elfiola - Tumblr blog

elfiola · 1 day ago

Text

The fourth and final chapter of this "Practical Magic"-inspired AU as part of @hollyethecurious's CS Spooky Season Autumnal Bingo challenge. CW: Major character death with a tinge of gore. But stick with me because this is a HEA!

Prompt: Curses Fic: A Case of You Read on A03 Rating: M Final Word Count: 36k

Chapter 4

When Emma wakes up, there is still a faint scent of chocolate in the air.

She licks her lips, trying to taste that cake, and she shivers at the tickle that goes down her arm. But when she opens her eyes and realizes that Killian’s blue eyes are watching her, crinkled in the corners, and his fingertips are running up and down her arm, the tickle makes sense.

“Morning, love,” Killian whispers. His eyes are warm but a little sad. “How did you sleep?”

“Like the dead.” Emma crosses the distance between them to kiss him and press her naked body to his naked body. She can feel him, warm and hard against her thigh, but she doesn’t make a move to grab him. Yet. “What time is it?”

Killian rolls over, checks his phone, and rolls back to kiss her again. “A little after seven.” Emma groans, dropping her forehead to his bare chest. She’s never a morning person, but this morning just might be the worst. She really doesn’t want to leave this bed.

“Stay here with me,” Killian murmurs into her hair, like he can read her mind. “Call into work and take a day off.”

Emma looks up and squints. “I only have a few of those. I’m new.”

Killian’s lips latch on to her neck. “I promise I’ll make it worth your while.” One hand wraps around her and his fingertips are now tracing down her spine until he reaches her ass and squeezes significantly.

She groans in pleasure and frustration and rolls onto her back as Killian’s hand cups her sex. He proved the night before that he was very talented with his mouth but she’s a bit curious to know if he’s as good with his fingers too.

“Call the station,” Killian murmurs, tongue tracing her collarbone before it flicks across her nipple. “Spend the day with me, love.”

Emma reaches out to the bedside table, hand flailing blindly until she finds the familiar shape of her cell phone.

Killian Jones is pure evil, suckling on her breast and gently toying with her clit as she tries to keep it together long enough to call in for the day. She has a hell of a time not sounding winded when Killian’s finger slides through the mess he’s making and then deep inside her. She bites back a groan as she endures a lecture about her limited number of personal days and how hard it will be to go without her today.

“I’m sorry,” Emma grits out. She rolls, moving from her back to straddling Killian, and firmly wraps her fist around his erection. “Something came up.” She grins at Killian and he covers his mouth to muffle his laugh.

“Don’t let it happen again, Deputy Swan,” the secretary grumbles, but Emma’s already hanging up the phone and tossing the cell aside.

When they’re done, he brings her breakfast in bed. Chocolate chip pancakes. And a big mug of coffee made just the way she likes it. She’s wearing nothing but a shirt she scavenged from his suitcase, deciding that walking down the hall to her bedroom was more than she was willing to do while she waited for him to bring up breakfast.

“You should only ever wear my clothes, love,” Killian says, settling on the bed next to her, their backs against the wall and their feet hanging over the side of the bed. He takes a sip of his own coffee but it doesn’t hide the sadness in his eyes.

He’s talking like they’re starting something. But they both know he’s leaving soon.

Except… why is he leaving soon?

Before she can ask, Killian drops a kiss on her neck and picks up his plate of pancakes from the tray by her legs. “Can I be presumptuous?”

“You were about an hour ago. You don’t need more recovery time?”

Killian snorts into his whipped cream and wipes it off his nose. There’s still a dollop and Emma sets down her plate, takes his face in her hands, and licks it off. The sadness is gone from his eyes and now they’re just heated, although even she can tell that he’s not about to try to fuck her again so soon.

“Not what I meant. I was wondering if you had any idea what you wanted to do today. Because I have some plans in mind.”

Emma picks her plate back up and digs the side of her fork into her pancakes, cutting off another wedge of chocolatey sugary deliciousness. She pops it into her mouth and watches him as she chews, contemplating. He takes a bite as he waits for her response and she raises an eyebrow once she swallows.

“I guess I assumed that you just wanted to be in bed with me all day.”

Emma Swan isn’t an idiot. She knows what Killian looks like. He knows how he flirts and fucks. He’s not here for a long time, but he’s here for a good time. And after being part of that good time last night and this morning, she’s feeling pretty damn lucky that she was the first one to capture his attention when he rolled into town. Or maybe she was just the easy target. Either way, Emma’s not going to let herself get too worried or get too attached.

He’s here to have fun and so is she. A one-week thing.

Killian smiles into his pancakes as he cuts another bite. “If that is what you want, I’d be happy to oblige. But I was thinking we could go visit the beach.” He looks up at her through his fringe, forget-me-not-eye making her stomach flip-flop in direct violation of her fortification from feelings only a minute ago. “Take a walk.” His eyes dip down to her chest and she can feel her nipples tightening reflexively. “You’re welcome to wear any of my clothes that you so choose.”

An hour later, after they both shower and get changed - although Emma does take him up on his offer and she keeps wearing the shirt she’d stolen, this time with a bra - Killian navigates them through town and down the road that leads to Storybrooke’s public beach. Over the weekend, the beach the boys had played on had been part of his family’s property, really only accessible via a set of stone steps hewn into the side of a cliff. There’s no road by that beach for a few miles. This beach has a parking lot and a walkway before they can get to the sand, but it is just as quiet as the other beach had been over the weekend.

Because it is Wednesday. In late October.

He doesn’t ask her permission, he just takes her hand in his and holds it while they walk up and down the beach for over an hour. He tells her the stories his family told him when he was a kid - ancestors who made their living on the sea, sending goods down the coast. He tells her about the time that pirates came to town and his great-whatever grandfather defended the town. There’s a story about a boy who drowned who was a classmate of his mother’s and the time he went skinny dipping and his brother took all of his clothes before he could get out, forcing him to walk naked past the girl he had a crush on.

Emma just lets him talk for a long time. She figures this is part of him being home for the first time in years, all the memories coming back to him. And she likes hearing him talk. She likes his hand in hers. She likes his voice. She likes the stories. She likes getting to know him and having these little pieces of him that she’s probably going to think about after he goes off to wherever he’s going next.

Or maybe he’ll come to visit. Maybe she’ll get to ask him if he ever got back at his brother for the skinnydipping incident or when his ancestors got out of the shipping business.

