#She pressed forth to give him a soft kiss...a kiss that would preserve the integrity of her lipstick but could still leave a little

[hislittleraincloud]

*inner Cairo whispers* I like that jacket.

They look both absolutely stunning!!!

[capnjay21]

bring walls down, hear my sound, 2/3

Ten happy years after the events of 'the boy that stood by the sea', and Henry Cassidy is no longer the little boy he used to be. Unused to the unpredictability of raising a teenager, his sudden wayward behaviour becomes a source of mystery to all the adults in his life. When things begin to spiral out of control, Killian and Emma must decide what sort of parents, and partners, they wish to be - of course, where Neal Cassidy is involved, nothing is ever simple. 

link to the boy that stood by the sea || ao3 || part one

Rating: T A/N: Please adhere to the content warning for this chapter: there are mentions of a previous miscarriage for Emma. While it is by no means the focus of the chapter, I understand it may turn some readers off, so know I adore and respect each of you regardless. <3 To those continuing I will say it is NOT graphic, and the mentions of it are minor but relevant to the story as a part of Emma and Killian’s past. I went back and forth for a while over whether to adjust these aspects in the narrative, but in the end decided to go forward to preserve the integrity of the story I’d like to tell. That said, fandom is a special place and I want everybody to feel safe and comortable while reading and sharing fic.

I spend a lot of time in this ‘verse pushing my writing and these characters to places I’ve never gone before, and as always I appreciate every single ounce of support I’ve received. You guys are wonderful, and I hope you enjoy this chapter!

PS, when you get to the end of this chapter and feel the urge to throw heavy objects at me, please remember I only ever deal in happy endings!! 

Killian can’t stop thinking about trigonometry.

Not in an interested fashion, no, he finds it difficult to even feign interest in any sort of math beyond the basics, anything other than what he uses in his day to day life. Mainly where balancing the books at the Rabbit Hole is concerned. Yet there it is. Trig, just — again, and again, and again. Trig. The longest side of the triangle being the hypotenuse, the other two the adjacent and opposite sides. That’s about as far as his memory takes him, high school was such a long, long time ago. Sine, cosine. Tangent. Just trig.

“Killian?”

What was he saying about tangents?

“Are you sure Henry didn’t say anything else to you last night? Anything that might be useful?”

The longest side of the triangle is the hypotenuse, that was what Killian had said when Henry had come to him asking for homework help. Trigonometry was kicking his ass, that’s what he’d told him, and he wanted a little assistance. But try as he might, Killian couldn’t wrap his head around the math. Sin, cos, tan.

I’m sorry, lad.

Useless.

It’s all Greek to me.

“He wasn’t here this morning,” Killian hears himself saying, although he feels like he’s a hundred miles away. Floating, suspended above his own body and squeezed into angles of sizes he can’t discern. “I told you, we had an argument last night about his not attending school so this morning I was going to drive him there myself. His door was locked from the inside.”

Must’ve climbed out the window, clambered down the fire escape. It’s what Killian would have done — well. He’d certainly performed the similar when he was that age.

‘All Greek’, ha ha. Very funny.

“And you’re sure he didn’t just find another way into school?”

“We already called them, David.” Emma’s voice. “Henry isn’t there. Hasn’t been there for ten days, actually.”

Killian sits on the sofa in his living room, forehead pressed into his hands as he stares blankly at the carpet underneath. Cream. Emma’s insistence, the old one was worn and almost threadbare by the time she moved in, and even then it had taken another three years to get round to being rid of the damn thing. By now it had lost most of its softness, a few odd stains soiling it in places and, more recently, a track of boot imprints travelling from room to room.

David had arrived in uniform, expression grave and concern imprinted in the curve of his brow with his deputy, Humbert, standing just over his shoulder. They’d immediately investigated Henry’s room for any clues relating to his disappearance, trawling through papers and drawers that he and Emma had already turned upside down once they realised he was missing. David keeps firing questions at him, a stickler for procedure.

But Killian can’t stop thinking about trigonometry.

He can’t stop thinking about trig and the first time Henry looked at him and realised he didn’t have all the answers.

Oh. Okay. I’ll just google it, then.

(Useless.)

It’s all Greek to me.

“Listen, it’s early days yet,” David is assuring them, and Killian can feel Emma’s hand reach out and squeeze his shoulder, but he keeps his gaze on the floor. “The chances are he just spent the night at a friend’s house to cool off.” And avoid you, the silence says, so Killian appreciates his friend not lending the thought a voice. “You’ve got the number for that Malcolm kid, and Grace; ask them if he’s there first. If you don’t have anything by this afternoon call me again and I’ll have everybody in the precinct on it — I promise.”

David is as earnest as he always is, enough so that Killian lifts his head to meet his eye and offer a weak smile.

Which side was the hypotenuse, again?

“Thanks, David,” Emma says quietly, releasing Killian so she can walk he and Humbert to the door. If Killian had been in possession of all his faculties he might have bristled at the way Humbert’s gaze lingered unabashedly on the curve of her ass, but as it is all he can think about is the disappointed look in Henry’s eyes the day he couldn’t solve a blood trigonometry question. The way the corners of his mouth had dipped, confusion knitting his eyebrows together. All Killian can think about is the day he stopped being Henry’s hero.

You are not my dad.

The words rattle around in his skull, occasionally bouncing off the rim of his bones before shattering into a thousand pieces and reassembling, an irritating little rat-tat-tat like a burst of machine-gun fire. Not my dad, not my dad. Ten years of devoting his entire life to that boy, but never mind that — he isn’t the real dad. Never mind any of that, his highness Henry Cassidy has spoken.

In a violent sort of cognitive abduction, visions of Emma now surge before his eyes, blood dripping from her hands and creating devastating stains on the lovely cream carpet. Scarlet is everywhere, it’s all he can see, her eyes are like black glass —

Don’t make me go through this again.

