It's been maybe for two weeks now that it keeps happening. The first time, Killian put the four year old girl to bed when Emma was glued to the phone, talking to David about some urgent sheriff business. From then on, Leia has insisted that daddy tuck her in, and no thanks, they don't need mommy's assistance. Although Emma is a bit surprised, she doesn't object. Killian doesn't mind, and actually she's happy that the bond between him and his baby girl is so strong. Sometimes a faint trace of old pain quietly brushes her heart when she thinks that these moments are something she never had the privilege of enjoying with her father.

But she's still curious about what's up with her daughter. Whenever she asks her husband what his secret is, he just shrugs nonchalantly and replies that it's probably just a phase. But nobody withholds a secret from Emma Jones née Swan, especially not Killian. So, tonight she sneaks up the stairs five minutes after he's disappeared with his daughter. She doesn't try to be particularly silent, but when she stands quietly at the door to Leia's room, peeking inside through the crack, none of the two notices her.

The little girl is tucked in safely, her favorite plushie, a fluffy dragon, in her left arm. The chubby fingers of her right hand are curled tightly around Killian's hook. Her wide blue eyes that resemble her father's so much are fixed on him expectantly as he's sitting on a stool beside her bed, his back turned to the door, so that Emma can't see his face or whether he's holding a book in his hand. He probably is about to read a bedtime story to the girl. She sees the adoration on Leia's face, and it warms her heart to think what it must mean for Killian to have all this he's never dared to dream of for a long, long time.

Emma is just about to turn away and quietly head downstairs again when she sees her daughter's face light up, and that's the moment when Killian starts to sing in his low, husky voice.

"I see trees of green

Red roses, too

I see them bloom

For me and you..."

Leia's expectant grin is so huge that it threatens to split her adorable little face in two.

"And I think to myself..."

Killian pauses for a split second and waits for the little girl to take a breath and sing along with him in her small child's voice, but with much ardor:

"What a wonderful world!"

Emma swallows thickly and presses the knuckles of her right hand to her mouth not to make a sound and disturb this moment between father and daughter, and Killian continues:

"I see skies of blue

And clouds of white

The bright blessed day

The dark sacred night

And I think to myself..."

Leia still smiles, but her blue eyes look already very, very sleepy now; so sounds her little voice, when she chimes in with her father:

"What a wonderful world..."

Killian leans a little forward and tenderly smooths a blond lock from her forehead, and his voice drops a little.

"The colors of the rainbow

So pretty in the sky

Are also on the faces

Of people going by..."

The little girl draws a deep breath and her eyelids flutter shut; Emma can see from her secret watching post that her chubby fingers tighten once more their grip around Killian's hook before they relax and uncurl. His voice is barely audible now as he continues to sing the next lines; it's almost like he lets his voice fade out, drift away, to carry their daughter gently through her moment from wake to sleep.

"I see friends shake hands

Saying how do you do

They really say–"

Leia is fully asleep now, and Killian gently withdraws his hook from her little fist that has fallen open, pulls the blanket up to her shoulders and brushes his lips over her front.

"I love you," he finishes his song in a whisper and carefully gets up from his stool, starting to walk slowly backwards. Emma makes for a quick retreat, feeling guilty somehow for spying on them. And he doesn't need to see the tears in her eyes; he'd probably hold it over her head for a long time.

She should have known, though, that – same as there's no lying to her without her detecting it – there's no sneaking up on a pirate without him noticing it. Later, when they are about to go to bed, he asks her nonchalantly:

"Have you been eavesdropping on me earlier, Swan?" He's not even looking at her, because he's busy taking off his hook for the night.

Emma doesn't even try to deny it. "I knew you had a secret," she replies and buttons the shirt she's picked to wear to bed – it's one of his discarded ones. "No wonder that she wants only you to tuck her in." She grins. "I think I'm jealous."

"Please," Killian huffs and puts his hook on the nightstand, "there's no need to. She loves your bedtime stories as much as the lullaby."

"I didn't mean it like that," she replies, and now he looks at her questioningly, quirking an eyebrow.

"Then what?" he asks and tilts his head in question, fumbling with the hook's leather sheath.

Emma throws back the blankets and climbs into bed. "You never sing for me," she says.