When they get back into his truck, Emma’s cheeks are flush from the cold wind that had been whipping on her face and she presses the backs of her hands to the chilled flesh.

“Let me,” Killian says in a softer voice than he’d used during their walk. He cups her face with surprisingly-warm hands and she smiles as she can feel his heat sinking into her skin.

“That’s nice.”

She closes her eyes in pleasure and after a minute his warm breath tickles her lips before his mouth is pressed to hers again. They kiss, his hands moving to her back and her shoulder, cold cheeks forgotten, and he pulls back enough to ask, “You ever make out in a vehicle?”

Emma snorts and he pulls back further. “Pretty sure Henry was conceived in the backseat of one.”

Killian blanches and Emma’s not sure how to place that displeasure, except that it makes her feel like she should be embarrassed. She doesn’t like that. Emma drops her hands from his chest and turns away. Now her cheeks are turning red for a different reason.

Anger. Shame.

“Sorry, I bet you don’t want to talk about that,” she says, trying to disguise her true feelings with this nonchalant persona. She doesn’t know Killian that well. Maybe this will work. Maybe he won’t be able to tell that she feels like such a slut right now.

His warm fingers wrap around her own, startling her. Emma’s head whips to the side to look at him. His expression is soft. Tentative. Like he’s afraid he’s gonna scare her. Not like he’s judging her.

“I want to talk about whatever you want to talk about, Swan. I only…” His fingers squeeze her hand. “I was caught off-guard.” He gives her a shaky smile. “I told you. A woman like you deserves to be wooed and cared for. The thought of anyone just taking you in a backseat…” He swallows visibly and doesn’t finish his sentence. He doesn’t have to.

Emma’s torn between annoyance and affection at the clear protectiveness in his response. She pushes down affection in favor of the old standard, annoyance. Emma pulls her hand free from his.

“You barely know me. I told you last night that I decide what I deserve. Why do you assume I didn’t ask to be fucked in the backseat?”

He blinks at her but his gaze never wavers. “Did you?”

She was sixteen. She was on the run. Once she met up with Neal, he was the only one she trusted. She would have done anything he asked, just to make sure he wouldn’t leave her. It wasn’t like he ever forced her and it wasn’t like he was mean or anything. He just… asked for her help. Like how guys did when she was younger. And she helped. Usually with her hand or mouth while he sat up and kept watch for anyone walking by.

That night he asked for more. And after a close call with robbing a gas station, she’d said okay. Not because it was gonna get her off too - because it usually didn’t - but because having him holding her like that, kissing her and telling her it felt good, desperate for her and only her, it made her feel good. It made her feel like she was special. To him.

She didn’t ask to be fucked in the backseat. But she didn’t hate it. And she doesn’t regret the kid it got her.

“Do you really want to know?” she asks back, coldly.

Killian doesn’t blink this time. “I want to know everything about you, Swan. About your beginnings, your hopes, your dreams. But only if you want to tell me.”

Now it is Emma’s turn to blink. And she turns her head, looks out the passenger side window, and sighs. And thinks.

“My story isn’t some fairy tale.”

“And you’re not a princess looking to be rescued.” Killian’s hand lands on hers again, warm and tentative. “I know.”

She allows his hand to rest on hers this time. And after a minute, she opens her mouth and begins to talk.

-/-

He drives while she talks. Killian has a sense that if he’s not making direct eye contact with her that she will be able to speak more freely. And as far as he can tell, she does. Killian drives further out of town, up the coast to the next town over, and they go through a drive-thru when her stomach begins to grumble, but mostly he just drives. And she just talks.

For over two hours.

She tells him about a childhood he couldn’t imagine - untethered, without a history or a family or a legacy. A life without knowing love or lasting comfort. Killian schools his expression to remain impassive, but he knows that his hand in hers is often betraying his true feelings, twitching at some of her worst recollections and squeezing at the rare moments when she gets emotional.

He has to force himself not to rip his hand away when she talks about Henry’s father.

But after that, her stories turn lighter, and he listens with rapt attention to the tale of the day Henry was born, Emma deciding that she cannot give him up for adoption, despite that being her initial plan, and the life that they forged together.

She glosses over the brief time that she and Henry’s father reunited and for that Killian is grateful.

Emma’s full to bursting with little stories about Henry’s childhood, the things he’d say and do, and the hopes and dreams he would have for them. She shares how Storybrooke is to be a fresh start for them both, allowing her to work regular hours outside of bounty hunting and, hopefully, giving him stability and long-lasting friends like she never had.

“That’s what I want for him,” Emma says, drinking deeply from her fountain drink until it is drained. Her eyes are on the side of his face again - he can feel it and he loves it - and he flashes her a grin before making the turn on the street where Ingrid lives. “I want him to have family and friends and a history that he can tell people without being embarrassed or feeling like a weirdo. I’m sure there were really nice people out there who could have done that for him without all the single mom stigma and without fucking up like I did, but I-”

Killian takes his hand off of hers and moves it to her knee.

“You are an amazing mother. Your son couldn’t have asked for anyone better.” He pulls into the driveway, turns off the engine, and removes his seat belt so he can turn his body to face her properly again. “And he loves you very much. It is obvious to everyone.” She unclips her belt and he’s thankful for the bench seat that allows him to pull her closer with one hand and lift her chin with the other. “After my Pa died, my Ma was a single mother. I wouldn’t have traded her for any set of parents in the world. I promise you that Henry feels the same.”

She hesitates for a minute, searching his eyes, and then she tilts her chin further, her eyes fluttering closed, and he reads her desire for a kiss. So he gives it to her - something soft and gentle. Something thankful. Because he is.

“I’m honored you shared your stories with me, Swan,” he whispers against her lips. Their noses brush against one another and though his eyes are open, hers are still closed and she’s holding her breath. Waiting. “I shall keep them close to my heart as a precious treasure.”

Finally her eyes flutter open and she takes a breath.

“Why are you leaving on Friday? Why can’t you stay?”

He cannot lie to her. He cannot.

“Some things are beyond my control,” he whispers back, knowing it will not be enough. It does not explain why he’s swept in, seduced her, and will blatantly disappear once again.

“Does this have something to do with that murder in Maryland? The guy who killed your ex?”

His instinct is to pull away. But Killian fights it and remains close, letting her see the emotions dance across his face.

“Aye.”

She will think he’s guilty - and he is. She will think he’s running - and he isn’t.

