I hope you all enjoyed this story and I'm so glad I've managed to get to this point and get it finished! Now, to finish upon my skin! There will probably be an epilogue to follow, but I make no guarantees.

Now, Emma was a suspicious person by nature. An unmarked envelope in her mailbox, no stamps or return addresses, her name in sloppy-but-simple print on the front? That was just begging for investigation. Not many people knew where she lived; certainly none of the more unsavory people she came across in her day job. And anyone she actually wanted to correspond with knew how to reach her (hint: it wasn't through the mail).

The obvious thing to do would be to take it to David down at the Sheriff's office and let him open it.

And yet.

Curiosity prickled in her gut; most of the time her mail was full of random junk, she hardly bothered checking it anymore. Even her checks came electronically these days. And yet, here it was, addressed to one Emma Swan, and nothing else.

Just to be on the safe side, she tugged on a pair of latex gloves from her renovations stash before opening it, carefully setting the contents down on the kitchen counter. A simple folded note and a photocopy of a newspaper clipping was all that was there, no strange powders or bizarre ransom notes spelled out in magazine clippings.

She almost felt foolish, snapping the gloves off and throwing them in the trash. Yeah, David was always hounding her to be safer, remember, you do help put these people behind bars too, but very rarely did she listen to them.

The black and white photo drew her attention first, a pretty woman, probably in her late thirties, with dark eyes and hair. She had a far-away look in her eyes, but was smiling nonetheless. There was a date in the corner of the clipping, one from nearly a decade ago. The first sentence of the copy, though, froze Emma in her tracks. Milah Gold, it began, and she would swear her heart stopped beating, beloved wife and mother, will be laid to rest this Saturday at Grace Cemetery, at two in the afternoon, after her fatal car accident last week.

The article (obituary, her mind corrected) went on to list more information, crash details, survivors, cities and roads she was pretty sure were from the UK, and details for those wishing to donate in memory of the deceased. But all she could hear in her mind was the drumbeat of the woman's name, over and over again.

Milah Gold. Milah. Milah. Milah.

It had been years, but she still remembered the last time she'd seen that word, the exact same spelling, and her world didn't have coincidences, not like this.

With shaking hands, she carefully unfolded the single piece of paper that had been included. The same messy scrawl covered the page, but her eyes were foremost drawn to the signature at the bottom, the very same one that had been at the bottom of her divorce papers.

Her former husband's handwriting had gone to shit, the letters even more slanted and illegible than usual, and that was saying a lot for a professor, but she could still make it out.

Emma, love, I've made a terrible mistake. I didn't fight for you when I should have, and I let you believe something that was not true simply because I was not enough of a man to face my fears and my past. I know it is too late to undo what has been done, but I hope you will at least let me explain myself. If you are willing, I will be at the diner tonight, with a booth for two.

Yours in all things,

Killian Jones

She could hardly believe it, reading and re-reading the letter again.

It didn't add up, Killian wanting to talk, wanting to explain things to her, the obituary of a woman who was long-dead, why it was happening now, all or any of it.

Her head was spinning and she couldn't make head or tails of any of it, though she felt something was just out of her grasp, lurking on the edges of her awareness. There was only one thing to do about it. The phone had barely started ringing before her best friend picked up.

"Ruby, I have some questions for you."

Killian looked rough. Even through two panes of glass, she could tell he'd been drinking. That had always been his weakness before, and it hardly seemed like the kind of thing he'd give up. The last six months they'd been together had seen his indulgences growing fewer and fewer, but she'd always known; Killian Jones was a man of the bottle.

Now, as she watched him from her car, it was as clear as day, a bright shining beacon in the dusk. Thankfully, the diner was empty, Ruby casting worried looks at the disheveled looking man. His hair was a mess, and his jacket was haphazard across his shoulders. She couldn't see much more from her vantage point, but he was nursing a cup of something in front of him (Irish coffee, if she was a betting woman). He would occasionally look up towards the door, but Emma had been watching people too long to be obvious about it.

Sighing, she threw the door open to the Bug and stepped out, tucking her keys in her jacket.

She couldn't hide for forever, and Ruby's attempts to help her understand hadn't been much help. If she wanted answers, if she wanted to put him behind her once and for all, she had to face him. Even if it was the last thing she wanted to do.

The bell above the door tinkled as she stepped inside, drawing all eyes to her. Well, Ruby and Killian. Leroy was in the kitchen, the top of his bald head just visible as he puttered around.

Carefully she unzipped her jacket but didn't remove it; she knew herself too well to think a quick exit wouldn't come in handy, and slowly made her way to the only occupied booth in the diner. Killian nodded at Ruby, and the waitress slid out from behind the bar towards them, her greeting as perfunctory as their orders.