Then suddenly the sofa squeaks in protest as the real Emma drops down beside him, wrenching him unceremoniously from the rapid spiral of his thoughts. She slips her arm around his, linking them as she rests her head against his shoulder. Killian can slowly feel himself beginning to sink back into the real world, finds himself present enough to drop a feather-light kiss on her brow.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, and it’s the first thing he’s said since he found Henry’s bed unslept in at six o’clock this morning where he felt like he was inside his own body. Their boy ran away in the night and it’s all his fault.

You are not my dad.

“This isn’t on you,” Emma says back, fiercely. “And he’s a tough kid. I’m sure he’s fine.”

Worry coils in his gut and he wants to vomit. Henry is missing and all they’re trying to do is offer themselves useless clichés, how Henry can handle it, how he’s cooling off, how Killian blowing up at him the night prior apparently doesn’t make it his fault the boy ran away.

God. He can’t do anything right.

Especially not sodding math.

Killian finds Emma’s hand and squeezes tight, then brings it up to his lips so he can place a kiss on the back of it.

“I’m going to call Jefferson and Grace.”

He leaves her on the couch as he walks over to the kitchen, where he left his cell. Before he can even pick it up it begins to buzz, and Neal’s name illuminates the screen. An even greater guilt begins to churn in his stomach, mouth running dry as he tries to picture telling Neal about the fact that Henry is missing. By this point he’s too tired to even bother putting up a fight.

He slides his thumb across the screen to answer the call. “Yep?”

“He’s here — in New York. I’m sorry, you guys must be worried. I’ve got him.”

Relief rushes forth like a tsunami, a pressure that makes his legs tremble until they give way beneath him.

-/-

Neal touches the screen to hang up the phone, an odd mixture of indignation and remorse each vying for control as he watches Killian’s name vanish from the screen. Henry had been missing since last night, he knew that since the rain-soaked boy had turned up on his doorstep, but since Emma and Killian had found him gone they hadn’t even thought to call him. They’d called the police before they bothered to check with his father to see if he'd ended up there. Although perhaps in their position, he might’ve done the same. Neal wasn’t normally in New York, after all, they might’ve just forgotten that he’d flown out of California for the conferences spanning a couple of weeks. They couldn’t know about the missed calls on his phone, the unanswered texts.

When are you coming home? x

Another stellar example of Neal Cassidy knowing fucking nothing at all.

Like why the hell Henry had even come to him in the first place. Killian hadn’t exactly been forthcoming on the phone— they’d had an argument, that was all he said. Neal’s suggestion that Henry stay with him for a few days, then, hadn’t exactly been frostily met, but it became clear it certainly wasn’t a welcome one. Still, he’d agreed.

(That’s how Neal knows it must be bad — Killian didn’t even mention the boy missing school once.)

His phone buzzes once more across the countertop in the kitchen, and Neal glances at it briefly.

I miss you, Bae. x

Before his stomach can twist itself too badly in knots, he hears the click of the lock from Henry’s old room. Neal busies himself with the breakfast preparation, dropping the bacon into the already sizzling pan and darting backwards to try and avoid any hot oil. When Henry emerges, he sees the boy has tried to squeeze himself into pyjamas a few sizes too small, and belatedly realises he must have forgotten to bring any with him and grabbed whatever was in his old room — the flannel top with the sword sewn into the chest is an item of clothing Neal hasn’t seen him wear for years. It aches, just a little. Especially when he sees the way it rides up to his stomach.

Henry has grown up just fine without him.

He masks his discomfort the same way he usually does; with humour.

“Jeez, Hen, the noughties called. They want that shirt back.”

Henry scowls. “Shut up. I forgot to bring mine.”

It doesn’t stop Neal from grinning. “You could have asked. You’re — what, nearly my height now? A little slimmer down below but I’m sure I’ve got something that’d fit better than that.”

“Thank you,” he says, but it’s tight-lipped; a clear request to end the embarrassing line of conversation. “What’s for breakfast?”

“Candied bacon on toast.”

“Got any coffee?”

Neal turns, arching an eyebrow. “You drink coffee now?”

Henry shrugs, looking mildly defensive. “I always drank coffee.”

“Stuff’ll kill you, y’know that right?” Killian gave him that diatribe for years, back when they’d been living in the same city. It must have been Emma that got his kid into drinking it, then.

“You drink it.” Henry points out.

“Some of us can’t function without performance enhancing substances.”

Henry merely spreads his hands, making a gesture at himself. In the tiny, sword-embroidered shirt, it’s beyond comical. Neal grins as he turns back to the food.

By the time he thinks to bring up why they’re there, coffee brewed and bacon fried, they’re sitting across from each other at the island counter. It could’ve been any normal Friday, father and son sharing breakfast together in an apartment overlooking the city — except that it isn’t. He can’t ignore that.

“So,” he starts, around a mouthful of toast. “You’re here.”

Henry glances up from his breakfast only briefly. “Well observed.”

“Spur of the moment thing?”

“Nope.”

Emma liked to think she was all that, and maybe she was, always able to spot Neal or Henry in a lie during the time they’d been living together — her superpower, she’d called it. With his own son, Neal liked to think he had a superpower of his own. He could at least tell when Henry was lying through his teeth, if only because the boy was so bad at it. Avoiding eye contact, pushing his food aimlessly around his plate. Textbook.

Neal tries to make his calling out a little playful. “You forgot your pyjamas.”

“I had a lot on my mind.”

What, he’s desperate to ask. Although the innerworkings of Henry’s thoughts have always been something of a mystery to him.

“I called Killian and Emma,” Neal says, watching closely for his reaction. Barely perceptibly, the boy stiffens. “Told them where you are.”

Henry shovels more bacon into his mouth. “Very responsible of you.”

Something about it feels like he’s being made fun of, but he lets it go.

“Said you could stay here for a couple days. Sound good?”

Henry finally looks up, reaching for his coffee mug. Neal can practically hear the cogs turning behind his eyes.

“Yeah,” he finally says. “Sounds great.”