“And you can’t tell me the truth?”

Killian shifts to cup her face with both hands, afraid she is going to pull away. He can see the hurt dance across her own face. She revealed herself, she opened herself up, she told him her whole painful life’s story, and he cannot tell her this one thing.

“The truth is that I do not want to go,” he chokes out. “The truth is, I never thought I was capable of letting go of my first love, my Milah. That was… until I met you. And now I want to spend as much time with you as possible before I must go.” He softly strokes her cheekbones with his thumbs, praying that she sees the honesty in the words he cannot say. “The truth is that you’ve changed my life, Swan.”

She pulls back with just enough force that she slips through his fingers. He wants to hold on to her but he knows that’s foolish and selfish. He won’t get that chance. And even if he could, a woman like her would never be with a man like him for anything more than a passing dalliance. The Jones men are responsible for everything that goes bad in Storybrooke. They have been for over 200 years. And it shan’t stop now. He’d manage to get into mischief of one kind or another, after a while. Make a bad decision. Hurt someone. Ruin another. That’s the Jones way. It has been since the first curse was enacted. No one wants to be with someone like that.

His mother had her own magic to protect her from the worst machinations of Jones men. Elsa does too - and the intelligence to choose the cream of the crop, the pick of the litter, the best Jones man since Emily Smith cast her original curse. Liam wouldn’t be so daft as to seduce a woman when he knows he only has two days to live.

Liam has learned how to temper his demons.

While Killian has only incensed them.

Emma looks at him with naked shock and confusion, blinking rapidly, and there’s a little sarcastic smile on the corner of her mouth that tells him she’s putting up her emotional barriers once more.

“What do you mean I’ve changed your life?” she asks, scoffing slightly. “You’ve known me-”

“-for five days,” he finishes. “More than enough time to change a life, in my experience.” He gives her a sad little smile of his own. “I don’t go around giving my favorite throwing daggers to just everyone, love.” He chances tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, hoping she will not shove him away. She doesn’t. Emma seems frozen in surprise. His voice grows rougher as he fights back his emotions. Most of this week he’s been able to feel thankful for what Ingrid has given him. But right now all he wants is what he can never have.

“So please know that no matter where I go at the end of this week, I go as a better man because of the privilege of knowing and lo-” his mouth trips over the word his mind supplies and he quickly pivots “-and caring for you, Emma.”

He hopes she hasn’t noticed the word he almost used. He’s afraid she has. But he cannot hurt her with that. Not when he cannot prove it as he should.

She closes her eyes and when she slowly opens them, there’s a tear falling down her cheek. Emma wipes it away with another scoff.

“Please tell me this isn’t your schtick. Tell me you don’t appear at breakfast tables out of nowhere, charm women with throwing knives,” she lets out a bark of laughter, swiping at another tear, “and orgasmic chocolate cake and telling them you only have a week but they’ve changed your life in just five days and-”

Killian cuts her off by leaning forward and kissing away the next few tears, licking his lips to taste the bittersweet salt. She’s trembling slightly.

“I do not,” he says emphatically. “That would be a brilliant shtick,” he raises a playful eyebrow and she lets out another laugh, “but everything I’ve said to you is true.”

It hasn’t been the complete truth, but it has been the truth. Every word.

Emma nods, cleans her face off with the sleeve of her coat, and turns from him to step out of the car. Killian is bewildered - struck with sudden fear - until she walks around and opens up the driver’s side door and extends a hand to him. Killian looks at the offering nervously, unsure what she is after.

She rolls her eyes and he can see her heightened emotions pull back, like the tide. Her walls aren’t back up, but she is no longer on the brink of tears. She’s softer like this, more breakable, but somehow also stronger. He’s not sure that he could explain it. But it is Emma Swan and it makes sense.

After a moment, he takes her hand and she tugs him out of the truck.

“C’mon,” she says. She begins to march towards the house and he follows.

“Where are we going?” he asks. It doesn’t matter, though. She’s holding his hand but she’s also holding his heart. He suspects he would follow her anywhere - to hell and back, if such a thing were possible.

“We’re going back to bed,” she says without looking back. Her voice is firm, determined. “You just listened to me ramble for two hours and then you said I changed your life. I think that means that we have to have sex again.”

Killian stops in his tracks and Emma keeps going for another few steps until their connected hands force her to stop as well and she whips around to furrow her brow at him. Her expression clearly reads What the fuck?

“I did not listen to you and tell you that to get you back into my bed, love.” It feels very important that she understands this. Is that how other men in her life have treated her?

“Yeah. I know.” She smirks. “That’s why we’re going to my bed.”

The room she leads him to - without any further protestation - is the second one from the end of the hallway. When Killian and Liam first moved in with Ingrid, this room was occupied by a man named Nemo, a sailor who was boarding with Ingrid during a particularly cold winter. Ingrid kept a close eye on Nemo - Killian now understands the concerns of an adult male with two young boys in her home - but Killian couldn’t keep away from Nemo.

He’d beg for stories of the sea. He’d imagine that Brennen Jones was never his father, he carried no curse in his veins, and Nemo was his true father.

Before he wanted to be like Liam, he wanted to be like Nemo.

Emma leads him to this room full of memories, which now smells like her shampoo and has her knick knacks spread around, and his memories go hazy, the past combining with the present in unexpected ways as his hopes back then mix with his hopes now.

She strips off his clothes.

He lets her.

She strips off her clothes.

He watches her.

She kisses him.

He kisses back.

And then, when her lips leave his the moment she takes him inside her warm, tight sheath, her breath hot on his neck before her teeth dig into the flesh, Killian’s hands clench on her hips as he tries to find an anchor.

She’s so soft. So wet. So perfect.

“You forgot-” he gasps, unable to finish his sentence. She forgot to put on a condom.

“I know,” Emma breathes against his neck. Her hair is tickling his ear and she begins to gently rock on his cock so that he can feel the velvety softness of her, the way she clutches him with the slow slide up and down again. “I don’t have anything in here. I’ll go get one from your room, just give me a minute.” She sits up straight and gives him a mocking look that makes him twitch inside of her. “You can keep from coming for a minute, right?”

He’d gotten off once the night before and once that morning. He should be able to control himself. But his record so far with Emma Swan and control has not been exemplary. Despite that, he nods, promising to behave, and watches as she takes her pleasure. She watches him right back, eyes fixed on him as she rides him, as if she’s waiting for him to lie or betray her or reveal something.