Killian's lips quirked when she ordered her usual, so imperceptable she wouldn't have noticed if she hadn't been looking, and damn her she had. Yeah, he looked bad, but he still looked like the man she'd always wanted to kiss senseless, and the unshaven look did little to turn off that part of her that was still very attracted to him.

Ruby took their orders and disappeared, silence descending over the two of them as they eyed each other.

He looked tired, too; perhaps she'd judged him too harshly before, in the car. It wasn't just alcohol that weighed his shoulders down, but sheer exhaustion, a look she'd seen in the mirror more times than she'd like to remember, the weight of the world making it hard to carry much else.

"I wondered if you still liked your onion rings," he muttered, the first thing he said to her since she'd walked in.

The air was still tense, and Emma shrugged.

"No reason not to. They're still better than fries."

A smile slipped past his lips, small, again, before he straightened in his seat.

"I guess I promised you answers, then, love." His eyes briefly flickered behind her before pinning her down, the blue gaze refusing to allow her to squirm under it. "I'm guessing you've spoken to Red, correct?" She nodded, resisting the urge to glance back at her friend.

"Yeah, but she wasn't exactly helpful. She just said that you had been confused about," and there she gestured between the two of them, "us, that you claimed you didn't cheat on me, which, is, whatever, and that you'd zoned out for the rest of the night." She was proud, actually, that bitterness only colored her words a little bit, that she managed to keep her face straight and meet his gaze, even through the burn that was threatening to make her own eyes water.

He winced, but nodded.

"Aye, that's fairly accurate as to her point of view. I was...troubled." Still are, she wanted to throw in, but held her tongue. He leaned toward her, earnest. "I swear, Emma, I had no idea that's what you thought of me."

His gaze was unblinking, solid, and her internal alarms were (alarmingly) silent.

Truth, then.

She bit her lip, ready to burst with questions, but he wasn't done.

"I'll also take the liberty of assuming you saw what I sent you," he added after a moment, finally allowing himself to look away from her. Guilt flickered across his face as he searched the formica tabletop, looking for something Emma couldn't figure out. "Milah, my Milah, in every way that mattered, died two weeks after I lost my brother at sea and nearly lost my hand, died coming to see me, and I didn't even know until I was discharged, and," there is breathing hitched, and he looked longingly at the cup in front of him before continuing, "she's dead and she's been dead ten years."

Finally he turned his gaze back to her, eyes shiny. He was twisting his rings under the table, she could tell from the jump of his elbows, a fidgety habit he'd never broken.

"And I still love her, god, I think I always will. But miss you; I love you too. I still love you, after all this time. I came back to Boston for us. For another chance to not bollocks it all up."

It wasn't pretty, and it wasn't lady-like, but Emma's jaw was practically on the floor. She felt like she'd been punched in the gut, like all the air had disappeared from the room, like she could hear a pin drop.

Like her ex-husband had just told her he loved her and goddamn her she loved him too, despite it all, despite two years building a wall around her heart and putting the pieces back together again after him.

She knew she was still processing, still thinking, her rational mind sorting through what he'd said, green lights coming up over every statement he'd made, all of it coming up the same way, all of it true. Before she could gather her wits to reply, he continued.

"I didn't realize just how horribly I'd messed up until the other night when Ruby told me what you thought of me. I made a mistake, I didn't try to help you like I should have, I assumed the worst of you, and I'm so very sorry, Swan." She wanted to interject, but he held up a hand. "I owed you better, I owed you more, and I let you down. I can't ever make that up to you, but," and there he hesitated, flickering his gaze out the window to mask whatever he was feeling before turning back to her, "if you'll have me, I promise I'll never leave you again."

It very much seemed that the entire world was colluding to prevent her from ever getting to reply to him, because at that very moment Ruby appeared with their food, lingering just a bit longer than she strictly needed to when she saw their serious expressions. As much as Emma loved her, she didn't really need her best friend to be there for this conversation, and thankfully she seemed to be cognizant of the dead silence, and disappeared back the way she'd came.

Honestly, Emma didn't even know where to start with a reply to that kind of declaration. What could she say, really? She clearly had her own apologies to make; assuming the worst of him and then pushing him away may have been her go-to move, but it had hurt them both now in ways she couldn't have possibly imagined. But at the same time, did she want this? Did she want him? Could she manage to let him in and set aside a lifetime of loneliness... again? She'd sworn off serious relationships after theirs had ended; the second time she'd gotten her heart broken had been all she'd needed. Fool me once, after all.

But. The word stuck in her throat. But, she still loved Killian. She was heartbroken, and angry, but after he'd left, mostly she'd just felt... empty. She wasn't foolish enough to think that they could walk back the way they'd came and everything would be okay again, but the chance was there.

