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thisonesatellite · 4 years ago

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The Sword and The Heart (9/10)

SUMMARY: It started because love was a weapon.

Wait–this is how it started: Emma opened her mouth to scream, and the world went dark.

There was danger and Darkness, and words spoken into the void as she surrendered herself.

It started because Emma did not want to see anyone else she loved die. (He’d promised her he wouldn’t.)

Love was a weapon, and it was always used against her, to separate her from the people she loved. (From the person she loved.)

That’s how it started.

But how does it all end?

(Season 5 Canon Divergence - for @cssns )

| CH1 | CH2 | CH3 | CH4 | CH5 | CH6 | CH7 | CH8 | AO3 |

A/N: Look at this. LOOK AT THIS. We are nearly done!

Now this chapter is all @ohmightydevviepuu‘s brilliance. i’ve had my moments during the writing of this, but guys -- this? Was all her brilliant input. She took this and made it incredible.

Everything else i could possibly say about this would amount to a spoiler, so let me dispense with the note and thank the people.

To @profdanglaisstuff and @katie-dub for the unflagging support, always.

To @mariakov81 FOR THE AMAZING ARTWORK. Guys. GIVE HER ALL THE LOVE, PLEASE.

And to ALL OF YOU wonderful, amazing people reading this story. You are awesome. And also - you nearly made it. 💕💕💕

If you want on or off the tag list, let me know! (And seriously - if it’s ‘off’ - please don’t worry. Absolutely no hard feelings.)

@mariakov81 @stahlop @thejollyroger-writer @snowbellewells @captainsjedi @toomanyfandomstochoosefrom @xarandomdreamx @tiganasummertree @mayquita @ohmightydevviepuu @sals86 @karenfrommisthaven @kmomof4 @kday426 @superchocovian @jennjenn615 @facesiousbutton82 @suwya @spartanguard @capnjay21 @shardminds @carpedzem @girl-in-a-tiny-box @ilovemesomekillianjones @lfh1226-linda @artistic-writer @teamhook @katie-dub @shireness-says @qualitycoffeethings @cluttermind @fragilebeautifulchaos @optomisticgirl @klynn-stormz @winterbaby89 @ethereal-madnesss @scientificapricot

CHAPTER 9 - Touch Me I’m Going to Scream (Part 2)

He felt her even before he woke up, felt her fingers in his hair and on his cheek.

Felt her trembling.

Felt her sobs.

He felt her and it was like he was whole again--home again. It was both a balm and a wound as he felt her chest rise and fall with her breathing, as he felt the racing of her heart, as he listened to her cry, releasing all of the emotions that had been missing from her--from them --in the Darkness.

Killian Jones opened his eyes and saw her and said her name.

“Emma.”

She inhaled, choking on a sob. Her eyes were wide and bloodshot, the skin puffy. The rest of her was pale and the blackness of her eyelashes stood out against the white of her cheeks.

(And yet his Swan was still beautiful, still the most stunning thing he had ever seen in all of the realms.)

He sat up slowly, holding his head. He winced and so did she, waving a hand across his face as she muttered, “Sorry.”

Which could encompass a whole myriad of things, but his headache vanished.

It was a start, at least.

Killian’s grimace turned into a smile and he took her hand.

She flinched and sputtered, her eyes flashing, darting; he followed her movements until their eyes met. “Please, love. Close your eyes.”

And she did.

“Breathe out slowly,” he whispered, letting the warmth of her hand seep into him. “Don’t breathe in until I tell you to.” Breathe with me , he usually said, but--

The first time he had done this for her had been in Neverland. A lifetime ago.

Literally.

She’d been sitting by the fire, staring into the flames as her parents spoke to each other in low voices. He’d seen it, seen the moment where all of it became too much. He was the only one who did, and he was the only one who followed her, who saw her go down hard when her foot caught on a vine. His was the hand that reached for hers to offer comfort, to grasp her wrist gently and ask her to close her eyes--to concentrate on his voice--to breathe with him.

“Okay, Swan, breathe in,” Killian said, but here, now, the air was cold and raw instead of hot and damp. The only warmth inside him came from her.

Her eyes were open and she watched him as if she could see the memory playing inside his skull.

Maybe she could.

“Everything will be all right,” he said, and for an instant, feeling her hand in his as she inhaled and exhaled, breathing as though she could do it for both of them, he believed . Killian wasn’t sure which of them moved first but there was the brush of her lips against his, soft and gentle, and the warmth inside of him grew hotter, sparking everywhere they touched from the magic.

She kissed him and it was bitter when it should be sweet.

Love was a weapon.

The warmth vanished.

“That’s better,” he said. He squeezed her fingers and she opened her eyes. “I told you to let me go.”

“I know,” she said. She sobbed a laugh. “I never listen.” Her entire body was shaking when she reached for him, cupping his cheeks in her hands, their foreheads together, her breath warm against his nose. “I never listen. Killian, I’m so sorry.”

He nodded but did not pull away and she kissed him again. “I’m so sorry.”

“I know,” he said, because he did. “I know, love. I’m sorry too.”

Killian could feel it: the rage. The hate, the anger, the determination. All of it, everything the Darkness had resurfaced bubbling up inside of him. Everything he wanted to leave behind.

Love was a weapon. They had twisted it, used it against each other; for all that it was True, look where they had ended up.

Love was a weapon as persuasive and dangerous as magic.

“I’m sorry I broke my promise,” Killian said.

“No, you’re not,” she said.

“No, I’m not,” he agreed, and she chuckled. It was drier this time. She was breathing without rasping. She was breathing.

“I love you,” she said. “I love you.”

He felt the tears streaming down his face as she said it, as he reached for her, his hand on the back of her neck and he felt the chain there. Killian remembered giving it to her as if it was a dream, something feverish and hazy from Before. Her hand came over his as he followed the chain, his hand clasping the ring and her hand wrapped around his.

I am here. With you. Always.

The magic sparked again. His forehead flushed with warmth from where it was pressed against Emma’s.

“I love you,” he said. “I still love you. Here, and now, and always.”

Emma didn’t know what to do when there was nothing to do . She was a creature of action, of forward motion, and this--this sitting in a cemetery in the goddamn Underworld with the breath of life and the heartbeat which were apparently power and currency enough to draw every last wayward demon out of the woodwork to harvest both, oh--

But then there was nothing but the feeling of his lips on hers.

The feeling . Of Killian.

With her.

When he took her hand and he was here and he was whole and she saw herself reflected in his eyes and remembered how, even then, from the first, in Neverland, he’d been there for her and she’d doubted him and used him and hurt him over and over and--

That’s what Merlin had meant.

That was her legacy.

But in this moment, here and now, there was Killian against her, I love you still hanging in the air between them like it had been Before, only she’s said it--she’s said it--and she meant it and she felt it, right down to the bottom of her beating heart. Home and warmth and--

Emma pulled away. This wasn’t her happy ending. This wasn’t an ending . This was a step on the path forward.

Action.

With a sigh she reached into her waistband. “I have something of yours,” she said, pulling out the metal hook. “I--” kept it , she didn’t say; used it to keep part of you with me , she didn’t say. She didn’t have to. “Hades, he--”

“He took it,” Killian said. His arms came around her, solid and real and steady, and they stayed like that. She didn’t know how long.

It didn’t matter, not in this world without time.

But eventually the feeling of absolute urgency resurfaced.

Hurry up.

Hurry up .

And Killian sensed it, too, because he pulled back and said, quietly, “Where is Liam?” When the hook clicked back into place it echoed like a gunshot in the stillness. He stood up and offered her his hand. She took it, pulling herself to her feet.

Emma shook her head. “I think Hades sent him back to his cottage, you know, poofed him there to get him out of the way. That’s what he said.”

“Forgive me if I’m not feeling charitably inclined toward the god of the Underworld, love,” Killian said. He looked around. “Liam’s not here, and he may be hurt.”

“There was no splash,” Emma said, and then, quickly, when Killian’s hand started to shake, added, “I mean, I don’t think it works like that. I don’t think he can hurt Liam.”

Killian’s brow furrowed, but he was listening.

“Your brother died and came here. The regular way, not like you or me,” she said. Only, technically, Killian was dead. His eyebrow went up and it was almost-- almost --like it used to be, just for a second. A corner of her mouth turned up and she took in a deep breath. “He took the ferry. He didn’t sneak in or get snatched or whatever. I don’t think Hades has the power to harm anyone who belongs down here. I don’t think he gets to decide who goes where.”

“No,” Killian said. He drew out the word as if it was much longer than two letters. “I don’t suppose he does.”

“Is that why he wanted your magic so badly?”

“ Our magic, yeah.” Emma nodded.

It was still strange, to think of Killian with magic. To think it and not to see in her head the image of him wielding it with rage and glee and aggression, to see him wielding it against her.

Forward.

“But also--I know it sounds crazy--but I think you’d know if Liam was being tortured somewhere. You’d feel it. Do you feel anything like that?”

Killian was silent for a long time and then he shook his head. “No. I don’t. And I think you’re right, Swan. I would feel it.”

“Good,” Emma said. She squeezed his fingers. Only--

She needed to know. She knew , because she’d found him, but she needed to know .

“Where were you? When you got here?”

He looked away when he said, so quietly she almost couldn’t hear him, “The Elysian Plain.”

Emma could hear Henry’s voice in her head, his certainty as he explained, Elysium. It’s the final resting place of the virtuous in the Underworld. Her kid with The Heart of the Truest Believer and he’d been right, again.

“Henry was right,” Emma said. “He was so sure that’s where you went.”

Killian blinked, and then smiled, turning back to face her. “Was he, now.”

“He never stopped believing in you,” Emma said.

“He never stopped believing in you, either,” Killian said.

Emma sniffed. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“I know.”

“I did this to you. To us .”

“We both made our choices, Emma.”

“Yeah,” she said.

Silence, heavy and awkward.

“How long was I gone?”

“A couple of weeks,” Emma said, then: “I think. I’m not sure. I was a little bit--”

He gave her fingers a squeeze.

“Was it--?” Emma wasn’t sure what to ask, or if she wanted to know, but she couldn’t stop herself. “What was it like? Before Hades--”

“I don’t think I was there very long,” Killian said. “It was quiet there, I think. I felt--complete. As if I belonged.”

“Oh,” Emma said.

He took her hand, the hand he still held, and brought it up to his lips. “I felt the way I do when I’m with you, love.”

Warmth danced on her fingers and Emma stood on her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him on his cheek. “Because you belong with me,” she said. “And we belong back in Storybrooke. With our family. So let’s go see the witches first, okay? If anyone can help us, they can.”

Forward motion.

Another step on the path.

“Attack!”

Cerberus bounded at them, wagging his entire hind quarters. His front paws were on Emma’s shoulders as he put two of his heads to excellent use by licking both Killian’s and Emma’s cheeks.

Emma nearly buckled under the weight.

“I said attack!” Cruella’s voice was screeching from behind the counter before a second voice started to laugh out loud.

“Down!” Emma said to the dog as, to everyone’s surprise--including her own--the hellhound perked up his heads and dropped his paws back to the floor.

Killian whistled. Cerberus responded by butting one of his heads into Killian’s hand so hard he stumbled backward, and Emma grinned. “You’d better start the ear-scratching now, or you’ll find yourself buried under a ton of hellhound muscle, and really, there are more comfortable places to be pinned.”

Killian laughed out loud and it was the first time she had heard him laugh since--

It had been a while.

For a moment it was as if none of it had happened, as if they were back in a time Before--before Darkness and sacrifice and swords, with just two of them. He threw her an absolutely filthy look and started to pet Cerberus as if he hadn’t just reminded Emma of all they had lost.

She had lost.

Squandered. Blown up.

Stabbed .

But there was no time to dwell on it, not even in a world with no time.

She was fixing it. They were fixing it.

There was action to be taken.

(Another step on the path.)

“What is it that you want now?” There was nothing but annoyance in Cruella’s voice as she arched a perfectly-plucked eyebrow in concert with her perfect red lips, a dance of disdain.

Emma jerked her head toward Killian. “What do you think?”

The Blind Witch’s eyes narrowed as she stepped out from behind the counter. “A way home. For you and the owner of that manly voice you brought in with you.” She shivered. “You need our help .”

“We simply require assistance from those more knowledgeable than we are,” Killian said. “I understand that you have very thorough knowledge of this realm and its tricks.” The Blind Witch walked right up to him and snapped her fingers. Cerberus retreated instantly through the kitchen door.

Emma snickered as Cruella rolled her eyes.

“Don’t be mad, kitten,” the Witch whispered. “I have fresh children in the oven and he loves the smell of those.” She winked at Emma. “Gingerbread, I mean. He loves gingerbread.” Her unseeing eyes went back to Killian as she ran her hand down his front, touching places Emma found it absolutely unacceptable for her to touch and Killian was definitely not comfortable being touched, judging by the large step he took backward.

But the Witch was unperturbed. “Don’t flatter yourself, Captain,” she said. “You’re not my type.” Her face went slack with complete concentration and she stood motionless, her hand still on Killian’s chest until finally she licked her lips and nodded.

“I think he might have enough juice left in his engine,” she said, walking back to Cruella. “What do you think, kitten? Shall we have a little fun, help them get out of here?”

“I’d rather put that one--” she pointed at Emma “--in unbreakable irons and suck the life out of her. Literally . Preferably in a long, drawn-out process. Years if I can make it.” She smiled, leaning into the Blind Witch’s ear. “Decades, if possible.”

The Blind Witch shivered again. “Tempting,” she agreed. “It does sound marvelous. But think about it--think about what it means if they leave .”

“No torture for me?”

“Think bigger .” The Blind Witch cackled. “Think of a different target.”

“We could just grab a smidgen of that one’s breath and heartbeat,” Cruella said slowly, dragging every vowel across hot coals. “And then maybe--are you thinking--the Big Guy himself?”

The Blind Witch twirled one of the many frayed ends of her choker and said, “Yes, kitten. I think we can kick him right out of his custom-made knickers. Send him Below. Way Below.”

Emma shuddered but refused to let herself think about where Killian might have ended up. As if he was answering her, he stepped closer, wrapping his arm around her waist.

Killian was here.

And they were going to get home.

Emma put her hand on his chest as they watched, waiting for the women to work out their fate.

The absence of his breath tickling her ear was painful and Emma made herself a promise: when they got home-- when they got home--she was going to spend days just lying across his chest, listening to his heartbeat, letting his breath tickle her neck.

“Staging a revolution does have a certain ring to it. You should see me in a crown,” Cruella mused, then heaved a long-suffering sigh. “Fine.”

The Blind Witch traced a finger across Cruella’s cheekbone and grinned.

“But all magic comes with a price. And you ’ll be the one to pay it. Savior.” Cruella spat the last word, her finger pointed at Emma’s heart. She spun on her heel and walked back to the counter.

“Hand me a jar, pet,” the Blind Witch whispered. She reached a hand behind her and did not turn to look, her eyes never leaving Emma and Killian. She unscrewed the cap and handed it to Emma. “Be a dear and breathe into this?”

Emma blew into the jar and the Witch snatched it back and capped it.

“My down payment.”

“We’re going to need to make a stop first,” Emma said, feeling Killian’s arm tighten around her waist. “Where do you want to meet?”

“Here,” Cruella said. Her smile was vicious. “Hurry back, darlings.”

They were partway down the cottage walkway when Killian saw his brother. The door opened and Liam stepped out, blinking, squinting into the red light as if he had been waiting for them and even still could not believe his eyes. “Brother?”

“Liam!”

Killian dropped Emma’s hand and began sprinting.

Liam met him halfway.

They collided hard, nearly knocking each other off their feet, holding each other up by the force of the crushing bear hug. Killian was crying and laughing as, for the first time in two centuries, he felt the comforting weight of his brother’s arms around him.

Finally Killian stepped back, scratching behind his right ear, and said, “Emma, love, come meet my brother.”

And both Emma and Liam laughed out loud.

“We’ve met,” Liam said drily. “She hit me.”

“You deserved it,” Emma grumbled good-naturedly.

Watching his brother and Emma laugh Killian felt a lightness he had not in a long time. “I’m sure he did,” Killian agreed. “He usually does.” Then he leaned conspiratorially toward Liam and whispered, “She held a knife to my neck.”

“You deserved that!” Emma said.

“She tied me to a tree,” Killian added. “Left me to be eaten by an ogre.”

“Did you really?” Liam looked at Emma.

“No, I cut him down,” Emma said. “He was fine. Obviously.”

The laughter cut off abruptly and Emma cursed. “Shit,” she muttered.

Because nothing was fine.

They were in the Underworld. She had killed him.

He had asked her to.

“Hey,” Killian said. He pulled her hand into his and threaded their fingers together, rubbing her wrist with his thumb. “Hey.” She curled into his side and he moved his hand to her waist, kissing her against her temple. Her hand went to his chest, to his cheek. Where she touched him, he felt warmth.

Killian wasn’t sure who was comforting whom.

Liam cleared his throat and put a hand on Killian’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. We worked it out. Didn’t we, Emma?”

She straightened herself and said, “We did.”

“Come inside and have some tea, little brother,” Liam said. “Tell me everything.”

“Younger brother.” It was automatic, and Killian felt his smile resurface. “And I’ve got about two hundred years on you now, mate.”

Liam’s eyes widened before he settled his face back into his habitual smirk.

“You’re still my little brother, Killian. Now get in the house.”

They sat in Liam’s kitchen and had tea. Tea .

It felt so normal, listening to Liam and Killian talk. It felt too normal, too finite, and it was taking too much time.

Hurry up.

Hurry up .

“--and then Emma started to yell at me.”

Emma’s attention snapped back to the conversation at the mention of her name, and saw both men look at her, with nearly identical wry grins.

“Aye,” Killian said. “Though I quite fancy her, I do prefer it when she’s not yelling, even though a good Swan rant can be exhilarating.”

Liam laughed again, and it was too normal .

They should be using this time to say good-bye, not tell tales.

And yet--

“You think it’s so charming, don’t you,” Emma said.

“No, love, I leave charming to other men, as you well know,” Killian said. “But be honest, in Neverland--”

“Neverland?” Liam coughed. “Neverland, Killian? What could have possessed you to go back to that place after--?”

Emma saw it on his face, knew that Killian would never be able to explain to his brother the things that had happened, that he’d seen. That he’d done . Knew he wouldn’t want to, even if they had time.

Which they didn’t.

“Killian took me there to save my son Henry,” Emma said quietly. “His--his stepson.”

“My--” Killian was very still. Very still. “Swan?”

“Killian’s stepson?” Liam looked--he looked so proud . Emma could give him this. Could give them this.

“He helped me save Henry from Pan. He died to protect Henry, and Henry loves him. Killian takes him sailing and tells him stories about the great Captain Liam Jones.” She smiled. “You’re an uncle, Liam. Congratulations.”

Killian’s hand around hers was so tight Emma almost couldn’t feel her fingertips.

Liam’s face was serious when he said, “I can see you’ve chosen well, brother.”

“No,” Emma said, cutting Killian off before he could speak. It stabbed through Emma’s gut like a sharp blade, like Excalibur itself, the idea that she was the prize. When she was the reason they were down here, when this was her mess they were cleaning up. “I’m the lucky one. You need to know that.” Her voice was gravel and dust.

Liam watched her, watched both of them. “I can see why you like her,” he said, and Emma was thrown back into the tunnel as the fury rose up in her again that Liam would use that word.

He doesn’t like me. He loves me. He loves me more than I deserve.

And you?

More than I can stand, sometimes. With everything I have, little as it is.

This time, Killian cut her off. “I don’t like her,” he said. He was quiet and resolute, absolutely certain. “I love her.” He turned to Emma and leaned his head toward hers until their foreheads touched, until their noses touched, until his lips brushed hers. “I love her more than I have ever loved anything or anyone.”

He kissed her and Emma wanted to weep as the warmth rushed through her because this, this , was the first time he kissed her and it felt like Before .

When they finally pulled apart Emma felt her soul aching. They had to get back.

They had to get back .

Back to a place where Killian’s heart was beating and his breath whispered across her skin and his lips weren’t cold.

They had to.

Now.

Watching them, watching the way they were together, Liam was unsurprised when Killian suddenly stood up and said, “We have to leave, Liam,” as if there had been an entire conversation happening and only this last part was said out loud.

Liam could almost believe he saw sparks of energy dance between them when they touched.

He nodded and got up, following his brother’s movements. His younger brother, now two hundred years older than he was. “I’m coming with you,” he said.

Emma stiffened. “I don’t think you--”

“You can’t go where we’re going, brother,” Killian said. “You know that.”

“I do know that.” Liam rolled his eyes and reached for his jacket. “But I do plan to go as far as this realm will let me. I plan to spend every possible moment with my family before I face another eternity alone.”

“A hero’s journey,” Killian said.

“You’re the hero, brother,” Liam said. He opened the front door and stepped out on the porch and ignored, for a minute, the two people behind him, wrapped around each other and wiping tears from their eyes.

He couldn’t ignore the easy way Emma held Killian’s hook in her hand, or the many questions he had about it. That part of his brother’s story was not one they shared.

So Liam simply walked alongside them, his arm wrapped around his brother’s shoulder, his brother’s wrapped around his. They walked together, Emma and Killian in unison, the lines of their bodies constantly angled toward each other, their movements in perfect rhythm.

They had probably breathed in sync, back when Killian had breathed.

They deserved to breathe together again.

The bell over the door rang and Cruella snarled, “Finally.”

Liam could feel a buzzing in his veins; there was magic here, powerful magic lying in wait. For Emma. For Killian.

Liam turned to Cruella to see her staring at him, a mixture of undisguised lust and abject loathing in her eyes. “Why did you bring the tree trunk?” Her voice dripped disdain.

“I’m here to make sure you get them where they need to go,” Liam said. “I don’t trust either one of you.”

“Oh ye of little faith.” The Blind Witch sighed and Cruella looked at her in surprise. “Oh, darling, we get lots of people with cute sayings down here. Totally lost and flabbergasted, the lot of them.” She leaned forward and whispered, “There’s a group called Catholics . They’re the most fun. They have the best bon mots. I rather enjoy those.”

Everyone stared at her, including Cruella.

“The bon mots,” the Witch clarified. “And the people. Right.” She shrugged. “Let’s get down to business, shall we? Put your lips against this.”

Emma took from her hands a metal-plated hose. It had a mouthpiece.

Liam felt a sense of foreboding; looking at Killian he saw his concern mirrored in his brother’s eyes. Emma smiled, soft and encouraging.

“This is going to hurt a bit,” the Blind Witch said. She snapped her fingers and Emma instantly doubled over and tried to pull the mouthpiece from her lips but couldn’t--

couldn’t move at all, just gave a mumbled cry of pain--

And Killian looked at Liam and together they stepped forward.

Toward Cruella.

Cruella, whose eyes were riveted on Emma, nearly salivating at her pain.

Together they pinned Cruella between them, Liam putting her into a headlock as Killian twisted her right arm up her back until Cruella screamed.

Everything went quiet and the mouthpiece detached from Emma’s lips with an audible plop .

“Are we done playing games now?” Killian asked. “Or shall we break every bone in this one’s body?” His entire focus was on the Blind Witch and there was pure murder in his eyes and Liam only just kept himself from flinching. “Because by the time I’m done with her--” I now, not we, Liam noted, as something seemed to come over his brother “--you’ll need a wheelbarrow to carry her around. Forever .”

Red sparks glittered around Killian’s fingertips and the Blind Witch gasped and Cruella groaned and the spell was broken. Emma stood up, reaching for Killian, and he ran his hand across her face, checking for damage, his eyes wide and worried.

But he would not meet Liam’s gaze; nor, after his brief examination, would he meet Emma’s.

“I’m fine,” Emma whispered, pulling Killian’s face down toward her and forcing him to look at her. “I’m fine. We’re done. Let her go.”

This was directed at Liam and he complied instantly, shoving Cruella back toward the wall.

“Then let’s get going,” Killian croaked. “You got what you paid for.”

Cruella was panting and rolling her shoulders and there was a something about the Witch’s face when she said, “Fine.” She walked over to Cruella, whispering, “She pays the price, kitten, don’t forget, she promised .”

It didn’t sound fine to Liam. Killian’s eyes narrowed, his mouth opened, but--

When the smoke cleared Killian could hear the water, its gentle lapping as calm and soothing as a lullabye as it echoed around the cave. It was an enormous space, easily ten times the size of Arthur’s library and twice as high. Pillars of rough-hewn rock ran from the ceiling to the floor in every direction, surrounding them and Cruella’s laugh hummed discordantly against the sound of the gurgling stream.

The Witch’s eyes were shiny and bright as she licked her lips in anticipation.

Liam looked dazed as he tried to take it all in and Killian could do nothing but hold on to Emma, her breath, her warmth, her heartbeat all forming anchors for his sanity.

His rage in the diner--the memory of the power rushing up inside him--

He belonged here.

She didn’t.

But Emma made no move to free herself from him. Instead she kissed his cheek and put a warm hand on his, rubbed soft circles into his skin with her thumb as she settled against his side. She smiled. It was a hopeful smile and the light of it almost-- almost --brightened the cave and the darkness settling over Killian’s mood.

“Where are we?” Emma’s voice was not quite steady and he wondered if she was really fine, or if that infernal device back at the diner had truly hurt her. He wondered what it had done , really, that the Witch and Cruella were so willing and eager to help them.

Surely the price of their release was greater than a single living breath--but it was a beath imbued with Light magic. Light magic and True Love and a beating heart.

Killian tried to settle himself. He closed his eyes and listened to the bubble of the river.

It felt-- familiar.

The Blind Witch hissed.

“Well,” Cruella drawled, affecting boredom. “This is the way home, Savior. Your little True Love story with its happy ending. You drank the Waters of Lethe and you get home on the Mnemosyne.”

Killian’s eyes opened. But the gleam in Cruella’s eyes--the cadence of her voice--it was hypnotic.

Hypnotic .

This wasn’t the Mnemosyne.

This was the Cave of Hypnos.

This was the River Lethe.

This was where Hades had dragged him, brought him back to himself only to torment him, to use him for his own ends.

This was the water Emma had drunk to make herself forget.

Liam was staring at him, his eyebrows high on his forehead; slowly, Killian shook his head.

“Are you all right?”

It was Emma’s voice, soft and worried.

She didn’t know .

“Emma--” Killian’s mind was racing. “How did you get down here and find me?”

“Now?” Emma looked surprised.

“Indulge me, love,” he said, whispering. “Tell me the tale.”

“Regina and I--we created a spell.” Power. “And my mother, we used her hair. And my father’s blood.” Courage . “Henry’s tears.” Heart.

That left only one thing.

“Are you ready for this?” Emma asked.

Soul . His soul.

That was the price.

He was going to pay it.

There was no choice to make.

He nodded, mutely, and she kissed him. Her lips were so warm .

Then she turned back to the Blind Witch, her shoulders pulled back and her spine straight. Her arm wrapped tightly around his waist and stayed there.

The Blind Witch opened her hand.

Near the edge of the cave a small arc of water appeared, lifted from the river below, and split in two as they bent across stone to flow into her palm. Next to Killian, Emma was a statue, every part of her strung tightly like a bowstring.

She started to glow.

A sliver of white light burst from her chest and enveloped the streams and pooled in the Blind Witch’s hand, and then--

Pain .

The streams raced toward Killian, both of them, hitting his chest.

Emma screamed.

Liam jumped, running to Emma, pulling her away from him as something tore at Killian’s insides--not his organs, not his body, something deeper, more vital--and it hurt.

It hurt .

He knew only agony as the magic took him apart, his essence torn asunder.

He couldn’t scream as he fought to stay conscious, saw Emma try to rein in the light, break the chain--she hurled herself at Cruella who screamed in delight and glee and shrieked, “His soul! The price is his soul .”

Killian’s knees buckled, connected with rock; there was the pull of his brother’s arms under his shoulders and Emma’s face hovering in front of his.

He was going to pay the price. There was no choice to make.

He looked at Liam. His brother, his captain, his friend and his ruin.

He looked at Emma. His True Love, his other half, his warrior orphan, his Savior, and there was no choice to make.

“Emma,” he whispered. “Emma, go home. I trust you. I trust you to do what you think is right.”

I love you. Always.

Killian looked at the Blind Witch and nodded.

The Blind Witch nodded back.

And then he felt his mind splinter as his soul was ripped from his body.

Emma pulls Killian from the waters of the lake, back onto the shore where he’d fallen.

Liam is gone; there is no one to help her.

But she pulls . He is heavy, unmoving--she leans over his chest and sobs .

And then she feels it.

A heartbeat under her cheek.

Emma hears a breath drawn and exhaled and another and the longer they lie there, on top of each other, the more he starts to warm up. He moves , muscle flexing and twitching, and she sits up, laughing and crying at the same time.

He opens his eyes.

He opens his eyes and he looks at her without a shred of recognition.

His eyes--his beautiful crystalline blue eyes--are blank .

#cs fic #cs fic rec #cssns20 #ohmightydevviepuu #thisonesatellite #the sword and the heart #amazing art by #mariakov81 #oh look #we're almost there #ENDGAME BABY

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csseptembersunshine · 5 years ago

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Final Round Up

This is it, folks! The final wrap up with every contribution to the CS September Sunshine. Thank you to everyone who’s participated in and/or supported this event! Some fantastic content was shared with us throughout the month of September, so check it out and show the creators some love!