They finish eating in silence, Neal waiting to see if Henry will bring up why he’s there at all — they must have had a falling out, that’s all he can discern. Over what, he has no clue. Emma had seemed so chilled out about the boat thing, he couldn’t imagine it was anything to do with that, but he couldn’t think of anything else that lent logic to such a move from his son. Not that he isn’t appreciative, it fills him with all sorts of warmth that Henry sees him as somebody he can go to when he wants to weather a storm.

He just wishes he’d confide in him too.

Waiting for information is like waiting for a stone to produce water. As Neal places the cutlery neatly on his plate, he finally decides to ask.

“You gonna tell me what happened?”

“Wanna catch a movie?”

Neal barely has a chance to finish his sentence before Henry gives his suggestion — loudly. Henry’s eyes are wide, innocent almost, but he knows what he’s doing. He’s more than aware of it. After all, he picked up most of his tactics in diversion from Neal himself. Although he scrutinizes his son’s expression, it gives away nothing.

Neal takes a long moment to swallow the remaining dregs of his coffee.

Because fuck everything, his son wants to spend time with him. He can’t even remember why he’s trying to probe for information — who cares? He’s here. He’s here in New York with him, not Killian. Something inside him stirs that he’d tried to put to sleep a long time ago. These past ten years have never been a competition for Henry.

But then, Neal has never won before.

“Yeah,” he finally says, grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Sure. Let’s catch a movie.”

-/-

Two lines.

Two pink, vertical, faint (but almost certainly there) lines.

Emma wishes the second line would fuck the hell off.

The faint smell of urine pervaded the air over the usual sharp scent of disinfectant — Killian is always meticulous about making sure the bathroom is cleaned with the appropriate materials at least twice a week. She’d learnt a lot over their eight years of living together, particularly the fact that Killian liked everything to have its proper place. Only once it was there, it took considerably less effort to move a mountain than it took convincing Killian to shift it somewhere else. The task of blending their lives together had been considerable to say the least, although it got a lot easier once she finally convinced him to let go of the faded, stained cream carpet in her third year of living there.

I like all its little imperfections. Gives it character.

It’s a carpet, Killian. The only ‘character’ it should be having is of the Disney animated variety in Henry’s room.

They’d taken that carpet out too, eventually.

(Emma can’t work out why she’s thinking about carpets in the face of some potentially monumental life altering news.)

There are very few occasions in her life that she can recall feeling genuine fear — the time she lost Henry in the crowd when they went to watch he Christmas lights turn on, before finding him perched atop the hotdog stand entertaining the vendor with his light up sword. When she first moved to Boston and realised she’d stolen the car of some bigshot businessman while he’d been lying in the backseat; her first meeting with Neal Cassidy. At seventeen when she’d heard her son crying in the delivery room and wasn’t sure she’d be brave enough to let him go.

She counts now among those moments.

Her hands grip the edge of the sink so tightly her knuckles are stained the same shade of the porcelain, palms going numb from the coolness of the touch. She can’t do this, not again. Not when every other time she’s seen those two pink lines staring back at her it’s ended in heartbreak and torment. She forces herself to keep breathing, to let the air flow in and out as smoothly as it can as she tries to will that second line away; it persists, staring obnoxiously back at her next to the three other tests that complied obediently to her demands and came up negative.

But one test is positive. Amid all the drama with Henry, it’s the last thing they need.

She can’t even privately admit the fact to herself, what those two pink lines might mean. That they weren’t careful enough, that despite everything life put them through it wanted to keep the punches rolling. They hadn’t even talked about the possibility of kids in years. Not since — well. Not since the last time.

Damn it.

That familiar sting tugs at that space behind her nose, and she can see the sheen on her eyes begin to brighten in the mirror. She can’t. She can’t do this. She can’t do this on her own and Killian is a thousand miles away. Somewhere in New York with Henry, somewhere inside himself doubting and loathing and burying himself away where she can’t find him.

She needs him.

There are three rapid knocks on the door. “Emma?”

Killian’s voice.

“I’ll be out in a minute,” she says, pleased that there isn’t a single wobble in her voice. She hurriedly sweeps the tests into the wastepaper basket, covering them up with a good foot or so of toilet roll, before pressing her heels into her eyes. She looks back into the mirror, blinking rapidly to try and erase any sign of the emotion slowly tearing away at her insides.

To finish, she sprays around the room with the air freshener Killian leaves on the windowsill, hoping to leave no trace of the last half hour.

When she emerges, Killian is sitting on the sofa flipping his way through a magazine, although he stands when he hears the click of the door. She allows herself a moment to admire the full image, the figure he can still cut in a tux no matter how much time passes. The navy shirt and black suit combination is one of her favourites, and despite everything she can’t help the thrill that runs through her.

“You were a while,” he says, concern flickering across his brow, “everything alright?”

Emma merely offers a teasing grin. “You think this,” she gestures to her face and the subtle curls in her hair, “happens in five minutes?”

Killian’s answering smile is one of relief, as he leans in to press his lips to her cheek. The gesture loosens some of the tension in her chest.

“We don’t have to go out tonight,” she tells him gently, “with everything going on — August will understand.”

“Nonsense,” Killian waves her away. “It’s the launch of his first novel. He’d want you to be there.”

“But I can go alone. I mean it.”

He smiles like he doesn’t hear her, and the deep blue in his eyes is almost entirely vacant. “You get changed, I’ll just mill about here for a few minutes.”

Emma changes her mind at the last moment about her dress choice — the one hung on the door to their closet is a conservative number, navy to compliment Killian’s suit, with a cinched waist that flared out to just above her knee. She’d been so happy when she found it, figuring she was thirty-three now and most of the dresses she still found comfortable were starting to make Henry uncomfortable; she’d heard the word MILF being thrown around his friends on the odd occasion. And while she chose to take it as a compliment, the last thing she wanted to do was embarrass Henry. Striking a balance between that and wearing things that made her feel confident and attractive had become something of a challenge in recent years. Something at which Killian had privately voiced his own protests.

