A/N: I couldn't leave it at that last chapter, I just couldn't bear it. I hope this makes up for what I've done. (All chapter titles have been taken from the lyrics of a song I've never heard, but whose lyrics fit the scene so well - Heal Me, by Billy Currington. I have no idea if it's a good song, I just really loved the words.)

Disclaimer: Not my characters, not my world. Just my imagination borrowing them for a bit.

She sits on the back step of the empty house and watches the rain drench the ground in front of her. He's leaving, she can feel it in the deepest part of herself, he's leaving and there's nothing she can do but let him go.

They'd failed, the mission was a trick from the start. Liam had no idea, he was just as shocked as everyone when the truth came out, and she hates Hades with a fire hotter than the one that burns under the path in that cave where they all are right now.

Everyone but her.

She'd given him the choice, what he wanted, what he begged for in Camelot and again in Storybrooke. She was breaking, falling apart inside, but she had smiled at him before they set off the doomed task, smiled and told him that she understood what he'd said that morning in the kitchen. But he had been wrong, at least about one thing.

He wasn't a villain, and no one knew that more than her.

Villains were Hades, trying to control their kingdom by torturing and blackmailing anyone in their path. Villains were Rumplestiltskin, manipulating sacrifice into selfishness. Villains were Cruella, utterly incapable of caring about anyone but themselves.

Villains took away happy endings, and Killian Jones had very nearly given her one.

Everything he had done, every horrible act he ascribed to his villainy, had been out of love. Anger, sure, misguided rash judgements, definitely. But there was no one in any of the realms she'd heard of in all the craziness that was now her life who loved more deeply, more completely than him.

A man who could love like that, there was no way he could also be a villain.

It was his love for her that helped her trust herself in Neverland. It was his love for her that helped heal the rift between her parents that she had been so certain was beyond repair. It was his love for her that helped her regain her magic, first in Rumplestiltskin's vault in the past and again in Camelot.

It was his love that helped him break free from the darkest of all curses and brought him here.

She'd wanted to tell him all of that, to show him just what kind of hero he was, but he hadn't been willing, or able, to listen. She knew he was hurting, in more ways than just the obvious blood and gore, and she knew how much he doubted himself. She thought she could just make him see…

She shakes her head, forcing the what if's from her mind. It doesn't make a difference, she knows. He'd asked for a chance to make his own decision, she she gave it to him. And he chose.

He's leaving.

She feels the water seeping into her hat, her hair, the drops cold against her face, but she doesn't move, can't move even if she wanted to. He chose happiness, he chose to finally end his too-long existence, and she should be happy for him, for the peace he wants to find. She wants to be happy for him, but how can she when her heart is shattering slowly with each passing second?

She has no idea how long she sits there, it doesn't matter. She knows her parents will find her eventually, she's not exactly hiding. The porch light shines dimly behind her, illuminating the night in an awkward red glow that she's almost gotten used to. Might as well get used to, since she seems to be stuck here for the time being, her and her mother and Regina.

She feels the nausea rising, anxiety building in her chest. She swallows hard, the tears she long ago stopped trying to prevent falling freely to mix with the rain, the heat of them contrasting with the chill of the night shower. She'd allowed herself this time, this moment, to fall apart, to feel the full weight of him going, but she has to pull herself together eventually. She still has her family, friends, Henry, and she can't curl up and die simply because he has.

She hears footsteps up the path, the sound of the gate opening toward the front of the house, and she wonders how long it will take for them to find her. She watches the horizon, the ocean view he would have loved, and waits.

A shadow falls across her, towering above her seated one, someone tall, definitely male, a shadow that moves to sit beside her, his weight creaking the step. She doesn't look up, figuring David will choose to speak when he's ready. He sits next to her in silence, and she is grateful he doesn't push her to talk first.

"I'm sorry," he says quietly.

Her heart nearly leaps from her chest at the words, and the voice carrying them. She whips her head to the side, and he's there, just as drenched as she is, water dripping from his dark hair, from his jacket, from the hand resting on his knees, and from his gleaming metal hook.

"Killian." Speech fails her completely, she can only stare at him, wondering if she's actually lost it completely, if this is the beginning of the hallucinations she's surely created to cope with losing him forever.