-/-

Day 1: Signed, Sealed, Delivered by @captainsjedi

Day 2: The Song Remains the Same by @shireness-says

Day 3: Good Omens part 1 by @snidgetsafan

Day 4: A Poor Man’s Mantra part 1 by @wellhellotragic

Day 5: Pitching a Tent by @let-it-raines

Day 6: Bootycall by @winterbythesea

Day 8: Quiz Night artwork by @high-seas-swan

Day 9: Coffee Shop Ficlet + Aesthetic by @captainsjedi

Day 10: A Poor Man’s Mantra part 2 by @wellhellotragic

Day 11: To Trust Someone Else by @spartanguard

Day 13: It’s All An Act (Until it Isn’t) by @let-it-raines

Day 14: Savior’s Haven part 1 by @snowbellewells

Day 15: What Happened In Berkshire part 3 by @thejollyroger-writer

Day 16: The Art of Summoning part 1 by @swanslieutenant + The Stowaways chapter 4 by @onthecyberseas

Day 17: Beautiful by @xemmaloveskillianx

Day 18: Autumn Aesthetic by @captainsjedi

Day 20: Coffee Shop Artwork + Ficlet by @carpedzem

Day 21: Life Meant Nothing Until You Used My Toothbrush by @let-it-raines

Day 22: (Even Before I Met You) I Was Far From Indifferent to You by @stahlop

Day 23: This Unexpected Life part 1 by @thisonesatellite

Day 24: Voices From the Yellow Road by @ohmightydevviepuu + “Say You Won’t Let Go” music video by @killiarious

Day 26: Heat by @shireness-says

Day 28: This Unexpected Life part 2 by @thisonesatellite

Day 29: Meet Me in California by @awkwardnessandbaseball

Day 30: Love Can Heal What Hurt Divides part 1 by @ohmakemeahercules + This Unexpected Life part 3 by @thisonesatellite

-/-

#csseptembersunshine #weekly round up

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thejollyroger-writer · 5 years ago

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What Happened in Berkshire {{3/3}}

THIS IS IT, FOLKS. THIS IS REALLY THE END. (though, I mean, I could probably be talked into a Christmas-themed epilogue. We’ll see.) This story has come to mean so much to me -- yes, this weird little statue-come-to-life story inspired by a @write-it-motherfuckers prompt, perfect for this year’s @cssns, and helped to be shaped into the perfection it has become by the lovely, always wonderful @thisonesatellite: my love, my incredible friend, Destroyer of Self-Loathing. And, of course, to the perfect @captainsjedi, who has, once again, captured the aura of this fic with her perfect artwork, and who created the magnificent @csseptembersunshine, for which this chapter is part of.

This final installment is dedicated to every single one of you who have commented, messaged me, liked, reblogged, kudosed, sent good vibes, flailed, and read the first two-thirds of this story. I love you all.

Want to be part of that group? Need to catch up?

PART ONE: tumblr // AO3 ;

PART TWO: tumblr // AO3

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November turns to December, snow blanketing the ground. Emma and Killian fall deeper into a routine, depending on Emma’s schedule at the hospital and which days he goes to the bar before it opens. Even though he is up much later into the night, Killian somehow always gets up before her in the morning, making her breakfast with whatever he can find in the fridge. She imagines that his being up before the sun comes from his Navy days, no matter how long ago that was; and the fact that he only sleeps for a few hours each night has a connection to all the years he spent "asleep" as a statue, fear of missing anything further than the 400 years he watched pass before his unmoving eyes. While she is not the most expert cook, she tries her best to have something for lunch, unless she’s at the hospital. It really is just about the least she can do.

(When she is at the hospital, Killian brings her lunch more often, knowing that whatever she packs or could buy at the hospital is far less healthy than what he brings her. She refuses to admit just how much she appreciates it, and how much she enjoys seeing Killian in the middle of the day.)

Especially because she’s… well, she hasn’t quite “come to terms” with what they are, but she has gotten closer. True Love still seems like total bullshit, but the relationship that they’ve built since she “broke his curse” is far from bullshit, regardless of what brought them together in the first place. Because they’re friends, before anything else. They’re friends, and as much as Killian hopes that they can be more than that someday, he’s also been giving her more space than she expected, given just how much he believes in whatever they’re destined to be.

And she’s thankful for him. She’s thankful for his friendship, for his rather uncanny ability to know exactly what he can do to make her feel better, and for the absolute spotlessness that seems to follow him around like a lingering shadow. She wouldn’t have admitted before just how unorganized her entire life was — and perhaps even just how much stress may have been caused because of it.

But now it’s better. Now it’s all better.

Which is how they wind up here, with all the furniture moved to the edges of the living room and Emma and Regina sitting in the middle of the empty floor, Emma with her eyes squeezed shut and her hands held out in front of her, concentrating harder than she ever thought possible. Though she cannot see it, a warm orange glow surrounds her hands and her forearms, fading away after her elbows. Regina is both watching her intently and emitting her own hazy red glow from her hands, though she requires much less concentration to do so.

“Can you feel him? Have you found him?” she asks after a few moments, intently watching her face for any movement.

Even though her eyes are shut, Killian recognizes the look that passes over her face, even if he cannot see the widening of her eyes that almost always comes with it.

Surprise.

And when she nods, he notices from his seat on the other side of the room that Regina’s face twists into a similar expression.

“Yes?” she asks, still trying to take in every detail of Emma’s face, even as she nods. “You can feel him?”

Emma nods again, then slightly tilts her head to the side. “Yeah, I do, I — I can feel him. But he’s — shit, he’s close.”

“What does that mean?” Regina asks, but Killian is afraid that he knows the answer, assuming that the strong chill the he feels rolling down his spine is because she also feels one rolling down her own.

Their connection has grown stronger over the past few weeks, and he’s really hoping that it’s because she he started coming to terms with what has been brewing between them. He’s noticed her smiling at him more, choosing to spend more time with him, even coming to visit some nights at the bar after her shifts at the hospital, even staying later into the night after close while he helps clean up. Recently, he has found that he doesn’t always have to be touching her to feel what she is feeling, like right now. All he has to do now is concentrate, the same way she is currently concentrating on her magic. So, while she puts all of her energy into trying to find Neal, he is focusing on trying to figure out how she is feeling, what she is feeling. And this connection between them just proves to him (though he would never tell her) that their True Love is a big deal. He can’t quite explain just how he can tell that Neal is not just in England, but actually close by. So close by that he almost moves to say something, but before he can, the silence in the room is broken by a strong knock on the door, which causes both Emma and Regina to jump, Emma losing her concentration as they all turn their attention towards the apartment door.

After a few moments, there is another knock, this one a little louder, but still none of them move to get it.

But someone has to, so Killian leaves them where they are on the carpet and crosses over the apartment to open it. He is pleading with the universe, begging for his feeling to be incorrect, though when he opens the door, he’s never been more upset to be correct in his whole life.

“Uh, hi?” Neal says from the other side of the door, and even through the blood boiling within his body that begins to hum in his ears, it is not loud enough to drown out the holy shit that escapes Emma’s lips when she sees who is on the other side of the door.

It takes Neal a moment to recognize him since their altercation at the bar was almost a month ago, but Killian can tell the exact moment it happens because the expression written all over his face changes from confusion to rage, joined by an angry “You,” spat out through gritted teeth. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I live here,” he answers, as if it is the most obvious thing in the world.

Behind him, Emma’s eyes are still wide, her breath caught in her throat but her lungs weighing close to a million pounds.

Until she formulates a plan, pushing herself up off the floor and rushing to Killian’s side, just as Neal asks, “And what about Emma? I was told this was her apartment.”

“Yeah, she lives here, too, she’s my—”

Emma’s hand placed on his arm, gently pulling him back to let her stand beside him in the doorway, stops the roommate from falling from his lips.

“Hello, Neal,” she says, her voice completely lacking enthusiasm, which doesn’t surprise Killian; however, when she adds, “I heard you’ve met Killian, my boyfriend,” he finds himself much more surprised. Killian tries his hardest to stop the surprise from showing on his face, and when she slides her hand behind his back, curling her pointer finger through one of his belt loops, he slips his around her shoulders, trying his best to play along without giving anything away.

Yes, their connection has grown stronger over the past few weeks, but that doesn’t stop her from continuing to surprise him every once in a while.

Emma almost laughs at the way Neal’s jaw ticks with this new information.

“How can we help you, mate?” Killian asks, not hesitating before stepping into his new role, tightening his arm around her shoulder and realizing that he has started to play with the soft ends of her ponytail.

“Well, I was hoping to apologize for everything I’ve done, to tell her —” he realizes that he’s still talking to Killian, so he turns his attention instead to Emma. “To tell you that I was a complete and total idiot and that, if you would still have me, I still love you and want to be with you.” It takes everything in her not to roll her eyes, but she no longer tries to stop it when he adds, “But it seems you’ve packed up and moved on, so—”

Killian opens his mouth to speak, but Emma beats him to it: “I moved on? Neal, you moved on before we even broke up. You were cheating on me, so if you’re a little hurt about the fact that I’ve found someone that actually seems to care about me and makes me happy and who I’m already more in love with than I ever was with you, I’m definitely not sorry.”

She doesn’t realize exactly what she’s said until she feels Killian’s body tense up at it — but at the same time, she’s not sure why it surprises her as much as it does. It’s completely obvious, the fact that Neal’s feelings towards her can’t hold a candle to Killian’s, that Killian both cares about her and loves her far more than Neal ever did — and that she loves him back. Of course she loves him back. Sure, she wishes with everything in her that she discovered it another way, that she realized it at a moment when Neal wasn’t standing by their apartment door, but she can’t even deny it anymore.

She knows that she should turn to Killian, tell him somehow that she really meant it, wasn’t just saying things to make Neal go away, but she can’t bring herself to; so instead, she tightens her grip on his hip and thinks it — though she has no idea if it even works.

Neal, however, isn’t nearly as thrown off by this as both of them are; he just scoffs. “God, Ems, you don’t have to be such a bitch about it.”

Here, quite a few things happen simultaneously. The most obvious of them is that Killian, filled with newfound rage towards the man in front of him, unwraps his arm from around Emma’s shoulder and takes a step towards him, pushing him to the other side of the threshold while he snarls “I think it’s time for you to leave, mate,” through gritted teeth.

He also reaches out to grab the collar of Neal’s shirt in his fist, but before he can make contact, the second thing happens: Emma, with her eyes squeezed shut once more, holds both of her palms up towards Neal, emitting a soft white glow from her hands, which sends him into the wall behind him, not quite far enough to knock him off his feet, but enough to catch him off guard. It only takes him a moment to regain himself, and when he does, he is even angrier — though when he moves to step back into the place Emma pushed him from, he finds he cannot, finds that he is unable to come any closer to the apartment.

Because of the third thing that happened, the protection spell that Regina cast over the threshold the moment Emma pushed him out of the way. Only Emma can hex him away completely, but Regina at least managed to make it so that he could not come any closer to the apartment, and will find himself unable to re-enter the building once he leaves.

“Leave.” It’s all Emma needs to say, and when she reaches down to wrap her hand around Killian’s this time, it has nothing to do with Neal.

For the longest beat, he doesn't move, his eyes narrowing towards her. She can see the tense of his jaw, the flaring of his nostrils when he breathes out, but he doesn't move to leave, not right away. And then, without another word, he turns on his heel and stalks back down the hallway. Once the elevator doors close behind him, Emma finally steps back into the apartment and closes the door behind them, eyes wide as they find Regina, still sitting exactly where she was on the floor of the apartment.

"Show me how you did that," she whispers, once again kneeling beside her on the floor.

Regina smiles and takes her hands. "Close your eyes."

She begins to focus on him again, easier to concentrate now that he has pissed her off more recently. She finds him almost immediately, barely out of the building.

"Have you found him again?"

She nods, trying her hardest to focus on him and not the loud, excited hum of her magic — and she definitely tries to ignore the fact that it only gets louder when Killian sits down beside her, his hand resting gently on her knee, outrightly ignoring Regina's order to stay across the room.

(Regina doesn't seem to care as much when she realizes it makes Emma's magic stronger, either.)

"Focus on him, on all the anger you have towards him, and draw a circle around yourself with that energy. Make it as big as you want, as big as you can, and once you have your circle, once you can feel your circle, release all that energy, and it will protect you."

Slowly, she sucks in a deep breath, and then does just that: releases her anger towards him out into the world, into the largest circle she can muster in her imaginary bird's-eye view of Berkshire, of England, of Europe, just as she also releases her breath.

She doesn't feel any different, she realizes, slowly opening her eyes. Both Regina and Killian are watching her intently, but she is not sure what to do, what to say. She feels exactly the same.

Okay, that's not exactly true. She can still feel the screaming surge of her magic running through her, more obvious in this moment than it has ever been. She feels like maybe she can do anything with it, a thought that still startles her a bit because of her unfamiliarity with it — but if she just did that, then maybe she really is capable of anything.

And then, just as the surging begins to slow, begins to quiet, she feels her energy fade away, suddenly both lightheaded and exhausted, and she is thankful for Killian sitting so closely beside her, since it allows her to lean into him instead of holding herself up.

“Am I supposed to feel this tired?” she asks, not even meaning to pair the question with the yawn that immediately follows it.

A soft smile passes over Regina’s face, but it doesn’t stay there long, gone even before she starts to push herself up off the floor. “Yes, that’s normal until you get used to using your magic on a regular basis, especially since you really exerted yourself today. But you should be proud of yourself and the progress you made today.”

Emma nods, not sure that she can find the strength to put what she is feeling into words, grateful for Killian as he thanks her for both of them before she leaves.

But when she leaves behind an unsettling silence in the apartment, half-formed thoughts that Emma’s mind is too tired to put in the right order, but things that she knows Killian needs to hear.

When she turns to him, he is already watching her, scanning her features for some sort of answer. “Killian,” she whispers, but it’s all she can say before he shakes his head at her, reaching up to tuck a piece of hair that has fallen out of her ponytail behind her ear before curling his arm around her back.

“I know you’ll say what you need to say when you’re ready. For now, we should get you to bed.”

“Thank you,” she manages as he pulls her up off the floor, tucking his arm around her waist so she can lean on him as he leads her into her bedroom, and she is asleep before he finishes pulling the blankets up to cover her. But even in her sleep, she feels the soft kiss he presses against her temple before he turns away, and it brings a soft smile to her face that doesn’t disappear until long after he shuts the door behind him.

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It takes Emma exactly twenty-four days to get her thoughts together. She almost breaks down before that, but every time she tries to put her words together, her fear comes creeping back, slithering between her bones until it is all she can feel.

True Love. Absolute bullshit. They have to be together — why? Because the universe decided, four hundred years ago, that she was going to be Killian Jones’ True Love. How does that even make sense? Did the universe know that she was going to exist? How? What if she had never been born? What if her life had gone differently — if her parents had wanted her, if Neal hadn’t been an absolute jackass, if she had fallen in love with someone else? Would he have remained a statue forever? Would he have had a different True Love, if Emma’s life hadn’t brought her to Berkshire? And even with everything that’s happened, what if one day he decides that what the universe wanted isn’t good enough for him — that she isn’t good enough for him?

She’s afraid. Terribly afraid that one day, Killian will no longer want to be with her, but thus far, it hasn’t been a fear that she has been able to voice.

But tonight — Christmas Eve, for Christ’s sake — the thought that hasn’t left her mind for two months now is proving to be the least of her worries. Because, as she looks at the clock over the stove for the millionth time since she got home an hour ago, she’s terrified for a whole different reason.

He’s supposed to be here. He told her the night before that the bar was closing at 2, and that he would be home around three.

But the clock now reads a quarter to six, and the only reason she hasn’t lost the (very few) contents of her stomach is because she’s taught herself to steady her breath and fight to keep it down since med school. Her heart pounds in her throat, her head, her stomach. Her calming breath is not just to stop her stomach from turning, but also in hopes of keeping her mind off the worst-case scenarios, because in her mind, he’s either dead or decided to leave and never come back.

There has to be some sort of psychoanalytic bullshit that explains that, something about her being abandoned as a child and always needing to keep herself protected from going through that kind of hurt again.

Mary Margaret would know. Her degree is in psychology. All Emma has ever done was write some sort of paper about the formation of the Ego, but Mary Margaret practically minored in Freud.

That’s beside the point, though. She’s just trying to keep her mind away from the picture of Killian dead in a gutter somewhere.

Because she’s in love with him. She wants to know that he’s safe, wants him to come… home.

Worrying her thumbnail against her front teeth, she thinks about that, thinks about home. When was the last time she had a real home? Because it certainly wasn’t during her childhood, any of the foster homes and foster families. And it wasn’t with Neal. Could it have even been in college, in the dorms and apartments she shared with Belle, Ruby and Mary Margaret? None of those places have ever felt like a home. But this? This feels like a home.

Killian feels like a home.

She is pulled out of her own mind by a key in the lock of the door, and it takes all she has to stay in her seat instead of running towards him, especially once he actually comes through the door. He’s absolutely drenched, head to toe, in what she assumes is a half-melted version of the slush that has been falling from the sky all day.

Absolutely drenched, but with a bouquet of roses clutched in his hand, smiling at her even as he shakes some of the slush out of his hair. She recognizes the silver cellophane wrapped around the bouquet as the personalized one from the stand she passes on her way home from the hospital, the one she told Killian a few weeks’ back always has the most beautiful looking flowers.

The one that’s out of his way home from work, but that she has never seen closed, even when she worked on Thanksgiving or was walking home after midnight.

“Hello, love,” he says, closing the door behind her. “Sorry I’m so late, Will wanted my help decorating the bar for Christmas for the party he’s holding tomorrow, I realized I should have texted you, but I forgot to charge my phone last night, and I—”

She holds up her hands, smiling warmly at him. “Killian, really, it’s okay.”

“I didn’t mean to cause you any fear, I just—”

At this, she pushes herself off the chair and crosses the living room, wrapping her arms around his middle and resting her cheek against his shoulder, not even caring how wet his henley makes her cheek.

He’s home. He’s safe.

And — holy shit — she absolutely wants to kiss him. She wants to take the bouquet out of his hand so he can hold her and press her lips against his.

But for all of the epiphanies she’s had recently, all of the personal conclusions she has come to, this, for some reason, is the hardest to deal with. She feels the smile fade from her face, useless against the ever-growing dread weighing down her chest.

Two seconds. That's how long she can stand to look at him for, by her count — both of which he spends smiling sweetly down at her, probably thinking about how much he loves her — before it's all too much for her.

She takes one step back, and then another, softly mumbling, "I'm glad you're home safe," before turning away from him and walking into her bedroom without another word.

But that doesn't stop him from coming after her, knocking softly on her bedroom door after a few moments. "Emma, love, are you alright?"

She hates that. The term of endearment is enough, isn't it? But when he pairs of with her name, it makes the smallest shiver creep down her spine. Because he doesn't just do it when he wants something from her, or when he did something he regrets — like Neal. The only time Neal ever called her anything other than her name was when he did something wrong.

But Killian? Killian calls her 'love' on a regular basis. Okay, sure, he calls everyone love, it's just part of the way he talks. But for as long as she's known him (which really isn't that long, all things considered, but she still thinks she has a pretty good handle on the type of person he is), she is the only person that he has referred to with both their name and the endearment, and sometimes at the oddest times: trying to get her attention, looking for the remote, wondering what she wants for dinner.

When she's upset.

It never fails to bring a smile to her face, even now, as she stands on the other side of her bedroom door having a crisis.

Maybe she doesn’t hate it. Maybe she loves it. Maybe she loves him — and yet, every time she thinks about voicing her feelings, feelings that she knows he will reciprocate, that same fear comes creeping up her entire soul, the fear that one day, Killian will leave her just like everyone else has.

It’s not until he does it again — “Emma, love, please talk to me” — that she is pulled back to the reality of her situation, of Killian on the other side of the door, of the tears streaming down her cheeks without her permission.

She’s an idiot. A god damn fucking idiot. It’s Christmas Eve, for Christ’s sake, and she’s locked herself in her room.

This isn’t the first time. She remembers the first Christmas she “celebrated” with her first foster family that kept her for more than a few weeks, the Millers, which was possibly one of the worst times of her life. But she promised herself that night that she would never put as much faith in anyone as she did in the Millers. And that she would never get that upset over trivial things — because you can’t be let down if your expectations are already incredibly low.

She lived with that mindset for years. She even still sometimes reminded herself of it when she was with Neal — because when it came to low expectations, Neal was the lowest.

But Killian? Killian went beyond even the expectations she dreamed of having, and even through everything he has done to prove himself worthy of her trust, there was always that nagging feeling in the back of her mind that he would just be another person to let her down.

“Emma, I can tell you’re upset about something, and I may not be able to make you talk to me, but I can stay right here until you decide you’re ready.” She hears him move on the other side of the door: the shuffling of his feet against the carpet, the soft shushing of his shirt against the door as she assumes he slowly drops to the ground, and the dull thud of his head falling back against the surface behind him.

Not for the first time, she’s amazed by just incredible he is. How sweet he is. She doesn’t believe that anyone can be perfect, but he certainly has the fewest flaws of anyone she has ever met — and her best friend since high school is practically an angel walking on earth. Most of the flaws he does have come from being cursed and turned into a statue for four hundred years, though, so she can’t really be mad at him for them.

None of this helps the fact that she has no idea what to say to him.

So they sit in silence for a while, almost calmed by the presence of the other. For every good part of their relationship that she can think of, there is also a bone-chilling fear that comes to her mind right behind it, knocking her back and forth in her own mind until she is sure that she is falling to her death.

And then her phone rings, and it’s Mary Margaret.

“Fuck,” she whispers, and she can practically feel the way Killian’s whole body pricks up at the sound of her voice. She can’t not answer it — it is Christmas Eve, Mary Margaret’s favorite day of the year, plus she’s due at the beginning of February, so there is the slightest chance it’s not just her best friend calling to see how her holiday is going. “Hey, Margs,” she says, trying to put some semblance of happiness into her voice, though it all seems to have been drained out of her. She figures the least she can do is share the conversation with the man sitting on the other side of her door, so she puts it on speakerphone.

“Merry Christmas, Emma!” she yells, and Killian smiles. If anyone can help Emma through the crisis she is currently drowning in, it has to be Mary Margaret. “You’re off work, right? You said you should be home by 4 at the latest, and that was a few hours ago, right? You’re 5 hours ahead of us, and it’s 1 here, so you’re—”

Emma stops her before the time change math makes her head explode. “Yeah, you’re right, I’m home.”

“Okay, great! Great! So what are you doing for Christmas? Are you and Killian celebrating anywhere? I’m so glad you’re able to be home and not at the hospital tonight.” The rushed speed of her words isn’t completely abnormal, but there is something about it paired with the chipper tone in her voice that worries Emma.

“Yeah, it’s great, you know how much I love Christmas,” she says dryly, but before Mary Margaret can respond on the other end of the line, Emma changes the subject: “Is everything alright there, Margs? You seem a little more spastic than normal.”

She can hear the breath sucked in on the other end of the line. “No, no, I’m fine, it’s just—” she groans, a sound that makes Emma believe that it’s not all fine. “Just some Braxton-Hicks, you know? They’re just a little stronger than last time, and David suggested I do something to get my mind off of them while he gets ready to go to his mom’s tonight, so I — ugh, shoot — I called you a little earlier than I expected to just to see how things were going and if there was any new news that you wanted to divulge to your best friend.”

“Nothing that I haven’t told you already,” she says, trying to hold back the roll of her eyes. It doesn’t work very well. She’s going to leave it at that, but she has another idea, instead: she knows she’s talking to Mary Margaret, and that nothing she can say will be news to her oldest friend, and even though she might not be able to say everything she wants to Killian, she can say it to Mary Margaret. Killian listening to her through the door is just a bonus.

“So nothing new, then?”

Slowly, she breathes in through her nose and holds it for a few moments before releasing it. “Come on, you know how it is for me. I mean, I know how I feel, this whole True Love bullshit be damned, because there’s no way to deny the connection between us, but, like, it’s all almost a little too much. Everyone else in my life has decided that I’m not enough, that I’m not worth the effort of keeping around. You’re the exception, of course, but what if — I mean, I know that I want him to be an exception, but what if he’s not? What if we enter into this relationship and I think things are going really well until one day he decides that I’m not enough? That he doesn’t love me enough?”

On the other side of the door, Killian is fairly sure he feels his heart stop beating. Is that really what she thinks? After everything that he has done for her, is that really what she thinks he’s going to do? He knows it has practically nothing to do with him, that she’s been let down and hurt in the past, but he still doesn’t understand how she thinks he could do that.

But it’s not about him. It’s about her, about her fears and the hope that she will one day be able to overcome them.

He doesn’t see through the fact that she is saying all of this when she knows that he can hear her. She may not be saying this to his face, but it’s basically the next best thing.

“Have you tried telling him this? I know you think he’s going to hurt you, but what if he doesn’t?”

At this, Killian smiles, but he hears Emma’s head fall back against the door.

A few moments of silence pass between them all, and Mary Margaret is the one to break it. “It’s Christmas, Emma. Have a little faith. True Love is a big deal, nothing to shy away from.”

“I’d put more faith in Tinkerbell than I ever would in Christmas, you should know that.”

“Not every family is the Millers, and I can assure you that Killian is nothing like Neal. If you’re going to put your faith in anything, put your faith in him."

At this, Emma finally smiles. She feels much better, perhaps even enough to open the door to Killian and her relationship, both physically and literally.

Mary Margaret groans, the first one in a while, and she suddenly remembers the reason her friend called her in the first place. “How are you feeling, Margs?”

The laugh on the other end of the line is incredibly pained, but there is nothing she can do about it. “A little bit better, I guess.”

“Honey, are you almost ready?” she hears David call from another room.

“It’s time to go, Em. Think about what I said, alright? You deserve to be happy, and I think Killian wants to be the one to make you happy.”

Emma hears Killian let out a soft chuckle on the other side of the door, because they both know that she’s right.

“Merry Christmas,” Emma says, and when she releases her breath, she actually feels as if a weight was lifted from her shoulders.

“Merry Christmas. Talk to you soon, okay?”

“Yeah, of course. Bye.”

When she hangs up the phone, she is overwhelmed by the silence that surrounds her, picking out every little noise that the apartment makes: the creaking of the walls, the wind against the windows, every movement Killian makes against the door.

He’s still not sure what to say. If he should even say anything. Emma just revealed all of that, not quite to him, but she didn’t hide it from him, either.

When she does start speaking, her voice is so soft that he almost cannot hear it through the door, and it almost startles him, but definitely confuses him, because it seems to make no sense.

“When I was eight years old, I was adopted by Tim and Mary Miller, who had two biological children of their own, a three and a five year old. They adopted me in January, and another boy, a seven-year-old named Matthew, in April. Even before Matt joined us, they were the family that I stayed with the longest, for more than just a few weeks, and the year I spent with them was the longest I spent anywhere until I aged out of the system, the only family I celebrated a birthday with. I was really happy with them, even though they paid a lot more attention to their biological kids than they did to me and Matt.

“And as the oldest, I was expected not just to receive presents, but also to wrap the presents for the other three children. Every other Christmas I celebrated was at the group home, so I’d never really had a family, and I definitely never gotten more than the two or three presents that the group home could afford for each of us, but I had always heard stories of parents who spoil their children on Christmas. By the time I had spent a few months with the Millers, I thought that maybe I finally found a home, a family that loved me enough to buy me presents for Christmas.

“But when I snuck into the basement to start wrapping the presents without my other siblings knowing, I found two large boxes filled with presents for the two youngest — the biological children — and two presents each for me Matt. It took everything in me not to cry that night, and I distracted myself with wrapping, but the upset manifested itself on Christmas Eve, when other family members showed up with presents — for the two youngest children, but not for me and Matt. I spent the rest of the night in my room crying, and was back in the group home by New Year’s Eve.”

Somehow, he can tell that this is not the end of what she wants to say to him.

“I’d been hurt before, sent back to the group homes before, but for some reason, this hurt more than any of them. Getting sent back became something I got used to, but I think getting let down by the Millers hurt so much because I’d put my faith in them. So I told myself that I would never put that much faith in someone ever again, a promise that I kept until I found Neal, until I thought I found something different with him, and then — well, you saw where that got me.”

“Emma,” he starts, but she still cuts him off.

“Wait, please, I’m almost done.”

He snaps his mouth shut.

“I’m so afraid, Killian. I’m so afraid of so many things, but more than anything else, I’m afraid that someday, you’re going to wake up in the middle of the happy little life we can build together and realize that maybe you don’t love me as much as you thought you did, that maybe I’m no longer worth the effort you have to put into being with me, and you’ll just walk out the door, leave me behind for something better.”

She stops again, and he’s pretty sure that this is his chance to speak what he’s been wanting to for weeks — but at the same time, he doesn’t want to speak over her again. When she remains silent for a few more moments, he practically whispers, “Can I say something now?”

He can tell by the way she laughs that she is crying, but she’s done with what she was trying to say. “Yeah, sure, go ahead.”

“I love you, Emma. Even if the universe didn’t bring us together as True Loves, I would love you. I knew that we were meant to be together from that very first breath I took, but I have spent every day since then learning about you, learning who you are, the type of person you are, and it’s only made me more sure that you are the only person I would ever be able to love as much as I love you. You’re the reason I’m here, and I owe everything to you, literally owe you my life. I can never feel the same way about another than I do about you.”

This time, when she feels the tears rolling down her cheek, they’re no longer because of the sadness that she has felt deep in her bones since that terrible Christmas. Instead, flowing through her, unhindered by fear or pain or dread, is hope.

Is love.

She stands up, much more awkwardly and making much more noise than she expected, and when she pulls open the door, Killian almost loses his balance from where he is still sitting when she pulls the door open. How didn’t he hear her get up?

“Sorry,” she mumbles, reaching down to help him back to his feet, but for as embarrassed as she feels, he just smiles at her.

“No worries, darling, I’m just glad you’ve come out from hiding.”

She has not let go of his hand, but has also not yet raised her eyes to meet his. She just bared her whole heart, her whole soul, to him, and she knows that as soon as she locks eyes with him, she is going to get lost in the vast oceans that she finds within them, and that he will continue to be the most understanding person she has ever met. She’s still not quite sure how to feel about that.

“Did you — did you mean all that?” she asks, even though she already knows the answer.

He lets go of her hand, and for the briefest moment, she expects him to take it all back, to admit that this whole thing was fake — to do just as everyone else has done, and she feels her heart begin to rise into her throat, the beginnings of her stomach turning.

But instead, she feels the soft touch of his index finger under her chin, gently pulling her head up and forcing her eyes to meet his.

Just as she expected, they have never been bluer, back to their regular brightness, and she feels herself beginning to get lost in them for just a moment until he speaks.

“Of course I meant it all, Emma. I love you, you have to know that’s true by now.”

She tries to nod, a slightly awkward movement with his finger still tucked under her chin, and she wipes the tears out of her eyes with the palms of her hands.

