I don't think I'll ever be over 5x08. To help, I've started writing a little series, called 'The Dark Ones', of one shots that explore a bit of canon divergence-ish, in that this could be what happens if Captain Swan are still fighting to rid themselves of the darkness, but they are doing it together – you know, ultimate power couple style.

…

If I'm Lying Here, Will You Take Me Home?

…

Strangely, there is a part of him that feels good about Emma's revelation. There is a part of him that has known something wasn't quite right within himself, that the temptation towards any means to save Emma should have been easily quashed, that the frightful insomnia he's been suffering should have made him more tired, that the voices in his head should have been quiet.

It's been stressful and exhausting and emotionally challenging to say the least and, so, he'd let these things fall to the back of his mind, to the deep reaches of his thoughts where they couldn't be easily accessed; where he couldn't question them, choosing, instead, to focus on bringing Emma home to him.

But when it is revealed that he has darkness living inside of him, it's like all those thoughts push their way to the front, vying for the attention they've been so deprived of. He's allowed to think those selfish thoughts, allowed to let himself be consumed. It's so easy to fall into the spiral that he almost welcomes it. He's been fighting an unknown battle against the darkness for weeks now, its manipulative hold finally finding purchase under his skin, in every avenue of his soul. It grips and it stays. And he can't fight it any longer.

Three centuries chasing the Dark One and, suddenly, life as the beast is forced upon him.

And he hates her for it. But, because he loves her just as much, the hate burns at the back of his throat, bitter and unwanted. He can't fight it though, his body is relishing the lure, the strength, the magic.

"How could you do this to me?" he asks, rough and raw. Holding the sword, feeling everything come alive inside of him…oh it feels like vengeance. And vengeance feels good.

"I'm sorry," she whispers back, wishing more than anything that Zelena would simply vanish. Getting through to Killian would be so much easier without the voice of evil in his ear. She knows, she understands. The pull, the temptation. God, she knows.

His face is a mask of hatred though, mind focused on one thing, one thought forming and taking hold, "So much for our future, Swan."

And it shouldn't hurt as much as it does. She has bent him, broken him and reforged him into something he was never meant to be and she knows it isn't him speaking. She knows it's the darkness within. But he's always been so gentle with her, so loving and considerate and unconditionally on her side. She's been spoilt. And now his words hurt more than she ever thought they could, cutting through her and leaving wounds far worse than any knife could inflict upon her immortal heart.

She closes her eyes as Zelena steps between them, fights the tears that are sure to fall and, when she opens them again, they're in the diner. Just the two of them.

…

She doesn't know whether the effects of the squid ink have worn off or if he's freed her. She doesn't care, to be honest, just follows the deep seated instinct to hold onto him, reaching out across the small space between them. But he holds up his hand and she feels herself stop short.

"Killian," she warns, the knowledge that they both possess equal power sitting uneasy in the forefront of her mind.

He shakes his head and lowers his hand, knowing she won't advance, "I don't understand. How could you think this was the only way? How could you make me into everything I have always despised?"

Her head tilts and she does something she has been fighting against for a long time, she lets the darkness control her anger, "You said you would survive, Killian. You said you were a survivor and then you handed me your damn survival ring and you left me." She advances on him, the tears gathering rapidly in the corners of her eyes, threatening to spill with each movement, "Do you feel that thrum in the air? That tickle at the back of your throat? They're heartbeats, Killian. They are peoples' lives being lived out in every realm, confirmation of their good souls, of their sins, of their love and their hate. I could feel it, you know? I could feel the moment your heart stopped beating. You looked up at me and said that you were happy, but I was not ready. I wasn't ready for you to be gone.

"I'm sorry. I am so, so sorry. It was selfish and I took your choice away." Her hands find purchase on the familiar lapels of his jacket, hoping the grip will ground her, "But we don't get to make those big, life-altering decisions alone any more. Not when you have what we have." She doesn't say the words, fear prickling under her skin that she's going to say it and then have is swept away from her. Instead, she places one hand on his cheek, thumb brushing the scar there, and one hand on his neck, the place where she had almost lost him. "We're in this together. No one should have to watch the person they love die like that."

Killian's eyes darken further. Memories of Milah and Liam and countless others blossoming in his mind. The hurt and suffering he has gone through, the way his heart has healed over time, the thoughts of his lost ones brining him peace now in turbulence. And he realises, with a startling clarity, that, if Emma were to die, he simply would not survive.

He won't admit it though, she knows he won't. So she takes a breath and tries one last thing.

