home of the Lost Boys. They all share the same look in their eyes... the look you get when you've been left alone.And now the realization hits her that he didn't recognize the look in her eyes because he'd had seen it on the Lost Boys of Neverland... he recognized it because he saw it every day in the mirror, in his own eyes, maybe applying the kohl around them to camouflage the sadness with a bit of bravado.

"No," he replies finally, "we were on our own."

Her heart sinks even more. "You lived in the streets?" Oh, she can relate to that. She knows how that feels.

But he shakes his head. "We stayed on that ship."

She frowns. "They let you stay?"

"Well," he brings up his hand to scratch his neck below his ear, "we didn't exactly have a choice."

"I don't understand..."

Killian exhales slowly, so obviously hesitating to let out any more details that Emma gets an ugly, sinking feeling in her stomach. "You see," he says matter-of-factly, "our father... he didn't steal that boat. He paid for it." He doesn't look away, because now that it's clear the truth is gonna be revealed, he wants her to understand it right away, so that he doesn't have to explain it in more words than absolutely necessary. Emma narrows her eyes as if she's trying to process – but failing – what he's telling her. So, he adds, bitter sarcasm dripping from his lips, "With livestock."

She shakes her head when she understands, her wide, horrified eyes staring at him in disbelief. "No..."

Finally he averts his eyes and huffs a humorless laugh. "Told you it wasn't a pleasant story."

Emma desperately wants to reach out for him with a comforting touch, but she isn't sure how he'll react, if he'd allow it. She surely knows that he wouldn't want pity for his past. But she wants him to know that it matters, that he matters. "How long?" she asks, her voice barely audible.

"Two years," Killian replies, and as horrible as that is, for a moment she's relieved. But then he crashes her hopes that his ordeal ended soon when he continues, "Until the captain sold us to someone else." He falls silent, and Emma feels paralyzed, not knowing what to say or do, filled with rage and despair. After a long moment, he ends his tale with what she knows unfortunately wasn't exactly a happily ever after. "Liam managed to keep us alive," he points out, "And got us out of there when I was eighteen and he twenty-two."

Emma exhales, but it's more like a gasp, because she still can't wrap her mind around it. She knows what Gold's father did to him when he was a child, and as an adult he practically abandoned his own son, too... but this? Not only abandoning your children, but selling them into slavery, after they'd already lost their mother? What kind of monster does that? She thinks about those poor little boys, enslaved, robbed of their childhood and youth, exposed to God knows what kinds of horrific abuse, and she feels almost physical pain.

Because this is not just some kind of terrible story that happened to someone a long time ago, this has happened to the man before her, has been his life, and she can't believe how it's possible that Killian has grown into the man he is, flawed and capable of darkness, yes, but full of empathy and honor and support for the people he cares about, full of kindness and good form and love. After all he's been through, she's surprised that he is even capable of love; she knows she hasn't been for a long time.

And then something similar happens to him again, when he had his heart ripped out and was controlled like a puppet and abused to do horrible things. She swallows thickly.

"Did you ever see your father again?" she finally asks, sincerely hoping he managed at least to get some kind of closure – even tough she isn't sure how there could ever be anything like closure to an experience like that.

Killian presses his lips together, and his jaw clenches. "Only once," he replies, "when I was already..." he lets his voice trail off and raises his hook instead, then he draws a deep breath and adds reluctantly, "Wasn't pleasant."

She doesn't ask any more questions, because it really doesn't matter at this point, and she can't bring herself to make him suffer any longer by poking deeper in old wounds. She reaches out for his hand, her fingers firmly wrapping around his, pulling it to her heart. "I'm so sorry you had to live through this," she tells him, because she doesn't know what else to say. She feels guilty and almost regrets insisting on hearing his childhood story, because it clearly caused him pain to remember and rehash all of this, and the last thing she wants to do is cause him more pain; he's lived through enough of that, especially lately.

And he inhales deeply, carefully, and smiles that melancholic smile, tilting his head lightly. "It's okay, Swan. It was a long... long time ago."

His voice is soothing, as if she's the one who needs to be comforted and shielded, as if he's trying to downplay the tragedy that shaped his life, just to keep the burden from her, and her heart aches even more. "But that doesn't make it any better!" she blurts out, and he averts his eyes and swallows, looking at their joined hands cradled against her chest. The muscle in his jaw clenches again.