“I do. I — I’ve known for a while, and I just…” She pulls her bottom lip up between her teeth, worrying it for a moment. Killian’s eyes never leave her face. “It’s nothing now, and I’m sorry it took me so long to see that.”

He presses his lips against her forehead. He’s warm and soft and he loves her. “No apologies, love. I promised you that I would wait as long as I needed to for you to reciprocate how I knew I felt from the first moment I saw you, so I’m just happy that I don’t have to wait anymore.”

Emma surprises herself. She smiles. She sets her hand against his cheek, feeling the soft yet prickly stubble that he has started to leave there. And then she kisses him.

He seems just as surprised by it as she is, though at least one of them probably should have seen it coming. It’s soft, at first, as soft as his lips were against her forehead, until it quickly becomes more, weeks’ worth of passion and emotion no longer bottled up, but rising to the surface all at once. Lips, tongue, teeth, and hands all coming together as they learn the smallest details about the other.

It almost surprises her how much she enjoys kissing Killian Jones. Almost. But what does surprise her is how kissing him — that giving in to what the universe has built between them — makes her feel. And not in the way that her heart pounds in her chest, how his hand pressed against her cheek sends shockwaves against her skin. No, what gets her attention is the way her magic screams within her when his lips meet hers, the way she feels it not only in every inch of her body, but even beyond that, how she somehow feels it spread out from inside her and throughout the room.

Because she loves him. It may have taken her this long to realize it, but there’s no going back on it now, no way she would ever want to. Because, more than anything else, her magic reacts to him, to his hand in her hair and his arm wrapped around her waist and his tongue as it presses deeper into her mouth. She feels like she’s floating, lighter than she has ever been — and then he lifts her up, her legs wrapping around his waist, and she really is floating.

Because she’s happy — they’re happy. Happy, together, and in love. And that’s all that matters.

▫️▪️▫️▪️⭐▪️▫️▪️▫️ ▫️▪️▫️▪️⭐▪️▫️▪️▫️ ▫️▪️▫️▪️⭐▪️▫️▪️▫️

TAGGING: @shireness-says @let-it-raines @kmomof4 @welllpthisishappening @wellhellotragic @teamhook @profdanglaisstuff @gingerchangeling @ultraluckycatnd @resident-of-storybrooke@jonirobinson64 @nikkiemms @bmbbcs4evr @spartanguard @stahlop @jennjenn615 @xrandomdreamx @kday426 @courtorderedcake @kingofmyheart14 @aprilqueen84 @pirateherokillian @capswantrue @socmono @jonirobinson64 @facesiousbutton82 @captainkillianswanjones @ultimiflos @singersdd @therooksshiningknight @cocohook38 @youre-not-a-cat-youre-a-rat @hitting-her-stride @whatthehell102080 @scientificapricot @hookswan25 @galaxyzxstark @carpedzem

#my writing #wordsbymeganmichael #statue fic #what happened in berkshire #cssns #cssns 2019 #cs september sunshine #csseptembersunshine #writing this story has been an adventure #an incredible journey #if you will #but i've loved every minute of it

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over-a-rainbow · 5 years ago

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CSFicRecMonday mood boards inspired by @captainsjedi who makes beautiful ones!

@csficrecmonday

Wait For The Moonrise- By LifeInAHole

Emma doesn’t remember who she was before she was found in the woods, but she knows that she has a few close friends, a good job, and a loyal cat that greets her every day when she gets home from work. What she doesn’t know, however, is that her past is about to catch up to her in the strangest of ways. She learns quickly that not everything is as it seems, not even her cat.

I’m pretty new to this fandom, so I feel like people may already be pretty familiar with this one. However it’s amazing and deserves all of the love! The story and the artwork that go along with it are just marvelous. I have read it about four times now and honestly can’t get enough of it!

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eastwesthomeisbest · 6 years ago

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The Village Is a Glow (1/2)

So @captainsjedi was my @cssecretsanta2k18 and she wrote for me a beautiful Captain Swan AU story. And this is an artwork I made for the first part of that story. Hope you like it!

You can also read this on A03

#cssecretsanta2k18 #cssecretsanta #cs secret santa #captain swan fanfic #captain swan fanfiction #captain swan fics #captain swan forever #captain swan #captain swan manip #captain swan edit #captainswanedit #csedit #cs edit #cs manip #cs fanfiction #cs fanfic #cs ff #cs ff au

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let-it-raines · 5 years ago

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@captainsjedi is very sweet to me to make such beautiful pic sets for my stories, and it’s so great that you stopped by and showed her some much deserved love @scientificapricot ♥️ I’m so glad you liked her artwork! You’re gonna love what’s to come!!!

The banner you made for What A Wicked Game is absolutely GORGEOUS!!! 😍😍😍

You're too sweet, thank you! ❤️

I'm so grateful @let-it-raines writes incredible stories that I have so much fun making art for ☺️😘 there are also two more pieces I made for WaWG that you’ll be seeing soonish, and I hope you like those as much as I did putting them together!

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kmomof4 · 5 years ago

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State of Emergency: Code White

Here is the third and final part of my State of Emergency universe, originally inspired by the 1997 Tommy Lee Jones movie, Volcano. This picks up about six and a half months after State of Emergency: Future Glimpse, Part 2 of this series. All the love and thanks in the world to @profdanglaisstuff for her beta services, @thisonesatellite for sharing her earthquake knowledge with me, and @hollyethecurious for her listening ear and her assurance that this idea wasn't garbage. And last but certainly not least, @searchingwardrobes and @stahlop for their help in deciding on a title. I hope you enjoy this conclusion and let me know what you think! Read more link after the first scene, unless Tumblr ate it.

Tagging my peeps: @hollyethecurious @winterbaby89 @snowbellewells @stahlop @resident-of-storybrooke @jennjenn615 @kingofmyheart14 @profdanglaisstuff @branlovestowrite @thisonesatellite @ultraluckycatnd @flslp87 @whimsicallyenchantedrose @let-it-raines @shireness-says @kymbersmith-90 @darkcolinodonorgasm @bethacaciakay @searchingwardrobes @ilovemesomekillianjones @teamhook @aprilqueen84 @qualitycoffeethings @superchocovian @artistic-writer @donteattheappleshook @doodlelolly0910 @seriouslyhooked @tiganasummertree @lfh1226-linda

Please let me know if you’d like to be added or removed.

Ao3 link

Also muchos love and flails to @captainsjedi for her picset for this fic!!! It is so perfect, I can’t even!!!!

August 28, 2021

A squeal that was nearly loud enough to break the windows drew Emma’s attention away from where Killian was checking them into the Hotel Casa del Mar for Graham and Ruby’s wedding the next day. She turned just in time to hold out her arms before Ruby barrelled into her nearly nine months pregnant belly.

“Emma!” she exclaimed, “Look at you!” She grasped Emma’s shoulders and held her away from her, scrutinizing every part of her with an eye that only a best friend of many, many years could accomplish. Apparently satisfied with what she found, Ruby pulled her close and rubbed her tummy all while murmuring to her honorary niece or nephew.

“Hello there, my darling,” she cooed, “How is my little angel today? I hope you didn’t make the drive down too difficult for your mom. I can’t wait to meet you in just a few more weeks.” She ended her questioning monologue with a kiss to the top of her belly. If it had been anyone else, Emma would have introduced them to her fist long before now, but this was Ruby. Her best friend since junior high. Certain privileges came with that kind of longevity.

“I’m fine, too,” she laughed, “Thanks for asking, Ruby.” Ruby rose up laughing at her sarcasm and drawing her close again.

“Ohhh,” she breathed, “I’m so happy to see you! We cannot go three months without seeing each other ever again.”

Killian turned away from the counter with a wide grin before Ruby released Emma and greeted him with an enthusiastic hug as well. “You hear me, Jones?” she asked, pulling away, “Emma and I cannot go three months between seeing each other ever again.”

“Duly noted,” he replied. “Where’s Graham?”

Ruby turned away as her tall, sandy haired fianceé sauntered over to where the three of them still stood. The men greeted each other with a firm handshake before embracing.

“It’s good to see you, mate,” Killian greeted his best friend as Graham returned the sentiment. They moved away from the check in counter, toward the elevators finalizing plans for dinner in a couple of hours. Emma was happy to see everyone, but she was really looking forward to a nice long soak in the whirlpool tub in their room and maybe a nap beforehand. The ride down from Sacramento had been brutal. The whirlpool jets on the tight muscles in her lower back where the achiness had settled would feel like heaven. The normally about five and a half hour drive had taken them nearly nine, with her bladder demands every hour or so and needing to stretch her legs.

They all rode the elevator together, Ruby and Emma keeping their arms around each other the entire way. Finally making it to their rooms, the men had to nearly peel the ladies away from each other.

“Come on, Swan,” Killian cajoled, “that whirlpool tub is waiting.” He waggled his brows suggestively, earning him an eye roll.

“All right, fine,” she whined, releasing Ruby. Ruby immediately stepped into Graham's arms and they turned back toward their worn out friend.

“We’ll see you downstairs at 7:30,” she said. “That should give you enough time for a bath and rest for a little while. Have to make sure you’re taking care of my niece or nephew, ya know.”

Emma and Killian both grinned. “We’ll see you then.”

~*~*~

Emma entered the elevator and stretched her back with a grimace on her face and a soft exhale at the achiness there. Killian was by her side instantly, his hand rubbing circles into the small of her back.

“Are you alright, darling?” he asked. “Need another soak in the tub when we get back to the room tonight?”

Emma turned to him with a smile on her face at his concern. “Those jets felt wonderful. Another soak after dinner may be just what the doctor ordered. All those hours in the car, just…” she trailed away with another stretch and quiet groan. “I know you love that car, but we are NEVER traveling out of town in it again.”

The elevator doors opened and they stepped out to find Killian’s brother Liam and his girlfriend, Elsa already waiting. Liam was an Anglican priest and would be performing the ceremony the next day. Elsa, while not a bridesmaid, had been welcomed into the group when she and Liam had started dating last spring and so she was invited to enjoy all the festivities with the wedding party. They were still sharing hugs and greetings when Mary Margaret and David and then the bride and groom arrived.

They moved the party to one of the best seafood places in Santa Monica. Right on the water, it served steak and fresh out of the ocean seafood. It had been a favorite when she had lived here and she had informed Ruby that she was resigning as Matron of Honor if they didn’t eat there sometime over the weekend. She may not be able to eat any shellfish, but she could still have her filet mignon.

The evening was filled with good food, good drinks, laughter, and stories. Emma got to share the story about when she and Ruby had tried to fake-ID their way into a hot new club on the beach back when they were in high school. All Ruby’s idea, of course. But then, in retaliation, Ruby had to tell the story about the first time Emma got completely hammered, after their college graduation.

“Single mom, graduating summa cum laude,” she shrugged, with a smirk, “I was entitled.” Her smirk softened into a more genuine, grateful smile. “I couldn’t have done it without Ruby, David and M’s.”

“Damn right!” Ruby exclaimed, toasting Emma’s raised glass with her own. Laughter broke out from around the table and more toasts were raised to Emma’s success and to the happy couple. Finally, Graham stood.

“Who would have guessed that one of the greatest natural disasters that California has ever seen would lead me, lead us here.” He smiled down at Ruby, affectionately. “Killian and I have been friends for a decade. Ever since he hired me right out of college to work at the Geological Survey. When he was promoted, he brought me along with him to work as his assistant. And it was that position that led me to this beautiful, wonderful woman by my side this evening. The woman that I am so blessed to be marrying tomorrow.” He looked back down at his soon-to-be bride, as she fanned herself dramatically, trying to hide her blush. He leaned down and pulled Ruby’s chin up and captured her lips in a tender kiss as whoops and hollers from around the table were directed at the happy couple. He sat down and draped his arm around her shoulder as she snuggled into his side, red lips smiling widely.

Killian rose then. “I’ll keep this brief, since we still have the Dudes Day Lunch tomorrow,” he began, as loud guffaws broke out over the name. “Hey!” he exclaimed, “don’t laugh at me! It was old man Liam’s idea!” He pointed at his brother whose face flamed red at being outed for coming up with that ridiculous name. “Anyway, Graham fell for Ruby nearly as fast as I did for Emma. And I could not be happier for the both of you. But I have to say, mate, I made better use of my time.” More laughs came from the gathered friends as he waggled his eyebrows salaciously at his wife as he sat down.

“Well, you were on more of a time clock than I was, mate,” Graham reminded him. “Had to fit the wedding in once the Governor decided he wanted you in Sacramento.”

Killian nodded in agreement before drawing Emma into his side. He couldn’t help but rub his hand on her swollen belly before kissing her on the temple. Now that the speeches were over, the dinner party quickly wound down. They made their way back to the hotel and all went their separate ways, wishing each other a good night and reiterating the plans for the morning.

Emma came out of the bathroom over an hour later, hair and body scrubbed clean until it glowed in the low light of the lamps of the room.

“How’s your back, darling?” he asked, quietly, “Still aching?”

“Yes,” she yawned, climbing in the bed. “But I think that soak and more than an hour in this bed will go a long way to helping it feel better. I’m really looking forward to the massage in the morning. I’m sure I’ll be right as rain after that.” She snuggled as close as she could into his chest before looking up and drawing him into a kiss.

“Hmmmm,” he hummed against her lips. “I’m sure you will be too. Goodnight, Swan.”

She turned in his arms that tenderly cupped their unborn child. “Goodnight.”

~*~*~

Killian couldn’t stop the grin that spread his lips as he caught sight of the female portion of the bridal party exiting the elevators that brought them down from the spa on the top floor of the hotel. Emma was radiant, hair and makeup done to perfection and appearing to be even more relaxed than she had been when she left their room that morning. Apparently, a good night's sleep in a very comfortable bed plus a facial and pregnancy massage did wonders for his beloved wife’s countenance.

“Swan,” he called, approaching her as the party made their way toward the hotel restaurant. She turned toward him with the most beautiful smile on her face, she nearly took his breath away.

“Hi,” she replied, meeting him halfway and turning her face up to his for his kiss.

“How was the spa, darling?” he asked, rubbing circles into the small of her back. “How does your back feel?”

“Amazing,” she gushed, “Rose was my therapist and I nearly fell asleep under her fingers. I have had a couple of twinges since the massage, but nothing like yesterday on the way down.”

“Good,” he replied, “I’m glad to hear it. We’ll be at the oyster bar if you need me,” he said, pointing across the lobby. The smile she graced him with was full of happiness. He leaned down and brushed her lips with his own again. “I’ll see you after lunch.”

She hummed as he let her go. Emma couldn’t hide her appreciative smirk as she watched her husband saunter away before she caught up with the other ladies at the matré d’s podium. “Bridal luncheon for four under the name Jones,” she informed the man.

“Right this way, ladies.”

He led them across the gleaming marble floor toward a beautifully appointed table only a few feet in front of the floor to ceiling windows that looked out on the beach where Ruby and Graham would be exchanging their vows in about six hours. The ladies oooo-ed and ahhh-ed over the view and the richness of their surroundings. Settling themselves in their chairs, their server appeared pouring water in their glasses and taking their drink orders before disappearing again.

“Ruby,” breathed Mary Margaret, “this is absolutely beautiful!”

“I know!” their friend agreed. “Isn’t it? They had a picture of the restaurant on the website and when I saw it, I knew this is where I wanted everything to be.” Ruby sighed, happily. “I’ve always dreamt of a sunset wedding on the beach.” From where they sat, they could see the area where the wedding coordinator and her crew were already hard at work getting ready for the nuptials that evening.

“Don’t I know it.” Emma rolled her eyes, good naturedly. “I’ve been listening to it for years.” She drew her best friend into a side hug as the other ladies looked on, wide smiles on their faces. “And I couldn’t be happier for you both.”

Their server returned with their drinks and took their orders for lunch. Once he withdrew, Elsa raised her glass to the bride. “I know that I’m not as close with all you ladies as you are to each other, but I’d be remiss if I neglected to tell you all thank you first for including me in your festivities and second for welcoming me into your group with such open arms. I know that Liam is so thrilled and honored to be joining you and Graham in marriage this evening, Ruby, and we both wish you every happiness and blessing in your union.”

Tears glistened in Ruby’s eyes as she rose from her place at the table and came around to gather Elsa into a warm hug. “Thank you, Elsa,” she choked out. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to finally be marrying Graham. And having you here to celebrate with us makes it that much better. There are truly no words for how happy it makes me to see Liam so happy. How happy you’ve made him.” Elsa’s lovely face flushed at Ruby’s words. “When I met Killian, he, and then Liam, joined David as the brothers I’d never had. So it does my heart good that you’ve found each other.” Ruby let go and returned to her seat just as their lunches arrived.

~*~*~

“Hear, hear!” The four men raised their pints and toasted Graham’s happiness after Liam had spoken a few words that if the ladies had heard, would have earned them all eye rolls and playfully indignant slaps at the raunchiness of the teasing. Well, except maybe Graham. Ruby would have been just as likely to laugh and raise her glass with the rest of them.

After taking a sip, Killian rose from his seat. “As Best Man, and the reason that Graham met Ruby in the first place, I have a few words to say.” The laughter among the men died down as they all fixed their attention on him. “Graham, words cannot express how happy I am for you that this day has finally arrived. I knew the moment I entered the control center two and a half years ago that there was something different about you, and when you smiled at Ruby I could immediately see what it was.” Graham’s face broke into a soft smile as his eyes took on the dreamy quality of pleasant memories. “There’s nothing like a disaster of epic proportions to drive people together. You were smitten with Ruby that very first day. It has been a joy and privilege to watch you fall in love with the wonderful woman that you will make your wife in just a few hours from now.” He raised his glass high again in a toast. “To Graham and Ruby.”

“To Graham and Ruby,” the others echoed, raising their own glasses.

“May you find every happiness in life together, for you certainly deserve it.” Killian took his seat just as their server approached with their meals.

~*~*~

The ladies had enjoyed their lunch and were waiting for their Death by Chocolate desserts when Emma rose. Stretching her back with a grimace, Emma placed her hand on her back and waved away M’s concerned face. She looked down at her best friend and smiled gently.

“Ruby, you’ve been my best friend in the world since we were twelve years old and you moved into my school district. I’ll never forget the first time I saw you. You came into our 7th grade Theater class like a whirlwind.” Ruby chuckled at the memory. “You sat next to me and didn’t let my natural shyness and ‘prickly-ness,’” Emma placed quote signs around the word that Ruby had undoubtedly used many times in referring to her, “deter you. You were gonna be my friend if it killed you to do it. You were my closest friend in no time flat and I am so grateful. It’s been my joy and privilege to grow up with you, to travel the ups and downs of life with you up to this point, that I’ll now be handing off to your husband in just a few hours. And also to watch you fall in love with the love of your life. There are no words to express my happiness for you both.”

A gasp broke from Emma’s lips as a tightening in her back that radiated around her front caused her to hunch over and grab the table before her. The silverware and glassware rattled as the ladies exchanged nervous glances.

Emma laughed, breathlessly, “That really hurt,” she gasped, trying to sit down again. “Guess I don’t know my own strength.”

The tableware continued to rattle and Emma followed M’s and Elsa’s gaze upward to where the large chandelier hanging over their table was swinging back and forth.

“Earthquake!” M’s cried, “Everyone under the table!”

Emma got down on all fours and made her way under the table along with the others. Terror overtook her as the shaking continued. Thoughts of Killian on the other side of the lobby and Henry still in Sacramento raced through her mind as she prayed for their and her own and her baby’s safety. The shaking was beginning to subside when the table collapsed on the four of them, forcing Emma to flatten herself on the floor, her face buried in Ruby’s lap. The pain that ripped through her caused her to scream in agony before everything went black.

~*~*~

The shaking had finally subsided, but the scream and sudden silence from Emma terrified Mary Margaret more than the earthquake had. “Emma? Elsa? Ruby? Everyone okay?”

Ruby, her back facing M’s and bent over from the table on top of them was the first to answer. “I’m ok, but Emma’s unconscious. Her head is in my lap.”

“Okay, we have to get the table off of Emma. On the count of three everybody push as hard as you can. One, two, three!”

Groans from the others filled her ears, but she was barely aware of them as she pushed with all her might against the heavy surface of the table above her. Suddenly, the table gave way as it and the chandelier that had fallen on it flipped off of them. The sunlight nearly blinded her and it took a moment of furious blinking before M’s was able to scan over the others before she scrambled to a still unconscious Emma.

“Emma? Emma!” she cried, checking her pulse and respiration before noticing the wetness that was spreading out from under her sister-in-law. “Ok, I need everyone to surround Emma to help me turn her on her back. Very carefully. I think her water’s broken.”

A gasp broke from Ruby at M’s speculation. M’s eyes met Elsa’s pain filled ones as she realized that she was holding her left arm across her chest. The darkening bruise that took up most of her forearm clued her in that Elsa’s arm was badly broken and she wouldn’t be much help in moving Emma.

“We have to get Emma on her back so I can see exactly what is happening with the baby. As soon as I’m done with that, I’ll get your arm splinted.”

Elsa nodded. “Making sure that Emma and the baby are okay is more important. I can wait.”

“Okay,” she agreed, “Ruby, can you get Emma’s shoulders turned to the left? I’ll handle the torso.”

Ruby nodded and took her position. “On the count of three. One, two, three.” With a mighty heave they were able to get Emma on her back as she let out a low moan at the action.

The front of Emma’s dress was soaked. Mary Margaret wasted no time in shucking the maxi dress she wore up around her waist and removing her underwear. Ruby was gently shaking Emma’s shoulders and murmuring in her ear trying to get her to wake up as Mary Margaret checked to see how far along in labor she was.

“She’s six centimeters,” M’s announced, with obvious relief. “The baby’s coming. Ruby, I need you to get to the front of the hotel and find some paramedics. Hopefully there’s some nearby and you won’t have any trouble getting out there or getting them back here. If you see any employee’s on your way out, tell them we need water and towels here, ASAP.”

Emma was finally starting to come around as Ruby was maneuvering out from under her. “What happened,” she mumbled.

M’s moved to Emma’s head. She placed both hands on her cheeks and held her attention. “Emma, I need you to look at me. Do you know where you are? Do you know what’s happening today?”

“Uh, we’re at the hotel? And we just finished lunch? Ruby and Graham are getting married.” It was really more of a question than she would have liked, but at least there weren’t any memory gaps.

“Yes, that’s good!” M’s exclaimed, “Very good! There was an earthquake and we were trapped under the table. We’ve gotten the table off of us, but your water has broken. The baby is coming.” The calm that normally characterized her in an emergency situation descended on Mary Margaret. She may not have expected to deliver her niece or nephew, but she was far from inexperienced in matters such as these.

“The baby is coming?” Emma cried, “I’m not due for another five weeks! Will he be okay?”

Looking into Emma’s eyes, she could see that panic threatened to overtake her. She infused all the confidence she could muster from the less than ideal situation into her smile before she shared her expectations for the situation.

“At thirty-five weeks, the baby will almost definitely be fine. At this stage of pregnancy, the baby is mostly gaining weight and preparing for delivery. Our only concern is the setting. This is obviously far from ideal.” At that moment their server arrived with an armful of towels and two water pitchers.

“Thank you,” M’s said, taking the supplies from him. Turning back to Emma, she continued. “You are six centimeters dialated and I expect you’ll be ready to push here in about an hour.”

Emma nodded, trying her best to find some measure of comfort that M’s was with her and would do everything she could to ensure a safe delivery of her child. Wanting nothing more than for Killian to be at her side, she closed her eyes and took a deep cleansing breath. She could feel the tightening in her back again spreading around to the front that she had become familiar with since yesterday. She should have realized that the pain was early labor and not just uncomfortable seats in Killian’s beloved classic SS Chevelle. But there was nothing to do about that now. She could only pray that Killian was unhurt and making his way to her and their baby.

~*~*~

When the earthquake finally stopped, Killian and the other men came out from under the bar where they had taken cover when the shaking began. It was all he could do to breathe as terror filled him as he looked around the restaurant and out to the lobby beyond. It was obviously a major earthquake, but the damage he could see was relatively minor. He knew that it would take him some time to get to Emma, however. He looked over to his companions.

“Everyone alright?” he asked.

A chorus of “yesses” and “fine” met him. “I’ve got to get to Emma,” he blurted out, picking his way around the debris as he headed toward the lobby.

“Hold on, brother.” Liam approached and grabbed him by the arm.

“Don’t you try to stop me,” Killian yelled, jerking away from him. “I have to make sure she’s safe. She and the baby.” The terror rose again and tears filled his eyes as the possibilities played out in his mind.

“I’m not trying to stop you, Killian,” Liam agreed, “I’m simply telling you that we’re coming with you. We all want to make sure our ladies are safe.”

Killian deflated. “Of course, brother,” he replied, chagrined. “I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“They’re safe. They’re all safe. I have to believe that. Everybody, here? Okay, lets go,” Liam called.

~*~*~

BREAKING NEWS scrolled across the television screen, drawing Henry Jones’ attention away from the comic book he was looking at. He was hanging out in a gift shop at the airport terminal before his flight to LAX started boarding. He stared at the monitor in horror as the newscaster was reporting on the 6.7 earthquake that had just hit Los Angeles. Footage of the destruction took his breath away. He hadn’t seen anything like it since the volcano erupted in LA two and half years ago.

A helicopter above the carnage was relaying live pictures as the anchor scrambled trying to report on the disaster. He looked over at the screen where his three o’clock flight was listed. A red CANCELED already flashed next to it. He could feel the fear rising up within, threatening to choke him. He closed his eyes and said a quick prayer for his parents and friends. Especially his baby brother or sister.

Taking a deep breath, he could hear his dad’s voice in his head telling him to stay calm. He was a smart kid and to think about what he needed to do. Feeling at least a little less agitated, he pulled his phone out and texted his friend Thomas to come back and get him due to the cancellation. Thomas was his section leader in the trombone section of his high school band. They had a long rehearsal yesterday to learn the new halftime show for this Friday’s game that he couldn’t miss, not if he wanted to maintain his place in the show anyway. Arrangements had been made with Thomas’ family and for him to fly down on Sunday instead of driving down with his parents the day before. Once that text was sent, he texted his mom and dad. He’d lived in California all his life, so he knew with the level of destruction he was seeing that cell towers weren’t going to allow him to get through if he called.

Moments later, a text from his dad came through. Henry released the breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding as he was assured that he and the other men were all safe but that his mom was at the bridesmaid’s luncheon when the quake hit and he was still trying to get to her. Henry could feel the panic rising in him again as he read through the rest of the text of his dad promising to contact him as soon as he got to her. He slipped his phone back in his pocket to wait. It was all he could do.

~*~*~

Killian put his phone back in his pocket after texting Henry the gist of the situation. The men were making progress out of the oyster bar, but they still had about a hundred yards to cover to get to the entrance of the restaurant that the ladies were at. Killian could only hope for the best when they got there. As they entered the lobby, Graham let out a cry so full of joy and relief that Killian immediately knew who Graham was calling for.

“Ruby!”

The tall brunette turned toward them, and even from that distance, they could see the way her face lit up. “Graham!”

“Where’s everyone? Is Emma okay?”

“The baby is coming,” she called. “We were trapped under the table. Emma lost consciousness for a few minutes, but was coming around when I left. M’s sent me to find paramedics and get them to her. Her water broke and M’s said she’s about six centimeters dilated.”

Killian could feel the blood drain out of his face at Ruby’s report. A strong hand grabbed his bicep, grounding him and his own hand covered it in thanks. “She’ll be alright, brother. We’ll get there in time.”

Killian nodded as he scanned the carnage in front of him, keeping him from his wife and child. Determination filled him as he pushed the panic back and looked at his brother. Nodding again and making sure that David had caught up with them, the men forged ahead into the ruin before them.

~*~*~

M’s mopped Emma’s head from the sweat that had gathered there as another contraction eased. Emma’s exhausted body rested up for the next contraction on the bottom of the upended table.

“I can’t do this,” she sobbed.

“You can, Emma,” M’s cajoled, “You’re almost there. It’s almost time to push.”

Elsa murmured her own encouragement as well, her good hand firmly grasped in Emma’s. Once M’s had gotten Emma as comfortable as she could, she had turned her attention to Elsa’s arm. She had been able to break off one of the chair legs and fashioned a splint and sling out of it and one of the towels their server had brought.

“I want Killian!” Emma cried, head thrashing back and forth as another contraction started. “What if he’s hurt? What if he can’t get to me? To us? What if he’s dead?” The thought that she hadn’t let herself even think of to this point poured out of her in her excruciating pain and despair. She was dimly aware of movement around her when suddenly strong arms enveloped her pushing her up so that she was nearly upright and the voice that she longed to hear was in her ear, telling her to hold on. She melted into the embrace and wept with joy.

“Come on, Emma. You can do it. I’m here,” Killian whispered in her ear. He slipped behind her so that she could recline against him as he held her to him, assuring himself of her safety.

“Killian,” Emma sobbed.

“I’m here, Swan. You can do this.”

She shook her head, vehemently. “I can’t. I can’t. It’s too much. It hurts too MUUUUUUUUCH!” She ended on a scream as another contraction ripped through her.

“Ok, Emma,” M’s looked directly into Emma’s face as the contraction subsided. “It’s time. It’s time for you to push. Can you do that for me?”

Emma shook her head. “I can’t. I can’t. I can’t do it. I’m sorry.” Her chin trembled and her face shone with sweat and tears as she looked at her doctor, her friend, her sister-in-law. M’s just beamed at her.

“You can do this, Emma,” she stated, confidently. “You really don’t have much choice in the matter. Your child is depending on you.”

Killian whispered in her ear. “You can do this, my love. You are so strong and you have never been more beautiful. Our baby needs you. You can do it!”

Emma sobbed again as she nodded and pushed herself up on Killian. “Emma, when the next contraction comes, I want you to push with everything you have in you, okay?”

Emma nodded again as the next contraction hit. She could barely hear M’s counting to ten between the blood rushing in her ears, Killian’s harsh breathing, and her own screams creating a cacophony of sound that completely overtook all other senses.

“I can see the head, Emma,” M’s cried. “Our little prince or princess has a head full of dark hair! Just like their Daddy! You’re almost there! One more big push for me!”

Killian pressed his lips to Emma’s neck. “You’re almost there, my love. One more push and we can meet our child.”

