Final chapter, guys. Couple more thousand words, and you'll be through with me. I'll be through with this. Good God. It's been a long time.

The Sheriff and the Captain

"You two are the worst sober sisters."

"Considering I'm not a bloody woman or in any way related to you, that's entirely understandable," said Killian, grunting as he kicked open the front door, revealing the dim light of the mansion foyer.

"And we were not-sober long before you," added Emma.

"So why did you volunteer to drag my ass home?!" cried Regina, clamping her nails down on Killian and Emma's shoulders where she hung between them as they carried her over the threshold.

"What is this alleged volunteering business? You literally dug your claws into our shoulders and ordered us to take you home," said Killian, wincing. "As you continue to do now." She may or may not have drawn blood; he wouldn't be able to tell until later. "Made us bloody walk and everything."

"Yeah, well, it was either you two idiots or the horny rabbits who were milliseconds from making out right then and there on a barstool," said Regina. "Everyone else was just as drunk."

Emma grimaced, and Killian snorted. The lower the level of golden liquid in Snow and Charming's glasses got, the more they made eyes and whispered in each others' ears and cuddled against each other. Even Henry did his best to respectfully get as far away from them as possible, going as far as to ask Granny if Snow and Charming could spend the night in one of the rooms upstairs since they were entirely too drunk to get home. He'd been one of the first to bow out, opting to go home to Mary Margaret's apartment alone for some much-needed and yearned-for peace and quiet. He was the only one to walk out of Granny's sober.

"Are we almost there yet?!" demanded Regina.

Killian leaned away from the grating noise of her screams. "Woman, we're in your bloody foyer!"

Regina paused, throwing her back and blinking, slowly registering where she was. "Oh."

Emma rolled her eyes and patted Regina's back. "All right, all right—we're gonna get you up to bed."

"Oh, God," groaned Regina, grimacing.

Killian yelped and ducked out from under Regina's arm, holding her aloft. "If you're going to vomit aim down!"

Regina moaned again. "No." She eyed the structure in front of them. "Stairs."

"You've suffered four curses now," said Killian, rolling his eyes and hefting her against his shoulder again as they carefully began making their way up—Regina dragging her feet along, leaving her shoes behind as he and Emma did all the work. "You can make it up a flight of stairs."

"More like we've survived four curses, and now we have no choice to suffer another flight of stairs," grumbled Emma. "You owe us so bad for this."

"Oh, stop bitching," snapped Regina. "You two can pick some rooms out and stay the night. I'll make breakfast tomorrow or something."

"Sorely tempting," said Emma. "As long as you don't make any apple pastries, I might take you up on that. My feet are dying."

Regina groaned again. "I will be dying tomorrow morning."

"Your fault entirely, Madam Mayor," said Killian. "Charming tried to cut you off, but you insisted—"

"I'm sober! I'm sober!" mocked Emma, chuckling.

"I was sober!"

Killian barked out a laugh. "Not while you were saying it, Madam Mills."

"Oh, both of you smug assholes, shut up," grumbled Regina. "You're both just as drunk as me."

"I haven't been as drunk as you in fifty years," laughed Killian.

"I'm definitely drunk," said Emma, "but definitely not on your level, Regina. You're starting to muddle between the different types of drunks."

"You've been vacillating between the angry drunk and the rowdy fun one," said Killian. "I'm sure your neighbors enjoyed your jazzy rendition of the national anthem."

"Hell yeah, they enjoyed it," said Regina, surging off Killian and Emma's shoulders to rush up two steps, turn around, throw her arms out, and belt, "America! America! God shed his grace on thee—"

"God shed his grace on me," groaned Killian.

"Oh-kay, Regina, save those pipes for another time," said Emma, rushing to grab Regina again.

"Bloody hell, woman, were you going to try and run through all the songs about this country?" grunted Killian as he assumed his position again.

Regina tried to salute but clipped Killian's face instead. "Can't say I'm not a patriotic bitch."

Emma snorted. "We're almost there. Just a few more steps."

