It was very touching in the manga, but man they really outdid themselves in the anime. The best scenes between them always happen at sunset, did you notice? No need to say I loved it, and I teared up too. I talked already about this hug back when it appeared in the manga, so not long time ago, and I can re-confirm my impression: This hug kinda is born from a negative feeling. Yes, there’s also love in it, but what triggers Syaoran to pull her to himself is fear and anxiety to loose her in that dark pit that swallowed her precedessors with strong powers. After all, the two people who he most gives credit to told him that excessive power leads oneself to despair and sorrow. How can he not feel the fear swallow him whole, this way? But he’s able to turn the fear into a positive feeling, a feeling of resolution to not let any of that happen. As long as Syaoran knows that Sakura won’t suffer, he’s ok with doing anything for her. Anything.
Charming comes by the house with a gift for baby Hope after she and Emma are discharged from the hospital.
“Mate…you bought my daughter….yourself?”
“And Snow! I got them at the Disney store, I know she’s too young to play with them right now, but you can put them on a shelf in the nursery and it’ll be like her grandparents are watching over her while she sleeps!”
“Brilliant.”
“They had you too, you know.”
“WHAT? Oh bloody hell…ABSOLUTELY NOT! You take that blasted thing back to the shop right…STOP LAUGHING, DAVID! IT’S NOT FUNNY.”
“You have to admit it’s a little funny, Killian.”
“SWAN! Come deal with your father before I forget that I’m a hero now and shove this abomination right up his-”
summary: Emma Swan has a stressful job and a demanding family, and sometimes she just needs to unwind. Killian Jones is always willing to help out when he gets a distress call.
Emma Swan nods a thanks when the
waitress places her order in front of her. Exhaling slowly, she can
already feel a bit of the tension dissolve and seep from her
shoulders, trickle out of her mind. She closes her eyes and blends
out the cacophony of sounds in the dimly lit bar. A vague whiff of
air brushing her skin and a familiar smell indicate that someone has
slipped into the booth beside her.
“Hello, beautiful,” says a low
accented voice.
With her eyes still closed, she smiles
and pushes one of the two tumblers over to the newcomer before she
finally turns to look at him. “Jones,” she greets back and
reaches for her own drink, “pleasure.”
He smirks. “That you can count on.”
She snorts a little laugh and raises
her glass to him. “I hope so.”
He tilts his head and touches his
tumbler to hers with a soft, clinking sound. They both take a sip,
and their stares lock across their glasses. Suddenly Emma finds the
temperature in the room has risen a few degrees; not that this is a
surprise to her – that’s what Killian Jones does. That’s why she’s
meeting him here regularly. She hums as the spiced dark rum warms her
throat, leaving that familiar sharp sweetness on her tongue. Raising
an eyebrow at her sound, he puts down his glass and slowly runs his
tongue across his full bottom lip, a move that’s always bound to glue
her gaze to his mouth, and he knows it.
“So,” he finally drawls, “how… urgent is it?” The minute pause and the emphasis on the word urgent charge the air between them. Emma feels a blush rise in
her cheeks and is very grateful for the dim lights.
Emma wakes to soft whimpers, little sounds that are precursors to one of Hope’s middle-of-the-night crying jags. A sigh escapes her lips but before she can throw the covers off her legs to climb out of bed, a soft whisper fills the room. “Hush now, little love. Let’s not wake your mother.”
A reach behind Emma proves that her wonderful husband had gotten up at the first sign of Hope’s fussiness. Her heart bursting with love, she blinks her eyes open. Killian lifts Hope out of the bassinet and settles in the rocking chair with her, tenderly singing her a lullaby. To Emma’s surprise, he’s not singing his usual Enchanted Forest tune. No, this time, it’s The Beatles’ “Penny Lane,” a song Emma isn’t even aware he knew.
Little Hope soon drifts back to sleep, comforted by her father’s soft voice. And though Hope has stopped fussing, Killian continues to sing and continues to hold her, smiling down at her perfect little face with all the love he has in his heart.
He runs through the song twice. Only then does he chance standing up and settling Hope back in the bassinet. He stands at the bassinet for a long moment before swiping his fingers across Hope’s little forehead. “Sleep well, little love,” he murmurs.
Only when he turns around does he realize Emma has been watching him. He scratches at his ear, turning a sheepish smile on his wife. “Apologies if we woke you, love. I was trying to let you sleep.”
“It’s perfectly all right,” Emma assures him, her heart lighter than air. God, how did she get so lucky? “You’re wonderful with her. Though, I do have one bone to pick with you.”
“Aye?”
“When the hell did you learn a Beatles song?”
Killian chuckles, climbs back into bed and wraps his arm around her, settling her down with him. “I believe the gentleman on the radio in the Bug called it an ‘oldie.’“
That doesn’t exactly answer her question but it’s oh-dark-hundred and Emma’s too tired to belabor the point. “Mmm. Know any more secret lullabies?”
“Perhaps one or two.”
And know them he does, for Emma drifts back to sleep with the strains of Elvis’ “Can’t Help Falling In Love” murmured into her ear in a soft, accented voice.
This is the first time that Emma really opens up to Killian and allows herself to be vulnerable with him after they silently agree on their mutual feelings for each other. She is not afraid of him, but afraid of losing him once their relationship progresses, because that is what always happened in her previous relationships. As always, Killian reassures her, this time with a “if there is one thing I’m good at, it’s surviving”. I love how right after he says this, Emma’s expression goes from serious to a soft smile to “holy shit, he’s going to kiss me”, all in a span of 7 seconds. She is right. Killian pounces her in a rather passionate way in what also marks the first time that he is the one initiating a kiss. It’s almost as if Killian can’t believe that the fear of losing him is what has prompted her to avoid him ever since their kiss outside of Granny’s. I always read Killian pouncing her and kissing the life out of her as an act of reassurance, but also relief: here he was thinking that his Swan still didn’t trust him and that she wasn’t certain if he was worth it, but it turns out that her avoidance of him has nothing to do with that, but with her liking him so much she can’t bear the thought of losing him. “My silly, sweet Swan. C’mere my love, lemme show you how alive I am.”
This is the moment that birthed zero-sum shipping, a kind of blind gamesmanship that only values a ship for whether it not it wins, not whether or not it is enjoyable. Add in the peculiar moralizing […] and, voila, you’ve got the recipe for fans antagonizing creators over appearing to support ships that are, in their eyes, morally unacceptable.
cshappybeginning 