Emma nodded once more, too worn out to speak, as she prepped herself for one more push. The pain rolled over her and with a mighty cry, Emma pushed through the burning and tearing pain that felt like it was ripping her in two. As she collapsed against Killian, a new sound broke the silence. The cry of a newborn baby.

“It’s a girl,” Mary Margaret announced. A cheer broke out around them as the small gathered crowd celebrated the safe delivery. Emma turned her face to meet her husband’s lips while M’s went about the business of cleaning up their daughter.

Releasing her lips, Killian pulled out his phone to text Henry that he had a new baby sister.

“Did I miss it?” Ruby’s voice shouted, indignantly. “What do you mean, Emma? Having this baby without me?”

Emma laughed weakly and a chuckle rumbled through Killian’s chest at Ruby’s pique. The rattle of a gurney reached their ears as the paramedics arrived. M’s rose to speak to them after placing their baby girl in Emma’s arms.

“She’s beautiful,” she breathed. “Isn’t she beautiful, Killian?” she asked, turning towards him.

“Aye, beautiful.” He placed a kiss to Emma’s temple and reached out to touch his daughter. She caught his pointer finger in her own tiny fist, filling him with an unspeakable joy. The tears began to fall as the realization that in the midst of destruction, injury, and even death, he had helped bring life into the world. Hope filled his heart as he held his wife and daughter tightly, thanking God that they were safe.

The paramedics loaded mother and child onto the gurney. “What do you want to name her, love?”

“After all this, what do you think of Hope? Hope Margaret?”

He couldn’t stop the grin that broke over his face at the similar thought he had just had. “I think that’s perfect, darling.” He pressed a kiss to her lips as the EMT’s started to make their way through the chaos around them.

Once they arrived at the ambulance in front of the hotel, he was informed that they only had room for Emma, Hope, and Elsa inside the ambulance. Elsa tried to hand off her place to the new father, but he wouldn’t hear of it.

“I’m sure that M’s took good care of you, lass, but you need to get to the hospital before I do.” He smiled gently at Emma and Hope as they were loaded in the vehicle. “They’ll want to get you all checked out, and we won’t be far behind you. We’ll see you soon.”

Elsa finally agreed, and after a parting kiss with Liam, climbed in just before they shut the doors.

Killian turned to M’s and David before gathering M’s in his arms. “Thank you,” he whispered, choking back tears. “I owe you everything. They are everything to me.”

M’s hugged him back just as tightly. “I know. They’re fine. They’re both fine.” Letting go, she grasped him by the shoulders and leaned back so she could look him in the eye. “Let’s get to the hospital and see our family.”

Nodding, Killian turned to David with his hand outstretched. Ignoring it, David gathered him into a bone crushing hug of his own. Killian could no longer keep the tears at bay. As a father himself, David knew exactly what Killian needed. He held his friend tightly as he sobbed out all the fear, panic, and joy this day had brought. After several minutes, Killian’s tears abated. Releasing him, David patted him on the back, expressing all the love and support without a single word. Then it was Liam’s turn. The brothers embraced before Liam let go with a teasing twinkle in his eye.

“My little brother is a father,” he exclaimed. “What am I gonna do now?”

“Stop calling me ‘little brother’ for one,” Killian groused, “and second, get a move on yourself!” Everyone laughed as Liam’s face flamed in embarrassment.

Graham, his arm around Ruby with matching grins on their faces offered their congratulations next. “I can’t believe she had the baby without me. But I’m so glad she’s here and safe.” Ruby’s expression sobered. “This could have been bad.”

“It could have been,” Killian agreed, “but, it wasn’t. Thank God.”

“Amen to that. Now let’s get to that hospital. Make sure everyone’s okay.”

Picking their way through the torn up streets, it took nearly an hour before they finally made it the block and a half to Cedars. By the time they got inside, Emma had already been moved to the Maternity floor and Hope had already been cleaned up, checked out and given a clean bill of health as well.

Once everyone had been assured of Emma’s, Hope’s and Elsa’s well being, they all settled in to discuss what to do next. Emma and Killian were texting back and forth with Henry, sending pictures of his new baby sister.

Ruby sat down on Graham’s lap with a pout on her lips. “There’s no telling when we’re gonna be able to get married, now,” she very nearly whined. “It will take months to rebuild enough to rebook everything.”

Elsa threw a questioning look at Liam. “What’s stopping you from getting married here? Now?” she asked. “It’s not a sunset wedding on the beach, but isn’t ‘getting married’ the whole point? No matter where it is?”

Liam raised his eyebrow at the couple as they looked at each other, silently communicating their desires.

“We’re fine with it,” Graham said, never taking his eyes off Ruby.

“Well then,” Liam exclaimed, “Let’s have a wedding!”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Emma exclaimed, “We need to Facetime Henry. He was planning on being here, too, after all.”

Everyone agreed and waited patiently while Emma connected to the hospital wi-fi and called Henry.

Graham had entrusted the rings to Killian before they had left their rooms for the Dude’s Day lunch. He may have forgotten about them in the excitement of the afternoon, but when he patted his pocket, he found the box safely containing both rings. He removed them and handed Graham’s ring to Emma.

With a beaming smile on his face, Liam began. “We are gathered here today, in the presence of God and in the aftermath of an earthquake and a birth, and with an assist by technology, to join together Graham Humbert and Ruby Lucas in Holy Matrimony.”

The joy on the faces of the bride and groom and all the people in the room could not be contained. Emma couldn’t hold back her tears anymore as Graham said his vows to Ruby, promising to love, cherish, protect, and honor, before placing a beautiful white and rose gold twisted vine ruby ring on his bride’s finger. Thinking back on all their years growing up, dreaming of this day and all the love and happiness that awaited her best friend, it was all Emma could do to keep from sobbing instead of just happy tears rolling down her face.

With as crowded as the room was, and Emma confined to the bed, Liam, Ruby, and Graham stood at the end of it. Emma handed the ring to Ruby, but she had eyes for no one but her groom as she spoke her own vows of love, fidelity, and honor, and placed the matching rose gold ring adorned with small rubies on his finger.

“It is with great pleasure that I now pronounce you, husband,” he looked at Graham with a smile, “and wife,” Liam intoned, beaming at the happy couple. “You may kiss the bride.”

Ruby let out a whoop and launched herself into her husband's arms. The cheers that rose around them startled Hope enough that she added her wails to the delight being expressed by everyone in the room.

Emma couldn’t help but laugh as the nearly inappropriate PDA continued between the newlyweds. “Let’s keep things PG in here please,” she called.

Henry joined in as well, covering his eyes. “Teenager in the room, guys! Young eyes don’t need to see that!”

“Old eyes don’t need to see it either,” Killian grumbled, drawing his wife and daughter into his arms. Ruby and Graham finally broke apart, both flushed and breathing heavy. “It’s time for you two to find a room.” Graham at least had the decency to blush as he drew Ruby into his side.

M’s came over to Emma and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead. “We’ll get out of here and let you rest. You’re definitely gonna need it.”

Emma cooed to their daughter as Killian wrapped his arm around her shoulder and gazed lovingly at the two loves of his life. He placed a tender kiss to his wife’s temple then the crown of his daughter’s head before rising to see everyone out of the room.

Smiles, hugs, and murmurs of congratulations and relief were exchanged as everyone bid them goodbye and left the room. Killian turned back toward the bed to see Emma sound asleep with Hope laid down in the crease between her legs. He smiled and came back to the bed, picking up his daughter and sitting down in the rocking chair next to Emma’s bed.

Staring down into his daughter’s grey blue eyes, he was overwhelmed with the blessings bestowed upon him. The love of his life had just given him a daughter in the middle of an earthquake. Yet another state of emergency. A profound sense of gratitude filled him as he raised a short prayer of thanksgiving that they were both safe. He laid his head back, shut his eyes, and began to slowly rock. It was no time at all before father and daughter were sound asleep.

The End

#cs ff #State of Emergency verse #State of Emergency #Code White #krystal writes #artwork by captainsjedi

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kmomof4 · 4 years ago

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Self Promo Sunday!!!

This week I’d like to promote one of my personal favorites of all the fics I’ve written.

I went back and read all three fics in this universe a week or two ago and remembered HOW STINKIN PROUD I am of all of them!!! The original fic was inspired by the 1997 Tommy Lee Jones movie, Volcano. The other two fics that complete the series catch up with all the original characters to see where life takes them in the subsequent years. The link to the series on ao3 is here. If you haven’t read them, I’d love to know your thoughts!!! INCREDIBLE artwork that I just can’t keep from squealing over by @artistic-writer (x) and @captainsjedi (x). Please go scream at them for their awesomeness!!!!

#self promo sunday #cs ff #state of emergency #krystal writes #state of emergency future glimpse #state of emergency code white #art by krystal #art by salem #art by captainsjedi

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thisonesatellite · 4 years ago

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if you live by the word, you die by the pen -- CH 9

SUMMARY: It’s just another day with bad coffee, the day that Sheriff Swan enters Detective Jones’ precinct.

The fact that his life is about to come apart at the seams is purely incidental.

With apologies to Dashiell Hammett and James Ellroy, i’m playing in their sandbox and i’m taking the bucket and the shovel. You guys can keep the rake.

|CH1| CH2 | CH3 | CH4 | CH5 | CH6 | CH7 | CH8 |

AO3 (if you want decent formatting, because tumblr does not).

A/N: OMG - where do i even start? This chapter is a beast. It nearly broke me, but hey, that which does not kill you. 🤣

Just to give you a vague idea, during the course of writing this chapter i have researched:

* mortuary refrigerator components * popular women's footwear of the late 19th century * the definitions of 'ogre' * the west coast of Norway * Ancient Greek pottery * how many men over 30 are familiar with Harry Potter and * where the Neolithic and the Bronze Age overlap

It's been a very strange ride. 🤣 And I know it took me a long time, but guys, strap in. This is where you find out some stuff.

ALL THE LOVE AND THANKS to @profdanglaisstuff, the Goddess of Linguistics, Purveyor of Logic, Senechal of Brilliance, Keeper of Sanity, Resident Amazingest Human (What? That’s A Thing!), and my other, much MUCH smarter half. (Incidentally, that would be the half which is working on turning me into a plotter.)

To @katie-dub for being my Isle of Man expert, sounding board, and lightning fact-checker.

To @ohmightydevviepuu - the other half of the “turn stephanie into a plotter“-crew, who is finally, finally seeing the first fruits of her labor. (Not that i don’t still occasionally pants out in left field somewhere. But that’s OK.)

To @captainsjedi whose artwork started it all. (You never imagined this would happen, did you? Yeah, well, me neither.)

And to all of you who are still reading this, and waiting so patiently for updates, THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH. You are wonderful and i love you A LOT. 💕💕💕

If you want on or off the tag list, let me know! (And seriously - if it’s ‘off’ - please don’t worry. Absolutely no hard feelings.)

CHAPTER 9

“Killian. Please. Go lie down.”

Emma tries to find a balance between kind and firm, but lands somewhat heavily on the latter and softens her tone.

“Look at all the boxes I have to look at.” She points to everything they’ve carried from his cruiser to the station. “I’ll be at it for hours. You can get some rest.”

She lowers her voice to a whisper. “Be glad I’m not making you go back to your room and sleep in a proper bed.”

“I would make you stay there with me if you did.” Killian’s eyebrow quirks up and for a brief moment he looks mischievous and then he licks his bottom lip. It’s another thing that makes her ache.

The fact that he has this playful, impish side, and probably used to get serious mileage out of a good innuendo and a dose of wicked charm.

The fact that this side has been buried so deep for so long.

It hits her harder than the Cambridge picture did back in Elsa’s living room. That was just an image of someone long gone. Even the animated professor she saw briefly in Killian’s own apartment wasn’t as painful to see. This, here, are the remnants of a whole personality peeking through the cracks, a personality that has been torn apart and locked away and drowned in liquor.

It makes her ache to think of how much damage he has sustained.

Then she realizes with a jolt that she has not answered him, has been staring at him in silence instead, and that his expression has shifted from teasing to doubt and apprehension, and she takes his hand, rubs her thumb across his knuckles.

“Sorry,” she says. “Sidetracked.” She smiles up at him. “You would not have to ‘make me’.” She quirks her own eyebrow, because two can play at insinuation, and because she wants him to know that she is here, with him.

This is not a mistake.

He folds his fingers through hers and returns her smile with a sigh of relief.

“It’s better if I help you unpack the boxes,” he says. ”Show you how everything is organized and categorized.”

Emma laughs out loud. He really is a professor at heart. It’s wonderful and painful in equal measure.

“Killian,” she answers, not rolling her eyes. “First of all. I saw those boxes when I helped you pack them up.”

An image of his living room rises before her eyes, barren and desolate and so full of sadness, and she fights it down because there is no time for this right now. He squeezes her fingers like he knows she’s thinking troublesome thoughts and once again warmth spreads through her.

She will never get tired of that feeling.

“And also,” she finally goes on, “it’ll be better if I look at everything with fresh eyes, you know? Completely unbiased. Sometimes a little disorder helps you gain a new perspective.”

“You are a very smart woman, Emma Swan,” he says and beams . Like he truly likes how her mind works. The warmth inside Emma grows like a living thing, and very faintly she thinks she can feel-----

“Love?” His voice snaps her back to the present and she doesn’t know what expression is on her face, but it’s making his brow furrow. “Everything all right?”

Emma nods and leads him into the station waiting room, where she points at the couch.

“Do you need a blanket?” She tries to pull her hand from his, but he doesn’t let go.

“What’s wrong?”

His eyes are worried now, and Emma is still blindsided by the fact that he called her love like it was the most natural thing in the world, and she can’t---

“Please talk to me.” His voice is a whisper. “Something just happened. What’s wrong?”

If she stays here a second longer with his fingers threaded through hers and his gentle voice and his soft eyes she will start to cry, and she has cried enough these past few days.

Too much.

So she shakes her head and she looks up with a smile and says, “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

Her voice is steady. She is proud of that.

He lets go of her hand and runs it up her arm, all the way up to the back of her neck. His eyes are serious, but also tender, and he pulls her towards him very, very slowly, gives her time to back away, but she doesn’t, couldn’t , not when he’s looking at her like that.

He bends his head and kisses her, slow and soft and oh so careful, and she wraps her arms around him and wishes they could stay that way forever, because she never wants to let go.

He’s warm and solid and real in her arms, and then he wraps himself around her, and it’s so perfect she nearly cries despite everything.

When he pulls back she holds on for dear life and he leans his forehead against hers.

“I am here, Emma,” he whispers. “I am in this. You can tell me anything.”

“I know,” she says, because she does know, because it’s nothing but the truth. But he’s not responsible for her scars. He has enough of his own.

“I’m fine,” she repeats, and he brushes his nose against hers, kisses her again, and then waits until she pulls back.

When she does, it feels like she’s tearing off a part of herself.

She walks over to the cabinet and pulls out a blanket and a pillow and hands them to Killian, who gives her one last figuring look before he sits down on the couch.

“Sleep,” she says. “I’ll save you some pizza.”

“Do you remember back in my room, the first time you came by?” He smiles a wan smile. “I was so hungover and you were ready to haul me down here to lock me up?”

She grins and nods, but his smile falls. “I told you I wished I’d never heard of you.”

His eyes look sad now.

“I’m so sorry, Emma.” His voice is quiet, and god, he’s so sincere. He really means it. “I’m so sorry about all of it.” He looks up and it looks like he’s in pain . “I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it then, but now----”

He swallows hard.

“Emma, I swear, meeting you is the best thing that has ever happened to me, and I know I’m not supposed to say this after just a few days, but I swear, I know it. ”

He takes a deep breath.

“I know it.” His voice is a whisper now. “I know it, and I am so sorry.”

There is nothing she can do but walk over and sit down next to him and hug him within an inch of his life.

-/-

“I take it you have seen this kind of thing before?”

Victor is sitting on the bed in his room, cross-legged, looking small and out of place with his carefully tousled hair and his expensive suit pants and his button down shirt which is still crisp and perfectly white despite the fact that he’s trudged through a damp forest in November.

August pours two glasses of the scotch he just liberated from Granny’s bar and hands one to the doctor. In the time it takes Victor to take a sip, August has emptied his own glass and refilled it.

He walks over to the armchair by the window and sits down.

“Yeah, you could say that,” August says quietly, and empties his glass again. “I have seen this kind of thing before.”

Victor looks up. “What happened?”

“Nothing that’s going to happen to you.”

The doctor laughs out loud. It sounds bitter and resigned.

“Don’t bullshit me, cop,” he says. “Tell me what happened. Were there others? Did they all get strung up like that?”

August pours himself yet another generous helping and Victor gets up, walks over to him and puts his hand over the glass.

“Stop it,” he says. “I didn’t ask you up here to watch you get drunk. I asked you up here to get some answers.”

There are so many things August could reply to that. So many things he wants to reply to that. Witty comebacks laden with double entendres and flirtatious intimation, or a quick and dirty line leading straight to the point.

He can’t bring himself to do either.

Victor is looking at him with wide, worried eyes, and the words marked for death start caroming around August’s head on a screeching loop, and for a moment all he can see is Will, and Eric, and the first victim, the woman; all of them prostrate, dressed in rough linen, their backs bloody, their hands outstretched, holding a quill.

And then Liam.

Who vanished before three pairs of eyes and became nothing but a pile of ash.

“August?”

His hands are shaking, shaking so hard Victor’s palm on his glass is shaking right with him, and August takes a deep breath. Victor lifts his hand and August drinks as the doctor sits down, this time across from him, at the foot of the bed.

“No,” August grinds out. “They didn’t all get strung up like that. Actually, this is the first one. All the others were on their knees, bent down and forward, as if they were offering up a gift.”

“How many others?” Victor’s voice is a raw whisper.

August shakes his head, but the screeching loop is still rolling. “There was a librarian named Belle who disappeared and then turned up dead with markings all down her back. There was Detective Prince, who was a good man, and amazing at spinning theories from trace evidence. And Detective Scarlet, who was his partner, and---”

August’s voice cuts out and he has to swallow several times before he can go on. Victor is very still, looking at him with large, frightened eyes.

August wishes, truly wishes, his tale was one that ended in hope.

Not despair.

August takes a deep breath. “Scarlet was a very good cop. And an even better man.”

“And Killian’s brother?” Victor’s voice is barely audible now.

“Liam.” The word sits between them like a lead balloon. “My partner. He turned to cinders without fire before our very eyes.”

Victor blinks, and August sighs.

“Look,” he says. “This is not a tale of triumph. Some extremely strange things happened, none of which I can explain, but mostly there were a string of dead people and we never found the culprit and then the murders just stopped.”

He pours another shot, knocks it back, and then fixes Victor with a hard stare.

“I left the Force and tried to forget and now the fucking bastard is back , and he’s not going to take anyone else, do you hear me? I have lost enough people to this goddamn psychopath. I am done with it. This time, he bleeds.”

-/-

“Did you get him to lie down? Or did you have to knock him unconscious?”

Mary Margaret, it seems, has everybody’s number. Including Killian’s.

“No force was necessary.” Emma grins. “Although it was a near thing.”

Mary Margaret laughs, and then Emma looks at the boxes, looks at the wall space David is clearing, the whiteboards they’ve already brought in (more boards than the station owns, Mary Margaret has clearly raided the elementary school), and then back at the teacher.

Mary Margaret is currently studying a large satellite area map, on which the tracking points of Graham’s cell phone are marked. It’s an absolute mess. Apparently the Huntsman ran around the woods, woods he knew extremely well, in a mess of spikes and circles and double-backs. For hours.

Even Emma can tell that there is no rhyme nor reason to his movements at all, even when accounting for following nocturnal animals. His tracks span a vast area, and never go in a straight line until they reach the top of the incline leading down to the river.

Then they become a very straight line down, towards the bridge.

Mary Margaret looks at Emma with no small amount of apprehension, and says, “This doesn’t make any sense. None at all. A tourist who’s never seen this forest wouldn’t make this mess.”

And Emma makes a decision.

“I’m going to deputize you,” she says. “There is no way we can go through all this alone, and also, you’re already looking at some extremely confidential information.” She rolls her eyes at David. “Protected by several privacy laws.”

Mary Margaret ducks her head and David draws breath, no doubt to defend her, and Emma smiles and holds up both hands in supplication.

“I was not chastising either one of you. Mary Margaret, I think you’d be a valuable asset to this investigation. You have a very useful pair of eyes and a very sharp brain..”

David chokes behind her, and Emma rolls her eyes.

“What would deputizing entail?” Mary Margaret might as well have said, am I going to be able to give David orders? and David sputters.

Emma has to bite down hard on a grin.

“You’re not a deputy, like David. But you will be part of this investigation. And you must sign a few very binding legal forms, including a non-disclosure agreement. Which means you cannot talk to anyone about this case. Anyone. Not even your mother.” Emma decides to throw David a bone. “Not even your boyfriend. No one who’s not a cop, working this case. Do you understand?”

Mary Margaret’s eyes are very serious. “My mother passed away when I was a baby,” she says. And even more seriously. “And I don’t have a boyfriend.”

Both women pretend not to hear the massive sigh of relief behind them.

-/-

“So tell me, doctor. How long you been crushing on Detective Jones?”

Victor rolls his eyes so hard, he nearly falls back onto the mattress.

“ Crushing? ” He laughs out loud. “Are you kidding me? You’re a hard-boiled detective pushing 40 and you just used the words crushing on? ”

“I’m a hard boiled former detective and you’re evading the question.”

August watches Victor’s face fall. He doesn’t answer, just shrugs, defeated.

August sighs.

“I know about that,” he finally says, quietly. “I liked Will. A lot.”

Victor looks up. “The detective on your task force?”

“Yeah.” August nods. “So, you know--- for what it’s worth, that way only heartbreak lies.”

Victor chuckles. “I know. I do know. But it doesn’t change how I feel.” He smiles. It’s a sad little thing, and August’s chest contracts for a moment. “But if you ever find a way to turn off an emotion, detective, you let me know.”

“Former detective.”

Victor smiles again, and it’s full of empathy. “You keep saying that. But - I don’t think it’s true. You still observe everything around you. You still watch and deduce and recognize patterns and collect information. You may no longer be on the police force, but I think you are very much still a detective.”

August’s eyes get very wet, very fast. He has trouble breathing for a long moment.

Victor winces. “I’m sorry, August,” he says. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

August laughs and if it sounds more like a sob, Victor doesn’t comment.

“It’s fine.” August tries to mask a sniff as a chuckle, sees that Victor isn’t fooled and chuckles for real. “You just---- it was a nice thing to say. Thank you.”

Victor nods and shifts. His knees are now almost touching August’s. He leans forward, and suddenly he’s close, so close, and looks straight at August, his eyes kind.

“Why did you leave the Force?” His voice is quiet.

August can’t answer for almost a minute, because there is something hypnotic in the doctor’s gaze and he is powerless before it.

So powerless that he answers with the naked truth.

“Will died,” he whispers. “He was murdered by this--- this thing , and---” He tries to take a deep breath, but his throat is too tight. He feels Victor’s hand pat his knee, but it feels remote, as if his leg isn’t part of his body.

He has to close his eyes.

“There was no point in going on once Will was gone.” August doesn’t just mean the investigation, and he knows Victor heard him, because his hand now squeezes his knee, in a silent show of support.

When he opens his eyes Victor is still looking at him, blue eyes full of understanding.

August laughs, brittle and dry. “Not that anything was ever going to happen.”

“Don’t I know that feeling.” Victor sighs. “Let me guess. Will was----”

“As straight as they come? Yes. He absolutely was.”

Victor raises an eyebrow and his look turns mischievous. “Come a lot, did you?”

It takes August a full thirty seconds to assimilate this comment.

To realize that Victor is joking with him.

To realize that Victor is flirting with him.

To realize that Victor is fucking funny .

And then August stands, pulls Victor up by his crisply starched white collar and marches him across the room, slams him into the wall as he presses the entire length of his body up against him, and kisses the living daylights out of the surgeon as if tomorrow didn’t matter at all.

-/-

“Proto-Celtic!”

Killian bolts upright on the couch, his eyes wide open, the words still echoing through the room. He tries to catch his breath. His head hurts.

But his dream did yield an actual idea. Maybe it is good that he slept.

He gets up and carefully folds the blanket, and then makes his way to the washroom to splash water on his face. The man in the mirror is pale and drawn and desperately needs a shave and a trim. He’s a mess.

Emma deserves better.

He shakes his head at himself and rolls his eyes, because he’s procrastinating, and time is what they don’t have. Forty hours between victims, give or take, since the first one. Less than two days.

When he enters the main room, the sight is somehow unexpectedly breathtaking. The entire far wall is covered with pictures and notecards and press clippings, just like the one in his apartment had been. There are whiteboards with timelines and victim bios, open boxes, open file folders, and three people so immersed in their contents that they don’t notice him at all.

He stands there for a full minute, looking at the sheriff and the deputy and the teacher, sifting through the bane of his existence.

It’s almost too much to bear.

Finally he steps all the way into the room and softly clears his throat.

“Killian! Did you get enough sleep?” Emma turns her head, smiling, but one look at him brings her up short. “Killian? Are you all right?”

She crosses the distance between them in three large strides and he barely has time to register that he has scared her before she is standing before him, lightly rubbing his left arm.

“What happened?” Her voice is soft. Like she’s trying not to spook him. As if he could be spooked.

He looks at her, eyes clear and green and her expression so open, and for a moment he wants to take her and run, run far, far away, and never come back.

Outrun it , whatever it is.

It’s a beautiful thought, but that’s all it is. Wishful thinking. And there’s no time like the present.

“I think I have an idea.” He says it loud enough for everyone to hear, and David and Mary Margaret both look up. “I think I have an idea about the languages. But first, is there any more pizza?”

-/-

In the Bangor morgue, Dr Ashley Boyd opens the stainless steel door of mortuary refrigerator compartment 2A, pulls out the castor and transfers the body of Graham Humbert to her examination table. Per her instructions the Huntsman’s remains have been divested of all clothing, but his hands and arms have not been touched. From the wisps of wool fiber gently dancing in the chill of the climate controlled air, Ashley can see that they had to cut upper-body clothes off the victim, and she resolves to give both of her assistants a stern lecture about introducing new evidence into existing closed systems. They should have been more careful.

Fibers shearing off scissor blades are rookie mistakes.

She pulls out her recorder and turns it on.

“This is Dr Ashley Boyd, commencing the autopsy on Graham Humbert, November 18th, 11:07 AM.” As she talks she starts to walk around the table, doing her initial visual examination. “Victim is a caucasian male, 37 years old, 5’11”, 179 pounds and 4 ounces, reasonably well---”

It is at this point Dr Boyd reaches the bottom of the examination table, casually reaches out to check the toe tag, and then catches sight of something odd.

She steps closer and pushes back the toes to get a clear view of the soles of Graham’s feet. She stands there for nearly a minute, just staring.

Then she turns around, goes to her adjacent office, and gets the camera.

-/-

“I can’t believe I never thought of it before.”

Killian is sitting cross-legged in front of one of his cardboard boxes, a slice of pizza in his left, digging through files with his right.

“Thought of what before?” Emma is sitting next to him, their knees almost touching.

“That the language might have something to do with the object. Or rather, the target.” He shakes his head. It’s so simple . He is so stupid.

“The object?” David says.

“The target?” Mary Margaret says.

Emma’s brow crinkles. “Please explain?”

Killian sighs and looks at her, and then cuts his eyes over to the other two members of their little task force. And then looks back at Emma, hoping she’ll understand.

Emma doesn’t understand.

David, however, does.

“If you’re trying to get us to leave the room, forget it,” he says, all Deputy Huff. “We are in this, and I am a police officer, in case you hadn’t noticed. A police officer working this case.”

It’s really endearing how flustered he gets.

“It’s OK,” Emma says, and puts a warm hand on Killian’s wrist. “They have to find out sometime. And we need them.” She turns towards David and Mary Margaret, who - Killian swears - are wearing identical expressions of sheer determination.

“Look,” she says. “You’re going to be hearing a lot of strange stuff now. A lot.”

“Stranger than people strung up with runes carved on their backs?” David really does love a good snit. Killian nearly smiles.

“ Much stranger,” Emma answers. “Way way outside what you think is possible. As a matter of fact, you’re both probably going to think we’ve lost every last one of our marbles.” She holds up a hand, stops David from commenting. “Just go with it, OK? Go with it and we’ll answer all your questions afterwards.”

They both nod, and Killian looks at Emma.

It’s time.

-/-

By the time he has to pull back and catch his breath, August is painfully hard.

“ God, ” he says, “I’ve been wanting to do that since I got into your car.”

“Don’t stop.” Victor’s voice is a broken whisper. “Please don’t stop.”

His mouth chases August’s but he pulls back further to look at the doctor, really look at him. Victor’s hands are trembling. His breath is erratic, and not from desire, and his eyes have a look of barely concealed panic, and August takes a step back.

“Wait,” he says. “Wait a minute.”

Victor’s hand firmly grabs the front of his pants and August gasps in equal parts pleasure and pain.

“This doesn’t feel like you want to wait, detective, ” Victor’s voice is rough. “And there’s no time like the present. I should know, since it turns out that the present is all I have.”

“Stop,” August grinds out as Victor’s hand starts to rub up and down, and it takes August every ounce of willpower to step out of his grasp. “Hang on.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do.” Victor lets his head fall back against the wall with a bang. “But you’re making it fucking hard.” He rolls his eyes. “Literally.”

Humor. It turns out humor is Dr Whale’s secret weapon. Go figure.

August takes a deep breath, and exhales long and slow. And then goes for broke.

“Victor,” he says quietly. “This won’t solve anything.”

The doctor grabs him by the lapels and spins them around and slams him into the door. With force. August’s head connects with the frame and his vision sparks for a second. Victor pays no attention to it at all.

“I know ,” he hisses, his face so close to August’s he can see specks of grey in Victor’s blue eyes. “Don’t you think I fucking know that? None of this will solve anything. I. Am. Fucked.”

He laughs out loud, and it’s bitterness made sound.

“Or rather, not fucked, since you turned all Emily Post suddenly.”

“Did you---” August sputters. “Did you just compare me to a 19th century socialite ?”