“You feel like heaven,” he says after the minute is up but she is still rolling her hips up and down. If heaven is even a little like this moment, Killian will be content for eternity. All he can feel is her tightness, her softness, her perfection. Emma leans forward, kissing him soundly, and finally climbs off of him and tickles his knee as she leaves.

“Gimme a second,” she laughs over her shoulder. Emma’s shapely arse disappears through his door and he can hear her pad down the hall and his own bedroom door open. A moment later she’s back, condom held aloft victoriously, and she rips open the foil to slide it on with practiced ease. Before she can resume her position, Killian flips her over onto her back and pushes himself back into her warm heat.

Last night was exploratory.

This morning was playful.

But this… this is soft. Gentle. Reverent. There’s no way to describe it except that he’s making love to her. He’s memorizing every inch of her body, every moment that they’re joined, and searing the moment that she falls apart beneath him into his eternal memory.

He comes a moment later, no longer able to hold back, and collapses next to her to quickly take care of the condom before he pulls her into his arms. She falls asleep almost instantly, brow wrinkled as though she’s working out his secrets in her dreams, but there is no way that Killian can pass out. He doesn’t have enough time left for that.

He needs every minute.

He watches her while she sleeps, holding her tight, feeling like a damn lucky bastard for getting to be here with her before he goes. Emma Swan feels like redemption within reach and, not for the first time, he wishes he had come home two weeks ago before enacting his plan.

Twenty minutes after Emma falls asleep, Killian feels the wards of the boarding house quiver. Henry’s is on the property. The bus has dropped him off down the street. Killian brushes his lips across Emma’s temple, gently waking her up.

There is an entirely selfish part of him that wants to keep Emma here, in his arms, for the next 48 hours. He wants her all to himself. He wants all of her. But he knows that would be poor form. The lad needs his mother. And she needs her son. She finally stirs when the front door slams closed, waking with a start.

“It’s Henry,” he says gently, smoothing hair off her brow. “School’s done.”

Emma squints up at him, her nose wrinkling adorably. “Already?”

“Already.”

She sighs and, rather than pull back from his arms, she burrows in closer and drops a kiss to the center of his chest. “I should get up and see how he’s doing,” she murmurs into it, obviously unmotivated to do that.

“Aye,” he agrees with the same lack of energy. He takes a deep breath. “Are you showering first or am I?”

Emma gives two exaggerated sniffs of his chest. “Probably me. I smell like sex. You just smell like saltwater and sweat.”

He laughs as she wriggles out of his arms and covers her naked body with a thick terrycloth robe. Pity. If she hadn’t fallen asleep he might have convinced her to shower together. “Are you gonna hide out in here or face my kid?”

“I am no coward, madam.” Killian rises to his full height and gives her a haughty look. She giggles again. “And if I want to ask Henry if I might go on another date with his mother tonight, then I should ask him now.”

Emma stops in the middle of tying her robe’s sash. “Another date?” She blinks and resumes. “I thought…”

“I am doing this all out of order, love, and I do apologize, but, yes, I would like the chance to take you on a proper date. We dress up, go out for dinner, and hopefully sneak back into the house for another round of shenanigans.” He lifts a brow. “If the lady is amenable.”

Her face is turning pink. She is amenable. And yet-

“That’s two nights in a row. I don’t know if…” she trails off.

Still stark-naked, Killian climbs out of bed and crosses the room to tuck Emma back into his arms. “Tomorrow after breakfast I am going to my brother’s to spend my last day with him and his family. The next night I will be leaving. Can I be selfish and ask for just one more night with you, love?” She’s silent beneath his chin but he can feel how tense her body is. “I know I haven’t been able to give you much,” she lets out a shaky laugh, “but can I give you this?”

After a moment, she nods into his chest.

“I’ll ask Ingrid to watch Henry. I’ll take care of everything,” he murmurs. She nods again.

With a lingering kiss, he sends her out of her room and down the hall to the shower. Killian picks up his own discarded clothes and leaves the room a minute later, where he runs right into Ingrid, who’s leaning against the door opposite Emma’s. Her nose wrinkles as she sniffs the air. No matter Emma’s words about saltwater and sweat, Ingrid clearly smells sex. And she clearly disapproves.

He opens his mouth to smooth-talk her into watching Henry for another night when she cuts him off with a look.

“Elsa and I have been researching. We need to talk.”

-/-

“I like him,” Henry whispers to her as she waits in the entryway, smoothing down the satin of her light pink dress. Emma gives him a surprised look. Her son hasn’t disliked any of her dates or boyfriends over the years, but he also hasn’t offered her his approval.

Not even when she dated Neal for a few months.

“You do?”

Henry nods eagerly. His own fingers play with the soft satin of her dress, like he’s petting a kitten. “Yeah. He’s nice and he’s got lots of stories and he cooks even better than Ingrid and I think he really likes you, Mom.”

She pulls his hands free from the skirt of her dress and takes his hands in her own, holding them lightly and swinging them between them. “I think so too, kid. But Killian is leaving on Friday. So don’t get your hopes up, okay?”

Is she talking to Henry or herself?

His face falls slightly before perking up again. “Maybe he’ll decide not to leave. Maybe it’s true love!”

Emma pulls Henry to her chest, his head hitting higher than it did a few months ago, and kisses the crown of his head. Her sweet, sweet son who believes in true love. She hopes that never goes away.

Killian takes her out of town again, this time in the opposite direction, to a little Italian restaurant with bread that’s to die for and the creamiest Alfredo sauce she’s ever eaten. He spends the whole time focused on her so intensely that she finds herself struggling to breathe.

This whole thing isn’t like any other fling or one-night-stand or relationship she’s ever had. He’s acting like what they have could be real, but then he says that he’ll be gone in 48 hours and she doesn’t know what to say or do.

This is his home. It has been the home of his family for generations. Why is he leaving?

After dessert he leaves her for a few minutes to “Pay a compliment to the chef” and then he takes her back to the boarding house, where they sneak up into his bedroom again, giggling the whole time, and he goes down on her with her pretty pale pink dress rucked up around her waist and her panties flung across the room. One of her hands is in his hair and the other is stifling her moans - no empty house tonight.

After she comes, he makes love to her again. There’s really no other word for it. It isn’t fucking, it is making love. And she feels that - that thing, that connection - in the instant before she falls, to where his warm weight is on top of her but she almost feels like she’s flying, floating, rising above the earth.