"I'm sorry, Emma," he repeats softly, his blue eyes bright despite the dark, glittering in his own mix of tears and rain. He's a bit out of breath, he must have been running, but she can't wrap her mind around him being here, beside her, on the back porch of their abandoned future. "I'm so sorry."

She just stares, thoughts racing, so many questions, so many things she wants to say. She is silent.

"I was terrible to you this morning, I have no idea what I was thinking," he continues, his voice low, huskier than usual. "There was so much going on, and I hadn't had time to think, I shouldn't have said all that to you until I had sorted it out first."

She blinks at him.

"What are you doing here?" she manages to choke out. "I thought you'd be gone by now, with him."

He nods and looks away. "Liam went, I couldn't go."

Oh. He must still have unfinish-

"It was open for me, for both of us," he says, looking out toward the ocean at the edge of sight. Oh. "I could see a ship on the horizon, the small village just on the shore, I could even smell the salt from the sea. But I couldn't go, I couldn't take that step."

She swallows, hard. "Why not?" she whispers. "That was your chance to finally be free from everything you've been fighting all your life. Isn't that what you wanted?"

"It was. I wanted it more than anything, to finally be rid of my demons forever."

"Then why didn't you go?" she asks. She doesn't want to hope, she doesn't want to guess, she can't take being wrong about this, about them, not again.

"I didn't want to be free from you."

He turns back to her, the look in his eyes so pained, so broken, but so certain, determined. It's a look she hasn't seen on him since that night in Storybrooke, the night she drove a sword through his chest.

"I love you, Emma, and I want a future with you, I want it more than all the guarantees of happiness in all the heavens, if you'll have me."

She can feel the flood of tears building again, she can feel it as she shakes her head a bit, forcing her voice steady.

"What happened to being a villain?"

He shrugged. "I've never been a very good villain. Liam pointed that out after our failed endeavour. He said I get too distracted by the people I care about to be truly evil."

She would have laughed if she hadn't been afraid it would have set off the sobs she barely held back. "I could have told you that. You did interrupt a sword fight with me to save Aurora's heart."

He smiles, a real smile reaching the corners of his eyes, the first she'd seen what felt like ages, but it's all too brief, falling away into a frown before she has the chance to really enjoy it. "I'm so sorry, for what I said earlier. I never wanted to cause you pain."

It was her turn to shrug. "You were being honest, and I needed to hear how you felt, even if it hurt."

"Thank you," he whispers, his eyes so completely sincere, "thank you for giving me the space to make my own choice."

She flashes him a grin. "You're welcome," and his smile returns.

But she has to ask. "What about what you said earlier, that you're tired of fighting?"

He nods slowly, biting his lip for a moment as he considers his reply. "I can't deny that I have darkness in me, Emma," he says quietly. "It's been there since I was a boy, and I'll probably never be rid of it completely. But, I think, we all have something to fight inside ourselves, and it's the things we fight for that keep us going, and makes life worth living, in the end."

He reaches his hand out tentatively, his eyes asking permission before taking hers, and she meets him halfway in the space between them, clasping his fingers tightly.

"I'll always fight for you," he says, "for us, for our future. Your happiness is brighter to me than all the possibilities I saw at the end of that path, brighter still against the darkness in my past. I can't promise it will be easy, and I'll need time to…" his voice catches slightly, and he pauses to swallow, ducking his head a bit. When he looks back, there are fresh tears in his eyes, obvious even amid the raindrops on his cheeks.

"You're worth fighting for, Emma," he says simply.

She can't hold back any longer, and she pushes forward, her hand reaching for his wet hair just behind his ear, her lips pressed firmly against his. He kisses her, desperately, passionately, deeply, a promise in every move of his lips. His hook comes up to touch her back, pulling her closer to him, their hands still entwined together. She's crying, he's crying, their tears falling with the rain on their cheeks, a sweet saltiness that slips its way into their kiss.

They pull apart, desperate for air, but desperate for each other too, their foreheads pushing together, noses rubbing, breath mingling in the thin space between them.

"I love you," she whispers.

"I love you," he replies, and they both smile amid the tears.

Maybe the house doesn't have to be empty after all.