“If the Adelaides fit.”

“What?” August’s head is spinning.

“Adelaides were a popular women’s shoe in the late 19th century,” Victor says in a long-suffering voice like he’s explaining Sand Castle 101 to a 5-year-old, and something inside August snaps.

“Fuck you,” he snarls and pushes Victor back so forcibly he stumbles and sits down hard on the bed. “Fuck. You. Fuck you and your prevarication.” August shakes his head. “I am not your goddamn stopgap. You don’t get to use me for one last desperate ride into oblivion while you fantasize about someone else.”

Victor deflates all at once and his shoulders slump until he looks like a heap of pure misery.

“I don’t---” His voice cuts out. He clears his throat several times.

When he finally looks up, his eyes look defeated. And brimming with tears.

“You’re not a stopgap,” he whispers. “And I wasn’t going to picture anyone else, I promise.” He takes a shuddering breath. “But I was going to use you for one last ride. I’m sorry.”

Tears start to roll down Victors cheeks. August can’t move a muscle.

“Please, August.” Victor’s voice is barely audible. “Please give me this. I need it.”

August crosses the space between them in two long strides, sits down on the mattress next to Victor and grabs him by the shoulders. Hard.

“I am not your coping mechanism,” he says and watches Victor blink. More tears roll. “And you’re not going to need one anyway, because you are going to fucking live. I am not letting you die, if it’s the last thing I ever do. Do you hear me?” He shakes Victor’s shoulders. He sways boneless like a rag doll. “You are going to survive this.”

Victor leans forward, very slowly, and again August can’t move, can’t do a thing until he feels Victor’s lips brush his own, soft and chaste and gentle.

“If I wanted a coping mechanism,” Victor says quietly, “I could have driven to Portland and found the nearest back room. I do want a ride. But--- I want it with you . Idiot.”

And then Victor smiles, and August capitulates.

He pulls them both up, mauls Victor’s mouth as he pushes him back, back, back against the door again---

as he rips open the white shirt and listens to the buttons ping across the floor---

as Victor’s hands frantically undo his belt buckle and wander south and oh god----

August moans and spins the doctor around and bites his neck, while he pulls down Victor’s pants and then pulls down his own, and then everything is hot and wet and ready and pumping, and downstairs the widow Lucas listens to the rhythmic slams against a wooden door, rolls her eyes, and then turns to ask Dr Hopper whether he wants fries or onion rings with his burger.

Dr Hopper wants both.

-/-

“Elsa’s family originally came here from Norway,” Killian says and finally locates the folder he’s looking for. He hands it to Emma and gives her a minute to glance at the report inside.

“It says they were from Trondheim?” Emma looks up and passes the folder to David. Mary Margaret scoots closer to him and looks over his shoulder and Killian can see the deputy go very still, like he’s afraid moving will cause Mary Margaret to back away.

Which is ridiculous. Her chin is nearly on David’s shoulder.

He exchanges a knowing glance with Emma, who smiles at him in such a way that he wants to pull her into his lap and kiss her thoroughly, their audience be damned , but there is no time. It’s been 8 hours already, and he shouldn’t have slept.

No. It’s good that he did. This idea is the first good theory he’s had in----

This idea is the first good theory he’s had.

Killian nods. “Yes. Trondheim is in central Norway, on the Trondheim Fjord. It was established around 997 as a trading post by Viking King Olaf Tryggvarson.”

Emma smiles and Killian suddenly realizes with absolute certainty that she’s smiling because he remembers obscure dates and arcane details and the names of Viking kings. And that she likes that about him.

“It has a rich and vibrant Viking history,” Killian goes on, smiling back at her fondly. “And since it was an important trading post, and the only one of its kind so far north, it became a melting pot of early languages, which is how I first heard about it.”

It feels good to finally be able to explain, something. Something tangible, based in fact.

“The name Trondheim alone exists in at least 20 languages from Suomi to Mandarin Chinese, just to give you an idea. But the prevailing factor here is Old Norse. The language of its founders.”

Killian gets up and walks over to the wall, where the photocopies of the first notecards, the ones Liam showed him a lifetime ago, are pinned neatly to the wall.

He’s an idiot.

His inability to make this connection years ago has cost so many lives.

So many lives.

For a moment he can’t breathe and then he feels Emma’s hand on his back. Not moving. Just there.

“Elsa was the first target. I am starting to think the killings were incidental, that they were a means to an end.” His throat is too tight, but he manages to grind out the rest. “ Elsa was the target, or rather, the magic she had. Has. Had.”

He can hear twin gasps behind him, but they sound far away, because his focus is solely on the cards before him. There are no interruptions, because Emma is probably shushing everyone.

He is so grateful. Her hand is warm and solid on his back.

He lifts his own hand and traces the runes before him and then he turns to Emma. Her eyes are wide, and there is an odd determination in them.

“I think this is a version of Old Norse,” he whispers. “I think they were directed towards Elsa’s origins.” He walks over to the whiteboard where copies of the current case’s notecards hang next to pictures of bloody runes, and lets his fingers once again trail across the letters.

“I think these are targeted towards you.” He looks at Emma even though right at this moment he’d rather look anywhere else. “I think your magic is the target this time---” gasps again, louder this time, and Emma throws up a hand to halt any comments in their tracks--- “and that’s why it’s not Old Norse. That’s why it’s different. Your origin is different.” He takes a deep breath and locks eyes with Emma.

“Tell me, Emma Swan,” he says, his voice so low that it’s no longer even a whisper. “Is it possible that your ancestors came from the Isle of Man?”

-/-

David’s brain pulls the emergency brake and goes into a tailspin.

This is insane. What they’re talking about is insane .

Did he hear the word magic fall? Twice?

There is strange and then there is impossible and then there is insane, and this is insane . It has to be.

He glances at Mary Margaret and she looks perfectly calm. As if people were not losing all their collective--- wait. Isn’t that what Emma said? That they’ll think this is crazy? Well. Wasn’t that the understatement of the century.

This is insane.

Great. Now his mind is stuck in a loop.

Killian and Emma are still talking and Snow appears to be listening intently and he doesn’t care, because where they are diving there is no bottom and it is insane and before he even knows what’s happening he finds himself leaning forward and bellowing, “Have you all gone completely around the fucking bend?”

It’s his first f-bomb ever.

Well. His first one in public.

Mary Margaret turns to him with a disapproving slant of her mouth that Professor McGonagall could not have matched and snaps, “David. Now is not the time.”

It’s the perfect combination of chagrin and fond exasperation and she is both so much the teacher and the friend at this very moment that David realizes with terrifying clarity that he is hopelessly in love with Mary Margaret Blanchard and wants to spend his goddamn life with her after only knowing her these past few days.

Well, 8 months and 27 days plus the past few days.

And that is insane as well.

This does not bode well for any kind of rational behavior in his future.

But he can’t pay attention to how insane all these things are right now because Mary Margaret is looking at him like she’s an x-ray machine and he’s, well, David, in the flesh, and he couldn’t look away if he tried. Killian and Emma fade at the periphery of his vision and what remains is the woman before him, her smile dazzling, her eyes knowing, and then she winks at him.

She winks .

And David’s life suddenly has a meaning it’s never had before.

Then Mary Margaret turns back to Emma and Killian and says, “ Go on.”

As if nothing happened. As if David’s life hasn’t just changed in every single aspect ever.

He nearly laughs. But he doesn’t want another reprimand.

“Why the Isle of Man?” Emma is spooked. Her voice is not quite steady. She is very good at putting on a brave face, but this whole thing has shaken her down to the foundations.

“Because if the writing in my former case was based on Old Norse, then the writing in your case could be Proto-Celtic. Or rather, attempting to be Proto-Celtic.”

“I don’t understand.” Emma’s voice is shaking now, and David thinks what he wouldn’t give to just wave a magic wand and make this case disappear.

Wave a magic wand . He is going insane after all.

Killian nods. “Look, this is all conjecture, obviously, but let’s assume - for the moment - that you are the target of all these runes. They are meant to evoke or channel or siphon energy from you.”

David is very glad Killian says energy, and not magic. He’s also amazed at the change in the detective. He is every inch a professor now, limbs loose and hands moving; animated, spirited, energized - he hardly recognizes the man.

Then Emma looks at Killian and he simply reaches for her hand. She visibly calms down and David can see that they are connected by more than just attraction.

A lot more.

“Imagine there was someone out there who wanted to harness your powers and to do so had to somehow tap into the primal part of your beginnings, your origins. In Elsa’s case, that would have been Old Norse. In your case, it looks like Proto-Celtic, which was first spoken on the Isle of Man. Or rather, our first evidence of it is found on the Isle of Man. It would make sense, too.”

The last sentence he says nearly to himself.

“The Isle of Man is a place full of old magic. Its history is full of stories of mooinjer veggey and spirits and buggane and---” Killian looks up, clearly only now noticing that he’s lecturing them, and using terms they cannot possibly know, and he cringes. David watches Emma’s eyes grow very soft as she looks at him, watches her take a step closer and squeeze his hand, and then sees Killian relax and straighten back up and exhale a long breath.

“I meant, it has a history full of faeries and ogres and spirits and places imbued with ancient magic.” Killian smiles a self-deprecating smile in David and Mary Margaret’s direction, before he turns back to Emma and says, “Is it possible? Could your forebears have come from the Isle of Man?”

David leans forward. He can’t help it. For as long as he’s known Emma Swan, which is ever since she showed up in Storybrooke 15 years ago, he has never heard her talk about herself, her family, or her past. He has given up trying to elicit information from her years ago, because at best Emma won’t answer prying questions, and at worst she will get snappish and withdrawn, and he hates all of the above.

Emma shudders and doesn’t answer for a long moment and then finally she says, “I don’t know. I was found by the side of a road. I have no idea where I come from.”

The room goes silent.

Nobody moves, nobody speaks-- it seems like nobody even breathes, until Killian takes a step forward and puts their intertwined hands over his heart and whispers quietly, “I’m so sorry, love.”

And then a loud, persistent series of beeps sounds out and David gets up to check his computer while Emma says, “ME urgent findings alert”.

David pulls up Ashley’s email and then looks up at three pairs of apprehensive eyes staring at him. He scans the report.

“Seems like the doc found something on--- wait a minute. That can’t be right.”

They all walk over to him until they’re standing behind him like a freaking gallery and reading over his shoulder (David loathes people reading over his shoulder, unless it’s Mary Margaret leaning in closer, then he doesn’t hate it), and Emma says, “Ashley found something on Graham’s feet?”

“The soles of his feet, it seems,” David answers. “That’s ridiculous. Who goes through the trouble of taking off a victim’s shoes and socks, carves symbols into them, and then puts the socks and the shoes back on?”

Emma steps aside to let Killian get a better look. “It makes very little sense. But it also says there are beginning signs of healing? Which means those wounds were inflicted very much ante mortem . By a sizeable amount of time.”

“At least 24 hours.” Killian squints at the screen and adds, “She says she can’t be sure, but that’s her best professional guess.” He finally leans back, giving David some space. “I think your ME is eminently competent. I believe we can assume her guess is correct.”

“How?” It’s Mary Margaret who speaks, and David has never heard her sound so scared. She sounds small . “How on earth could Graham have gotten the soles of his feet carved up a day before he died? And go about his life as if nothing happened? How could he not have noticed?”

“Well, you very rarely look at the soles of your feet---” David starts and Mary Margaret cuts him off.

“Are you seriously saying you wouldn’t notice it if I took a sharp instrument to your feet?”

“The cuts weren’t as deep.” Emma has wandered over to her own computer and presumably pulled up the same email, and now Killian is leaning over her shoulder, and that is much better.

Then Emma looks at David, brow furrowed. “Could it be done? Was he a heavy sleeper? Or maybe he got dosed with a sedative? The cuts are superficial, it says here, more scratches than actual wounds.”

“He was a heavy sleeper,” Mary Margaret says, and David’s heart drops to somewhere between his knees. “We went on a hunting retreat every year, the whole club. Camping, out in the woods, you know? Graham once slept through four absolutely wasted men singing at the top of their lungs for an hour.”

And just like that David’s heart slots back into place.

“So yes,” Mary Margaret goes on, “He was a heavy sleeper. But I still think he’d wake up if someone carved markings into the soles his feet.” Her eyes narrow. “What’s the attachment?”

“The official report,” David says.

“No, not that.” Mary Margaret points to the header. “Next to it. Your ME sent a picture.”

And David clicks on it.

It’s a picture of the symbol carved into Graham’s skin, and contrary to the runes they’ve been faced with, this is a symbol he has seen before. A stylized triple spiral, in the shape of a symmetrical pyramid. The inner space forms a triangle.

“A triskelion? ” Killian says, and his voice sounds strangled. “There were triskelions carved into Graham’s feet? ”

This obviously means something to the detective, but David cannot pay any attention to that because next to him Mary Margaret has gone completely still.

She just stares and stares, eyes narrow, brows crinkled; her shoulders stiff, her mouth a thin line. And then she says, “Does anyone have a grease pen?”

David scrambles to get one from his drawer and Mary Margaret takes it, walks over to the wall, to the satellite image of Graham’s cell phone pings, marking all of his tracks before he died, and then draws the connecting lines, and there it is.

The rhyme and reason to his movements.

His tracks are one large triskelion.

-/-

“Wait,” Emma says. “Wait, please. Wait.”

She shakes her head to clear it. There are all these clues, and they all look like they should fit a larger picture, like they are pieces of a puzzle , and all they do is just muddy the waters. She can feel her brain overloading.

In the end it’s David who breaks the silence. “What is a triskelion? What does it mean?”

Killian scratches behind his right ear as he answers, a sign Emma can now identify as one of distress. “Bear in mind that I am not a historian,” he says. “So all of this explanation will be rather crude.”

Emma nearly laughs.

Not a historian. Killian is one the most educated men in the county, probably the state. Maybe the country. None of his case research, nor his explanations, could ever be considered crude.

Only a professor would judge his own knowledge this harshly.

“The word triskelion comes from the Greek, triskeles , meaning three-legged.” Killian’s voice is thoughtful and he looks almost preoccupied. As if his brain was chasing down an elusive thought while explaining the mundane. “It was prevalent throughout the European Neolithic and Bronze Age, but originally the symbol consisted of three literal legs, arranged in a circle. It’s found on Ancient Greek pottery and later appears in heraldry and many other iterations, but since the Iron Age its use has centered most significantly in the Celtic culture, where its name is ny tree cassyn .”

He looks up.

His gaze is clear and unflinching.

“Emma,” he says. “Its most explicit and definitive association today is with a very specific place.” He looks at her almost in apology. “It is the symbol for the Isle of Man.”

“Wait.”

Emma feels like her brain is caving in on itself. There is too much information and none of it leads anywhere useful.

Every piece just adds to the mystery and now there is this whole component which might pertain to her, a component with which she cannot help because she knows nothing about her own past, nothing about herself other than what she can remember, and for a moment she feels so useless and desperate that she wants to scream in sheer frustration.

Killian looks at her full of worry and empathy. He’s trying so hard to make this as easy as possible, but there is no way to lift this burden for her.

Things weigh what they weigh.

Emma takes a deep breath.

Start with something tangible. Something logical. Pick a thread, and actual thread, and see where it leads.

Be Ariadne. Find the minotaur.

Oh god, mythology is starting to rub off on her .

“Let’s forget about Graham and the symbols for a second,” she says, her voice almost steady. “You said the killings were incidental. That they were a means to an end.”

Killian nods. She has his full attention.

“And that the first ‘end’, if you will, was Elsa.”

He nods again. Everyone is looking at her, spellbound.

“Then why those people? Why kill those particular people? To get to Elsa?”

She clears her throat and wishes to every god she doesn’t believe in she didn’t have to say this next part. But she does. “Liam---” Her voice cuts out, and she tries again. “Liam I understand.”

Killian’s face twists and her vision gets blurry as tears start to fill her eyes.

“I’m so sorry. I’m not trying to hurt you.”

He nods and very gently takes her hand, takes her hand to comfort her while she’s talking about the death of his brother, and she feels like her soul might crack and shatter.

It takes her a long moment to go on.

“But why the others? Why Detective Scarlet and Detective Prince and--- who was the woman again? Belle something? Why them?” She sniffs and blinks her tears away. “What do they have to do with Elsa?”

“That’s a really good question.” Once again Killian’s eyes drift away, unfocused, lost in thought. “The only connection we could ever establish was---- the case. Except of course for the librarian. I think the assumption was that the culprit was getting rid of all the people on his tracks.”

He looks at Emma, eyes back in focus.

“I wasn’t part of the police force then, just the consultant, so I don’t know exactly what the hypothesis was, but from what Liam said, it was something along those lines.”

“But that doesn’t track, does it,” Emma says, and Killian shakes his head.

“If Elsa was the target, it had to have something to do with her .”

Killian nods. “Or Liam. Maybe they were trying to get to Elsa through Liam. They were married, after all. And Liam was killed in an entirely different way from all the others.”

Emma wants to ask how.

There is nothing in the files on how exactly Liam Jones died.

But she can’t ask. Not now. Not Killian. She won’t put him through this.

Maybe August will tell her. Later.

Instead she nods and squeezes his fingers. He squeezes back. Hard.

“That would explain the detectives,” she says, slowly. “But not the woman. How on earth does she fit into the puzzle?”

“She was Will’s girlfriend,” a voice says from the door. “They’d just started going out. I was the only one who knew.”

August saunters into the room, Victor trailing behind him, both men looking somewhat disheveled.

“ What? ” Killian’s eyes narrow as he fixes them on August. “Will went out with the first victim? How on earth are you only bringing this up now? IT’S BEEN YEARS.”

He’s yelling. Emma squeezes his hand again, and he takes a deep breath.

“It wasn’t pertinent.” August’s face is blank. “They’d only been dating a few weeks. But he was fucking gaga about the girl already, came into work with puppy dog eyes every day and would not shut up about her.”

He rolls his eyes. Killian watches Victor nonchalantly walk over to August and stand next to him. Stand very closely next to him.

August quirks a small grin and then looks straight at Killian. His gaze is sharp, his mouth a hard line. “And then she went missing, and Will went bonkers. Couldn’t get in on the case so he searched for her himself, and I don’t know how on earth he kept it from Eric, but - well, you know.” He sighs. “Eric was unbeatable when it came to combining evidence with hunch to come up with a theory, but he was a bit, well----”

Killian remembers Eric Prince - young, smart, articulate, and with just enough ambition to provide ample drive, but not so much as to dip into opportunism, mostly because he was nothing if not pragmatic. Back on the task force he had hyper-focused on the puzzle to the exclusion of all else - a trait Killian was told was Detective Prince’s trademark.

Killian nods. “I know. Not exactly observant of his surroundings.”

August tries to smile and fails.

But he does go on. “Anyway. The Belle girl turned up dead and Will lost it. Swore me to secrecy, because he was never going to get anywhere near the case with a personal connection to the victim, and when Liam and I got assigned the homicide, he marched straight into the Chief’s office and convinced him it needed a task force. I have no idea how on earth he got King Midas to agree, but he walked out with himself and Eric attached to the case.”

“King Midas? Your chief’s name was Midas? ” David sounds as incredulous as Killian did the first time he’d heard that name.

August turns to the deputy. “Former detective with a stellar career. Youngest police chief of all time. He got the nickname because everything he touched turned to gold. Man could do no wrong.” He looks back at Killian. “Except for assigning us all to this goddamn case, and don’t I wish every day that he hadn’t, because then Will would still be alive.”

Killian looks at August as if seeing him for the very first time. Looks at Victor, standing so close to August, who surreptitiously wipes his eyes with his left while searching for his flask with his right. Watches August take a long pull, watches Victor gently take the flask from him afterwards, and then realizes.

Jesus Christ. August was right. Killian doesn’t notice shit .

“Anyway.” August clears his throat. “That is the story of how all the fucking victims were connected to Liam after all. Including the librarian.”

There is a long moment of silence and then David gets up and walks over to the whiteboard.

“And you’re saying Emma is the new target?” He sounds equal parts scared and determined. “But it doesn’t make sense. She had nothing to do at all with Graham. Did you?”

Killian looks at Emma, and for a moment a spike of pure jealousy rises in Killian’s gut, but then Emma shakes her head, and it subsides. He almost laughs.

It’s too ridiculous, this normal, run-of-the-mill rivalry in the middle of this insanity. Rivalry with a dead man. He should be ashamed of himself.

“And Emma and I never met before last night.” It’s the first thing Victor has said at all, and five pairs of eyes snap to his face.

He looks at Killian. Gives him a self-deprecating smile.

“Well, you know.” Victor shrugs. “Might as well name the elephant in the room.”

“It’s not going to get you,” August whispers, and again Killian is overwhelmed by the fact that apparently he is no better than Eric was, and doesn’t notice things until they are shoved straight into his face.

He should give his badge back.

“Either way,” Victor says, “we’ve known each other barely 24 hours. That cannot be a connection worth exploiting.”

“What about Leroy?” David says. Killian can see him straining to remain calm. “Did you know Leroy, Emma?”

And Emma nods .

“Yes,” she says and fear drops into Killian’s stomach like a ball of lead. “I knew him. I knew his brothers, too, but I knew Leroy best. He was the boyfriend of the woman who ran the group home where I stayed the longest. I saw him every day for two years, back when I was a teenager.”

She shudders. The fear inside Killian turns to ice.

“The woman died and we were all transferred and he disappeared.” Emma’s voice is a whisper, and god--- Killian just wants to wrap her up and keep her safe and never let go. Instead he stands still as a statue, just holding her hand, while she goes on. “He and a few of his brothers ended up at the docks about a year ago, and he was in bad shape. They all were. I got them into the halfway house, got him into counseling. He was sober and was really starting to do well, and---”

A small sob escapes her and Killian finally steps forward and puts his arm around her and she presses her face into his chest as her shoulders shake, and he just hugs her tightly.

“So there’s a connection there,” David whispers. It rings in Killian’s ears like a death knell.

Emma pulls back, looks up at Killian, and presses a small kiss to his neck, before she wipes her eyes and steps back.

It feels like loss.

“There’s the matter of touch,” she says, her voice once again calm and steady, and god , she’s magnificent. “Graham probably touched Leroy. Victor touched Graham.” Her eyes cut to the doctor and she cringes. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Victor nods. “You’re reciting facts. Go on.”

She takes a deep breath.

“From what I can tell from your files and August’s story, it’s very likely that Eric touched Belle.”

David’s brow furrows. “Where did you get that?”

“He was going out with the ME.” Mary Margaret’s voice rings out clear as a bell, and Killian looks up in surprise. He’d completely forgotten she was there.

She bites her lip, but then points towards the wall. “You can tell by the nature of his report and his findings. The coroner’s evidence he listed is incredibly detailed. But also--- the ME’s findings are recorded and time stamped. You can see it in the transcripts. Some of the recordings were done very late at night, two or three AM, and yet their results appear in Detective Prince’s reports and logs first thing the next morning. Before they were even transcribed.”

She shrugs, a little abashed.

“There’s only one logical explanation for that.”

Killian has to resist the temptation to slap his forehead, because Jesus Christ they are all so stupid , but August bursts out laughing.

“Oh my god,” he says, shaking his head. “How are you a school teacher? How are you not the next Sherlock Holmes?”

And then Victor says, “Elementary school, my dear Watson,” and all of them stare at the doctor for a long moment and then everyone laughs out loud.

August’s hand briefly squeezes Victor’s ass, and Killian cannot believe he has been this blind.

When they’re finally done, Emma reaches for Killian’s hand again, and the warm, golden sense of safety and belonging comes on so strong, they both stare at each other for a full minute before she turns and says, “Belle is where we should start.”

Killian squeezes her hand. “How do you mean?”

“We have touch as a connection for everyone but the very first victim. Right? Will found Eric’s body, didn’t he? It is reasonable to assume he did what Graham and Victor did -- look for a pulse first.”

Killian nods. As does everyone else.

“So. That leaves the first victim. In my case, there is a connection to Leroy.” She shudders, but presses on. “Now - we have a link between Belle and Will, and it’s tempting to leave it at that.” She looks over at August. “I get why you didn’t tell on him, but I don’t think Detective Scarlet is the link. I think there’s a connection between Belle and Elsa. And we have to find it.”

Thank you all once again for your patience, and for sticking with me through this absolute insanity. You’re the bestestestest. 💖💖💖💖

#cs fic #cs fic rec #thisonesatellite #alternate universe - detectives #sheriff!Emma #detective!Killian #if you live by the word #in which stuff is finally starting to happen #by the metric fuckton #don't say i didn't warn you

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let-it-raines · 5 years ago

Text

What a Wicked Game {13/15}

Killian met her in a pub on a rainy night in March. Going inside was only supposed to be a way for him to avoid the rain and fight off the demons in his head. It was a place for him to pass through, not stay. But then he was charmed by a blonde woman with a quick wit who had absolutely no interest in him or who he was.

That was a first. It was also the beginning of Emma Nolan helping to bring him back to life. It was the beginning of everything.

Five years later, with their worlds crumbling around them, Killian can’t help but wonder if this is the end of the peace they have known now that his family knows about his relationship. It wouldn’t be a problem if his father wasn’t the King of England.

rating: mature

a/n: thanks to @captainswanbigbang for making this possible, to @resident-of-storybrooke for being the best cheerleader/proofreader, and to @captainsjedi for making me beautiful artwork and also being a wonderful cheerleader!

This is the last *official* chapter. The next two are epilogues to honor the original story and it’s epic crazy epilogue. 💕

ao3: beginning | current

tumblr: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |

-/-

November 10th, 2018

Elsa gives birth to a girl.

It happens quickly, a quarter past five on the morning on November tenth, and the text wakes Killian from his slumber to find a picture of Elsa holding a small, red-faced child named Elizabeth.

Princess Elizabeth Amelia Zara Jones.

Lizzie.

“She’s beautiful,” Emma whispers over Alex’s head as his small limbs kick into Killian’s stomach like they’ve been doing since he was dropped off last night by frenzied parents.

“She looks demonic right now.”

“Stop,” Emma hisses with a roll of her eyes. “All babies are the most gorgeous creatures on the planet. You’re not supposed to point out that they can look demonic and be unattractive.”

“If it’s not my child and I’m not saying it to the parents, I can say whatever the hell I want.”

“And if it is your child?”

Killian reaches his hand over to tug on Emma’s waist, pulling her closer to him so that her freezing feet tuck between his calves and they won’t wake Alex with their whispering. “Now, Swan, we’ve talked about this. We’re just practicing with our naked sleepovers. No babies are going to be involved.”

“I hate you.”

“You love me.”

“Not right now,” Emma huffs, but he can see her smile. “Can you believe Elsa and Liam have another baby?”

“Aye. Known it would be happening for awhile now. Elsa’s ever burgeoning stomach gave me a few clues.”

If she didn’t have a toddler between the two of them, he knows that she’d slap his shoulder over his cheekiness and maybe a little bit to get back at him for accidentally slapping her earlier. Instead she reaches across Alex and cups Killian’s cheek, thumb running across the bone.

“Do you remember the night you told me Elsa was pregnant again?”

He does. He remembers how distraught he was over thoughts of this child growing up in the same way he had. He’d shown up at the pub a complete mess and tried to get Emma into bed instead of talking through what was bothering him. But she’d known him so well, knows him so well, and made him talk about what was bothering him instead of drowning himself in her and in alcohol.

That was only six months ago, and his world has flipped on its head several times since. It’s so much that he barely knows what to do with any of it. Really, all he knows is that he’ll never have to worry about Liam treating Lizzie in a different way than how he treats Alex. Brennan will never understand or realize how awful he is and how backward his mindset can be, but that won’t truly matter. Not when Alex and Lizzie have incredible parents who aren’t going to fall into the trap that this family seems to keep falling for.

Not when they’re going to change everything about this family so that future generations will never go through what they’ve been through.

Emma. All of this is because of Emma.

She’s changed his world.

(And is changing a monarchy.)

“Yes,” Killian whispers back to her.

“So much has changed since then. Everything really. You and your family are an actual family, babe. A family with issues and that one awful relative that we’ll pretend doesn’t exist, but there’s also so much love. It’s amazing.”

“It’s all because of you, Emma.”

She laughs, so quiet so as not to disturb Alex in this hushed conversation, and he knows she’s going to brush it all off.

“I mean, I was at the root of some knock down drag out fights, so I wouldn’t say that.”

“I would.”

“Killian, if the relationship you have with Liam is better, that’s all you. You fought for what you deserved, no matter how hard it was, and I’d like to think that you’ve got a winning strategy.”

Except for with his father…

But no matter, this woman next to him with red pillow crease lines on her cheeks and tangles in his hair continues to change his life, and if it wasn’t for Alex between them and the day he knows he has ahead of him, Killian would get the engagement ring out of his shoe in the closet and ask her to marry him right now.

Having that ring made while they were broken up was the most idiotic idea, but he thinks much like Emma and her lightning bolt tattoo, a part of him knew that it would all be okay.

Best stupid decision he’s ever made.

“I love you. I think I might love you too much”

And it’s true. As sentimental and slightly vomit-inducing as it might be to some, he does love her so much that his chest pangs.

He loves her not simply because she is beautiful and a light in his life who makes him laugh even when he doesn’t know how anymore. He loves her for the way that she enjoys watching stand-up comedy even when it’s bad and stops her runs to dance along to the music playing through her speakers. He loves that she is kind to others and compassionate about those who she cares for, and he loves the energy she brings to her own life. He loves her not for what she does for him but for who she is. She’s Emma, a mess of good and bad qualities.

She’s brilliant in a multitude of ways.

And she’s here and not going anywhere. He’s not going anywhere either. It’s a constant reminder between the two of them, something they both need to hear, but Killian knows deep in his belly that they’re not going to go through another separation again.

Will they have other shit to deal with? Of course. But they’re doing it together.

“Not possible,” Emma murmurs before kissing his nose. “I love you, too. I’m glad you won’t call our babies ugly even if you think they are.”

Killian laughs loud enough this time that Alex stirs between them and groggily opens his blue eyes, looking between he and Emma. He stretches his arms above his head and kicks Killian’s stomach before turning into Emma and wrapping himself into Emma like the little traitor he is.