In the morning he wakes up before she does, his nimble fingers tracing the planes of her face as her eyes flutter open. He’s desperate this morning, hungry, and she can see how he’s trying to hold back as she rides him, but his eyes betray how he’s imprinting every moment into his memory.

He calls her beautiful and lovely and perfect and wonderful until she tires herself out on him, coming with a quiet gasp, and then he flips them over so his feet are on the ground, her legs are hooked over his shoulders, and he fucks her steadily, eyes never leaving her own, fingers leaving bruises on her hips that she’ll caress for the next day.

He leaves after breakfast with another heart-stopping kiss.

Ingrid sets out a meal for them to reheat that night over dinner, where Henry tells her that the Jones twins were absent from school that day.

She wonders what’s going on at the Jones household.

She wonders why he’s leaving the next day.

She wonders why she feels like her life has been changed in only six days.

She wonders if she’d ever get tired of him. More likely he’d get tired of her first. Maybe that’s why he’s doing this - take what he can from her and move on to the next victim.

When Emma and Henry get home on Friday evening, Ingrid is standing outside on the porch, her face pale and wane. Ingrid isn’t exactly a chipper person, not much for joking around, but there’s a way that her lips are set and her eyes are red that makes Emma think something is wrong. Something is seriously, seriously wrong.

“Get changed to hike. Both of you,” she says without preamble. “We’re meeting Killian in the old cottage.”

Their hike through the woods the previous Saturday took a few hours of side-trails and animal watching and a stop to soak their feet in a creek. There’s none of that now. Ingrid walks ahead of them, leading the way, her back ramrod straight. All three carry flashlights that they train on the dirt trail, carefully stepping over fallen branches and avoiding gopher holes. Emma takes Henry’s hand, feeling better when she knows that he’s right next to her, and she thinks that Henry can sense the seriousness of this escapade, because he doesn’t ask any questions and he doesn’t whine when it takes them 30 minutes to get through the woods and to the cottage, which is a dark shadow against the setting sun on the ocean past the cliffs. The moon is full.

Ingrid finally speaks at the door of the cottage. She turns and holds out a hand for Henry. “You’re to stand next to me. Understand?”

Henry nods mutely.

Ingrid opens the cottage door and pulls Henry inside with her. Emma can see the warm glow of candlelight, bathing the wood in a golden gaze, as she follows her son and Ingrid and takes in the sight before her.

Killian is on the floor, on his knees, and he looks like shit. He’s paler than pale, with dark blotches under his eyes and he’s shaking slightly. Shivering. On instinct, Emma crosses the room and falls to her own knees, paying no attention to Liam and Elsa, who each have a son standing in front of them. There’s a ring of maybe a hundred candles circling the room, casting long shadows. But there’s another ring, one she has to step over to get to Killian, and it is white but granular.

Salt?

She brushes her confusion aside to grasp Killian by the the lapels of his leather jacket and search his face.

“Killian? Killian? Are you alright?”

His eyes are unfocused but his smile is wide and he lets out a puff of breath as he says, “Swan, you came.”

“Of course I came.” She doesn’t know what she’s here for, but there was never a question when Ingrid instructed her. Emma pushes a lock of hair out off his forehead. It is damp. Clammy. He’s sweating. “What’s wrong?”

Killian’s beautiful blue eyes flutter closed and his dark eyelashes kiss his sunken cheeks. “Everything, love. I’ve fucked it all up.”

She responds without thinking. “No you haven’t. No, it’s gonna be okay. Tell me what we have to do.”

A smile ghosts across his face before his eyes crack open again. “You have to kill me.”

Emma drops her hands off his chest in shock. “I-”

He nods. “You have to kill me, love. Before the curse does.”

She finally manages to look away from Killian long enough to take in the rest of the room. Ingrid is finishing placing a few unlit candles across the entryway, completing the circle. “Curse?” she asks her landlady, knowing that at least Ingrid is going to be practical here. Ingrid is always practical. Honest. To a fault.

Ingrid pulls Henry in front of her in the same way that Elsa and Liam are holding on to their boys. She’d think they’re creating human shields but Emma’s instincts tell her something else is going on. Ingrid lifts a hand off of Henry’s shoulder and points it at the half dozen candles she’d placed.

With a flick of her fingers, flames sprout up on each wick, and once the circle is complete, the flames of all the candles rise to an unnatural height.

“We are all witches, Emma,” Ingrid says quietly, patiently. “And the Jones men have been cursed for over 200 years. I was able to delay the curse, granting Killian a week, but that time has run out. The darkness will take him very, very soon, unless you kill him first.”

Emma recoils in horror at the suggestion. How could she-? Why would she-? In what universe could she ever-?

She turns back to Killian, and to her shock, he’s pressing something into her hand.

It is one of the blades he gave her for her birthday. A week ago. It feels like a lifetime ago.

“Do it, love. Do it. It shall be alright, I promise.”

The throwing dagger feels heavy in her hand as she stares at Killian’s bloodshot eyes, his gaunt face, the uneasy sense that prickles under her skin that something is just not right.

“I can’t- I can’t kill you, Killian,” Emma stammers, appalled by the thought.

His hands wrap around her elbows, using her to balance himself as he shakily pulls himself to his feet. He’s way too weak. This isn’t the guy that hiked with her a few days ago, fucked her halfway into the mattress just yesterday morning. Something is seriously wrong. He pulls her up to stand with him and he barely helps at all. He’s just too frail.

Killian places the point of the dagger, still grasped in her hand - what else is she gonna do with it? - right below his sternum. She can feel the slight soft give of flesh through the blade. “Hold it here, then,” he says. His voice is oddly reassuring. “Hold the blade and I’ll step forward. All you have to do is stand in place.”

Ingrid lit some candles from across the room. Killian looks like shit and something is obviously plaguing him. There are things here beyond her understanding. In the rational part of Emma’s mind, she knows that something is wrong, but that doesn’t compute with what Killian is having her do right now.

“Hold it still,” Killian continues, his fingers wrapped around her wrist, keeping the knife in place. “All you have to do is stand there, love, I promise.”

“Killian.” The full magnitude of this is all starting to materealize for Emma. He’s going to die. He wants her to kill him. In ten seconds or ten minutes, he’s going to be dead. She tries to find the right question to ask but none of them seem to be big enough.

