You and I nursing on a poison that never stung

Our teeth and lungs are lined with the scum of it

Somewhere for this, death and guns

We are deaf, we are numb

Free and young and we can feel none of it

Darlin', don't you, stand there watching, won't you

Come and save me from it

Darlin', don't you, join in, you're supposed to

Drag me away from it

He watches Milah with trepidation as she raises the tankard in her hands to her mouth, foam staining her lips as she laughs and grabs the dice from the man across from her, tilting forward so he can see straight down her blouse, which distracts him enough for her to make a little switch to ensure she wins the game. He smiles softly to himself - he has taught her quite a few tricks, and she has taken to them magnificently. Still, a small crease of worry crosses Captain Jones's forehead as he sips quietly on his rum, leaning up against the wall as he watches her with a pang of guilt. She had come to him wanting freedom, wanting a fresh start, wanting love, and if he had certainly given her the latter of the three, he wasn't sure he had achieved the first two. He had turned her into a pirate, drinking away the ghosts of a past life and sailing away ever faster to try to outrun them. He had taken her away from her son, and he could tell she missed him whenever he saw that faraway look in her eyes. They had been gone for years, and he could tell she was growing bitter, growing tired of the constant adventure. He knew she still loved him over the cowardly husband she had left behind, but he wasn't so sure he was enough to make up for leaving her boy anymore, and he had noticed her drinking more and more, sometimes returning to the ship more inebriated than himself. A wave of regret crashed over him and he turned away, swaggering over to the bar for another drink. He flashed the barmaid his most seductive smile to get her attention and gestured to his empty glass, making a highly suggestive comment as he ran his tongue devilishly over his lips. They had fought over that more and more lately, his flirting, even though he never went beyond a suggestive look and a lewd comment. Still, it had become a sore point, another chink in Milah's armour of happiness, which had begun to rust and decay. He idly wondered if that's just who she was, never content for years at a time, growing bored eventually, but he quickly shook the thought, reminding himself how much she loved him. Still he knew the fake smiles and the face of knowing you'd had more than enough to drink for the night, but deciding to keep going anyway all too well, and he was afraid he had been the one who taught them to her.

He wakes to her touch, delicate fingers wrapped around his shoulder as she shook him lightly, and he can feel wetness staining his cheeks.

"Killian? Killian, are you alright?" her voice echoes through his mind, but it is distorted, not sounding quite likes hers, more like another woman he had know years ago. He lets out a deep, shuddering breath, the memories still floating through his mind still. "Killian? Hey, look at me? You're scaring me." He opened his eyes to look at her, his blue eyes searching out her green ones for comfort.

"Sorry, my love," he says, trying to smile at her, but it comes out wrong, and she knows it right away.

"What were you dreaming about?" she asks, looking at him with eyes full of concern.

"Nothing, Swan, don't worry about it." She sees shutters close behind his eyes, as tears slip out, but she caresses his cheek gently and wipes them away.

"You were mumbling about it being 'your fault'." She doesn't ask the question, but it's implied, and when she looks at him with those brilliant green eyes, he can't stop himself from answering it anyway.

"Milah."

She doesn't say anything, she just snuggles herself closer to him, her head resting on her should and occasionally twisting to the side to press a kiss there as her hand massages soothing circles into his chest. After a while, he presses a kiss to the top of her head, and she looks up at him, eyes open and loving and ready to listen to whatever he has to say.

"It was my fault. She should never have joined us on the Jolly Roger, she should never have come with me. She had a good life, and she threw it all away for a no-good pirate who got her killed. I was… I'm not a good man, and I pulled her down with me."

"She made her own choices, Killian," Emma tries, not sure what to tell him.

"Aye, but I encouraged her, because I wanted her." He shakes his head like he is disgusted with himself, and he is.

"You loved her."

"True. But loving someone does not always mean you're good for them."

"Killian, you made her happy -" she starts, but he cuts her off, voice starting to rise.

"I made her drunk! I turned her into a gambler, a trickster, a thief!" He yells at himself more than her, and she sits up on her elbow to get a better look at him as he runs his hand through his hair, a pained expression on his face.

"We all make mistakes…" she answers quietly, thoughts starting to swim in her own head of a life long ago, before Killian, before Storybrooke, before Henry, when she had been stealing cars and food and she met a boy who stole her heart. He hadn't exactly been the best influence on her either, but she had loved him all the same.

"My mistakes cost her her life," he says bitterly, knowing that she had been thinking of Neal, and hating himself for bringing that up, hating her for having been involved with him in the first place, and hating himself more for thinking that.

"So did mine. You think Zelena would have killed Neal if it hadn't been for me? If he hadn't come to Storybrooke for me? If I hadn't given him a son he wanted to be around for?" She says it fiercely, but the words that follow are more timid, quiet, as though she had half forgotten they were in the back of her mind. "Do you think Regina would have killed Graham if it hadn't been for me? She crushed his heart because I kissed him." He looks at her in surprise, having forgotten that incident and how much it must have affected her. "I get the guilt, really, I do. And I know that I can tell you it's not your fault until I'm blue in the face, and it won't make a damn difference, because no matter how many times people tell me that Neal and Graham didn't die because of me, I know the truth. But Killian," she says, crawling back into his arms and laying her head on his chest again, "I'm here, and you can talk to me if you want, or I can lie with you until the nightmares go away, but I'm here, and I'm not going away. Being together, that means helping each other carry our burdens, because you and I, we have so many, but they're easier together." He pulls her closer to him and buries his face in her hair as he registers everything she is saying.

"Thank you, Emma," and he wants to say more, to tell her how much she means to him, how much he appreciates her words, but he doesn't know how.

"No matter how much we heal, there's always going to be the occasional nightmare, but that's okay. Just tell me, so I can help you fight it off." She gives him a hesitant smile, and he answers it by placing a gentle kiss on her lips, sealing their deal.

"You're bloody amazing, Swan," he says, and he pulls her up so her face is inches from his, peppering her with kisses and losing himself in the sweet smell of her.

"I know," she teases, but she kisses him, long and slow and gentle, trying to pour into it a thousand 'I love you's and a hundred answered prayers. And he gets it, answering her with a million 'my saviour's. When she finally pulls back, she sees the smile has returned to the corner of his lips and the love has replaced the self-hatred in his eyes, and she cannot help but pull his mouth back to hers, not letting him go until their hearts feel lighter and their stomachs growl with hunger.