“Emmy,” he giggles, pressing wet kisses over Emma’s face. “Emmy is here.”

“Yeah, buddy, I am. How do you feel about going to take a bath? You and Killian need one before we go visit your new sister.”

“Noooo.”

“Yes,” Emma confirms, squeezing onto Alex and scrunching up her nose. “Especially Killian. He’s smelly.”

“Oi,” Killian scoffs. Every kind thought he had about this woman has disappeared in that exact moment, but he can’t wipe the smile off his face. It’s been a good morning. A good few weeks really. “I’ll have you know I bathe quite frequently thank you very much.”

“Then you’ll have no problem taking a bath right now.”

-/-

Emma is visibly nervous when they arrive at the hospital and are surrounded by people, fans and photographers alike. Her leg tapping up and down is shaking the entire car, but she doesn’t say anything in protest to getting out. When he asks if she wants to stay inside, she shakes her head and turns in the backseat to unbuckle Alex from his car seat before exiting the car to a loud clamor of voices.

The press have a field day seeing Alex walking into the hospital holding Emma’s hand, all of them calling out questions and trying to get Alex to pose or wave for the cameras. When Emma picks him up, resting him on her hip and telling him to wave, he happily complies as long as Emma waves with him.

Good. That’s a good start.

As they’re nearing the stairs a photographer yells out, “Emma, why is Prince Alexander walking with you and not Killian?”

Killian thinks Emma won’t answer. Her relationship with the press is abysmal as best. It was like that before the accident, but ever since, she’s hated them even more. He has too. All of the ones here today may be here to celebrate the birth of a new member of his family and may not mean any harm, but it’s easy to clump them all into one category.

They could have killed the woman he loves all over a picture, and Killian will never forgive anyone for that – not the press, not August Booth, no matter any of their motivations. If the three of them were able to go inside today in a different entrance, there would be no question as to how they would enter the hospital. At least no one is asking about the bloody breakup. That’s been a constant topic every time he’s stepped out into public lately.

Small wins and all.

“To tell you the truth,” Emma begins, shifting Alex on her hip. She’s talking to the people, the ones who aren’t holding professional cameras and microphones, and that makes a bit more sense to Killian. “Alexander here is always telling me that he loves his Emmy more than he loves his Uncle Killian because I know where we keep the good cookies…I mean, biscuits. Still getting used to the change in vernacular no matter how long I’ve lived here. That one will always throw me off.”

“Biscuits,” Alex joins in, raising his hands in the air and then rubbing his belly, causing the reporters and the crowd to roar in their laughter.

“Killian can’t give them to him because we hide the biscuits from him. He’s got a bit of a sweet tooth, you know.”

“Well, that’s why I love you, darling,” Killian teases. “Because you’re so sweet.”

“He’s also apparently got a thing for cheese,” she tells the crowd, throwing a wink at him. And he should have known that she would tease him when given the opportunity. Her heart has to be hammering in her discomfort, but she’s trying her best to be a part of his world.

There are parts of him that are still so fucking livid that he doesn’t know how to function seeing the flashes and hearing the clicks of the cameras, but he knows that he can’t do anything about it. At least not now. Right now all he has to worry about is making sure that Emma and Alex are safe.

Killian leans down to give her a quick peck, making Alex cover his eyes with his hands like he does nearly every time, and he can hear the laughter mixed in with the clicks of the shutters on the cameras. Some will be mad that Emma came with him to the hospital, but those without a stick up their ass will see the moment as a simple every day, family moment. He doesn’t care what anyone thinks, and if they have something to say, every press privilege for an official will be revoked in the snap of his fingers. He’s glad she’s here. Always.

After making a few more pleasantries and waving goodbye, the three of them are ushered inside by Graham, who is almost scarily professional while working. The man is an old friend and Ruby’s boyfriend, but no one would ever know that for the job he does.

Good.

They can be mates at dinner or when he’s off duty. For now, Killian wants the assured protection for his loved ones.

“My boy,” Liam greets once they’re in the maternity ward and away from most prying eyes. “I have missed you.”

“Papa,” Alex squeals, squirming out of Emma’s arms to run to his dad and be swooped up into his arms for a bracing hug. “Emmy gave me biscuit.”

“For breakfast? That’s nutritional.”

Emma huffs and crosses her arms over her chest even as Liam walks toward her and brushes his lips over her cheek. “He had oatmeal for breakfast. We just happened to be talking about biscuits outside. How’s Elsa?”

“Tired, happy, wonderful,” Liam laughs with genuine joy, eyes reddened from lack of sleep and tears of joy. “She just woke up from a nap to feed Lizzie, and I know she’s chuffed to see you all.” Liam turns his attention to Alex now. “Are you ready to meet your new sister?”

“She’s here?” Alex gasps. “Not in tummy?”

Killian chuckles and shakes his head. They went over this on the ride here and this morning, but the concept might be too big for a toddler to understand.

“She’s here, Alex, and I know that Mummy is ready to see you again. She’s missed you.”

Liam starts to walk away, Killian walking with him, but then he notices that Emma hasn’t moved from her spot, and Killian makes some half-assed excuse about letting Liam take Alex to see the lad first and that they’ll join them later.

“Hey,” he says to Emma, cocking his head to the side, “what are you doing? Don’t you want to go see Elsa and Lizzie?”

“I just...I need a moment.”

Killian arches a brow, but she doesn’t see it. Instead, she closes her eyes and leans back against the wall, her chest visibly heaving.

“Tomorrow or in a few hours or at some point in time,” Emma whispers, eyes still closed, “Elsa is going to walk out that door in heels and a pretty dress with a newborn in her arms and be photographed within an inch of her life. She’s still going to be wearing a damn diaper under a five-thousand-dollar dress, and I...I…shit. The people don’t scare me, but the press does. I flinch at the sounds of the cameras, am constantly worried that someone else is going to chase me or want something from me and I - ”

Emma opens her eyes, the green watery. He’s got no idea what’s happening, and he feels like he should.

He knew she was nervous when they were in the car, that it was a big deal for her to come with them today, but he foolishly thought she’d made it through the experience unscathed.

“I know that it’s an adjustment,” she continues, “and I’m only just learning, but I...if we have kids, I don’t want them on display like that. I don’t want myself on display. I don’t want to disrespect your customs and traditions, but I also want to respect myself and our kids. They shouldn’t have to be terrified of the click of a camera like I am right now.”

“Emma - ”

“I’m fine,” she sniffles, wiping her eyes. “I really am. That was just a lot outside, and I’m tired and I wanted to let you know how I’m feeling because that’s something we’re working on. I - ”

Killian steps forward and tucks her hair behind her ears, swiping his thumb across her cheeks to wipe away the little flecks of mascara. “It’s a process, my love, and if you think I’m not still fucking angry over what happened to you, you’re wrong. I’m livid. It’s not going to be something either of us get over in a blink of an eye or possibly ever, but I will do everything in my power to protect you and these hypothetical children and dogs or cats or even lizards.”

“Lizards?”

“They’ll get their own security guard too.” Emma laughs and leans forward into him until her face is buried in his shoulder. “I’d go to the end of the world for you. Every damn day.”

“That’s dramatic.”

“I try.” Killian rubs his hand over her back and kisses the side of her head. “Thank you for sharing what was going through that head of yours.”

“Thank you for not making me feel like I’m crazy.”

“I’ve given you a pass on that for today.” Emma huffs into his shoulder, and he kisses her hair again. “Are you ready to go into the hospital room now or do you need more time?”

“I think I can handle going to see that ugly baby you were talking about earlier.”

“Please don’t tell them I said that. I did not call Lizzie ugly.”

“It was implied.”

Emma gasps when Killian lightly taps her ass, but he doesn’t get to see the look on her face since he’s quickly walking ahead of her toward Elsa’s hospital room. She catches up, slapping his shoulder before hooking her arm around his and holding onto his elbow.

When they walk into the hospital room, Elsa is sitting in the bed wrapped up in a robe with her hair in a bun, and she’s holding both Lizzie and Alex while Liam sits at the edge and quietly talks to all of them. Killian feels like they’re intruding on a moment, like this isn’t meant for him and Emma.

His brother is a good but broken man, and Killian is happy for him. For all of them.

“They look so happy,” Emma whispers in his ear before placing her head on his shoulder.

“Aye,” he agrees. “I think they are.”

“Would either of you like to hold her?” Elsa asks them, waving them into the room even though Killian thinks they might need to slink away to give them privacy.

“Can I?” Emma asks, voice small as if she wasn’t just directly asked.

“Of course you can,” Elsa answers, motioning for Emma to come closer. She carefully hands Elizabeth over to Emma, the both of them cradling Lizzie’s head. “She’s wavering in and out of sleep.”

“Oh, she’s so beautiful, Elsa,” Emma compliments, running her finger over the covered swaddle of Elizabeth, before tacking on, “and Liam. I guess you possibly had something to do with this, though I think she’s likely to get all of her good looks from other members of the family.”

Liam laughs, actually laughs at Emma’s tease, white teeth flashing in an exuberant smile that Killian has rarely seen in his life.

Well, he’s seen it lately. A lot actually. But he’s not accustomed to any of this yet.

His brother is his friend and is capable of joking with Emma. It’s pretty much some kind of miracle even if he knows it’s through a hell of a lot of hard work and tough conversations.

If he looks back too quickly, Killian will get whiplash.

“I think that sounds about right,” Liam chuckles, moving over to stand next to Killian and throwing his arm over Killian’s shoulder. “You best hope your children get their looks from you and not this one here.”

Emma’s face flushes red, but she doesn’t say anything back, just shoots Killian a timid smile and mouths “he’s right” to Killian. She throws in a wink just for extra emphasis. Killian is hit with a sense of want – want to have children, want to have those children with Emma, and want for those children to look just like her – that he has to stifle, just winking right back in response.

They’re not ready. They can talk all about future plans and wants for that time, but they’re not ready. They’re still so young, and they have all of the time in the world to figure things out. They’ve just gotten back, and he doesn’t want to rush anything.

But it’s undeniable how incredibly, stupidly jealous he feels of Liam for getting all of this.

Is it possible to be genuinely thrilled for someone and jealous all the same?

Elizabeth starts fussing in Emma’s arm, a slow cry that’s only going to get bigger, and he watches Emma hand the baby back to Elsa and sit down on the bed to talk to Alex, who is absolutely enraptured with his sister. Killian wonders just how long that’s going to last before Alex is absolutely cross with all of the attention Lizzie will be getting.

“She’s doing so well,” Liam says suddenly, arm falling from Killian’s shoulder.

“Elsa? Yeah, she seems to be doing great, the tough lass she is. I’ve never quite understood how women are able to give birth.”

Liam just chuckles, shaking his head. “Brother, when a man loves a woman - ”

Killian gently slaps his brother’s shoulder. “You know what I mean.”

“Aye, I do. I can’t quite understand it myself. I think they might be magical. And Elsa is incredible, bloody amazing really. I’m forever in awe of her. It’s just that I was talking about Emma. It takes a strong woman to stay with the two of us despite our lives, and we’ve found some of the good ones. I’m sorry for everything before. I can’t say that enough.”

Killian doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know how to deal with hearing everything he’s ever wanted to hear from his brother yet again, so he redirects the conversation. “So a little lass, huh?”

“I’m already out of my league.”

“You’ve been batting out of your league for your entire life, brother.”

Liam barks out another laugh. “Was that a baseball term? Have you ever seen a baseball game?”

“I’m dating an American whose father is obsessed with baseball, so I think you can fill in the blanks.”

Killian doesn’t want to intrude on Liam and Elsa, knowing just how exhausted Elsa has to be and how special this time is, but then Liam is asking if Killian and Emma would like to stay with her while he takes Alex home to be with his nanny and to keep his schedule from deviating too much. They insist that they can watch him for the day, but Liam and Elsa both would rather him be home and don’t want to burden the two of them.

It’s not a burden at all.

But that’s how Killian ends up holding Lizzie as she sleeps, little sputtering noises escaping her lips. She doesn’t at all look like a little red demon now, and he was wrong to have said that earlier. He thinks they’ll be rather good mates.

“I think she likes you,” Emma whispers, trying not to wake Lizzie or Elsa.

“Well, I’ve been told that the hair all over my body makes me comfortable to sleep on.”

“Whoever said that is brilliant.”

“Aye, I think so.”

“Do you think we should put her in the bassinet?”

“I’m scared that if I move it’ll disturb her.”

“It won’t,” Elsa mumbles, still mostly asleep.

He and Emma both quietly snicker, and carefully, Killian stands from the couch and walks to the small rolling bassinet, placing Lizzie down. She doesn’t startle or wake up, and he takes it as a win.

“I’m going to go get some tea or coffee, love. Do you want something?”

“Coffee. See if you can charm a nurse to get you the good stuff instead of the ones at those stations outside.”

Killian winks. “I’ll try.”

When he walks outside the hospital room door, he nods his head in acknowledgment to Elsa’s security and his own, telling Graham that he’s going in search for coffee, and Graham directs him to a small coffee and tea station around the corner. It’s exactly the bitter stuff he didn’t want, but since he doesn’t see any nurses or doctors to charm into letting him use the good pots in their lounges, this will likely have to do.

He got so little sleep last night that he’ll take anything with caffeine to bring a little life back into his eyes and his body.

Just as Emma’s disposable cup is filling with bitter coffee he knows she won’t drink without copious amounts of creamer, there’s the sound of doors opening and the loud clatter of footsteps moving down the hall.

It’s his parents and their security.

Shit.

He didn’t think they’d come for a few more hours.

“Killian,” Allison blushes, her smile growing in size as she scurries through the hallway to embrace him, her frame so small in his. “I didn’t know you were here.”

“Aye, Emma and I brought Alexander to see his sister and mum a few hours ago and have been keeping Elsa company while Liam takes Alex home.”

“Well, that is a wonderful surprise. We knew Alex and Liam had gone home for a bit, but I didn’t know you were here. I can’t wait to see my new grandchild.”

Killian pats his mum’s back before pulling back and kissing her cheek. “She can’t wait to see you. Why don’t you go on to the room? I want to speak to Dad for a moment.” Allison raises her brows. “I’ll be fine. Go meet your new granddaughter.”

Allison nods and steps away from him, and Brennan begins to do the same until Killian places his hand on his chest and keeps him from walking down the hallway.

“Do you need something?”

Killian swallows and sets his shoulders back before directly looking in his father’s eyes, ones he’s never seen show kindness to him, ones he doesn’t expect to.

At this point, he doesn’t want that. He doesn’t need that. He’s not looking for the approval of this man.

“I’m going to say this one last time,” Killian begins, clenching his jaw to keep himself as steady as possible, “and if you don’t listen, I will go through with every word I’ve ever said about exposing you and ruining that pretty image you like to keep up.”

Brennan’s jaw clenches, but his age shows on his face instead of his anger. “You’re my son. I don’t have to listen to you.”

“There are hundreds of people out there, each of them with a camera on their phone. That doesn’t even take into account the news outlets. In less than two minutes, I can ruin you. Do you understand that?”

Brennan blinks and looks away before turning back to face Killian, no emotion on his face. It must be from years of practicing or possibly years of uncaring. “Go on then.”

“I’m marrying Emma. I don’t know when, but I am. When that time comes, you will sign every necessary piece of paper and approve every detail of the wedding. You will lie and say that you’re happy for me because it’s good for your image, and you will not fight with us behind the scenes. You don’t have to like me or Emma, but you will not continue to cut her down. I won’t let you, Liam won’t let you, and I can guarantee that Mum won’t have it anymore.”

“Anything else you’d like to command of me today or are you done asking for things I don’t have to grant you?”

Bastard.

His father is a bastard, but Killian is in this now. He’s not backing out now.

He’s not losing Emma again.

“Emma will get a full team of security protection under your personal pay until we’re married and she can legally have the same arrangements as the rest of us, you’ll agree to cut off any press from official events if they try to slander or attack her again, and you will release statements to have her protected so she doesn’t almost fucking die again. She could have died because people wanted a picture of her, and I will not stand for that again. These aren’t negotiations. These are demands. Any kind of protection Elsa has, Emma will have as well, whether we’re married or not.”

“How do you - ”

“No negotiations,” Killian repeats, refusing to back away from his father. “I’m happy to help set all of this in motion for you if you need me to. I’ve been working on a few things. I’ll send them to your office tomorrow.”

When Brennan doesn’t say anything and doesn’t move from his sport, Killian raises his brows and inches closer. “Do you understand? Stepping out of line will have repercussions for you, and threatening me will do you no good. I’m willing to step away from the cushions of this life. I’m not dependent on the coin purse and the good publicity. You are.”

“None of this is going to be pretty for you. The public will continue to despise her and think that everything she does is wrong. Every misstep will be magnified, and your popularity will plummet.”

Killian scoffs and shakes his head. This man is never going to get it. “The beauty of the whole thing is that I don’t fucking care about any of that. I am going to choose Emma every time. I’ve never loved this lifestyle or craved the approval of the press like you. I’ve never wanted any of this. I respect the history of our family, and I can guarantee that Emma and I will do our best to honor that. However, we’re forging our own path with our own family, and if I end up having to leave this family later for Emma’s well-being, there won’t be a second thought to it. Now go greet your new granddaughter. I hope she never has to know what a bastard you are.”

Brennan nods his head before quickly stepping away and storming down the hallway, the swinging doors quickly closing behind him with his security following after him. Killian needs a moment to breathe, to calm himself, because there’s a pretty good chance he could vomit right now.

That has to work.

That has to be the final time. That has to be the nail in the coffin and the thing that gets them moving forward. He can’t move backwards. He can’t.

They can’t.

Moving forward and moving on to something real and concrete is what he needs, what Emma needs too, and that has to work. Getting knocked down on his ass again isn’t an option.

Emma getting hurt again isn’t an option.

May his father have one modicum of decency. Or really, may he be so damn scared of losing public favor that he complies. That’s Killian’s ace up his sleeve, and God, he hopes it works.

(It’s going to.)

“You having trouble working the coffee machine?”

Killian huffs and turns his head to look down the hallway to see Emma walking toward him. “No, I think I’ve got it figured out, but I believe the coffee I made for you may be cold by now.”

“Guess you’ll have to make me a new one then.”

“Guess I will.” Killian opens his arms, and Emma walks right into them until she’s nuzzled into his chest and his chin is resting on her head. “Did you see my Father?”

“I did.”

“Did he speak to you?”

“There was a slight nod.”

“Of course,” Killian scoffs, rubbing his hands up and down her back as she does the same to him. “I just gave him an ultimatum, finally, and God, Emma, I hope that it works.”

“Me too. We’re going to be okay. I don’t know how, exactly...I just know, okay?”

“Yeah,” he whispers, kissing the top of her head, I know that too.”

They only linger in the hallways long enough to fix one new cup of coffee before a nurse rounds the corner and offers to take them to the lounge where they have the good coffee and tea. He didn’t even have to charm someone to get the stuff that wasn’t going to be acid in his stomach, and he’s thankful for small miracles.

He’s also thankful for Emma. She has every right to be angry or closed off or even nervous as hell when they go back to the hospital room where his parents are. She’s not making some herculean effort to make conversation with his dad, but she’s also not letting him push her into a corner where she can’t enjoy being around people she loves.

Killian’s been learning to do that his entire life. Emma has nearly perfected it in a few months.

Emma nudges his shoulder, and he looks down to see a napkin in his lap. God, he’s missed passing napkin scribblings back and forth with each other. He’s got a box full of them somewhere in his apartment.

Your mom has been looking over at us with “please fuck and give me grandchildren” eyes for the past ten minutes.

He snickers and leans in to whisper in Emma’s ear. “I’m sure there’s somewhere around her where we could get that done.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“You’re the one who said my mum was thinking about us fucking.” Killian brushes his lips over the shell of Emma’s ear, flicking his tongue so that goosebumps rise over her skin. “Would you like to go home now?”

“I would.”

Killian tucks the napkin in his back pocket and stands from the couch, holding his hand out to Emma behind him. They say their goodbyes, both of them kissing Elsa’s cheeks and running their finger over Lizzie’s stomach, before telling his mum not to hog the baby for too long. It takes far longer than it should for them to take their leave, but eventually they’re walking back to the entrance of the hospital with Graham in front of them.

“Every time this door opens for the next two days, all of these people are going to think it’s Elsa stepping out. There’s going to be shouting and photographers. Can you handle that?”

“I know,” Emma tells him. “And I can.”

Emma threads her fingers between his, her palm as warm and soft as always, Killian sucks in a deep breath, and he hears Emma do the same. “You ready to go, my love?”

She squeezes his hand, the tightness lingering a second too long, and answers, “I’m ready.”

-/-

@mrtinski @klynn-stormz @jonirobinson64 @snowbellewells @therealstartraveller776 @thejollyroger-writer @sherifemma @shardminds @captainsjedi @galaxyzxstark @galadriel26 @idristardis @karenfrommisthaven @teamhook @spartanguard @searchingwardrobes @itsfabianadocarmo @owlways-and-forever @jamif @shireness-says @ultimiflos @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke @onepunintendid @bluewildcatfanatic @397bartonstreet @killianswannn @carpedzem @captainkillianswanjones @mayquita @jennjenn615 @onceuponaprincessworld @a-faekindagirl @scientificapricot @scarletslippers @xellewoods @ultraluckycatnd @stahlop @kmomof4 @tiganasummertree @singersdd @captainswanbigbang

#what a wicked game #cs fic #cs ff #cs fanfic #captain swan fic #captain swan ff #captain swan fanfic #csrt #captain swan rewrite a thon #captain swan

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let-it-raines · 5 years ago

Text

What a Wicked Game {12/15}

That was a first. It was also the beginning of Emma Nolan helping to bring him back to life. It was the beginning of everything.

rating: mature

a/n: thank you to the mods at @captainswanbigbang for running this event and helping to encourage writers to finish their wonderful stories, to @resident-of-storybrooke for reading all these words, and to @captainsjedi for making the beautiful artwork ❤️

ao3: beginning | current

tumblr: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |

-/-

October 19th, 2018

October dawns bright and warm, but as it settles in, the warmth disappears into a chill and the brightness of the sky turns to the gray for which London is often known. Leaves are still in the midst of changing colors, from a dull green to vibrant oranges and reds that contrast the sky, and Emma finds herself staring out the large window in Killian’s bedroom to look at the leaves falling from a tree and drifting through the air until they eventually land on the edge of the roof. It’s been seven weeks since she slept in her own bed and had her parents just down the hall from her, and as weird as it’s been, she’s thankful for this.

She’s thankful that every day she is actively making the choice to be with Killian and to work at adjusting to all of the complications that come with this life.

It’s more than a lot, but as she looks down at her arm and sees it without the ugly white plaster and stretches her arms above her head without any pain, Emma reminds herself that time and a little extra care can heal things. The immediate reaction and pain doesn’t stay. It changes and lessens. Her body is healing, her heart too, and the darkness that surrounded her for all of August seems to have almost been extinguished.

Nothing about this has been easy, but Emma doesn’t want to retreat back and walk away again. She still believes that her reasons were sound, that she had to do it in order to take care of herself and protect her heart, and in a weird way, coming out on the other side has made her thankful for it.

Getting into a car crash and possibly almost dying because photographers wanted a picture of her sitting in a car after they found out about she and Killian’s breakup wasn’t great. She could have done without that. She still could. And she definitely won’t be getting in a car on a rainy night anytime soon.

Her physical scars may be lessening, most of them non-existent now, but she’s not ready for that. She’s not ready for a lot of things, but when has she ever been?

“Darling,” Killian calls out, and she gets a little smile on her face at how much his accent thickens on that word, “do you know where my solid navy tie is? It should be with all of the others, but I can’t find it.”

“Where did you last see it?”

“If I bloody well knew that, I wouldn’t be asking where it is.”

He pokes his head out of the bathroom before walking outside and finishing the buttons on his dress shirt. He looks handsome today in his navy pants and light blue dress shirt, and she really doesn’t see why he needs to wear a tie when he looks fine without it. Royal dress code or something. She doesn’t know. Over the past few weeks as she’s isolated herself in Killian’s apartment at Kensington or wandered over to Liam and Elsa’s to spend time with Elsa, she’s found herself going through guidebooks that Elsa had made when she got engaged to Liam. There are all these rules and regulations from how to cross your legs to what nail polish she’s supposed to wear, and while Emma thinks a lot of it is bullshit, it’s the territory that comes with being in this relationship.

Emma will paint her nails ballet slipper pink and cross her legs at the ankle every damn day if that’s what it takes. What she won’t do is be suffocated by the press and by Brennan.

What she won’t do is make Killian leave his family and break his mom’s heart simply because she couldn’t handle the pressure.

If he wants to leave, if it is truly his decision outside of her, she’s more than happy for them to live their lives in a simpler way where Killian doesn’t have to worry about where his solid navy tie is. Leaving may be in their future, but they’ll cross that bridge when they get to it.

But if they’re staying and doing this, she wants to make the best out of the situation. She wants to work with charities that help empower women and children. She wants to do that for men too, to educate them on the intricacies over an ever-changing world. She wants to do good and be good. This family is insane, the money and the traditions and the vault full of actual tiaras like something out of a movie, but they can use their privilege to do good.

Emma knows what it’s like to not have this kind of privilege, and now she may be in a position to help.

“Cool down, Casanova. No need to get all snippy over your tie. Where are you even going today?”

“The opening of a hospital wing and then I’m meeting with a slew of new security guards to interview.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

Killian arches a brow. “Haven’t you spent enough time in hospitals lately?”

“I meant to the interviews, dumbass. Isn’t this for my security, too?”

Killian fidgets with the neck of his shirt, buttoning and then unbuttoning it so that black tufts of chest hair show. “Aye, but I figured I’d go through the candidates first, and then you could meet the top few to see which ones you’re most comfortable with.”

“I can come with you. It’s really not a big deal. I don’t have any plans for the day.”

“Swan, it’s fine. I promise.” Killian walks over to her and sits down on the edge of the bed next to her before taking her hand and bringing it to his mouth. “This is a dreadfully boring process, and my father is unfortunately going to be there for some of it, though I’ll likely leave the room when he does his own interviews. I don’t - after August, he’s convinced that I can’t pick out my own security team.”

“August was...I mean, he was selling information about us because his dad is sick and can’t afford the surgeries and medication back in America. He was willing to risk prison to save his dad. That’s not something you could have predicted.”

A part of Emma understands the words she’s telling Killian, but the other part of her wants to punch August’s fucking teeth out for making her life hell and inadvertently causing her crash.

“You’ve met Brennan. You know how he can be. I could do everything perfectly, but one screw up that’s outside of my control, and I’m incompetent.”

“Your dad sucks.”

Killian leans his head back with his laugh before leaning forward and pressing his lips to her knuckles once more. “In three words, you’ve managed to sum up quite a bit of my life.”

“I’m magical like that.”

“That you are, my love. That you are.” Killian sighs and blinks at her a few times. She thinks he’s going to say something to her, but then there’s a slight shake of his head and she knows the moment has passed. “Give me a little more time, and I swear I’ll talk to him. Seriously. He and I may never get along, but that’s okay. I simply need him to publicly accept you and to sign off on all of these protection measures for you.”

“Killian, you know you don’t have to do - ”

“No, I do. I will do everything I can to protect you, and if that means I have to have an actual conversation with my father where I don’t leave the room until I get what I want, I will. We’ve missed so much time not talking and not taking action. I don’t want to miss any more.”

Emma leans forward and presses her mouth to Killian’s cheek. “I love you. You should wear the white and navy striped tie instead of the solid one.”

He raises his hand to his forehead as he stands from the bed. “Aye, that’s a good idea.”

“And babe?”

“Yeah, love?”

“If Graham Humbert doesn’t make it to the final interview stage for security, Ruby and I will both be pissed at you. He’s who I want protecting me.”

“That doesn’t terrify me as much as it should.”

“Ruby will be vicious.”

“Eh.”

“I can withhold sex, and you just got that back.”

Killian mock gasps, placing his hand over his heart. “You’re a liar, Emma Nolan. I know you find me too attractive to ever do that.”

He catches the pillow she throws with annoying ease, and she hates him for it.

(Not really.)

After Killian leaves, Emma falls back into bed and thinks that she’ll spend her day watching Netflix or doing something else as equally lazy. What better way is there to spend her last day of being twenty-five?

None.

But that lasts approximately two episodes of a show before guilt nags at her, and she’s moving the covers off of her legs and standing from the bed with a frown etched on her lips and the idea that she needs to clean something. Cleaning is not at all her thing unless she’s working at the pub, but she’s been pretty much on vacation (if vacation included recovering from a car crash and having a million talks with your boyfriend over all of the problems in your relationship) for two months, and she’s probably genetically unable to not work for such long periods of time.

She’s in a literal palace, even if it’s nothing like any of the movies or shows, and instead of relaxing, she wants to clean up the spots Killian has let go over the past few weeks from not having a maid to aid him in his ridiculously specific cleaning rituals.

What even is her life?

She starts in the kitchen, going through Killian’s fridge and throwing out everything that’s expired or has gone bad, and she quickly moves on from that to vacuuming every rug and sweeping or dusting the places that get missed. It’s a lot, and if it wasn’t for the music that is playing over the system, she’d have quit hours ago. She’s about to quit now when she remembers just how messy Killian’s closet is because of her absolute inability to hang up her own clothes.

They’ve probably had more fights about that than, oh, you know, whether or not the actual King of England wants to behead her or not.

(Currently, they’re leaning more toward him wanting to lock her away in a dungeon so she can’t cause any more unintentional media frenzies. It’s apparently less dramatic than a beheading because at least she gets to live...this is a weird train of thought.)

Emma’s phone starts ringing, and she pulls it out of her pocket to answer as she walks up the stairs.

“Hey, Dad.”

“Hey, sweetheart,” David greets. “How are you feeling today? Old? Young? Like your life is over because you’re getting closer to late-twenties than early-twenties?”

“You are the most encouraging person alive.”

“I try.”

Emma chuckles and turns down the hallway to go into the bedroom, picking up her bra from where Killian must have tossed it last night and placing it in the hamper. “I’m fine. Killian’s at work opening a new hospital wing, apparently. I’m cleaning. How are you? What are you guys up to today?”