“Why me?” she finally settles on. Emma looks over his shoulder at Liam and Elsa, who are each crying silently, a child turned away from the inside of the circle to cry against a parent’s chest. Emma turns around and sees that Henry is just staring at the scene in horror, face pale. He’s going to go into shock. “Why- why do you want me to do this?”

With his free hand, Killian reaches out and lets his fingertips graze her jawbone with the faintest of brushes. “Because I love you,” he says quietly. But that doesn’t mean she can’t hear the passion and the surety in his voice. Emma opens her mouth to respond but he shakes his head. “Don’t say anything, Emma. Just-” Killian grips the handle of the dagger tighter and takes a deep breath “-just know I am so thankful that I got to love you.”

He falls forward.

She feels her fist press against his flesh, warm and wet, as the blood begins to pour out of him. She can feel it soaking her hand but all she can focus on is the way that the light is dimming in his beautiful eyes until it finally goes out.

Killian is gone.

Killian is dead.

His weight - dead weight now, she supposes - is more than she can handle. Emma’s knees buckle beneath her and she lowers them both to the ground, his chest clutched against hers, and then his beautiful face in her lap as she sits down, staring at the man who changed her life.

He’s dead.

How is he dead?

Why is he dead?

“Emma.”

She looks up at the sound of her name into the face of Elsa, who’s crossed the salt circle. She’s crouched and her fingers wrap around Emma’s hand, which is still clutching the hilt of the dagger.

“Emma, I need this. Trust me, please,” she says. Her voice is level but there are tears streaming down her cheeks. Emma nods in a daze and lets go of the blade. Elsa grasps it and pulls it out of Killian’s body, making more blood bubble up and provoking a painful gasp from somewhere deep in Emma’s core.

“He’s losing too much blood,” she says, knowing that she’s not making sense.

“He’s gone,” Elsa says, standing and turning her back. “But his work isn’t over.” Her two sons are holding out their hands expectantly and there’s a morbid part of Emma that wonders if they’re gonna fight over this dagger, like a twisted scene of family drama. Who gets Uncle Killian’s death knife? But instead, Elsa slices through the palms of her sons in quick succession, hands the blade to her husband to slice each of her palms, and she takes two bloody hands in her own and begins quietly speaking.

It is another language. Emma has no idea what’s being said.

“Emma.”

She blinks and turns as Ingrid approaches this time. But she’s not crouching, she’s sitting like Emma, and her hands land on top of Emma’s, which are futilely trying to stop the blood from pouring out of Killian’s chest.

“Emma,” she says again. “I am going to ask you a few questions and I need you to answer all of them honestly, okay? Everything is riding on your honesty.”

Emma nods dumbly.

“Do you love Killian?”

She answers with a sob. Her tears blur her vision before she can blink them away. Everything is suddenly so clear. She loves him.

“That’s what I thought.” Ingrid’s hands squeeze hers reassuringly. “I’m so glad, Emma. I’m so glad that you love him. Okay, here’s the second question: What was the wish you made last week?”

Emma wipes her wet face on her shoulder and looks around. Henry. Liam. Elsa. Paul. Luke. Ingrid. Killian.

She shakes off the childlike part of herself that thinks If I tell you it won’t come true!

“I wished for a family,” she chokes out. Her emotions are too close to the surface to lie or elaborate. “I wished that Henry and I could have a family like yours.”

Ingrid’s smile is dazzling. “Oh, very, very good, Emma. Oh, that’s wonderful.” Emma’s hands push against Killian’s wound but the blood isn’t flowing as much anymore and she knows that’s not because of her pressure.

“One more question, Emma. Can you answer one more for me?”

Emma’s eyes manage to leave Killian’s pale face to look back at Ingrid. She nods.

“Is there any way that you are pregnant right now? I know it is too soon to tell, but I wanted to know how safe you’ve been.”

Her mind spins through the last few days. They used condoms every time. And this isn’t even the right time of month for her to get pregnant, not with her regular periods. Once she’s sure her math and recollection are correct, Emma slowly shakes her head. “No. I’m not,” she croaks.

“Henry?” One of Ingrid’s blood-soaked hands lets go of Emma’s and reaches out for her son. Henry moves forward, eyes wide, and falls to his knees next to them. “Henry, dear, can you answer a question for me?” Ingrid is holding one of Henry’s hands. Emma reaches out for her son and takes his free hand, trying to anchor herself to her warm, living, breathing son.

Henry nods and takes a shaky breath.

“Just tell me the truth. What do you think of Killian? Would you want him to be part of your family? Would you give your blessing for your mom to marry him, maybe have a baby together?”

Henry’s eyes widen. Emma wonders if he’s picked up on something like she has - Ingrid isn’t speaking in the past tense or like such a thing is now impossible. She’s speaking in the present tense. Like this dead man could one day be her husband.

“It’s okay, Henry,” Emma mumbles, not sure where the words are coming from. “Tell Ingrid how you feel. It’s okay. Whatever it is.”

His hand squeezes hers and then his eyes drop to Killian’s body, his pale face, the place where Ingrid and Emma are still pressing down on his wound. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “I really liked him.” His eyes lift and he looks to his two new friends, holding tight to their mother’s hands, where Elsa is still speaking quietly. “I really like all of you guys. Paul and Luke made me feel like another brother.”

Ingrid grins. “Wonderful, Henry, wonderful.” She looks over her shoulder at Liam and Elsa. She stops talking. “All done?” she asks.

Ingrid nods and drops her sons’ hands. “Yes. I think it worked.” She brushes her blood-stained hands down the front of her thighs. “Did you get the answers you needed?”

“I did. I think we’ve found the line between a wish unfulfilled and a commitment, at least on his side.”

“Good,” Elsa says. She turns to look at her husband. “You have the ring?”

Liam reaches into his pocket and extracts something small that sparkles in the candlelight. Emma’s heart, which hasn’t been beating during the last several minutes, suddenly accelerates and she sees stars in the corners of her eyes. Emma hangs her head, trying to get blood to rush back to it, but when she looks back up, the vision hasn’t changed.

Liam Jones is holding a sparkly golden ring with a large diamond on it. It is a wedding ring.

“I have the note too,” he says, pulling something out of his back pocket, and stepping forward to hand both to Emma. Emma, whose hands are occupied with clinging to Henry and clinging to Killian, looks at him confused. Is she supposed to take a wedding ring and a note?

“Read it aloud, Liam,” Ingrid says. There’s an edge of impatience in her voice, like her nephew is an idiot. “You know that there’s power in invoking Killian’s words.”