"What's the plan for when we get to my room, huh?" asked Regina. She grinned lazily. "You two gonna undress me?"

Killian gagged. "Woman, don't you dare cross into the horny drunk territory."

"Oh, don't you even!" cried Regina, smacking him in the face—on purpose this time.

"Ow! What?!"

"You didn't even ask for my permission to date Emma—you don't get a say on what drunk I should be," said Regina nose in the air, though the pride in the action was marred by the fact that her toes were still dragging along as she hung between the two of them.

Emma choked on her own spit. "Who says he needs your permission?!"

Regina scoffed. "Don't even pretend that you two aren't gonna date and then get married and then having a bunch of swashbuckling, magical children that are gonna give me gray hairs long before I get wrinkles." She burped. "The moment Killian Jones walks into your bedroom, Emma Swan, is the moment he never leaves, which means closer proximity to Henry. And since I'm Henry's mother too, I have a say as well. I'm in this door on the left."

Blushing so hard their faces should be on fire, Killian and Emma didn't look anywhere but the door to Regina's bedroom. Emma nudged the door open with her foot, and they hauled Regina the rest of the way before dumping her on her blue-sheeted bed, where she crawled under the covers, head-first so her bare feet rested on the pillows.

"For the record," she said, muffled by the beddings. "I approve of you two stupids. You're disgustingly cute together."

Emma cleared her throat and hesitantly glanced at Killian out of the corner of her eyes. He was smiling at her widely—smug, drunk, and happy.

"Shut up," she said, leading the way out of the room. "Let's get some water and find separate rooms so we can get some rest."

"Very well, love," said Killian, stuffing his hands in his pockets and following her out, still smug. "Good night, Madam Mayor."

Her reply was a loud snore.

"Do you think she'll be all right with her head under there?" asked Emma.

Killian grimaced a bit before jogging back to the bed, pulling the cover out from under the mattress and flipping them so Regina's head poked out. Emma picked up the wastebasket from beside the vanity and setting it down by Regina's head.

"We'll bring her a glass of water and some of that Toblerone later," said Killian.

"Tylenol."

"Aye." He paused. "What's Toblerone then?"

"The triangle chocolate with the toffee pieces in it."

"Bloody delicious, those."

"I'd drink to that."

They walked back out and shut the door behind them softly, the quiet following them as they trekked back down the stairs and into Regina's sprawling kitchen. Emma flicked on the lights as Killian began rifling through the cupboards for some cups. It took him three cupboards to find a couple of mugs, and when he turned around Emma was already sitting on the counter, a fork in one hand and the other already in her mouth, a half-eaten tin of store-bought pumpkin pie in front of her.

"That sugar is going to disagree with you tomorrow, love," he said, turning to the sink to fill up the cups with water.

"I disagree with that statement," said Emma. "Nothing disagrees with pie."

"If you say so, darling," he said, setting a mug in front of her and taking a long swig from his own.

She offered the other fork to him. "Fork."

"Aye, that's a fork."

"Yeah," she said, looking at him as if he was stupid. "For you to eat pie with me."

Killian sighed, looking at her, the fork, the pie, and then her again. He'd be able to deny her very little. He accepted the fork and took a small portion. "Not bad."

"So was Regina right?"

Killian choked and frowned up at her incredulously. "Pardon?"

"If you walk into my bedroom," she asked, chewing slowly. "Would you ever walk back out?"

He sighed. "Not if you don't want me to, love."

Emma nodded, eyes scrunched in pleasure. "Very good answer."

"Thanks." He took another bite if only to buy him time to think if she asked him another question.

"Why?"

Bloody fuck. That bite of pie had been a damn-good idea. He slowed his chews as he tried to come up with why he wouldn't leave unless she asked him to apart from the obvious.

"You can only chew that pie so long before you'll end up wanting to spit it out rather than swallow," she said wryly, eyes twinkling with inebriated mischief.

He cocked an eyebrow, rested his elbows on the counter, and maintained eye contact as he continued chewing. He swallowed little by little, but she was right. He couldn't prolong this—for the sake of her question and for the food in his mouth.