“I’m sorry. Did you say you were cleaning? Are we sure that you don’t have a concussion?”

“Your dad jokes are not good.”

“Every joke I’ve told since the day you were born has been a dad joke, and they’ve all been fabulous.”

She groans and walks into the closet before placing her phone on the table in the center of the room and putting it on speaker so she can do a little work before she loses momentum.

“I’m taking your dad joke privileges away, and to answer your question, I really am fine. I’m just messy, and Killian hasn’t had any of his usual staff in the apartment while I’ve been here. I think the whole August thing freaked him out so that he doesn’t trust anyone around me.”

“Someone close to him was selling information about you that harmed you. I’d be freaked out too. Hell, I am freaked out. If I wouldn’t get arrested for assault, I’d confront the guy.”

Everyone she loves wants to punch everyone who has hurt her, but they all stop themselves because of the fear of getting arrested for assault…she’s not sure if that’s flattering or concerning.

“What are you and Mom up to today?” she questions again, wanting to change the subject. She doesn’t want to talk about all of the shitty stuff that’s been happening to her lately. All she wants is to pick up all of her sweaters from the ground and figure out which ones need to be washed. Focusing on the bad is not how she’s going to move forward.

(And maybe not having to see August Booth’s face.)

“Your mom is downstairs with Will going over some possible menu changes, and I’ve been told I’m not allowed in the pub until I fix whatever is up with this toilet.”

“Ah, so you called me to procrastinate on doing that?”

“You know me so well.”

Emma fills in her dad on everything that’s been going on over the past few days. She tells him that her arm almost doesn’t feel weird anymore and that Ruby came over for dinner two nights again and brought Graham along with her. David is nearly as shocked by that as she was. This might be the longest relationship Ruby has ever had, and it’s good to see her so happy. It’s good that Emma likes Graham in that he’s dating her best friend and also might be protecting Emma’s life from now on if his next round of interviews goes well. In return, her dad gives her far too much information on the date he and her mom went on last night, and then he spends at least ten minutes talking about the difference in two brands of tomatoes.

All the while Emma has almost the entire closet (seriously, her dad talked for way too long and gave too much information about the date like he was talking to a friend and not his daughter) cleaned up. When she moves a pair of jeans that are on Killian’s side of the closet, she finds his solid blue navy tie he was searching for earlier.

“Ha,” she mumbles before reaching down to grab the tie.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she says to her dad before tugging on the tie and pulling it up only for a small black box to roll out of it and tumble down onto the ground. “Holy shit.”

“Emma, are you okay?” David asks, but Emma barely hears him over the pounding of her heart. There might as well be an entire drumline in the room.

“Emma?”

“Y-yeah,” she lies even as her fingers tug so tightly on the tie that it might tear. “Hey, Dad? Has Killian talked to you about any...future type things?”

“What do you mean?”

Emma huffs and goes to pick up the box. They could be earrings, right? Or a necklace? Or another ring? She’s got a sapphire one she wears on her right hand. Killian has given her a ring before that wasn’t an engagement ring. That doesn’t mean what’s in this box is one. He buys her jewelry, and it’s not a big deal.

Except…

When the hell did he have time to get this?

How long has he had it? What made him decide to get it? When does he plan on using it? Does he still plan on using it after their breakup?

“You know what I mean. Has he - you know what,” Emma decides, placing the box on the table, “never mind. Don’t tell me anything. I think I’m going to have to call you back later.”

“Whatever you want,” David sighs, confused. “I love you, kiddo.”

“I love you, too, Dad.”

And then the phone line disconnects and she’s left with nothing except for the sound of that damn drumline and the jewelry box that she doesn’t know what to do with. She’s not going to look. She can’t look. There’s no good that would come out of it.

She really wants to look.

Like, really.

“No,” Emma tells herself, grabbing the box off the table and moving to put it back where it must have been before it got tangled in her jeans and in the tie. She puts the tie back for good measure as well, and she’s absolutely going to bite her tongue on bragging about finding the tie when Killian gets home.

He wants to marry her.

She wants to marry him.

Maybe cleaning was worth something.

-/-

Killian comes home that night with grilled cheese sandwiches, which he hates, and onion rings from Ruby’s grandmother’s restaurant, and she doesn’t think she’s ever loved him more.

He tells her that Graham has moved onto the final selections even with Brennan’s hounding and worry over Graham not being trained in the same way as their usual security.

Emma knows that she wants him to be the one who’s hired. She’s not going to trust anyone else, not after everything that’s happened.

-/-

He doesn’t give her any kind of jewelry for her birthday the next day, and she knows what was in the box.

There’s no definite proof, but Emma knows.

Right now, where they are, she’s not ready to get married, but she will be someday. Probably soon. So if Killian were to ask her, she’d say yes over and over again, but the actual getting married part would have to be put on hold until her emotions, Killian’s too, were a little less chaotic.

Love is a really funny thing.

-/-

November 10th, 2018

The cool of the marble pebbles Emma’s skin as Killian helps guide her on top of the counter. His fingers inch over the back of her thighs and up behind her knees where she’s sensitive, and she giggles into his neck while trying to keep herself from bursting into hysterical laughter. Killian keeps the apartment so warm that she didn’t bother to put on anything more than her sleep shorts and a t-shirt last night before going to bed, and she’s regretting that now with every shift over her body over the countertop. But Killian is warm, especially when he steps in between her thighs and she hooks her ankles around his back right over his ass, and every touch of his fingers, gentle and teasing, brings a little more fire to her body.

Especially if he’d stop trying to tickle her while hotly running his tongue down the side of her throat and leaving open-mouthed kisses there.

He’s particularly good at those, and she could spend day after day close to him as he covers her body with affectionate words and delicate brushes of lips that turn into more.

Really, that’s been the last two months, even with her having to wear that atrocious cast for most of it, but they found simple ways to fix that. Being apart and not having those beautiful blue eyes to look into or that laugh to hear after a funny joke was absolutely torture, and having him back in her life, having him back as her person, is something Emma doesn’t ever want to take for granted again.

She will inevitably. It’s human nature. But she doesn’t want to.

Being with Killian is the easy thing. Fighting off the demons is what makes it difficult, but fighting off the demons and conquering them has made her realize that good things often come after struggles that seem impossible.

She’s a sentimental fool now, and she doesn’t care.

(Finding the engagement ring two weeks ago has made her even more sentimental.)

She especially doesn’t care as Killian’s tongue dips into her collarbone and his hands snake up underneath her shirt, warm palms against cool skin in a combination of which she’ll never tire. Emma knows that Killian is a sentimental fool now too. He was before, definitely more than her, but she can see all of the little ways he’s being more affectionate than he was before.

That’s saying something.

But his affection has been obvious lately. In the mornings, she always wakes to him curled around her, hand resting between her breasts and chin nuzzled into the back of her neck. That’s not how they sleep, not usually, so she knows that he does that when he wakes up in the morning while she’s still sleeping. He’s always touching her - hands intertwined, arm around her waist, ankles hooked together - like he’s looking for constant reassurance that she’s real.

That they’re real.

Killian has gone to war for her on multiple occasions, and she has seen the intensity and the fighting spirit that he possesses. She watched him break down over her accident and watched him absolutely vilify every single press association that was involved in that incident or any of the ones that have attacked her in the past or stolen private information from her. She’s watched him deal with the Neal interviews that seem to keep coming despite their falsities, and she’s watched him do absolutely everything that he can to protect her.

Emma never wanted protection or help. She thought that it made her weak to not be able to handle things on her own, but that was wrong.

All of it.

People are going to tell you who you are your whole life. You have to punch back and say “no, this is who I am.” If you want people to look at you differently, make them. If you want to change things, you’re going to have to go out there and change them yourself. Because there are no fairy godmothers in this world.

But there are supportive partners who punch back with you or stand to the side and cheer you on when you need it the most.

“I hate these bloody shorts,” Killian mumbles into her skin as the deep timbre of his voice vibrates down her spine. “I seem to both want you in them and out of them all at once.”

“That’s quite the conundrum you have going on, Jones.”

Killian chuckles before nipping at her jaw and pulling back so that she sees his eyes are blown black. “You are the conundrum, Nolan,” he softly says as his thumbs ghost over both of her nipples, slowly but surely bringing them to peaks. “It’s a funny thing. I seem to always want you. I want you in the mornings, at night, in the middle of the damn day…”

Emma hums while pleasure continues to curl between her thighs, and she wraps her arms loosely around his neck, playing with his hair and running the gemstone of her ring down the back of his neck. “Tell me more about this wanting me in the morning thing.”

The look on his face is positively dirty, and it’s exactly what she wants. So when his hands leave her breasts and move to take her shirt off, she stretches her arms in the air and allows him to undress her until the warm air of the heater is touching her skin. Killian shifts against her so that she can feel his length brushing against where she wants him, a perfect fit in a position that shouldn’t be comfortable, and she melts at his touch as the roughness of his unshaven scruff scratches against her neck and down her sternum to be between her breasts.

“You’re a damn temptress,” he mutters, voice deep and raspy with sleep still lingering. “I wake up and see the smoothness of your skin laid out before me, and my mind is only filled with thoughts of you. I’ve never wanted someone like this.”

“Funny thing, I feel the same way.”

“Do you now?” His fingers tug into her shorts and her underwear, and she lifts her hips as he pulls them down and off of her ankles so that she’s left bare before him, the marble chilling her skin has goosebumps pop up and spread over her.

“I do. Most definitely. You’re quite the catch.”

Killian laughs as he captures her lips, so soft and pliant and warm, with her own. There’s something to be said for kissing just for the sake of kissing, the feeling it sends through her body, and when Emma gently runs her tongue across his bottom lip, asking for entrance, he gladly grants it, tangling their tongues together in one of his favorite dances. She’s definitely picked a partner who knows what he’s doing.

Emma runs her hands through the hair at the nape of his neck and keeps her hand anchored there while the other runs up his spine, soft little taps of her fingertips against the bone underneath his shirt. They stay that way for awhile, lips moving together, until Emma’s hand leaves his hair to move underneath his shirt as well, pulling up at the material until he pulls back and tugs it over his head.

“I feel like we’re on a little bit more equal footing now. You were wearing too many clothes.”

“Was I? I hadn’t noticed. I was a little bit distracted by how unsanitary it’s going to be for us to fuck in the kitchen.”

“That’s literally never stopped you before.”

He huffs and leans forward to kiss her, slow and so impossibly thorough that she feels it all the way down to her toes. “I know,” he grins. “Are you okay up there, or do you want to move upstairs?”

“As long as you don’t hit my head into a cabinet, I’m fine.”

“You’re so beautiful, my love,” he whispers against her skin, kissing the tops of her breasts as her eyelids flutter closed and she recovers from the whiplash in the change of his tone. “I remember the first time I saw you, Emma,” he speaks into her skin as his nose drags along her stomach and arousal tugs at her belly. “You were – are so bloody gorgeous, the curls of your ponytail framing your face and the dark of your eyelashes looking down at me as you told me to get my soggy ass out of the booth.”

“I didn’t say that,” she protests, running her hand through the hair and tugging him down closer to where she’s desperately aching for her.

There’s something about the night that they met that Killian always thinks about. It’s a frequent remembrance, this conversation one they’ve had before, and Emma knows that in moments where Killian is nostalgic, where he’s thinking about how much she means to him, his mind goes back to that night and piecing together all of the circumstances for their meeting.

She doesn’t care how it happened. Just that it did.

No one was ever supposed to love her or treasure her like this. This wasn’t supposed to be how it is for her. She wasn’t supposed to get the good guy. It wasn’t in the cards.

Life has apparently decided to deal her a new hand altogether.

“But you were thinking it,” he whispers against skin, lips pressing against her small tattoo and lingering there. She thought getting that might be a mistake, that the desperation was too much, but over the past few weeks, Killian has held onto it like a glimmer of hope. She did the same. “You looked so frustrated with me, like how dare I walk into your pub in order to get out of the rain.”

“Shameful, really,” she teases, and when she opens her mouth to say something else, she can’t, her throat suddenly too tight to speak while the entirety of the English language escapes from her brain.

Killian’s hands hook around the back of her knees, and this time there’s no playful teasing. Instead, he spreads her legs further apart and bends down to his own knees. She’s about to make a joke about him not hurting himself, a tease over his twenty-ninth birthday last month and how dramatic he was over being nearly thirty, but then he’s kissing her exactly where she wants him, where she needs him.

His tongue drags roughly against her like a perfected routine, and Emma’s eyes tighten. She can’t bear to open them, but then she does and sees the dark mess of hair between the paleness of her thighs. Even more than that, she sees the blue of his eyes under the hood of his eyelid, and she wonders if today is going to be the day that this is all too much for her.

Never.

Killian shifts underneath her, his right hand leaving the curve of her knee to join with his tongue as he kisses her and kisses her and kisses her. Moans filter between them, hers and his, and the tension could be cut with one of the knives that’s in the drawer beneath her ass. It’s all too much - too much pleasure and want and love - and when he slips two fingers into her and curls them, she gasps out his name as a chant that never seems to stop.

“Magnificent,” he mumbles, the sound of his voice like liquid fire in her veins. “Bloody magnificent. Your noises, my darling. Fuck.”

There’s something about knowing that Killian is as affected by things like this as she is, even if he’s the one giving all of the pleasure, and that with the combination of his mouth moving over her bundle of nerves and his fingers moving within her as her falling apart little by little, like the waves cresting onto the shore.

Damn.

Killian presses a kiss to where she’s still fluttering before moving to her thigh, light touches that are nothing more than a blink, a whisper. When he rises from the ground, he grunts, probably from having his knees pressed into hardwood for so long, but she doesn’t think about that for too long when she can feel him hard against her and pressing into her thigh. “Mmm,” Emma hums, pulling herself up and tugging Killian closer to her so that she buries her face in his neck, kissing the straining cord. “You are wonderful.” “Ah, well, that tends to be your reaction after we do something like that.” “Are you fishing for compliments?” “Never.” She chuckles while he does the same, and even without looking, she knows that his eyes are crinkled, joy written across his face.

“Do you want to move upstairs or…”

“Upstairs. Definitely upstairs.”

They move quickly, neither of them in the mood to wait, and while it would have been faster to move to the couch in the living room, this is better. Killian falls back to the bed with laughter on his lips, and Emma immediately hooks her thumbs into his sweats and pulls them down as much as she can before he lifts his hips off the bed to help her out, kicking them off his ankles and onto the floor while she is busy kissing up his thigh, her hand running up his length, feeling the warm hardness in her palms.

“Emma,” Killian moans, voice gruntled. She smirks into his thigh and keeps her hand on his length.

“I am romancing you, Killian,” she promises against his lightning bolt scar before crawling up his body, peppering open mouthed kisses against the trail of his chest hair until she’s leaning over his mouth, her folds teasing him at their hips. “Like you do to me.”

“Darling - ”

“Your eyes, even blown black with desire like they are right now,” she whispers, circling her hips above him to lightly grind down, “are the most gorgeous blue I’ve ever seen.”

She touches his face then, running her fingers over his jaw. “I love your stubble, how it’s black with a little bit of red peppered in, and I love when you don’t shave for a few days and it’s full and just the right mix of soft and prickly. I love the way it feels when you rub it against my cheek in the mornings when you’re waking me up or how it feels against the inside of my thighs.”

She kisses his jaw, running her tongue behind her lips, and the grunt Killian makes curls as little bursts of fire down her spine.

“I love,” she says, running her hands down his biceps as she sits on his lap, right below where she knows he wants her, “the strength of your arms when you hold me, no matter what the occasion. And I love,” she moves her hands through the hair at his chest as Killian twitches beneath her touch, “this hair and how it pokes through the top of all of your shirts. I love the ways that your eyes crinkle when you’re truly smiling.”

I love that you love me enough to want to marry me, she thinks to herself before saying. “I love that you fight for me every day no matter the circumstances.”

She rises on her legs and scoots forward, guiding him to her entrance before slowly, slowly, slowly sinking down onto him. It’s a perfect fit. Maybe not physically, but emotionally, and Killian’s hands grapple for her hips, nails digging into skin. She doesn’t think he’s ever been this quiet for such a long period of time during sex.

“And mostly, at least for our purposes right now, what I love is the feeling of you inside me, thick and full and perfect.”

At that, she starts to move, rolling her hips against him, and it feels so goddamn good that her brief stint as the verbose one in the relationship has ended and Killian is the one to start muttering words of encouragement and curses that would have anyone blushing. She sets a slow, unhurried pace that she knows will draw out pleasure, but Killian doesn’t let her do that for long before he takes control of their movements, speeding up the pace as he thrusts up into her. She lets out a whimper as he hits the exact right spot, and Killian captures the next one with his mouth, kissing her like a man starved of affection and like it’s not ten in the morning.

Suddenly, Killian grabs her hips and rolls them over to change their position, his body encasing hers. He mutters a “bloody fuck” when she clenches her thighs to try to keep him from slipping out, and Emma throws her head back with laughter even if she shouldn’t.

Killian nips at her neck, but she can feel his smile too.

He must be able to tell that she’s getting close, rising higher and higher to her peak, because he releases her hips to grab her wrists, sliding his hands until their fingers are interlaced above her head. He tilts his hips so that his thrusts catch her clit. Her breath hitches and her legs wrap around his backside, and Emma might actually melt. She thinks that she has. Her limbs are all jelly, and Killian isn’t much better above her.

This is ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.

There are a million things they should probably do today, but they never seem to move away from bed besides getting food from the kitchen. That’s what she’d been trying to do this morning when Killian distracted her, but she’s not going to complain. This is good and nice and Emma could wrap herself in these blankets and in Killian for the rest of time.

When she wakes later, it’s to the slap of a hand to her skin, and Emma immediately flinches and jolts up, blinking into the darkness.

“Ow, shit, Killian. What was that for?”

“I was just making sure you’re here,” he mumbles, voice groggy.

“By slapping me?”

“Killian,” a voice says, and Emma realizes that Killian is on the phone. He might not even realize he’s on the phone. “Killian are you there? “Killian, have you heard a single word I’ve said?”

Liam. He’s talking to Liam.

Holy shit. Why is Liam calling him in the middle of the night?

“I’ll be honest, no. I’m still mostly asleep.”

“Asleep my ass,” Emma mumbles before reaching over to put the call on speaker phone so she doesn’t have to keep straining her ears to hear him. Killian grumbles something, but she ignores him as she settles herself underneath his arm. “Liam, what’s wrong? Is everyone okay?”

“Elsa is in labor, and we sent all of our nannies home for the night. Can the two of you watch Alex for us?”

“Of course,” Emma sighs. “Bring him over when you guys leave, okay?”

“I will, lass. Thank you.”

“It’s not a problem,” Killian promises, finally waking up. “Congratulations, brother.” At that, the line goes dead, and Emma immediately moves to get out of bed only for Killian tugs her back into him. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Emma raises a brow and motions down to the distinct lack of clothes on both of their bodies. “I know Alex is about to have a sibling, which is definite proof of his parents having sex, but I don’t want to be the one to have to explain why his uncle was having a naked sleepover with me.”

“Really? You don’t want to explain sex to a toddler? Shocker.”

She huffs and leans forward to brush her lips over his forehead. “Congratulations on being an uncle again, babe.”

Emma hears his swallow as his head nods up and down in affirmation. “Thanks, love. Let’s go put on some clothes so we don’t scar the lad.”

-/-

The next chapter is technically the last official chapter. How is that even possible? Thank you all for coming along for this ride ❤️

tag list: @mrtinski @klynn-stormz @jonirobinson64 @snowbellewells @therealstartraveller776 @thejollyroger-writer @sherifemma @shardminds @captainsjedi @galaxyzxstark @galadriel26 @idristardis @karenfrommisthaven @teamhook @spartanguard @searchingwardrobes @itsfabianadocarmo @owlways-and-forever @jamif @shireness-says @ultimiflos @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke @onepunintendid @bluewildcatfanatic @397bartonstreet @killianswannn @carpedzem @captainkillianswanjones @mayquita @jennjenn615 @onceuponaprincessworld @a-faekindagirl @scientificapricot @scarletslippers @xellewoods @ultraluckycatnd @stahlop @kmomof4 @tiganasummertree @singersdd @captainswanbigbang

#what a wicked game #cs fic #cs ff #cs fanfic #captain swan fic #captain swan ff #captain swan fanfic #csrt #captain swan rewrite a thon #captain swan

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kmomof4 · 4 years ago

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After listening in to my youngest watching Volcano, the movie that inspired my State of Emergency universe, yesterday, I am very pleased to report that the fic was better.

And in celebration of that fact, I thought I’d post a master post with all three fics in this universe as well as the art that accompanies each one. If you haven’t read it yet, here’s your chance and I’d love to hear what you think. And please thank @artistic-writer and @captainsjedi for their INCREDIBLE and BEAUTIFUL artwork!!!

State of Emergency

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Something is happening under the La Brea Tar Pits in downtown Los Angeles. It's up to Emma Swan, the director of the Office of Emergency Management and Killian Jones, the head geologist for the US Geological Survey to figure out what. Rated T 17.7K

Art by Krystal

Art by Salem

State of Emergency: Future Glimpse

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Approximately two years after the events in State of Emergency, Emma has some good news for Killian. Rated G 800 words

State of Emergency: Code White

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Ruby and Graham are finally tying the knot and Killian and nearly nine months pregnant Emma are here for the wedding. What could possibly go wrong? Rated T 6.9K

Art by Meredith

Thank you all so much!! I hope you enjoy and let me know what you think of one of my personal favs!!!

#cs ff #krystal writes #state of emergency universe #state of emergency #state of emergency future glimpse #state of emergency: code white #art by krystal #art by artistic writer #art by captainsjedi #icymi

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let-it-raines · 5 years ago

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Catch Me If You Can (28/40)

298 days. That’s how long Killian Jones was away from a baseball field. It’s less than a year, only part of a season for him, but it might as well have lasted a decade as he alternated between physical therapy and spending an excessive amount of time sitting on his couch.

But then he came back and won the World Series.

It’s something no one saw coming, and it’s certainly not something anyone who knows about his arm would predict. Now it’s a new season with new possibilities, and anything could happen. On-field reporter Emma Swan will be there to cover it all even if she is not his biggest fan right now.

Asking her out live on-air will do that.

Rating: Mature

A/n: I know everyone is caught up in JJ Sneed land if my dash is any indication, but I know some people are itching for a new chapter today! So here we are!

Also, everyone go check out this FANTASTIC piece of artwork from @imagnifika | here | because it’s awesome, and I’m still blown away by it and seeing this story come to life in someone else’s eyes! Let me stare at it forever. Thanks to @resident-of-storybrooke for reading all these words and being a great encourager! 💙

AO3: Beginning | Current

Tumblr: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 |

Tag list: @stunningswan @eala-captian @galaxyzxstark @xellewoods @mariakov81 @ultraluckycatnd @royalswan @shey-starsfury @superchocovian @sals86 @iam2307 @ashley-knightingale @karenfrommisthaven @scientificapricot @captswanis4vr @ultimiflos @jamif @idristardis @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke @tiganasummertree @bmbbcs4evr @onceuponaprincessworld @jennjenn615 @mayquita @captainsjedi @teamhook @notoriouscs @kmomof4 @ekr032-blog-blog @cs-forlife @andiirivera @jonirobinson64 @qualitycoffeethings

-/-

There are technically eight different types of cookies, and it all depends on how exactly they’re baked or, well, not baked. This isn’t something Killian knew until about two o’clock this morning when he was googling cookie recipes desperate to find something other than chocolate chip cookies to bake. But then he got sucked into a wormhole of research and discovering the difference between rolled cookies, bar cookies, and dropped cookies.

Seriously. There is an entire website on the history of cookies. He looked at it for an hour. It’s kind of insane.

It’s also not really important to him, but weird things happen in the middle of the night, especially since he hasn’t been sleeping well the past few days and his mind needed to focus on something concrete.

That’s also how he ended up wandering to the nearest twenty-four-hour market at three in the morning to buy ingredients for black and white cookies, buckeyes, and sugar cookies. He doesn’t even know how or why he picked those three. All Killian knows is that he’s been stress baking for days now, something that’s a bit hard to do when he’s trying to take it easy on his right arm, and he’s pretty much wiped out all of his cabinets of the good ingredients.

His refrigerator, however, looks like a bakery threw up inside of it. He really needs to take some of the things to Liam and Elsa, but when he went to their house yesterday, all Addy and Lucy wanted to talk about was his arm and Emma and even though it was completely innocent, it was too much for him. He can’t quite go back to give them cookies if all they’re going to talk about is Emma.

Every bit of this is his fault. He owns up to that.

But it’s still too much.

The fact that Ariel, Eric, Will, and Robin are all pissed beyond belief at him doesn’t help. He’s sure that for the four of them things will go back to normal soon. He doesn’t know for sure, but he thinks they will. He’ll never be able to clutch his shoulder again without having someone yelling at him to go see a doctor, but that’s likely for the best.

(Killian should have gone to a fucking doctor.)

They all deserve the multitude of sweets in his fridge. He’d take them to each of their apartments now, but they’re all still too pissed that he lied to them over and over again. Plus, they’re leaving for Boston tomorrow morning and likely busy even though today is their last day off from the small break that they got after Labor Day.

He’s not leaving for Boston. He’s staying right here sitting on his ass surrounded by cookies.

Emma’s going to Boston. At least, he thinks that she is. She should be. He’ll have to ask her when she comes over.

When she comes over.

Emma is coming over today. In about fifteen minutes actually, and that’s entirely why he’s been stress baking (more than usual) throughout the entire night. Killian doesn’t even know how he looks right now. There are probably some major bags under his eyes and his hair is all over the place, and he wouldn’t be surprised if he had flour or icing or even both smeared all over him.

Shit. He hasn’t shaved in four days.

For some reason, it’s that that thought that has Killian dropping his piping bag he was using to frost the sugar cookies to turn the corner in his apartment and run down the hallway to get to his bedroom so he can shower. In the past few days, in all of his moping and self-inflicted misery, he managed to pick up all of Emma’s clothes and hung them in the closet. That might be a little too hopeful thinking, but it seemed like the natural thing to do.

The sticky notes, though, have stayed exactly where they are, and he looks at them before quickly twisting the nobs on his shower and stepping inside the moment the water gets to an acceptable temperature. He doesn’t have much time, so Killian picks up his body wash, leaving Emma’s where it is, and scrubs over his body while doing some light stretches with his shoulder. He needs to put another ice pack on there.

That’ll have to come after this.

Six minutes later, Killian is out of the shower. Two minutes after that, he’s dressed in a pair of his gym shorts and a t-shirt, one from a charity game he played last year, and after looking in the mirror, he knows that he doesn’t have time to shave, not if he wants to brush his teeth again.

He should probably brush his teeth for…reasons.

That’s optimistic.

Killian can’t help it. For four days he has felt his entire world crumbling around him, and it’s been his fault. He’s known that it was. There was no denying it even when he most wanted to, and he’s wanted to a hell of a lot.

Missing the rest of the season, possibly having to miss parts of the play-offs which could mean that he could miss the World Series, is obviously crushing. There’s no denying that. The game has been his life for nearly twenty-three years, and he doesn’t want to keep screwing things up. His track record might not show that, but it’s true. He’s going to try to be better. He’ll go to all of his therapy, tell those who need to know when he’s hurting, and he’s not going to overdo it. He’s not.

But as much as all of the stuff with his job is killing him, not having Emma to talk to is worse.

The game was his life for so long, and while he doesn’t want to say that Emma is his entire life now, she’s up there in the most important category.

Probably topping the list.

Everything about his life has her mark on it. From the clothes in his closet and the bottles in his shower to the coffee creamer in his fridge and the throw blanket that she left on his couch. There are all of these physical signs that show how she’s changed things, but he knows that a hell of a lot of how Emma has impacted his life comes in the way that he’s more conscious about spending times with his loved ones or the fact that his demons don’t seem to find him as much in the dark of the night. The smile that was missing for so many years has found its place again.

Emma didn’t fix his flaws. They’re all still there. But she has inadvertently helped him to be a better person.

Even if he is still screwing up and will continue to.

Killian loves Emma, and there is no denying that. None at all. He’d never try to.

“Why does it smell like Little Debbie threw up in here?”

Killian’s head turns at the sound of Emma’s voice, and even though it causes the slightest sting to his shoulder, he doesn’t care. Because she’s real and standing in front of him wearing running shorts and a tank top, her hair tucked into a Yankees cap so that he can’t really see the green of her eyes. But he can see the timid, hesitant smile, and he never wants her to be hesitant to see him again.

“How did you – ”

She holds up a key. “I have a key. Figured it was still okay for me to use it.”

“Yeah, love.” Killian smiles and grabs a clean hand towel to dry off his hair so he’s not soaking wet. “That’s perfectly fine.”

“Good. So why does it smell like Little Debbie threw up in here?”

“Stress baking. Do you want a cookie? Or brownies? I have a large parfait. There’s also a cake that was meant for…the other day, but it’s a damn mess.”

Emma lets out a small laugh and shakes her head while her hand reaches for the chain around her neck, her fingers fumbling with it. His breath hitches at the sight. Over the past few days, his hand has instinctively clutched for it, reaching out and trying to find something to hold onto, and every time he comes up empty. He gave that to Emma because he wanted her to have it, and nothing about that has changed.

His mom would want her to have it. She’d love Emma. Killian doesn’t remember that much about her, but he knows that she would love Emma. They have that same kind spirit and an infectious laugh that makes everyone else in the room want to laugh along.

Bloody breathtaking.

And hopefully the ring brought her luck and comfort when she got to commentate the other day, and hopefully she knew that he was cheering her on the entire time. He still hasn’t heard how that went. He almost watched the replay of the game so that he could see for himself, but it felt wrong to do that without Emma and to know that most of the tape would be focused on his injury anyways.

That’s not how it should be.

And maybe a part of him couldn’t handle hearing her voice as she had to speak after seeing him leave the mound.

“I might want a cookie later,” Emma says, shrugging her shoulder. “I feel like if I start eating now, I’ll consume everything like I’m a vacuum.”

“Isn’t that how you usually eat?”

She’s closer now, so he can see her roll her eyes. “I’m still mad at you, so I’d watch what you say.”