Given Henry was supposed to have been joining them at August’s book launch, tonight’s dress is demure, yet lovely.

Emma discards it in favour of something shorter. An old favourite, the pink bodycon dress she had worn on her first official date with Killian. Although the hemline is a little higher than what is probably decent for a simple book launch, she wants something that’ll get his attention. At the very least, distract him from Henry’s whereabouts for just a night, and grab something of her boyfriend back.

Maybe she just wants something that’ll distract her, too.

Two pink lines.

When she steps back into the sitting room, tugging self-consciously at the hem, Killian is nowhere to be seen. The bathroom door is open, and a cup of tea just brewed lay untouched on the counter in the kitchen. It’s only as she passes back down the hall that she realises where he is — Henry’s room. Emma’s heart clenches painfully as she peeks around the door, observes him running an absent hand along the desk. Suddenly the dress seems silly and immature when confronted with his melancholy.

Gently, she knocks on the door to alert him of her presence. “Hey, sailor.”

He turns quickly as if she’d startled him, and almost instantly she watches as his eyes drop from her face to rest of her figure. His lips part, pupils blowing wide as his gaze lands on her upper thigh, and Emma knows a pleased flush must be colouring the skin near her collarbone, and she can’t quite suppress the immediate smile at his scrutiny. She can’t help it. It’s the most present he’s been for weeks, watching her as if it were the first time he’d seen her in just as long — like a starved man staring at an oasis, trying to discern if it’s real.

“Emma, you look…”

She smirks, cocking her hand on her hip in a joking pose. He follows the movement closely. “I know.” When he manages to tear his gaze away he moves to shut a drawer that had been hanging open. Emma steps cautiously inside. “What’re you doing in here?”

His cheeks redden with what she can only assume is guilt, and his hand moves to scratch behind his ear. A nervous tick she had identified a long time ago.

“I just wanted to, ehm…” Killian waves a hand as Emma reaches him, touching a hand to his arm reassuringly. Finally, he sighs. “He didn’t take any of his pyjamas. Or he forgot them, I don’t know. And he only took two changes of clothes. I thought it might mean he was only — or, well, I’m probably overthinking…” He trails off, letting out a long breath. “I’m pathetic, aren’t I?”

“You’re not,” she says quietly, rubbing his arm soothingly. “But he’s safe, alright? He’s with Neal. He’ll be well looked after. I mean, he’ll be sleeping naked, but that’s something of a rite of passage for a sixteen-year-old anyway.”

At her jest he allows a small grin to push through, and loops his arms around her to pull her in for a gentle hug.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

She almost tells him right that second, as he rests his chin on her shoulder and his arms tighten around her. A wave of nausea suddenly surges upwards, her heart plummeting at the thought of adding to his burden, of getting themselves into an argument or forcing him to come back to her when he needs to do it on his own.

She’s just — sad.

Her arms squeeze him a little tighter, and he drops a kiss onto the curve of her shoulder. “You really do cut quite the figure in this dress.”

A thrill runs through her at the compliment, and she turns her head to press her lips to his cheek in gratitude.

“And it’s not the one you left hanging on our closet, either.”

Her entire body hums at the timbre of his voice, suddenly far gravellier than it had been only moments before. He kisses her shoulder again, only this time he lets his lips linger on her bare skin. Emma’s nerves become highly attuned to that particular spot.

“Very perceptive of you,” she murmurs, brushing a hand across his shoulders to linger at the back of his neck, twirling her finger into hair at the nape the way she knows starts to get him riled up.

She just wants to not feel sad. Just for now.

Killian hisses in response, slowly beginning to move, leaving a trail of featherlight kisses all the way to her collarbone. Once there, he nips gently at her pulse point and her heart rate immediately begins to accelerate. She can’t remember the last time they had sex — hell, or the last time they even bothered to make out — and her body’s reaction to Killian’s ministrations is instantaneous. A fog of arousal curls through her, and she finds herself tugging his head up so she can crash her lips into his.

Like he’s read her mind his lips immediately part, tongue thrusting its way into her mouth so he can deepen the kiss, his hands skimming down her back until one of them lands on her ass. Emma audibly gasps, arching into him and she can feel a low chuckle rumbling from his chest. His mouth continues to slant against hers, even as his hand drops lower in an attempt to lift the hem of her dress up to her waist, and Emma eagerly moves to assist him.

God, the sex with him is good. It always has been. Never with anyone else has she been as satisfied emotionally and physically as she is with Killian — it’s her proof, she’d decided that long ago. Some divine testimony to her let her know that this is right, this is perfect, that there isn’t any other time she’ll find herself in greater synchronisation with another person than when she is making love to Killian Jones.

It only takes the barest touches of his calloused hands for heat to have shot right to her core, her body already gearing itself up for the sensations she knows that he can awake in her, and if the stiffness pressed into her thigh is any indication she is doing the same to him. Emma takes one of her hands from his hair so she can palm him through his trousers and he groans into her mouth, doubling his efforts to get her dress out of the way. It’s frantic and it’s scorching but she’s horny and he’s here, he’s in this moment racing right along with her and it’s the first time he’s felt tangible in days.

Emma reaches hurriedly for his belt, fiddling with the clasp as quickly as she can until the abruptness of her movement overbalances her. With her body pressed as close to Killian’s as possible, her centre of gravity is higher and she stumbles, tugging him with her by the front of his pants. Their combined weight knocks backwards into something solid, and as a few objects crash onto the floor she’s wrenched immediately from whatever heady moment had overtaken them.

This is Henry’s room.

She releases Killian and he mirrors the action, puffing out a few quick breaths and running a hand through his hair. Emma can spot the moment he realises just where they are and what they’d almost gotten carried away with; the furrow that had been at his brow for weeks returns with a heavy frown.