"No, it doesn't," Killian finally agrees, and she can see the shadows on his face. But then he looks back into her eyes, the stormy blue of his alight again. "But do you know what does?" She just shakes her head, and he smiles. "That someone..." he tilts his head in a shrug, "cares. I never thought I'd ever have that again."

Emma looks at him for a long time before she slowly realizes the meaning of his words and understands that even though she caused him to bring painful memories back to the surface, memories he'd long ago buried away, by doing so she has exactly achieved her goal. Because he understands now that he's no longer unloved and alone, like he's been for so long, but that he matters and someone – she – cares.

"You do now," she replies softly.

He pulls her fingers to his lips and brushes a feather light kiss across her knuckles. "Good to know," he says almost solemnly.

Emma blinks a few times to keep her tears at bay when the emotional impact of what she has just learned is catching up with her. She manages to keep the upper hand, and she raises from the bench, pulling him up with her. "Come on," she urges, "let's go... it's getting chilly."

Immediately, he lets go of her hand, only to wrap his arm protectively around her shoulders, shielding her from the cool breeze. "Aye," he agrees. "Let's get you home."

Her arm sneaks around his trim waist to anchor her there, safely and warmly. "I was thinking more like... your quarters?" she suggests with a smile.

His handsome face lights up at her suggestion. "Gladly."

They start walking back into town, in the direction of Granny's, arm in arm, Emma's head leaned lightly against Killian's shoulder, both of them lost in their own thoughts. Even if not all of them are pleasant – Killian can't help thinking of the three sons of Brennan Jones and how their fates have been so different, yet so similar – the prevailing emotion is a careful, quiet happiness. Emma is glad she obviously got her message through to Killian, and she's glad he trusts her enough to open up with her about that terrible time of his life. Painful as it is, the knowledge makes their bond even closer, especially because with every detail she discovers about him, it seems to become more evident how kindred they really are – and the best thing about that is that it doesn't frighten her anymore.

When they pass the drugstore, Emma untangles herself from their embrace and smiles up at him as if she's enjoying some secret joke which leaves him a little confused.

"Wait here?" she asks. "I need to pick up a few things."

"Of course, love. I'll be right here."

She enters the drugstore, and his curious eyes follow her inside while he's smiling to himself. It pains him that he still has to keep secrets from her, but some things she just doesn't have to know. One day, maybe... but not now. Today he will just revel in the feeling that Emma Swan has torn down her walls enough to actively show him that she cares about him, and it seems like they're really moving forward, that she wants that with him.

It takes her barely five minutes before she's out again, carrying her purchases in a paper bag. He smiles at her expectantly, and she returns it with the tiniest hint of nervousness, so that he wonders more and more what this is all about. He has a feeling that she wants to say something, but before he can think of how to encourage her, she holds out the paper bag to him.

"Would you mind keeping these in your room for me?" she asks; that's somehow the last thing he expected, but he reaches for it automatically.

"What's that, love?" he wants to know.

She shrugs. "Toothbrush, shampoo... stuff like that." He scrutinizes her incredulously with wide eyes, eager to figure out if she's trying to say what he suspects she is. Emma licks her lips and rambles on nervously, "So I can get... decent when I spend the night?"

He swallows hard while he's trying to process what she just said and looks down at the paper bag in his hand. "You're planning to stay with me?"

"Occasionally," she replies and adds, "If you... if you'll have me."

Even though she puts an unmistakable question mark at the end, that is not even a question, she knows. Asking him is unnecessary, he'll be beyond thrilled by her suggestion, but that's not the point. The point is, she wants to – needs to – show him that he, too, matters. That she's as much into this as he is.

Killian understands her message, and it touches him deeply – as much as the fact that staying with him for the entire night is another leap of faith for her, another brick torn out of her crumbling, brittle wall. Her shy, almost nervous smile is the proof of that. They have made love – mostly, in his room at Granny's, and once or twice a little hurriedly at the parents' loft – but until now, she went home every time, no matter how late it got. He understands, and he never urged – or even just asked – her to stay, not wanting to pressure her, but it has been his heart's desire ever since she let him make love to her for the first time.

With her question, she gave him the opportunity for a great innuendo, but the thought doesn't even cross his mind.

"I'll be honored," he replies, the fine skin at the corners of his eyes crinkling with the softest of smiles.