Liam nods shortly and, seeing that Emma hasn’t moved to take the ring, he pockets it again and unfolds a sheet of paper and begins to read outloud.

“My dearest Swan.”

Emma chokes out a sob and the tears start flowing again. She wasn’t sure if she had any more, but hearing Liam, whose voice is so much like Killian’s, calling her Swan, it makes her start to realize that she’s not going to hear him say her name again. They’ve only known each other for a week. She doesn’t have any photographs of him, no video recordings. No memento of their time together. Just her memories and a set of throwing daggers.

And it isn’t enough.

Liam starts again once her cries have quieted.

“My dearest Swan. When I came back to Storybrooke, I came as a man with a curse hanging over my head. I came prepared to die. When Ingrid granted me a week’s reprieve, I planned to use that time to be with my family. What I did not expect was to meet someone that I would have liked the opportunity to make part of that family.

“I love you, Emma. I do not say this because my life will soon be over. But the short timeline is a gift, allowing me to see what is most important to me and chasing it with vigor. I have cherished every minute we shared together, as they gave me a taste of heaven to come.”

Emma feels the twin squeezes of Ingrid and Henry holding her hands tighter, one clammy, one slick with blood. More things are beginning to make sense. The way he pursued her and the guilt she could sense beneath the surface. The way he was eager for every minute. The way he wouldn’t - or maybe couldn’t - tell her where was going.

He knew he was about to die. The whole time. He was prepared to die and he fell in love instead.

Liam’s voice draws her back to the letter.

“I have set aside some finances to provide for my nephews’ futures and allow both Liam and Elsa to expand their businesses.” Liam’s brows rise and his tone changes. “Did you really, little brother?” he asks. He smirks and he looks just like Killian. Emma starts crying some more. Liam clears his throat. “Where was I? Yes,” he goes back into the quiet lilt. “The rest is yours, Emma. I have an inheritance I never touched and a house in town that I rent out. You are welcome to the income or to move in there with your boy, whatever suits you best. I trust that Liam will help you no matter which you choose.”

Liam gives Emma a soft look. “Aye, I will.”

His eyes return to the paper. “The most important thing to me is that you would be taken care of after I am gone. If these seven days are all that I had with you, then that was enough for a lifetime. But Ingrid and Elsa have been scheming, and they tell me that they have a plan up their sleeves. Listen to them, love. Believe them. Trust them. And make your choices based on the life that you want to live, not out of pity for me. I deserve my death - I truly do.”

Emma turns to Ingrid, suddenly incredibly aware of the other woman’s presence and the calm way she’s presiding over everything. A plan? A plan for what?

Killian is dead.

“I shall be waiting here on the other side for you, love. Waiting for us to be together again. With all my heart, Killian.”

Liam sighs, folds up the paper, and returns it to his back pocket.

Emma’s focus hasn’t left Ingrid. “What did he mean you have a plan? What kind of a plan are you talking about?”

The older woman lets go of the hand that’s resting on Emma’s, the blood now growing tacky, and she holds out a palm behind her. Elsa steps forward to place the knife back in Ingrid’s hand and she presses it into Emma’s hand.

She doesn’t want it. She wants to drop it. She wants to throw it far, far away. But Ingrid is surprisingly strong. She holds it in Emma’s grasp.

“The wish candle wants to make your wish come true, Emma. It wants you to have a family. And, seeing that there’s one ready to make you a part, the magic has been working to make that happen.”

Emma opens her mouth to protest - she had the hots for Killian before she made that wish. But did he-?

“That doesn’t mean that your feelings or Killian’s feelings aren’t real, dear. It just means that the wish helped you to express them more freely. But that spell was working contrary to the Jones family curse, which was going to kill my nephew. And right now, that wish is unfulfilled, no matter how much money or property Killian left you. You are not our family.” She drops Henry’s hand and forces Emma’s fingers around the hilt of the dagger. “Not by law or blood. But I think that tension will help us to bring Killian back from the dead.”

At that, Emma loses all ability to speak. But it seems to be a cue for the others, who step into the salt circle and hold hands with one another, inviting Henry and Ingrid to join them, until Emma is left alone with both hands resting on Killian’s still, bloody chest.

Elsa begins speaking this time, her voice a little shaky but her eyes focused and her mouth set. “Ingrid found a spell from our family’s spellbook. We have no way of knowing if it has worked before, but we can try. Well, you can try, Emma.”

Emma’s fingers grip the hilt of the dagger still in her hands, not sure what else she’s supposed to do or say or how to respond. All she can manage is, “Me? I’m not- I’m not a witch. Can’t you or Ingrid or-?”

Elsa shakes her head slowly. “No. It has to be you, Emma. No one else. It is a spell to reverse an impulsive action. Meant for a husband and a wife.” She shares a look with Liam. “Sometimes fights escalate.”

Emma’s trying to reconcile all of these insane ideas. “But-” she looks down at Killian, pale and still, and then up at Elsa. “But we aren’t married.”

Liam digs into his pocket and pulls out the ring again. It is beautiful and pristine, glinting in the candlelight. “My great-grandfather had this special-made for my great-grandmother. I’ve held this in trust for Killian since our Ma died.”

Emma’s eyes cut to Elsa. She smiles back at Emma. “I had my own family ring. And now I’m glad I did. We think the magic might recognize you as bonded together if you take the ring with the intention to wear it. With the intention to marry Killian and make a family together.”

Ingrid speaks again. “But you have to mean it, Emma. You have to decide that Killian is yours and you are his. The magic won’t work otherwise. And if Henry approves of the match and you intend to have a child together with Killian, the wish magic will help propel the magic further and bring Killian back.”

They all stare at her. This is her choice to make. Killian made his, signed them on legal documents and with his own blood, but now it is her turn.

Emma Swan has spent the last week convincing herself that this thing with Killian was nothing more than a passing fancy, a fling. Nothing to get invested in. Nothing that was going to last long-term.

Nothing that was going to mean anything.

But here, in candlelight, surrounded by the stories of his family and hers, of his hopes and the silence of her own, she searches her heart to decide what she wants. What she well and truly wants.

Emma holds out her hand and takes the diamond ring.

“I want this.”

-/-

The last thing that Killian knows is Emma Swan’s eyes wide with fear, the scent of her shampoo, and the gentle touch of her hand on the side of his face.