Killian finally swallowed and took a sip of water to brace himself. "I know where I stand in this relationship, Emma, so I'm leaving it all up to you. I've worked through what I needed to, but I can't speak for you and where you are in terms of your romantic availability."

"Didn't we already talk about this the last time we were drunk?" asked Emma, twirling her fork between her hands.

The movement vaguely reminded him of Snow White's three-pronged threat, and he wondered if Emma held the same belief. He hoped not.

"I talked," he replied. "You contemplated my words."

She nodded. "True."

"And to what conclusions did your contemplations lead you?"

"That you were wrong," said Emma, hunching down so her elbows rested on her knees, bringing her face closer to his.

Killian tapped his fork against the tin. "What was I wrong about, darling?"

"Love is always going to be a risk," she said, "because you still might lose it."

"Wrong, darling."

She smirked. "And why is that?"

"Because love is a very simple concept," he said, setting the fork down to rest his chin in his open palm. "There is no such thing as true love because love is true. If it isn't, it's not love at all. No such thing as unconditional love because love in and of itself is unconditional. You can't make a distinction."

"Are you going to give me a lesson in semantics?"

"No, darling. I'm telling you that if you think you can lose it, it's not love at all," said Killian seriously. "If your parents die, will you then start denying that they ever loved you? If I died, would you think I ceased to love you, even from the grave?"

Emma blinked, the mischief fading from her hazel eyes as the gravity of his words began to settle in her expression.

"Just because you lost the person didn't mean you lost their love," he continued. "I've lived many years, darling, and I spent most of it running after something I thought I'd lost, and it took me a long time to realize that I was just running in circles because I'd never actually lost it."

"Are you talking about Milah?" she asked.

"I'm talking about Milah, aye," he answered. "And I'm talking about my parents, my brother—all the people I missed and yearned to see once more. I yearned for my family, for the love that I had briefly but powerfully." He rubbed a smudge on the sparkling granite countertop before looking up and meeting her hazel gaze again. "But it wasn't until I met you that I realized that being separated—by some bloody curse or a town line or massive distances or time itself—never changed how we feel about someone we love. Your parents loved you when you were in their arms, so briefly, and they continued to love you after the curse, aching and missing something they didn't know they had.

"I've lived for so long, procrastinated without even realizing, and it finally hit me when I met you," he said. "Your father and I talked several weeks ago, about how he should treat you, a valid point. He didn't know whether to treat you more like a friend than a daughter, if you'd be resentful of his presence or if you'd be embittered that he was just now being the father he should have been."

Emma's lip was trembling. "And what did you tell him?"

"I told him to love you," he answered plainly. "We can live for only two days or two millennia, Emma, but it means nothing if we don't surround yourself with things worth living for. I didn't sail the seas for three hundred years; I lived in limbo, angry and bitter and lost because I dwelled on everything that had been taken from me. If you think of life in terms of losses, you'll only ever gain pain."

"Poignant," she muttered softly.

"I'm not trying to be poetic, sweetheart, I'm just trying to put the world in a perspective that'll inspire you to live," he said, lifting his head so he could stroke her jaw with his fingertips.

"You're trying to influence my decision about you," she said, trying to correct him.

He shook his head. "Never. Emma…" He sighed and straightened up, pushing the pie and cups away and planting his hands on her waist to drag her closer so her legs dangled on either side of his hips. He picked up her hands to kiss her knuckles.

"What are you doing?" she muttered.

"Your father believes you to be a miracle, your mother the same. Henry, Red, the curmudgeon, the entire town believes you to be a miracle," he began, his lips against her fingers. "They've put you on a pedestal and are too far away to hear your protests, but I know what you are, love. You're not a god. You're a human. You're cracked and lonely, holding yourself at arm's length so you can't be any more broken and any more lonely, but you know you're only making it worse. You're strong and beautiful and damaged and wonderful and bitter and inspiring and…amazing. But you don't belong on that pedestal, Emma, simply because you don't want to be on it at all. And I think you should do what you want, not influenced by greater forces or greater responsibilities."