“I — sorry,” he says, and it’s so despondent that it makes her heart clench. Her pulse is still thudding in her ears, the tightness of her arousal lingering and she distracts herself by stooping to pick up the items they’d knocked to the ground. “I don’t know quite what —”

She knows she’s being silly. It just feels like he’s apologising for touching her. As if stepping outside of his gloom, even for her, is unforgivable.

He kneels down to help, ever the considerate one, and emotion springs to her eyes, making her jump back to her feet as quickly as she can manage in her heels.

“I think I’ll change,” she says, and she forces some humour into her voice, “wouldn’t want some publisher walking in on — well. That.”

She knows he’s watching her retreat in confusion, but she ignores him and hurriedly swipes at her eyes as she leaves the room. He’s gone, again. Lost. There are one positive and three negative pregnancy tests stuffed at the bottom of the wastepaper basket in the bathroom and Killian Jones is five fucking universes away.

Ten seconds ago she was horny, and now she’s miserable.

Fucking hormones.

-/-

Killian is only a little sorry to see her return in the navy dress she was originally planning on wearing, but can’t quite find the words to remark on it — it’s like his usual easy access to teasing, lascivious remarks has been entirely cut off, like there’s a part of himself that he can’t quite get to. She watches him like she’s almost expecting him to comment, and perhaps she is. In that case, he disappoints them both.

Instead he fumbles with an excuse about needing to freshen up before they can leave (there’s a goddamn innuendo in there too, but it sits just out of the reach of speech) and slips into the bathroom, trying to work out what exactly happened just now — or didn’t.

They’d nearly bloody banged in Henry’s room. Something inside him had gone from nought to lusting rogue in less than ten seconds and he’s still reeling from the speed of the transformation.

He’d been waiting for her to change when it suddenly occurred to him that Henry might need a few things while he was at Neal’s; how were they to know how productively he’d packed? Then before he realised it he’d been rifling through drawers and taking inventory of his belongings. Perhaps unconsciously he’d been looking for a distraction from the morose turn of his thoughts and then she’d walked in, looking like that and sodding well knowing she did and it had spiralled out of control.

Come to think of it, he can’t remember the last time they made love. Before all this business with Henry, surely.

And she was disappointed, he knows that much.

Emma has never been difficult for him to understand. They’ve always employed a policy of complete honesty — but then, he’s not sure he can expect her to be transparent with him when he knows he’s been holding things back. Like just how much Henry’s acting out has shaken his confidence. As a guardian, as a partner, inadequacy swells from every turn. He can’t tell her he’d rather sink himself into a bottle of rum than look her in the eye and own up to his failure. She deserves better, Henry deserves better.

Maybe he’s found better. With Neal.

Killian can’t get Emma’s crestfallen expression out of his mind — he knows he’s letting her down, he just can’t work out what he’s doing. What he’s not doing. It makes him want to panic, his breathing seizing at the idea of losing her, and the only goddamn person in the world he has always turned to with problems in his relationship with Emma is a state away and not talking to him.

He just wants to talk to Henry.

Killian sits on the lid of the toilet, reaching into his jacket pocket for his cell and brings up the boy’s number. He rubs his eyes tiredly and hits dial before he can talk himself out of it.

It rings.

And it rings, and it rings.

And the longer it rings, the lower his heart sinks, and his eyes begin to sting and he doesn’t even bother trying to stop the emotion from spilling down his cheeks. He just wants Henry. His best friend. His hero, his conscience, more often than not the only thing in his life that makes a lick of sense.

Hi, this is Henry, if you leave your number and a message I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Or, I won’t. Depends if I like you or not. If this is Grace, you owe me twelve dollars.

Click.

He takes a shuddering breath.

“Please, bug. I’m sorry. Just come home.”

-/-

It’d been a strange day, to say the least.

To start Neal had called in sick to work — perhaps not that responsible, but he couldn’t exactly bring himself to care. How often did his boy take a nearly four-hour train journey to turn up at his doorstep in the middle of the night? Henry had never really asked him for much, but this he could at least do. They’d spent most of the morning on Neal’s old 360 (something the boy had ripped into him endlessly about for not upgrading to the Xbox One — Neal couldn’t quite find the words to explain the only person he’d ever played video games with was him), waiting for showings at the cinema a few blocks away to become more frequent.

Evenings in New York have always been his favourite time of day; the sky scarcely had a chance to fall dark before it was entirely lit in effervescent light, whites and blues and neon yellows carrying the city through until morning. If anything, it felt more alive the closer the rest of the world drew to sleep.

Neal had ushered Henry into one of his favourite pizza places, urging him to look past the fizzling red sign out front, some letters blanked out and others sparking dangerously while waiting to disappear entirely.

“Best pizza in New York,” he’d promised, and he’d meant it.

The diner is lit in a bleak orange, and Henry stares doubtfully down at the boxes Neal puts down before gingerly helping himself to a slice. After he takes his first bite and lets out a loud noise of satisfaction, his father takes it as victory.

“I still can’t believe you wanted to see La La Land,” Henry says around a mouthful, throwing him an amused look.

Neal shrugs. “Was it or was it not a triumph of cinema?”

“It was cheesy.”

“You liked it,” Neal teases, taking a bite of his own slice.

Henry wrinkles his nose, attempting to look nonchalant. “It was a romance.”

“What about those fairy-tales you used to love so much?” Neal points out. Henry used to spend hours pouring over that storybook of his, nothing could tear him away. “I figured you’d have a hard-on for true love.”

“You’re gross.”

“I am,” Neal grins, offering one of the boxes towards his son, “onion ring?”

“Please,” Henry reached across to take one. “I just didn’t realise you were such a romantic.”

It’s easy. It feels like the earth is about to start spinning backwards or the undead are going to start crawling out of manhole covers, but bantering with Henry is the easiest thing in the world. At somepoint while he wasn’t looking the boy had turned sixteen, near enough to adulthood to keep up with him. Neal isn’t mincing his words or trying to work out what’s appropriate to be said around a child, he’s just — himself. Some irrational part of him wishes Henry could have just been born this way. Fully grown, ready to be his pal. That sure would’ve made life easier.