"Why did you bring me here?" she asks.

He looks around, seemingly just realising that he's even transported them anywhere. "I don't bloody know. It was close. It was empty."

"No," she says definitively, "You brought me here because you thought of something. You imagined a place and it appeared."

"So I thought of Granny's, so what?" he spits.

She steps in so that she is chest to chest with him, "So this, Killian, so this is where I asked you, all those years ago, to be a part of something. This is where we gave each other a chance. This is where my family comes to celebrate when we've defeated some unknown monster, where my son tells stories to my brother, where we began this thing between us. Killian, this is a place of hope and you brought us here."

His jaw ticks, anger blooming behind his eyes, "It doesn't mean…"

But she's quick to cut him off, stepping in closer, backing him up against the wall, "It means you can fight it."

His eyes search her face and she knows she's got him, "You see it, don't you? You see that we can't survive alone any longer." Her whole body is pressed against his and it feels like the greatest relief in the world when his arms slowly find their way back home and wrap around her. Eyes meeting his earnestly, she whispers, "When you let me in and I you, it became something bigger than both of us."

Something akin to pain flickers in his blue irises, something finally opening up and letting her in. "There's so much," he answers, not quite sure how to express everything that he's feeling.

She knows exactly what it's like. Although, she concedes, it must be worse for him having never had magic before. The hum is unlike anything that can be described. "I know, I know, just… You have to fight. I know you can." The hand on his neck moves down to rest above his heart, "You're a good man, an honourable man. Fight with me."

He bites his lip, breathing through it, eyes flicking down to her hand before locking back on hers, "You wanted to do terrible things, Emma. How can I fight if you fell?"

She shakes her head, the tears that have been threatening to fall, finally taking their salty paths down her cheeks, "I'm still fighting. I'm still working my way back to you. I just… I can't do any of this without you."

Just as they are forged as one on Excalibur, he can feel her anguish in every word she speaks to him, connected in every way.

"Gods above," he grits out before his resolve breaks and he is crashing into her with a passion he didn't know he could possess, lips meeting hers in a clash of teeth and tongues and bites and licks and tastes and moans and, "Fuck," he breathes against her jaw, somewhere between her neck and her ear. Somewhere between pain and pleasure.

She has him back up against a wall, her hips already pressed into his. It's easy for her to lift on her toes and then press back down with a graceful roll. It's easy for her to suck in his gasp and thrive off it. Easy for her to reach her arms around his neck and accept his wandering hand on the back of her thigh, lifting it over his hip. It's easy for her to love him and hope that he feels the same.

Almost as if answering her, his hand moves back up her thigh to grip her ass, pulling her roughly against him, "I thought you were gone, Emma. I thought you were taken from me when that dagger dropped in front of us." He's mouthing the words into her neck, breath dampening her skin, "I never thought I'd see you again. Do you know what that does to a man in love?"

She couldn't answer him if she tried, a whimper escaping her mouth instead as the hard ridge of his arousal brushes surely against the heat of her core.

"I could feel it then, Swan, could feel the lure to do anything to get to you. Anything to save you. Watching you suffer like that was the hardest thing I've done in my centuries of life. It was like a part of my soul was being crushed."

She's breathing hard, rolling her hips faster. "I'm sorry," she manages, head tipped back. His hook finds the part in her leather jacket and rips downwards, finding her bare beneath her armour, breasts flushed with desire, a pretty pink against all that darkness.

He shakes his head, "The time for apologies is done, lass. I will never stop forgiving you. I will never stop loving you." He kisses a path down her chest, lifting her to wrap his lips around a pert nipple, relishing in her moan above him.

It's her thoughts this time that carry them away, one word forming in her minds' eye. Home. The movement is subtle, polished after weeks of practice, and they are crashing through their bedroom door the moment their feet touch the ground again. In the house he had chosen for them, they stumble backwards until there is a mattress beneath her back and a pirate looming above her. He looks as though he might devour her. And she might want it.

Reaching forward, she takes his hand in hers, flicking his wrist in the air. "Just imagine it," she says, rolling her hips upwards and shivering at the feel of him, "Take what you want."

He looks down at her, flushed skin and deep green eyes, her back arching off the bed in time with her grinding hips. His eyes close for a fraction of a second and, when they open again, he's looking down at her naked form.

She can practically see the moment his control breaks, his hand moving from her grip to palm her breast. And then his mouth is on hers again and he's swallowing her gasps and whimpers and perfect sounds of pleasure. Gulping them all in for himself and planning on never letting them go.