She leaned down, pressing her forehead against his, and took a deep, shaky breath that she let out through her nose slowly. He was thankful for that; after the amount of alcohol she'd had, the pie probably wouldn't have covered anything up.

"I want you to make your decision about me based on what you want, Emma, not because of what you're afraid of."

She pulled her hands out of his grasp to rest them on his shoulder and on the back of his neck, playing with the small hairs on the nape of his neck.

"So I'm going to ask you, darling," he said, voice more like a brush against her lips rather than a whisper. "What do you want?"

"You." Her answer was immediate, no hesitation. "What do you want, Killian?"

He grinned, wide and happy, and he wound his arms around her middle, tugging her flush against his chest. "You, Emma. Always you."

Emma matched his smile, his world lighting up in spite of the dim bulbs above them. And then she bent down to kiss him—but she missed, her lips landing on the corner of his mouth. She laughed, pulling back, squinting to find his lips, and kissing him properly.

She was drunk and sleepy, and so her kisses were lazy and laced with whiskey and cinnamon, and so he took his time getting acquainted with this Emma, this sweet and slow and soft Emma that didn't brashly grab him into a kiss in the middle of a jungle. He kissed her tentatively, tugging and brushing as he held her close and cradled the side of her face, the pads of his fingers ghosting across her skin reverently.

It was Emma who suddenly seemed to catch fire, peeling off her jacket as she deepened the kiss, nipping his lip to make him exhale shakily and slowly tasting the roof of his mouth. Her legs locked around his hips, her fingers dragging his shirt down and blazing thin trails of fire across his collarbone.

"Emma, darling," he muttered between kisses. "You and I both know this isn't the right time for anything to really…"

"Really what?" she asked, leaving a dotted line of hot kisses across his cheek, along his jaw, and down his neck.

"Come to f-fruition?" he asked. The tail of his statement squeaked up into a question when she sucked on the junction of his neck and shoulder.

She hummed against his skin. "You're right." She nipped his skin, making him growl and reclaim her lips in a kiss that had her sliding right off the counter and into his arms. She pulled back as he repaid the favor, kissing down the column of her neck and sucking on her pulse. "Plus we're in Regina's house."

He grunted in reply.

"And what I want is definitely not suitable for the kitche—"

He pinned her against the fridge door, the magnets skidding and several clattering to the floor. He covered her mouth to keep her from saying much anything else that would drive him to run her out of the house and to wherever she deemed more "suitable." And that thought alone had him slowing down their kisses, tapering them off into gentle pecks as he slowly lowered her feet back onto the floor.

"We should really get to bed," he muttered against the corner of her lips. "You're drunk."

"Yeah, well." She leaned up and kissed him again briefly. "Drunken shenanigans are fun."

He shook his head, chuckling, before leaning away and taking her hand, helping her slowly drag her feet along, sleepy and just a bit disoriented.

"Just for the record," she said, squeezing his hand. "Just because there's alcohol involved doesn't mean regrets are dancing around with it."

Killian grinned and flicked off the lights of the kitchen. "Good." And then he vaguely wondered how in the hell she managed to get his jacket off and four buttons undone without him even noticing.

He'd gone and landed himself a bloody thief, and he'd never been so happy about it.

The door to the master bedroom swung open—thankfully without any creaks. The Queen of the Enchanted Forest, the once-evil sorceress apprentice of the Dark One himself, the legendary Mayor of Storybrooke, crept out of her room, her comforter swathed around her like a cloak, dragging along the cream carpet behind her. Regina's movements were slow and quiet not to maintain the serenity of the mansion, but rather because of the hangover that was a curse in and of itself.

She practically melted down the hall, somehow managing to stay intact by virtue of having the comforter wrapped around her.

Thankfully, it was a rainy day out, so the sun wasn't beaming through the windows and trying to scorch her and blind her. Thankfully, it was quiet. Thankfully, there were no curses or stray villains threatening the town.