“Are you kidding? I’m the most romantic guy you know.” Doubtful, but he says it anyway.

Henry takes a long slurp from his carton of coke. “How are things going with Tink, anyway?”

Neal’s heart leaps into his throat under Henry’s keen eyes. God, he can’t own up to anything. Not like this.

“They’re great — yeah, they’re pretty great.” He keeps his eyes averted, just in case Henry can spot something in them he doesn’t want to reveal. At least not yet. Christ knew there was somebody awake under Henry’s veneer.

When he looks up he sees the boy is watching him closely. “And she’s okay with you being away from home for so long?”

“It’s work, buddy,” he hastens to say, “it’s not like I’m doing it because I want to.”

How many times had he said that to Henry while he was growing up?

He’s saved from any further pursuit of that line of questioning by a loud buzz, and both their gazes are drawn to Henry’s phone as it begins to vibrate against the table top.

‘Killian calling…’

Neal’s eyes immediately flicker up to Henry’s, but once the boy observes just what is making his cell phone ring he makes a point of ignoring it, paying special attention to his slice of pizza. It continues to thrum between them for a number of seconds, Neal waiting to see just what his son will do — if anything. It leaves a sour sort of sensation in his gut when he realises it may be nothing.

“You gonna answer that?” he asks lightly.

Henry’s response is impassive. “Nope.”

Neal hesitates, just long enough for the phone to stop ringing.

‘Killian Jones: new voicemail message (1).’

“C’mon, Henry,” Neal says, trying to urge him gently into talking. “You can’t just freeze him out.” His son merely shrugs, using the food in his mouth as a reason not to speak. “What happened?”

Henry shakes his head, a frown pulling his features together as he swallows. “Can we just do something?”

“What?”

“Can we just be us?” Henry pleads, his eyes wide and imploring. Neal already feels his resolve start to weaken. “No outsider talk. Just you and me Dad, like the old days. Can we do that?”

Neal shifts uncomfortably in his seat, but far be it him to deny the sixteen-year-old anything he ever wanted. That had never exactly been his strong suit.

“I… yeah, okay.” It feels dirty even as he agrees to it. “No outsider talk. Cassidy Crew only.”

Henry grimaces. “Please, never say Cassidy Crew again.”

Some semblance of the earlier lightness returns, and Neal lets it wash over him.

“Emma Stone would let me say what I liked,” he grumbles as petulantly as he can manage.

“Emma Stone gave up on love for fame,” Henry points out. “I thought you were a romantic?”

Neal lets out a loud groan. “You literally missed the whole point of the movie.”

Just then the table begins to vibrate again, and although they both turn to Henry’s phone he’s surprised to see the screen still inky black — it’s Neal’s own cell that’s buzzing now.

‘Tink calling…’

Neal practically leaps to reject the call, hoping Henry didn’t have a chance to glimpse the screen before it turned dark again. When he looks up and sees Henry’s eyebrow arched (in an almost perfect imitation of Killian Jones that makes his chest tighten), he knows he wasn’t successful.

“Things are ‘great’, huh?” his son says dryly.

Neal scowls. “I thought we said no outsider talk?”

This Henry reluctantly concedes, and returns to his dinner.

-/-

The door to their apartment is unlocked and that already sets off warning bells in Killian’s mind.

“Emma?” he calls, frantically. “Emma?”

He pushes open all the doors, a hurricane of panic and hysteria, but he can’t calm down. Not after that phone call, not after the utter desperation in her plea.

“Emma?”

It’s then he notices something deep crimson seeping out from the door of the bathroom and his heart fills with dread. His feet are moving before his mind can catch up and he has flung open the doorway before he can even think — and she’s there.

Everything is stained scarlet, it’s all he sees.

Her eyes are like black glass.

-/-

Killian wakes already gasping for air.

Heat impresses upon him from every direction, and for a moment he thinks Emma must be huddled in close to his side, but as he slowly rouses himself and looks sideways he sees her curled up on the other side of the bed, facing away from him. The sheet is pooled down to his waist and a sheen of sweat covers his chest and abdomen, rapidly rising and falling as he tries to catch his breath. That dream again. The horror of a memory that for some reason has designs on worming its way back into his thoughts recently.

He considers reaching for Emma, circling an arm around her waist and pressing a kiss into her shoulder, begging her to let him absorb some of her light. His left hand lingers in the space between them, wanting. He doesn’t move it any closer. Instead he sits up, pushes the cover back as gently as he can and pads towards the hallway, avoiding the creaky floorboards in the process. Something between them is already fragile, he doesn’t care to touch it in case it shatters entirely.

The clock on the DVR tells him it’s only half-past midnight; he’d scarcely squeezed in a couple hours sleep before the nightmare roused him to wakefulness. He goes about his normal routine, stopping in the bathroom to splash some water on his face to cool down, then heads down the hallway to his study and grabs a few inventory forms to bring out into the sitting room. It’d be a lot easier to complete at the Rabbit Hole, but he’s gotten used to working from memory — he enjoys the distraction. Once he’s worked out just what they’re running low on he can submit an order for more to Jefferson, who’ll pass it along to their suppliers.

He snags a glass and the bottle of rum they keep in one of the upper cabinets, pouring himself a generous measure to take over to the couch with the paperwork. As an afterthought, he grabs the bottle too. He lets the cold, white light from the kitchen illuminate where he’ll be working, choosing not to switch on any of the lamps in the sitting room — he knows the glare from those reaches far under their bedroom door, and he doesn’t wish to wake Emma. Not when all he’s doing is trying to distract himself enough from seeing her face, ashen white, while he dreams.

He works in the near dark, keeping his rum intake measured but consistent, only wanting to reach that warm, contended state that would allow him to fall asleep far easier, his mind fogged and tired and out before his head hits the pillow. After an hour, he hears the click of their bedroom door and looks up as Emma steps into view, pulling the knot on her dressing gown tight and taking in the room curiously.