The first thing that Killian knows is Emma Swan’s lips upon his own.

He takes a deep, gasping breath - his first breath of this new, second chance at life. His eyes fly open and Emma is still afraid, but she’s also grinning at him, looking strangely certain and uncertain at the same time.

“Killian?” she asks. Her voice is shaky.

“Did you miss me?” he asks back. His voice is shakier than he wishes. He doesn’t like how shaky it sounds. Weak.

“Killian!” Her shaky voice breaks into a cry and she kisses him again before burying her head in the crook of his neck. He’s lying down where before he was on his feet. And then he realizes there are a multitude of hands touching him - on his legs and feet and arms and the top of his head, and when he blinks, he can see that they’re not alone.

They’re surrounded by family. His family. And now - her family.

“You said yes?” Killian finds the strength in his arms to wrap them around Emma to hold her closer, as if he misunderstood. “You want- you want more than a week with me?”

Emma lets loose a small cry and, strangely, their audience erupts into giggles and shares knowing looks with one another.

“I want it all, Killian,” Emma murmurs into his chest. “I fucking want it all.”

It is rare that Killian finds himself without words, but he is now. Without words.

He’s woken up to a new reality, a new life, where Emma Swan has hitched her wagon to his and, by killing him, bypassed the curse that was to be his demise and has brought him back to life again. His blood, along with a well-timed spell from Elsa, broke the generational curse on the Jones bloodline, allowing his nephews to one day father children who will not be led by their worst impulses.

He’s woken up to a beautiful woman wearing his family ring and declaring that she wants to be with him longer than a week. She wants to be with him forever.

He’s woken up to a brown-haired lad with a crooked smile who offers his own hesitant hug and, he’s later told, who had offered his blessing for Killian to be with his mother.

He’s woken up to a future. A real one. A happy one.

And the man who was only focused on getting out of Storybrooke, then only focused on the next pleasurable activity, then only focused on revenge, then only focused on making his final hours and days count now finds himself… without a focus.

But he has Emma’s hand in his, helping to guide him out of the cottage and out of the woods, back to Ingrid’s. And the way they collapse into bed that night - exhausted from a trying day, uncertain of what tomorrow brings, a ring on her finger and a scar on his chest - he knows there is nowhere else he’d rather be than home in Storybrooke. With her.

She wasn’t satisfied with one week of pancakes and coffee and dates and lovemaking. She wasn’t even satisfied with his financial gifts. She wants him. A Jones man. One responsible for all manner of trouble and nefariousness. A cursed man.

As the days turn into weeks and months and Killian establishes himself in Storybrooke once more, he finds that is no longer true. He isn’t cursed. It has gone. That impulsiveness has receded somewhat. Liam tells him that it was always possible, once he found the right partner, but Killian knows better.

He needed Emma. She is the only one who was able to break the curse before it broke him. She is his happy ending.

And a few months later, as they sort through various boxes in the attic of the house he had never before lived in, prepared to make it his home with his new bride and his stepson, to make it their home before they begin trying to give their son a little sibling of his own, he finds something rather strange in the back of a dusty desk drawer.

He makes a sound of surprise and Emma comes up behind him to prop her chin on his shoulder and wrap her arms around his waist.

“What’d you find, babe?” she asks. Her voice is husky and familiar and never fails to inspire warmth in his chest. Killian opens the envelope and extracts a fragile piece of paper, brittle and yellowed with age.

“A sale of purchase.” Killian lets go of one corner of the parchment to stroke her left hand. “For this ring.”

Emma makes her own noise of interest, though it might be more of a reaction to the way his fingertips are tracing up and down her hand. Her grip tightens against his stomach and she nuzzles into his back. Henry is at school and there are several rooms that still need to be christened.

Killian is just about to set down the bill of purchase and make good on the alone time in the house when his grip slips and he realizes that he is holding two pieces of paper in his hand, not one. He lets go of Emma’s hand to shuffle the papers in his grip and then nearly drops them both.

Emma’s hands move to his hips as though she’ll be able to keep him upright. “What’s wrong?” she asks, sensing his change in mood. “What is it?”

“It is a letter.” Killian turns in her arms and hands the paper to Emma. “Addressed to you.”

If Emma Swan thought the Jones family had no more surprises to offer, then she was sorely mistaken.

The letter, written just over a hundred years prior, is addressed from his great-grandfather to “The Swan Woman” offering her thanks for breaking his family’s curse, hopes that she enjoys the home that he and his cousins built together, and assures her that her life with Killian will be very happy indeed.

It is signed by Henry Jones I.

“Henry?” Emma asks, voice full of wonder. Killian seems to have missed that detail, because his brows rise and he squints at the signature at the bottom. “Your great-grandfather was named Henry?”

“I suppose so. He died long before I was born. Da was not one for family stories and Ma only knew so much.” He examines the paper closer. “I suppose he was a seer, to be able to write something like this.”

“Was there another Henry Jones in your family? Junior or The Second? Like your grandpa or a great uncle?”

Killian racks his memory and shakes his head. “No, not that I recall. My grandfather was named Michael and his brother was John. My father was an only child. No other Henrys in the family.”

Emma gives him a smirk and Killian realizes that the Jones family is not the only one with surprises in store.

“Well…” She plucks the papers from his hand and sets them on the dusty desk. “I wasn’t going to say anything until we were almost done, but since my Henry has become the only Swan in the family, he and I talked to a lawyer about changing his last name.” She rests her hands on his shoulders and sways closer to him, a dance he hopes will continue throughout their lives. Emma dips her chin toward the discarded papers. “Apparently, he won’t just be Henry Jones. He’ll be Henry Jones II. He’s gonna be so excited when we show him.”

Killian grins and turns them in place, a spin that takes Emma’s breath away.

“Henry Jones,” he whispers against her lips before he steals a kiss. “Henry bloody Jones.”

“Our son.”

Killian laughs too. “The first Jones man born without the curse in over two hundred years.”

“But not the last.” Her nose brushes against his own. “Although, with Paul and Luke as his best friends, he’s still gonna cause trouble like any other Jones boy.”

Killian bends down to kiss Emma’s lovely throat, deciding they’ve had enough distractions and it is time to christen the little linen closet on the third level. “Ah, but that’s what it means to be a Jones, curse or no curse. We cause all manner of trouble.”

Emma pulls away enough to look in his eyes and read the danger in them. She grins wickedly.

“God, I hope so.”