Unfortunately, the mansion was fucking huge, so the trek from her bedroom to her kitchen nearly killed her. She had to take a break by the foyer table, leaning against the surface until the room stopped spinning.

After what felt like two miles that took two days, she finally reached the kitchen whereupon she nearly slipped on a familiar black leather jacket that was on the floor.

"Oh, God, please no," she muttered—though her throat was parched that there was no volume so she was basically mouthing the words. She pulled the hood of her comforter back slightly to survey the state of her kitchen and grimaced.

There were two mugs and the pumpkin pie she'd bought from the store—half-eaten with two forks still in the empty section of the tin. Her grimace deepened.

Another familiar leather jacket, red this time, was on the floor by that section of the counter. Her grimace was practically scored into muscle.

Not far from the leather jacket were some magnets that must have clattered onto the floor, and her eyes followed the trail to the utter disarray on the fridge door. Her grimace was so deep it must've been carved straight into her skull by now.

The town sheriff and the pirate captain had some sort of liaison in her kitchen, while she was passed out on her bed. And they ate her pie. And now she had to disinfect the entire kitchen. Or burn it.

"Assholes."

The sentiment was repeated when it took another hour and a half for the aforementioned assholes to descend the stairs in that stupid, sleepy, affectionate manner that couples drag around in their honeymoon phase. Regina simply rolled her eyes—and regretted it immediately; her headache throbbed—when Killian and Emma walked into the thrice-disinfected kitchen, hand in hand. Killian had just kissed her temple, and Emma grabbed the front of his shirt to pull him down into a more satisfactory kiss.

There'd be none of that.

Regina cleared her throat, glaring at the two over the rim of her glass. Killian only smirked and threw his arm around Emma's shoulders. Emma, at least, had the decency to blush. It faded however, when she saw exactly what was in Regina's hand.

"Is that a mimosa?" demanded Emma worriedly.

Killian, on the other hand, had focused on the plates of omelets, hash browns, ham, and muffins that decorated the kitchen island that they'd previously occupied the night before. "Are those muffins banana nut?"

Regina continued to glare at them. "Are those your jackets?" She used the mimosa to point at the offending garments that were resting on barstools. "And is that your handiwork?" The mimosa moved toward the messily-decorated fridge door. "You can be damn-sure I'm telling your parents about this."

Grinning as he took a huge bite of a muffin, Killian barely shrugged as he sat down in front of an empty place setting. "Cooking with a hangover is a hell of a skill, Madam Mayor," he said, nodding. "You have my compliments."

"Thanks," answered Regina dryly. She turned to Emma, who was still standing behind the barstool, grimacing at the fridge. "Anything you wanna add?"

Emma cleared her throat and motioned at the mimosa Regina sipped from. "For the record, nothing happened."

Regina didn't look convinced.

Emma sighed. It wasn't a battle worth fighting. If Regina thought they defiled her kitchen, then it could be considered mild payback for all the mind games she'd forced them into before. "You got another one of those?"

Killian snorted. "What was that saying again, love? It's five o'clock somewhere?"

Emma sat down next to him, still blushing a shade darker than her leather jacket as Regina poured her a drink. "This is a kitchen bar," she said blandly, patting the granite counter, "and I need a drink."

"You know what usually happens at bars too, love?" asked Killian, resting his foot on the low bar of her stool.

"Fights?" offered Regina.

"No," he answered, smiling wryly. "Storytelling."

Regina's eyes widened. "Oh, hell no, I'm not gonna—"

"Remind me again, Emma, how did Regina's tale start off last night?" asked Killian, tapping his lip with his fork.

Emma tried to stifle her smile as she began loading her plate. "Once upon a horrible fucking day."

Regina groaned. "I don't even remember this."

"I'd imagine you wouldn't," said Killian. "And I'm quite jealous because this story is probably going to echo in the recesses of my mind. You, Queen Mayor, have quite a filthy mouth."

Emma laughed. "You can be damn-sure I'm gonna tell my parents about that."

Killian pointed his fork at Regina, grinning at the woman's disgusted-and-horrified expression. "You may need more alcohol than that."

The End