Her eyes find his and he tries to smile, like none of it is out of the ordinary.

“What are you doing up?”

Killian gestures towards the paperwork laid out on the coffee table. “Just, ah, going over some stuff for the Rabbit Hole.”

Her eyebrow arches. “In the dark?”

“Just thought I’d… conserve,” he offers weakly. At her disbelieving look he shrugs. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

“Ah, I see,” her knowing gaze lands on the glass and the bottle as she steps around the sofa, dropping down into one of the armchairs. “A midnight rum party. Where was my invite?”

She’s in a confrontational mood, he can spot it from a mile off; ten years with this woman has taught him that tone of voice is as much of a challenge as it is an observation.

“Just go back to bed, Emma,” he says quietly, silently begging her to leave him in peace.

He makes a show of picking up another sheet of paper and making a few needless scribbles with his pen. A dismissal, calling her bluff. She doesn’t waver.

“No. We need to talk.”

Killian doesn’t lift his eyes from the paper. “About what?”

“Henry.”

Finally, he sighs, rubbing an eye tiredly and dropping the sheet back onto the table top. He forces a bright smile, hoping it’ll be enough to sidestep her ‘superpower’, as she liked to call it.

“You said it yourself, Swan,” he shrugs, “the lad is fine.”

“But you’re not.”

He’s not.

Emma crosses her legs. A distracting action at any other time he is sure, but he can’t bring himself to really let his eyes rake over her form. Not tonight.

So he merely meets her gaze evenly. “What makes you say that?”

“You’ve been moping around here for days,” she starts, and the challenge is dropped for something altogether more — tender, almost. Concern. “Weeks, even. You don’t sleep, you barely eat. You know August went around telling people you hadn’t read the book because of how miserable you looked the other night?”

“It wasn’t that good anyway,” he bites.

Emma narrows her eyes. “You’re upset, so I’m going to let your casual insult of my friend go by.”

Killian sighs. A heavy, languid thing, and he can feel the effects of the rum urging him to shut his eyes, to not listen to her — not now. He just wants to not feel exhausted anymore. Then he can talk to her. Then he can talk to her and not see the horrified, contorted version from his nightmares.

“What is it you want, Emma?” he asks tiredly. “I’m too knackered for a fight.”

“I want you to get a grip,” she says, and although the words are harsh they’re spoken gently. “Stop beating yourself up, slinking off to drink rum in the middle of the night, this isn’t… you.” He considers lashing something about him begging to differ, but it’s the taste of alcohol lingering around his loosened tongue that prevents him — he knows better than to add fuel to her fire. “Kids can be hard, okay? They can be ungrateful and they bite back, but you can’t let it totally knock you out like this.”

Her words are like ash, noiselessly blowing over him. They mean nothing.

“Kids are ungrateful, yes,” he says, and he knows it sounds petulant before he’s even finishes his sentence, “Henry isn’t.”

“That’s because Henry isn’t a boy, he’s an angel in human form,” she clicks her tongue, “the last few weeks notwithstanding.” It lingers in the air for a few moments, so Killian boldly reaches forward to screw off the cap of the bottle with one hand, letting it drop to the table as he splashes rum into his glass. Emma watches the movement closely. “You had a fight,” she continues, “so what? Just… let him be a teenager without taking it so hard, please.”

He takes a long gulp because he doesn’t know how he can explain it to her. He doesn’t know how he can make her understand the creature that’s taken up residence inside him, this unwavering tide of inadequacy that claws at his heart for every moment Henry isn’t there. He doesn’t know how to make her see that he isn’t enough, he can’t be enough; there aren’t sufficient nuances of language to explain how not enough he is for every single second the boy is in New York. With his real father. Making his own choices.

He can’t tell her he knows he isn’t enough for her, either. She’s too good, too kind, she’d dispute him if he dared give the errant thought voice, and that would only hurt more. It’s only a matter of time before she reaches the same conclusion, that she can have what she needs outside of him, until she leaves and takes the final piece of his heart with her.

Fear suffocates him. Every minute, every second. Every breath. He isn’t taking it hard, as she so plainly put it, he’s shattering, and it doesn’t stop, won’t stop, not until he’s little more than sand against the earth below.

He drains the glass because he doesn’t know how to make her see.

“I have given that boy everything,” he says, and he knows his voice cracks as he sets the glass back down. His heart, his life. “Since before he could even open his bloody eyes, I was there, I have been there for him through every sodding thing.”

“What, and I haven’t?”

He’ll later blame the rum, but the truth is he was wound so tight there was no other way for the coil to spring. It's a misdirection of anger, of his frustration, but she's the only target the darkness can find.

“Not for all of it,” he snaps, “no.”

Emma blinks, taken aback, and for the hurt that flickers across her jade eyes he regrets it immediately after he says it. If he could snatch the words back from where he’d so carelessly spit them, he would, but he can’t; so he waits with bated breath for her response, studiously keeping his gaze locked on the table.

“So these last ten years…” She can barely get the sentence out past her astonishment. “Mean nothing?”

Killian winces. “I didn’t say that.”

“My role in Henry’s life is worth less than yours, is that it?” She’s angry now, but then that had always been her instinct — to take what hurts her and make it her strength. He just wishes she wouldn’t turn it on him, not when all he wants is to shut his eyes and not think about anything.

“Stop twisting my words,” he protests.

Emma scoffs, folding her arms and dropping back in the chair. “You’re worse than Neal.”

Killian’s gaze snaps back to hers, trying to discern if she means it. Because he is worse than Neal, he’s already trying to reconcile himself with being an inferior alternative to that man, but he doesn’t want to be told it. Not by her, not when she’s saying it to hurt him. One look at her steely green eyes and he knows she meant it to sting. They know each other so well; they know exactly how to make each other bleed.

Whatever tenuous control he had over himself ruptures.