He's taken aback, but recovers quickly from his surprise. "But I provide good night services of a different kind for you, love, don't I?" He purses his perfect lips into a smirk and loosens the complicated system of straps that holds the leather sheath in place on his arm.

"Don't try to change the subject!" Emma tells him in a half-amused voice, and he averts his eyes for a moment and scratches behind his ear, because that's exactly what he's doing.

Then he tilts his head in a shrug and replies: "You don't strike me as the lady who finds pleasure in being serenaded."

Emma rolls her eyes at his verbose statement and gives back: "And you don't strike me as the guy who likes to watch rom coms. Still, you do!" She pulls the blanket up to her hips and crosses her arms stubbornly.

He smiles at her posture and pulls the sheath from his left arm; it comes off with a soft popping sound. "I'm not gonna sing," he declares firmly and deposits the leather brace next to the hook.

"But why not?" she protests in the voice of a petulant child. "What's the big deal? You're a three hundred years old pirate, you can't tell me you haven't sung thousands of shanties or whatever you call them with your crew."

Killian rubs his palm over his stump in an absentminded move to soothe the pressure marks the leather has left. "It's a difference to sing with someone and to sing for someone," he counters.

"Are you saying you're embarrassed?" she inquires incredulously. "Really?"

He rolls his eyes at her, clearly not at ease with the turn this conversation has taken. "You're being childish, Swan," he grumbles. "Of course not." But the slightly pinkening tips of his pointed ears betray him.

"You are embarrassed!" Emma chuckles. She can't believe it, she's found something to tease him about. "And you don't even know which song you'd pick for me, admit it!"

"Of course I do," he replies curtly, his jaw clenching a little.

Emma beams in triumph. "Prove it!" she demands and throws him a challenging look.

Killian rolls his eyes again and growls, the sound making her stomach flutter a little, then he turns abruptly his back on her. She presses her lips together to stop herself from chuckling again because she sees he's really not that comfortable, and so she decides to not press him any further. Just when she's about to tell him she's just kidding, she hears his voice humming a few melancholic notes in minor, the words barely understandable.

"Whenever I'm alone with you

You make me feel like I am home again."

Her smile fades a little when she hears the words crooned by his soft, low voice; they hit her right in the pit of her stomach.

"Whenever I'm alone with you

You make me feel like I am whole again."

Emma hears the little rasp in his voice betraying his emotions, and she leans her head to the side, her eyes fixed on his back. She knows exactly what his wish to be whole for her had driven him to do in the past, and she also knows how long it took him to finally understand that to her, he already is whole. She wishes she could see his face now.

"However far away

I will always love you.

However long I stay

I will always love you."

Of course she's thrown back now to that awful time over five years ago, when she's been captured by the darkness, and nobody knew how or when she could be brought back. Killian told her later that no doubt has ever weakened his determination to get her back; that, despite the vileness that marked the point where she's fully given in to the darkness, he's never faltered in his belief. She's quite sure he's having the exact same thoughts right now.

"Whatever words I say

I will always love you

I will always love you."

He finishes and remains for a few more moments with his back turned on her, and she releases a breath into the silence she doesn't know she's held. When he still doesn't move, she addresses him softly: "Killian..." He turns around slowly, his face serious, but composed, and she has to swallow before she can go on: "That was..."

He smiles and has of course a little quip on his lips to relieve the seriousness of the moment. "A one-time thing," he tells her dryly, almost severely, and a little relieved laugh pearls from her lips, despite the traitorous shininess of her eyes.

"As long as you keep it up with the other good night services," she demands and throws back the blankets on his side of the bed, patting the mattress beside her.

He raises that cocky eyebrow. "I think that can be arranged, love," he replies in a deliberately suggestive tone and with a devilish glint in his eyes, but there's that special softness and depth beyond that roguishness that always betrays when he's emotional.

Killian slips under the sheets, and Emma immediately finds the way into his embrace, throwing a leg possessively over his and burying her face in the crook of his neck, breathing him in. Her hand wanders underneath his t-shirt and up his stomach, relishing in the feeling of his warm skin and soft body hair against her palm.

"Killian?" she murmurs against his scruff.

"Hmmm?" he purrs absentmindedly while his fingertips are painting patterns on her thigh draped across his legs.

"I will always love you, too."

She can feel his Adam's apple bob when he swallows before he gives the only possible answer: "I know."

A/N:

Happy Birthday to my dear friend Kath!