He hisses as her fingernails trace down his torso, drawing his attention to the fact that he is also bare, and he is overcome with this insanely desperate need to be inside her. To feel her that way. To know how dark that shade of pink goes when she comes, to know how she sounds, to know if she'll fall with him forever.

"Mmm," she moans, "Me too."

And he's forgotten just how connected they are.

Her foot hooks on the back of his knee, pulling him down closer to her, hand reaching between them to find his cock bobbing gently against his stomach. Her touch is cool, but it only serves to heat him up, his hips jutting forward involuntarily into her hand, the tip of him just barely brushing the wet flesh at the apex of her thighs.

"More," she begs, breaths coming out in pants against his lips.

He tilts his head down, watching his reddened skin become slick with her arousal and groaning at the sight. Her hips tilt upwards and the tip of him just enters her on the next pass, both of them letting out a string of curses at the pinpricks of pleasure bursting across their skin.

"Fuck, lass," he grunts.

She nods, suddenly having had enough of this slow burn. "Exactly," she agrees, planting her feet on the bed and pushing her hips more completely in Killian's direction allowing him to slip into her easily.

And then everything stops for a moment, the echoes of their breaths chasing around the room as warmth overtakes every pore of their being, as the silence rushes in and allows them a moment to catch up.

Until she urges him to move, her fingers clenching around the bicep of the arm holding him up. His hips rock back and forward again, a trail of, "Mm's" and "Oh's" following the delicious slide, neither of them able to make much more sense out of their thoughts than that.

There is a quick build of tension curling in her stomach amplified by the twin burn in his own belly, the two of them locking eyes as they meet each other again and again.

And then more suddenly than she expected, she is on the precipice about to fall and she needs him so much closer, wrapping an arm around his neck and pulling him down to her, burying her head in his neck, her lips crushed against the chain of his pendant, and muttering, "Don't stop, don't stop, fuck, never stop," over and over until…

"Oh! Killian!"

She bites down hard on his shoulder as he cries out his release a moment after hers, her inner walls gripping him tight until he is completely spent, panting his heavy breaths against her temple. There's a rush of energy that feels as though it should be bursting out of every inch of her skin, but his hand is there to sooth the tingle of magic, taking it on himself as they both practically vibrate with the power of it all.

There are a few long moments when they can't do anything but be in each other's space, coming down from the rush and figuring out what the hell happens next.

They don't speak for too long and, eventually, Killian pushes back and rolls on his side, his heart still beating fast with the weight of the knowledge of his new Dark One status.

Emma's staring at the ceiling when she says, "I never expected you to be okay with this, with my choice. I was a coward and wanted to fix it before you ever found out. I wanted the darkness gone from our lives before it had the chance to take you."

He leans in to brush his lips across her cheek while his fingertips trace light patterns across her still bare torso, his touch crackling with his new magic, "If I have to fight this battle, I'm glad it's with you by my side."

She rolls over to face him, finding no trace of a lie in his words. She looks at him incredulously and asks, "Yeah?"

He nods, "Yeah."

…

He meant it when he said he will love her no matter what she's done. Killian Jones will love Emma Swan until his dying breath and maybe even beyond.

He knows they won't sleep but he wraps an arm around her naked form anyway, pulling her close to him and enjoying the fact that he doesn't have to share her with the night. His darkness is selfish as well and getting her all to himself is something he could become used to.

The anger still simmers there beneath the surface, unpredictable and wild. It makes him think of when the Crocodile had reattached his hand – the reminder of his past making him uncomfortable in his own skin. Voices in his head tell him that Emma will always be disappointed in him, in his past. As he breathes in her scent, face buried in the back of her neck, he reminds himself how lucky he is to have this moment. He knows he will have to fight to remember this.

The slow smile on her face when she rolls over to face him brings something else to life in him, something above all the bitterness in the dark, she breathes a little light into his soul and, he thinks, if anyone can break this curse, break it forever, it might be them.

She takes his hand and runs it across her hip, guiding it up over her ribs and breasts. He's not even sure how to control the magic he can feel escaping him, but he knows that she trusts him implicitly and that helps.

"It's a lot, isn't it?" she murmurs. If he hadn't have been the only other person in the room, he might have thought she was talking to someone else. "The magic," she clarifies.

He nods, swallowing, "I'm terrified, Emma."

Her eyes flick up to meet his and, curled up in their bed together, she agrees with him, "Me too."

But, together, they share a moment of quiet in a million moments of loud that she knows they're about to have.

…

Thoughts?