If she was able to grasp it. If she could open herself up again. If she could stop hating herself long enough to see that Killian was picking at the fries on his own plate nervously, eyes shining with unshed tears.

"You broke my heart, Killian," was the first thing that escaped her lips, her voice sounding small and foreign to her ears. She wished she could pull them back when he instantly crumpled, but before she could say anything else, something happened behind his eyes, because he rallied, surging across the table to grab her hands.

"I know," he forced out, intensity shining in his gaze, "god, I know. But I can try to put it back together if you'll let me. And...if it's broken, that means it still works."

Emma Swan was not a person who was prone to bouts of crying. She hadn't shed a tear in years, truly cried in even longer, but something inside her just...broke. He wanted to fix her, to help her, to caulk the cracks in her broken ceramic heart, and god she needed to finish this stupid renovation, because she was laughing through the tears now, hiccuping and crying even harder at her horrible metaphors while a warm body slid into the booth next to her.

Killian was still clutching her hands, but he wasn't the one beside her. No, that would be Ruby, her arms wrapped tight around Emma's sholders while she glared daggers at the man across from them. She couldn't clear her voice enough to tell her to stop, that it wasn't bad crying, but she did managed to squeeze Killian's fingers back, the only affirmation she could manage right now.

It was all too much, far too many emotions and information in far too short of a time frame, and she could feel it weighing her down, the bough ready to break from it all. And she had broken, the tears starting to turn into something marginally hysterical as she struggled to find her voice again. After clearing her throat three times, she finally managed to croak a few words out.

"Ruby, it's okay," she said first, letting go of Killian's hands long enough to brush her hair back away from her now-hot face. "I'm okay." She pressed the backs of her hands against her cheeks, willing her body to cool, to calm down and return to normal.

Her friend looked at her doubtfully before shaking her head and rising, one last vicious look at Killian thrown over her shoulder before she left. There would be a discussion to be had later with her, she was sure, but right now Emma was willing to just thank god for the other woman's ability to bite her tongue in this situation. Killian was still looking at her with concern, completely oblivious to Ruby's intentions, his food forgotten in front of him. Not that either of them had ever even acknowledged their plates; her onion rings were probably cold by now.

God, this was not going as expected at all.

She scrubbed at her face, pressing against her eyes until sparks flew under her eyelids.

"I'm sorry, apparently this is...a lot," she said lamely, eventually, because she couldn't think of a better excuse for her meltdown.

But it was good enough for him, because he relaxed, slumping back in the booth.

"Aye, I'm so sorry for dumping it all on you, love," he replied, huffing out a breath. "Perhaps we should table talk of our...relationship...for now, and just enjoy the food?"

That was one thing they could agree on, and Emma nodded, taking her own deep breath before reaching for the perfectly grilled sandwich set in front of her. He took a bite of his burger, and they ate in companionable silence. Her mind was still whirling, but at least now she felt like she was able to process things, like pieces were slotting into place better than they ever had.

Shame roiled in her gut, a reminder that she was the reason they were even in this position, that it was her who had pushed him out the door with far less than the full picture. But she had to force that down to focus, and so she did. She'd always been good at this, or so she thought. Evaluating the situation. Determining the best path.

But with her heart involved, everything was more complicated than it should have been.

Part of her was wary of him, wanted to step carefully lest the house of cards that was her emotional balance come crashing down(except, yeah right, it already had, she'd just bawled her eyes out in the middle of her friend's diner), but a not-insignificant part of her definitely still missed him. Still loved him, even.

She took a deep breath, and he looked up from his plate, practically swallowing audibly before straightening his shoulders, looking for all the world like a man about to face a firing squad.

"I, uh, I clearly don't know what to say, other than...I'm sorry. I didn't think, I just...reacted. And I assumed you were just like everyone else, and I pushed you away. So I'm sorry." And now came the hardest part. "I...miss you too."

He gaped. She took a bite of another onion ring, mildly amused at his blatant shock. So she did still have a few surprises left in her.

"I'm not saying we can just pick right up where we left off-"

"Of course not," he assured her, finally choking back the surprise.

"-but, maybe, we can be friends, to start off with."

His smile was enough to probably light up the whole diner and maybe even blow a few fuses.

"Aye, friends is more than fine with me. We were good at being friends." Killian looked completely different now than he had when she'd walked in. Gone was the oppressive weight; this was the man who reminded her of what she'd loved. His grin was light, and it felt like a glimmer of hope in a future that suddenly felt a lot more secure.

"There's just one thing I need to know, since we're friends now," she said, and he perked up.

"Anything, Swan, you name it."

She smirked at him over the curve of her last onion ring.

"Good to know. Now...can you grout tile?"