Captain Swan One Shots

Four Strikes and Counting

After 5x08 this is my way of coping. That episode destroyed me. 2% angst and 98% fluff. Enjoy!
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"Sometimes you have to die to truly see how much someone means to you. I'm sorry, Swan. I love you more than you know."

"No!"

Killian Jones always believed in three strikes you're out. But it has taken four for him to actually stay dead, it seems.

As he walks through the fiery landscape his last words to Emma replay in his mind. He feels so much regret now that he is no longer tethered to the darkness. The irony of which is not lost on him, because after three hundred years of hunting down the demon that killed his Milah, it stole his Emma and then it stole him too. He had become the demon and as the demon, forgiveness was not possible.

But now as whatever you become in death, he forgives Emma because he knows he would have stopped at nothing to save her if the tables were turned.

"I love you, I forgive you and I will see you again"

His last words a promise, an oath to her, to their future.

He loves her more than anything and he hopes she knows that he truly forgives her. He hopes she knows he's working his way back to her, just as she once did.

He hopes she never finds out about the pain he felt when he died for the fourth time.

Four times.

First in the alternate reality, then when Emma tried to put the sword back together, then when Emma crushed his heart to cast the curse, and finally when he sacrificed himself to save Emma from the darkness. Four times, and each time his Swan was there to see it, the tears in her eyes and broken words on her lips not painful that the sword in his back or the cut on his neck or the dust of his heart or Excalibur in his chest.

A broken-hearted Emma Swan was never something he wished to cause but so often, it was his fault. Especially the third time, when she literally broke her heart in two to keep him alive.

So as he walks through the fiery hellscape, he hopes Emma is out there somewhere, not blaming herself for his death because it was a choice he made to protect the woman he loves.

*******

"Killian, finally!"

It doesn't take long for her and her family to find him. She hesitates and he feels a pang in his heart because he knows she blames herself. He knows she still thinks he's angry with her.

He isn't.

And so he rushes forward, hugging her tighter than he thinks he's ever held anyone before. She seems cautious at first, worried, but once she realizes that he's real and though he may not be alive again yet, some part of him is there with her, she tightens her grip around his waist, sobbing into his shoulder.

He whispers words of assurance into her hair, apologies from both of them, tears from all.

Henry rushes to him, the boy is so tall now and- and how long has it really been?

Killian embraces Henry, followed by Mary Margaret. He even gets a pat on the back from David and a handshake from Robin. Later, a genuine smile comes Regina followed by a nod of understanding from Rumplestiltskin.

He realizes that Gold and him now have several similarities and he sees regret and pleading apologies in the man's eyes. He smiles back, reaches out to shake his hand, a silent truce between two former villains, two former dark ones, two centuries-old men who live -or in Killian's case, lived and will live again- for the strong, brave women who brought light into their lives.