When Killian arrives in New York to find Emma Swan with her memories of fairytales and Storybrooke intact, he doesn’t realize his life is about to change forever – that is, until Emma introduces him to his daughter. (Roses in December companion piece)
A/N: Happy Birthday, @katie-dub! I have been so blessed to have gotten to know you over the course of being in fandom together. You are an exceptional woman: smart, funny, caring, and talented. So, of course, you got me to do something I never thought I’d do: write a companion to Roses in December from Killian’s POV. I do so hope you enjoy. And for all you readers, this aligns with the second chapter of RiD.
He tells her not a day goes by when he won’t think of her, and by the gods, he means it.
Killian’s thoughts are drawn to her like a moth to a flame. All-consuming. Dangerous. Whenever he sees a flash of blonde hair, for a second Killian believes it is her. Red will forever be associated with visions of her jacket and the flush of her cheeks. She invades his dreams. She’s a siren, one he would easily submit himself to his doom just to be closer to her.
He can’t be. Damn the curses. Damn the barriers between the worlds.
He plays the precious few memories he has with her in his head. Beanstalks and jungles, her lips moving against his own and fingers questing under clothes. “One-time thing,” that’s what she’d told him the first time, the second time. He has to believe it means something, the repetition of broken vows. She kissed him once, and then again, and she drove away with a whisper of “Good,” and Killian’s world has felt off-kilter since.
(Lies. It’s been off-kilter ever since she pulled him from the pile of bodies. He just hadn’t realized it then.)
She has no memory of him. He can’t get her out of his head, but he’s nothing to her. All of the people she loves, those he ran away from the moment he could, are nothing to her. Probably for the best, because Killian knows all too well the pain of being separated from loved ones (loved one, because he accepts now that he might actually love her), and wouldn’t wish that torment on her. Yes, it’s better she not remember him or her parents when there’s no hope of ever reuniting.
But then there’s a message and a curse he’s able to outrun, and a magic bean he’s able to barter for, and Killian Jones finds himself in a foreign land standing outside the door of the woman her loves. And when he knocks and she opens the door, he’s blown away not just by her beauty – gods, she’s beautiful – but also by the whisper of his name on her lips and the realization that Emma Swan remembers.
For the first time in a year, Killian Jones allows himself to hope.
It All Starts With a Dance 