“You know what?” he starts. “You’re so relaxed about the whole business, him being in New York, so maybe he does mean less to you than I.”

He doesn’t wait for her response this time, springing angrily to his feet and snatching the bottle and the glass before stalking in the direction of the kitchen. Emma is hot on his heels and he knows he has to start bracing himself for a fight; she’d never take a remark like that lying down.

“How dare you?” she growls from his shoulder, refusing to let him escape as he enters the room. “I’m not falling apart because unlike you, I know what it’s like to be that kid!” Killian storms over to the sink, slamming the glass inside and begins methodically putting away their washed dishes from a few hours earlier, anything to keep his hands busy so he doesn’t have to look at her. “To feel lost and helpless and like you need to fight your way out! That even when you’re surrounded by people taking care of you, it’s easier to act out, to take and take not give a shit who you hurt.”

Killian sets his jaw, he knows this. He knows about the way she was brought up, but he can’t find her experiences and Henry’s comparable in any way, not when Henry always had people who loved him.

“Kids need to make mistakes, Killian! It’s how they find out what matters to them — it’s the only way they learn!”

“If that’s the way you feel then I’m glad we never had kids of our own.”

Apparently, he can’t hold anything back tonight.

Don’t make me go through this again.

She’s silent for a number of seconds so he turns, folding his arms and resting on the kitchen counter, his entire posture closed and tense. Emma stands with wide eyes a few feet away, one hand probably unconsciously fiddling with the knot on her dressing gown.

“Is… what?” she gets out, expression scrunching in confusion. From her cheeks all the way down to her breastbone, an angry flush lingers on the surface of her skin, and apparently his one-eighty has thrown whatever furious diatribe she was about to lay on him completely off course. She blinks in disbelief. “Are you seriously bringing that up now?”

Everything is stained scarlet, it’s all he sees.

Her eyes are like black glass.

“Let’s say it’s been on my mind.”

Emma still appears entirely nonplussed by the turn of conversation. “Did you even want kids?”

“Of course I wanted kids!” Killian bursts, and he’s angry now although he doesn’t really know at whom. He’s frustrated and he’s tired and he’s fed up of being the only loser in this situation. “I just added it to the long list of things I was giving up because I wanted to be with you!”

Emma gapes. “Long — like what?”

“I wanted to marry you,” he fires off instantly, throwing an arm out widely, “and I gave up on that.”

“How is that my fault?” Emma retorts indignantly. “You never asked!”

“Well I knew how you felt about the whole concept after Neal, so I had an inkling about how you might respond.”

Somewhere in his foggy, irate mind, he knows he’s treading dangerously close to a line he’s never touched before, an imperceptible divide between what is right and what is easy. Giving voice to these desires, these hidden, desperate things, is never something he planned on doing — Emma always meant more to him than all of them. And he’s never blamed her, not for a millisecond, but the idea that if he’d just asked he could’ve had everything is a little too much for him right now. Not while the world is off balance, not when nothing feels right and he keeps saying things he doesn’t mean.

He’s just hurt. And he wants to not feel this way.

“You seem to know a lot about what I’d say for someone who’s never consulted me,” Emma says, her voice low and dangerous. “And as for kids? I did not tell you to put something like that off the table, don’t you dare pin that on me!”

“You did, Emma!”

Don’t make me go through this again.

The acrid air. A fervent plea.

“The day you…” Killian’s heart stutters to a stop. He can’t even bring himself to say it. The words crumble like dust in his mouth before they can fully form. His breathing comes shallower and he knows he’s broken their unspoken pact; to never mention it, to never confront it, but he’s thrown it out there ugly and sad and there’s nothing he can do to take it back. “You said… you asked me not to put you through it again.” His voice is weaker now, the fight entirely draining from him and leaving him feeling boneless and frail. “So I…” His voice cracks. “Didn’t.”

He knows the moment understanding dawns, knows when he sees her jade eyes flash, watches as the colour fades from her cheeks and she swallows.

Killian had lived his life by her whispered plea, only wanting her happiness above all else. He’d thought that was how she would be happy.

Had he been wrong?

Emma turns from him, blonde hair falling around her face as she touches the counter for support. Her expression is now shielded from him, and he thinks his chest is going to implode for the length of her pause. His heart hammers so loudly in his chest that he feels she must be able to hear it.

He licks his lips, nerves reaching their breaking point. “Emma?”

Without a word, she whirls around and walks out.

It takes him a split second to follow, finding her in the hallway rummaging through the coats hanging by the door, and only emerging when he hears the metallic jingle of her keys.

“Emma —”

She holds up a hand to stop him from making a move towards her. “I... I can’t even look at you right now.”

She shrugs on her coat and zips on her boots, and with the hem of her dressing gown the only fabric between them she looks ridiculous, even given the circumstances.

“Where are you going?” It was nearly two in the morning in the middle of January.

“Don’t you dare call me.”

The door opens quietly, and is shut again before he can muster up a response.

The silence rings around the apartment. The inventory forms are still strewn across the coffee table, a circle of condensation visible from where the bottle had been resting, a coaster momentarily discarded in his distraction. Like a train that couldn’t break in time before the tracks gave way, he feels suspended in the air, almost as if when his mind catches up he’ll crash into the ground.

It doesn’t take a genius to work out he handled that badly.

For a long time he just stands there, waiting. Seeing if she’ll come back. He scrubs a hand across his jaw, his mind almost completely numb in the aftermath.

Then he sits. The clock on the DVR reads 2:15am.

He doesn’t move until the sky turns pale pink with the early morning light.

-/-

At around 2:15am, as the sound of traffic from the outside filters in and a single slither of artificial light escapes through a crack in his blinds, Henry finally gives in and reaches for his cell. Before he can think better of it he dials up his voicemail.

“Please, bug. I’m sorry. Just come home.”

Unable to sleep in an unfamiliar bed, with everything he knew over two-hundred miles away?

Fuck, he wants nothing more.