That sobers Killian up, the playful smile tugging at his lips disappearing into a firm line, and he nods his head while his left hand reaches up to scratch behind his head. “Aye. Do you want to go talk in the living room?”

“Yeah.”

Emma turns on her heel and walks out of his bedroom, and he’s following right behind her. As much as his stomach is absolutely churning right now, Killian knows that the sooner they have this talk, the better. Unless, of course, it ends with Emma ending things between them. That’s not for the better. If it’s what she wants, it’s what she wants, but he can’t believe that it’s for the better even if he is an idiot who likes to mess things up.

Emma grabs her throw blanket from the basket and sits down in his oversized arm chairarmchair, settling herself in like she’s comfortable here, and he likes that she’s still comfortable here. That comforts him. Killian doesn’t grab a blanket, but he does sit down on the couch and pull a pillow to his chest so that he has something for his hands to do.

Is his heart still working? He’s not sure.

“How’s your arm?” Emma starts. This is probably the conversation she feels most comfortable with, and he doesn’t blame her.

“It’s okay. I need to ice it soon, but I’ll be fine. Just a lot of resting it, which is harder than I thought it would be.”

“Do you want to ice it now?”

“No, no, Swan. It’s fine. I promise. I know – I’m sorry that I lied to you.” They aren’t the words Killian meant to say quite yet, but he does mean them. “I truly am. I can’t express how much of an idiot that I am. I hid away something really damn important from everyone when I should have shared it the first time my arm started hurting. I should have gone through the steps of preventing this. I should have told you what really happened with my accident. I should have told you everything that I didn’t tell you, and I can’t imagine how shitty it makes you feel that I didn’t.”

Emma scoffs. “Pretty shitty.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I just – ” She lets out a big sigh and adjusts the blanket over her legs again. “You don’t have to keep apologizing. I know you’re sorry, and I believe you when you say that. I’m sorry that you’ve been going through all of this alone and that you haven’t felt like you could tell someone, but it did…it does hurt me that you couldn’t tell me. People have always let me down, and – ”

“I never intended to let you down.”

Emma smiles, something soft and a little sad, and he swears that it breaks his heart the slightest bit. “I know that. It took running far too much, eating my weight in food, and then having Ruby talk some sense into me, but I know. And it’s why I’m going to choose to see the best in you.”

Good.

Good. This is going a hell of a lot better than he thought it would, but he’s still terrified that maybe he doesn’t deserve this forgiveness from her.

“And I you.”

“I mean, there wasn’t a lot of bad to see about me.”

Killian laughs, for what is probably the first time in days, and something inside of him rights itself so that the pieces of the puzzle continue to click into place instead of being all mixed together.

“Well, not in this particular situation, no.”

Emma’s smile is a little more hopeful now, and he watches it change as she tugs on the brim of her baseball cap. “Why didn’t you tell anyone, Killian? Be honest with me. If we’re going to continue to make this work, and I really do want to make this work, you have to be honest with me. I’m done with guys who aren’t honest.”

He knew this question was coming, has had to answer it before, but no answer seems like it’s enough. They all fall short, and he knows that’s because he fell short in who everyone was expecting him to be. In who he was expecting himself to be too.

“I was scared. That sounds like such a pathetic excuse, but it’s my truth. I have been through a hell of a lot of ups and downs in the past nine years, and I had finally gotten out of the downs when the accident happened. I worked so damn hard, love. I – ” He stops to take a breath, still at a loss for words since it all sounds ridiculous and yet makes perfect sense in his mind. “I finally had my life back on track. Things were going really well for me, and I was pissed that it was all taken away from me because some kids were drunk and driving a boat. I didn’t think I’d ever get the game back, but I did, you know? I was on top of the world, so when my arm started to hurt again, despite all of my better judgment, I figured if I never said anything, I’d never have it all taken away from me. And not telling you about any of it…I don’t know. I guess I didn’t want you to think of me as being any more broken than I already am.”

That’s it. That’s his truth. There’s no altering it or making it better or making him seem like less of an idiot. That’s simply it.

Emma said she’d see the best in him. He hopes that’s true.

For a moment he thinks it’s not because Emma is rising from her chair, and he fully expects her to walk out the door despite everything they’ve already said today and when they talked in Elsa’s office. But she doesn’t leave. Instead, she walks toward him and very slowly places her knees on either side of his thighs and leans down to sit on his lap so that they’re nearly eye level when the palms of her hands land on his cheeks and he can finally see the green of her eyes again underneath her baseball cap.

He’s now realizing the cap is his.

And it feels really damn good to feel the touch of Emma’s hands again. That’s also what has him wrapping his arms around her lower back and tugging her closer while Emma continues to rub her thumbs under his eyes in soothing circles.

“Killian, I am obviously not the most emotionally equip person in the world and am not the best with words, but you have to know that you and me, we both have shitty pasts. We both have things that we’re terrified of and sensitive to, and I think that’s why we work. You understand that I’m not going to leap head first into things, and I understand that you have this weird sense of self-loathing that you shouldn’t have. You were terrified of losing something you love. I would be too.”

“You were pretty damn good with words there.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve had a lot of time to think about things.”

“I like you thinking.”

“Funny, most men don’t.”

Killian chuckles and leans forward to rest his head against Emma’s shoulder, and he takes the moment to breathe her in and breathe in the smell of her perfume. The pillow next to his has smelled like hers for the past few days, but it’s nothing compared to the real thing.

“I’m not going to lie to you again,” he mumbles into her skin while her hands start messing with his hair so that vibrations are running down his spine. “Or my family. Or my teammates. I promise I’ll be smarter, yeah?”

He tilts his head up to look at Emma, and he’s about to say something else when she leans forward and presses her mouth to his. He’s kissed her hundreds of times, probably more than that – he’s not counting – but there’s something different about the way that her mouth moves over his now. It’s slower, more passionate even if he knows it isn’t leading to something more than this, and the raw emotion of it all travels from his lips to the pit of his stomach before moving back up to his heart and constricting it.

But in the best way.

Killian has missed her.

He has missed the sound of her laugh and the way that she hogs the entire couch. He has missed the way she tastes and the fact that she never seems to put her dishes away on time. He has missed the notebooks she leaves around with all of her mid-game scribbling and the way that she can’t seem to make up her mind on what she wants to eat for dinner. Barely any time has passed, but not knowing exactly what’s coming next even more than usual has put a hell of a lot of things in perspective for him.

His love for Emma is one of the most important things in his life, and he doesn’t want to ever jeopardize it again by not being able to own up to his past and how it still has a stranglehold on his present.

Killian gently pecks her lips one, two, three times before trailing along the side of her neck and peppering kisses against her skin, never moving his hands from where they’re holding her to him.

“I love you so much,” he murmurs, the desperation obvious in his own ears. “You have no idea.”

“I think I might have a bit of an idea,” Emma laughs as he leans back to look at her again, the brightest smile he’s seen all day stretched across her lips. “I love you too, by the way. But I still hope everyone you know gives you shit about this whole thing until we all know for sure that you’re not going to keep hiding things as important as your health.”

“I would expect nothing less,” he sighs. “Now, I don’t know about you, Swan, but my girlfriend had a very big day at work the other day, and I still haven’t heard about it.”

“Oh, we don’t have to talk about it.”

“No, no. I want to hear every detail. I almost watched the tape, but I figured that’d be a little miserable hearing your voice while watching myself be an idiot on the field.”

“Yeah, that would probably suck.”

“Exactly. So, tell me all about it. I’m all ears.” Emma opens her mouth, but he stops her. “Aye, I know – little pointy ones.”

Emma does tell him all about it. For a few minutes, she’s kind of fumbling around trying to find her storytelling stride, but then she settles in and knows exactly where she’s going with her tale. She’s not one to talk a lot, even when it comes to him, but when it’s something that Emma is passionate about, she could talk for hours without taking a breath.

Emma is passionate about this.

He can tell in the way the smile on her face rarely dissipates and with how she keeps using her hands far more often than she normally was. Plus, her voice gets that little bit higher in pitch, and he has to bite his tongue not to tease her about it. He also has to bite his tongue when she starts detailing all of the petty little ways that Isaac and James tried to demean her instead of acting like professionals. Emma promises that it wasn’t too bad, but Killian can tell that their little digs bothered her, especially the ones about her integrity and him.

Killian shudders at the thought of their relationship becoming public because of the hell hole that it’ll put Emma into no matter how respected she is in her field by those who actually know what they’re talking about.

A part of that will always be on him and his actions of ten months ago, but he’s under strict instructions not to apologize for that again. And right nownow isn’t about him and his own self-loathing. He’s already taken away days of both of their lives for that, and he’s not going to do that any longer.

Right here, right now…this is about Emma finally getting to do something she’s dreamed about.

He does get up in the middle of her going on about what it was like after his injury – which sounds more than horrific for her – to get his ice pack, and that causes them to trail off onto all of the exact details of his tendonitis and his treatment. He promises Emma that it’s truly not that bad, but that his case is a little bit more intense with his history and the particular severity of it all. That’s when she asks him when exactly it hurts, and the pain on her face when he tells her he can feel it pretty much any time he moves his right arm more than a few inches is not a pained face he wants to keep on seeing from her.

But it only gets worse when Killian details that sometimes it’s so bad that it wakes him up from sleep, and Emma starts to piece together all of the times she’s woken up in the middle of the night to find him out of bed at odd hours.

Bloody idiot. That’s exactly what he is.

It’ll get better though, with rest and physical therapy and a little bit of luck, and as much as it sucks, it could be worse. This could all be worse. He’s not going to let it, though, as he’s not going to be dumb enough to not get treatment and to keep pushing himself further than his physical limits.

And as much as Killian would like to be able to hover over Emma and roll his hips into hers and join their bodies together after what feels like forever apart even if it’s only a few days, he knows that he’s not quite physically able to today. Emma, though, the spirited lass that she is, lets a smirk curl across her lips as she directs him back to his bedroom and tells him to lie on his back as she takes the lead so that he doesn’t have to move his shoulder too much.

Creative solutions have always been the best solutions.

It’s glorious being joined with Emma again, feeling her warmly wrapped around him as she moves above him in slow circles that have him dying in the haze of ecstasy. His mom’s ring falls between her breasts with each movement, and his good arm reaches up to toy with it. She’s going particularly slow, each roll of her hips seemingly meaning something deeper, and as good as it feels, a part of him thinks it’s some kind of torture since she knows he can’t do most of the things he’s usually capable of doing.

The sly smile on her face when he tries to thrust up into her and go deeper inside of her tells him that he’s right.

The minx.

And if slow and steady is what Emma wants, it’s exactly what she’ll get. She’s always been one to take charge.

The heat simmering between them must eventually begin to burn, however, because the rolls of her hips become faster and she places his hand where they’re joined so that he can help her find her bliss in the few minutes before he finds his, little shocks of electricity working down to the base of his spine as he comes undone with Emma’s name on his lips and his love for her curling around each and every other word that he manages to mutter.

Almost losing her, even if he didn’t think this would truly tear them apart despite the way his mind kept convincing him that it would, has made him appreciate Emma in ways that he hadn’t before.

He thought he appreciated her in every way, but there are always things to learn.

“I have so many damn cookies,” Killian laughs later, after they’ve cleaned up and crawled back under the covers, a new pack of ice on his shoulder and his body pleasurably aching. “I have no idea what I’m going to do with them.”

Emma laughs against his chest where she’s curled up, her hand over his heart and her feet tucked in between his calves so that they’re back where they belong. “I would say I could take them with me on the road trip, but then I’d have to check a bag to get them with me through TSA. Or maybe not. I’m always confused on the food thing.”

Oh.

He’d nearly forgotten that life was moving on outside of his bedroom and this bed and the freckles scattered over Emma’s skin. The only clothing she has on is the necklace, and he’d like to keep it that way for as long as possible.

“So, you are going to Boston then?”

Emma hums. “And then Detroit after that. I have off for the Blue Jays, though, so I’ll be coming back home instead of going to Canada.”

His hand scratches against her back, drawing lines and words and anything that he can simply to feel her again. “I hate that I’m not going to be traveling with you.”

“It’s going to be kind of weird,” she whispers before pressing a kiss to his shoulder. “I’m going to have a hotel bed to myself.”

“To be fair, you pretty much always have the bed to yourself even when I am around.”

“You have been forgiven for about two hours now, and you’re already talking shit about my bed hogging. That’s a bold move there, Jones.’

“Oh, I know,” he yawns, his lack of sleep catching up to him even if it’s only six in the evening, “but I’ve slept alone for a few days now, and let me tell you, it’s glorious.”

Emma scoffs against his chest before sitting up so that she’s looking down at him under her mess of wild blonde hair that’s curling over her chest. “You’re being an ass.”

“Well, we have undoubtedly decided that I am an ass, right?”

“Pretty much.”

Emma’s arms stretch over her head, the muscles of her stomach on display, before she’s rolling off of the bed and standing up so that he has a particular good view of her ass that has his body humming. But then she’s walking to his dresser and pulling out a t-shirt to put on. She obviously pulled it from the back because it’s an older one he hasn’t seen in years, and he imagines he’ll probably never see it again with Emma’s penchant for stealing his things.

“You going somewhere, love?”

“Yeah,” she sighs as the t-shirt lifts from her thighs when she’s pulling her hair back up into a messy bun on the top of her head. “You have a bowl of icing in your kitchen, and the TV in the living room is better than the TV in here. If we’re not going to the US Open because I don’t want to leave this apartment until I absolutely have to, I’m going to watch it here.”

“Do you want me to join you?”

“Eh,” she teases, shrugging her shoulders. “I don’t really care. Apparently, I am a bed hog, so I’m leaving you here to have the entire bed by yourself while I go lounge about on the couch eating the sweets you made while you were mooning over me.”

“You’re impossible.”

Emma winks. “And you love me for it.”

#catch me if you can #cs fic #cs ff #captain swan fic #captain swan

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let-it-raines · 5 years ago

Text

Not Your (soul)Mate {16/16}

Killian Jones doesn’t like the idea of soulmates. He sees how happy his friends are with theirs, but he still doesn’t like the idea, not when he’s found love and lost it time and time again only to still not know his sign. He has no markings on his skin, no voices in his head, but then one day he meets Emma Swan and everything changes. Because, well, he may not have ink on his skin to tell him who to love, but the very first time that he hears Emma’s voice he knows that she’s the one for him. Then again, that could simply be his desire talking. After all, for every word she speaks, he becomes aroused.

It’s not the worst thing in the world to be incredibly attracted to a beautiful woman, but things aren’t that simple when she doesn’t have any interest in being his soulmate.

He’s screwed. And not in the good way.

Rating: Mature

A/n: You guys, I want to write a long and sappy message about how much I appreciate all of you for the INCREDIBLE love you have shown this story - and it has seriously been mind-blowing - but I don’t think words can suffice. So simply thank you for all of that 💛

And a final thank you to @captainsjedi for her artwork. I can’t express to her how much I appreciate her for taking the time to create SIX different pieces for this story! I’m going to treasure them forever! And this last one is one of my personal favorites 😍

Found on AO3: Beginning | Current

Tumblr: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16

Tag list: @xellewoods @effulgentcolors @galaxyzxstark @thejollyroger-writer @idristardis @snowbellewells @karenfrommisthaven @skyewardolicitycloisdelena91 @scientificapricot @captswanis4vr @a-faekindagirl @emmas-storybook @searchingwardrobes @spartanguard @ultimiflos @jamif @initiala @dreameronarooftop15 @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke @tiganasummertree @wellhellotragic @bmbbcs4evr @onceuponaprincessworld @jennjenn615 @mayquita @captainsjedi @teamhook @kmomof4 @ekr032-blog-blog @superchocovian @ultraluckycatnd @cs-forlife @andiirivera @qualitycoffeethings @jonirobinson64 @mariakov81 @cssns

-/-

“Killian Andrew Jones. Stop that.”

Killian’s head recoils, his chin pressing into his neck and his lips pressing into a straight line as he blinks up at her from his position sprawled out across the bed, black hair spread out over the white patterned pillowcase. Only Killian would own white pillows that have a pattern so subtle that one would think he picked them out without realizing that. He definitely did. He notices everything.

“What?” Emma huffs when he seems confused.

“I’m sorry, love. It’s just that you rather sound like my mother once did.”

“Oh my God, no,” Emma laughs, swinging her legs away from where she’s straddling Killian’s face only for his fingers to dig into the skin of her ass and pull her down closer so that his nose brushes against the sensitive flesh at her core. She hisses, unable to stop herself when that’s such a delightful feeling. “You cannot compare me to your mother when we’re doing this. That’s all kinds of messed up.”

Killian smirks up at her, one of those cocky grins that she’s grown so used to even if she’s seen it less and less lately. Really, it’s only when he says something outrageous, something that he knows she’s going to roll her eyes at, and that’s one of her favorite things in the world.

He’s her favorite person in the world.

One hundred percent.

Undoubtedly.

Forever.

She loves him, but right now, she kind of hates him.

“Darling,” he growls, flicking his tongue against her center in a way that nearly has her knees buckle, “I have no idea what you mean.”

Her fingers curl into the gray velvet of their headboard, her thighs shaking at just that touch, and she tries to grind down onto him even though she knows that he won’t let her with how he’s holding her up.

“You know exactly what I mean.”

“I don’t.”

“I hate you.”

“I love you.”

“KJ.”

“Sweetheart.”

“Oh fuck,” she huffs, anger and desire and, frankly, amusement running through her. “Killian, we’re having sex, and you keep tickling me behind my kneecaps because I’m ticklish there. That’s evil.”

She looks down to try to see his face, only his eyes visible under her breasts and her thighs, and she swears that he’s somehow shrugging with his eyebrows. It’s stupid how he can do things like that with his eyebrows. They’re just little growths of hair. So much emotion should not be able to be expressed in them.

“I simply love to make you laugh is all.”

“Bullshit.”

His hands squeeze at her ass again, which is definitely more for him than her, before trailing down her thighs, and she knows where he’s heading before he even gets there, his fingers quickly moving behind her knees as a shiver runs through her and she lets out a painful laugh, unable to squirm away as Killian tickles her like they’re ten years old or something equally ridiculous.

“K-kil-kllian.”

“I do so love when you moan my name,” he teases, pulling her back from the headboard until she’s crashing down onto the mattress, her vision blurring for a moment while she gasps for breath and laughs, thankful that at least for now Killian’s fingers have stopped moving against her legs.

“You’re being so dumb.”

“I’m always dumb.”

“You just insulted yourself.”

“Aye,” he sighs, a soft smile that she sees more often than the smirk appearing as he stares up at her from her stomach, his scruff burning against the skin at her stomach as he slowly drags his nose over her hipbone, inking her skin with his lips along the way. She could sigh at that as well. She does. “I love the freckles you have everywhere, my love. I think I have them all mapped out, that I know every inch of this beautiful skin, but then I discover something new like this little spot here.”

“I will never understand how you can go from being so obnoxious to be so romantic all in a span of five seconds.”

He blinks up at her, his smile buried in her thigh, before he’s hooking his hands up underneath her knees, no tickling her this time, and spreading her legs wider so that the warmth of his breath ghosts over where she’s so desperately been aching for him ever since he dragged her into their bedroom fifteen minutes ago. She’s all for foreplay, especially the way Killian does it, but sometimes a girl needs some relief.

(Okay, all of the time.)

“As I tell you all the time, I’m a man of many talents.”

And then he’s flicking his tongue against her clit, and all of the nerve endings in her entire body are suddenly right there, the coil in her belly tightening and tightening and tightening. They’ve been together for nine months now, at least officially, and in that time, Killian has become an expert in how to please her and make her fall apart under his touch. He knows just how to rile her up, how to flick his tongue against her flesh, how to curl two fingers inside of her and push her further and further over the edge and into what can only be described as euphoria.

It’s a fun edge to fall over.

Everything is heightened with him. Between her thighs ache, her actual thighs shake as her ankles hook behind his head and her hands thread into his hair, yanking it the slightest bit. He moans, and she smiles. She knows what he likes too, and even though she can barely think any coherent thoughts, she’s not all about receiving. She can do a little giving too.

But later.

“Bloody hell, woman,” he mutters as his fingers keep thrusting, hitting all of the right spots as he curls them inside of her. “You’ll be the death of me.”

“What a way to go, though.”

“Write it on my headstone. I died between my beloved’s thighs, and I couldn’t be happier.”

“Morbid, but okay.”

He chuckles against her, the deep vibrations moving over all of her skin, before he gets back to work, quickly riling her up as he slips a third finger inside of her, unraveling the tight string in her belly so that her orgasm slowly comes to her all the while blue eyes are staring up at her over the expanse of her stomach and the round curve of her breasts.

How she resisted those eyes and the man who they belong to for so long is a mystery she cannot solve, but honestly, she wouldn’t change a single thing about their story. She’s always rejected the idea of things being meant to be, of being fated, and she likes to think that they made their own fate in choosing to be with each other instead of simply falling into bed that first day.

It’s all about the choice.

And they’ve had plenty of time to make up for everything else.

Sex is better when she’s in love, and she is so in love that Mary Margaret Nolan sometimes can’t even live up to the doe eyes and lingering glances that Emma pulls whenever Killian is around.

Anyone who knows Mary Margaret knows that is saying something.

With her legs still shivering, Killian pulls back from her, the loss of heat immediate, and she thinks he’s going to take off his pants only for him to lean over her and quickly press his lips into hers before rising from the bed and backing away.

“Um, where do you think you’re going?”

“We’ve a wedding to go to, love.”

She rolls over on the bed, her body still a quivering mess, and sits up on the edge of the mattress, the cool metal of Killian’s mom’s ring falling between her breasts. “KJ, we have plenty of time. We don’t have to be at the venue until noon, and it’s barely past ten.”

Killian shakes his head from side to side and adjusts his pajama pants to pull them up further on his hips so that the dip of his treasure trail fades away. Whoever named that a treasure trail was a very smart person because it is, indeed, a treasure.

(Okay, so she’s definitely still horny.)

“You still have to take a shower and dry your hair before we go. I’m guessing you probably have to shave as well from all of the hair I just felt on your legs. That’s going to take you a bit of time.”

“I hate when you’re right.”

“I know,” he chuckles, stepping into her space so that she can knock her knees into his while she stares up at him. “Go take a shower, Swan. I’ll take mine after you.”

“We could take one together. Save the planet and conserve water and all that.”

“No, no, no. We will never get out of the apartment if we do that.”

Her shoulders heave, resignation settling in, before she leans back against the bed and rolls over, not-so-gracefully standing up. “Aren’t you so glad you asked me to move in with you? I’m a dream to live with.”

“More like a nightmare.” She picks up a rolled pair of socks from the dresser and chunks them at him. He easily catches them because he always does. “I’m merely teasing, darling. I adore living with you and getting to look at you every day. I love talking to you too. That’s such a perk.”

It most definitely is.

Talking to Killian, being able to without any weird side effects that make her want to jump Jones’s bones, is one of the greatest things in the world. Besides, she doesn’t need anything extra to make her be attracted to him. Loving him makes that pretty easy.

“Very true,” she smiles, winking at him. “Alright, I’m going to go take my shower. Belle and Will love us, but they will not be okay with us being late to their wedding.”

-/-

“You are the most beautiful woman in this room,” Killian whispers in her ear as they sway back and forth to the soft music playing over the speakers, her bare feet aching against the wood floor and making her forehead only come up the lapels of Killian’s suit jacket that he’s somehow still wearing even though all the other guys shred theirs everywhere.

Her stomach flutters at his words, at the gravely tone with which he says them, and she buries her nose into the opening of his shirt in response, breathing in the warm spice of his cologne. He’s still got the jacket on, but the bowtie is loosely hung around his neck, the top three buttons of his shirt undone. She’s got a weird thing for Killian having his bowtie undone and wrapped around his neck, his white shirt slightly damp from sweat and his perfectly styled hair now a little messy, fringe hanging over his forehead.

He’s the most beautiful man in this room. Probably the entire town. She’s not biased at all.

“You’re not supposed to say that when it’s another woman’s wedding day.”

Killian hums against the top of her head, his lips pressing into her temple. “Belle and Will are long gone, darling. It’s just you and me, the rest of the wedding party, and Leroy sitting at the bar.”

She lifts her head the slightest bit to look around, curious as to what everyone else is doing, and she sees Liam and Elsa sitting down at a table lost deep in conversation as they usually are when it winds up being just the two of them. She’s really gotten to know them better over the last few months, Liam especially, and it’s been a wonderful new addition to her life. He’s this very stereotypical big brother, something she knew but didn’t really understand until she saw it on a nearly daily basis with how he and Killian interact, and it makes her smile that Killian has that even when he’s in his mid-thirties.

The Jones brothers are such huge parts of her life, and she could have never guessed that was going to happen. Killian told her that when he told Liam about their connection, their sign, Liam tilted his head back and just laughed, disbelief and joy written all over his face. She still can’t believe she was so pissed at him for knowing when he’s been nothing but supportive and helpful.

Hindsight is everything.

Having faith in she and Killian, in their relationship, makes her a lot surer and more comfortable with the fact that others know about the fact that Killian is her soulmate.

It’s been the same with everyone. She didn’t want to tell everyone (anyone) at first. They were in this happy little bubble of talking and sex and talking and sex and, well, talking during sex. It was everything she wanted, everything she’d never allowed herself to have before, and she would have been perfectly happy to keep it under the covers of Killian’s bed as his hands and mouth explored every inch of her skin all the while they finally got to talk about everything they hadn’t dared say before.

Life couldn’t be lived between the sheets, though, and eventually they did tell their friends and family. Elsa had blushed, her pale cheeks turning red as she laughed and told them congratulations, her mind not quite able to wrap around the whole situation. Belle had been the same way, but there was this knowing glint in her eye that made Emma think that maybe she somehow knew. It was the same with David, which made sense considering they were the two people who witnessed most of she and Killian’s childish teases and taunts and, well, flirting. They were flirting that entire time.

Obviously.

Who sends notes and bread baskets and sits on each other’s laps when they’re not flirting?

Not the two of them.

(Flirting is one of the greatest things in the world, she’s discovered, and it’s on her mental list of things to do every day.)

Mary Margaret had cried, of course, completely and totally overwhelmed by the fact that Emma had a soulmate and someone to love and be loved by. Such an overemotional sap. Ariel, well, Ariel laughed in their faces and told them that it wasn’t nice to mess with someone who had given birth four weeks ago by telling her that their soulmate sign started off by them getting aroused by each other’s voices standing in her kitchen. Then she realized they were telling the truth, laughed again, and didn’t stop for a solid fifteen minutes before she decided to dissect every single interaction she’d ever seen the two of them have like some kind of road map of them falling in love.

“I’m going to have to make sure she doesn’t have such unfiltered access to my life,” Killian had laughed as they left Ariel’s house after spending some time with her and getting to hold Lyla.

(Luis, Luca, Leo, and Lyla. Those are four out of five kids Emma has in her life, and she really needs to talk to her friends about the other letters in the alphabet.)

Emma twists her head to the other side of the room to see Ruby chatting up the DJ, either flirting for the sake of flirting or flirting to try to convince her to play a song that Will and Belle put on the list of songs that they didn’t want played.

When they told Will and Belle, after Belle had calmly taken it all in, Will sat in shocked silence, his lips opening and closing like he wanted to say something but couldn’t. It was the first time she’d ever seen him speechless, and of course it didn’t last long.

“Is that what all of the damn letters were?” he questioned. “You were trying not to fuck, so you wrote letters to each other. Hell, I’d have just talked while Belle was on top of me. More power to the two of you for actually getting to know each other like that.”

That had earned him a slap, but it wouldn’t be Will if they didn’t groan at every other word that he said.

Her favorite reaction, though, was most definitely Ruby.

“Are you freaking kidding me?” she’d gasped, slamming her hand down on the counter at Granny’s and making Emma’s hot chocolate shake. “You two were magically turned on just by saying a word, and you didn’t take advantage of that? Oh my God. I would kill for that. Men are horrible at foreplay, and you didn’t even need it. And now what? Now you’re not turned on anymore so you actually have to work for it? That’s a screwed-up sign, but you’ve at least got to take advantage of it. That was wasted on the two of you. For two people who are so damn hot, you should have fucked like you were trying to repopulate the entire town.”

Killian had wrapped his arm around her shoulder as they left the diner that afternoon, smiles on both of their faces from all of Ruby’s follow-up questions, and tugged her closer as he whispered in her ear. “We had seven months of excellent foreplay, and for the record, I am excellent at it.”

He is.

When she turns back to Killian as they dance, he’s smiling down at her, the eye crinkles that she loves so much making an appearance, and she presses up on her toes to kiss him simply because she can. “You want to go home then?”

“I thought you’d never ask. You’re wearing matching underwear today, and I want to take full advantage of that.”

-/-

When Emma wakes the next morning, it’s to the slightest sliver of sunlight peeking through the curtains and the sheets next to her feeling cold as ice. As she registers that next bit, she runs her hand over Killian’s spot again, somehow hoping that he’s simply going to reappear, but he doesn’t. This is disappointing, but it’s not any cause for alarm since he does usually get up before her, so she simply rolls over takes hold of his pillow, burying her face in the soft material that smells like him.

And then she feels the sharp paper edge of an envelope.

It’s not an unfamiliar thing for her to wake up to envelopes, to find one sitting over her coffee mug, or even to have one slipped into the lunch she takes to work. It’s actually a pretty familiar one, especially since they moved in together and Killian has such easy access to delivering his letters. He was very obviously tired of having to pay for her stamps so she’ll write him back.

She writes him back every time.

Sometimes she even writes him first.

They can say everything out loud, but that’s not always necessary when they have this way of communication as well. These letters can be preserved forever, and they are, in a box sitting in Killian’s bedside drawer just like where she found them the first time they slept together.

Cheesy, sentimental fools that they are.

Slowly, she opens up the letter, noticing that this one is actually sealed instead of simply being tucked in, and begins reading.

My love,

I know, I know. It’s too early in the morning for you to be reading. You haven’t had your coffee or anything to eat made in one our infomercial mixing bowls, and you definitely haven’t had time to scroll through your phone like you always do. You likely woke up, rolled over onto your side, and stretched out your arm to find me only to find this letter. I love that you do that, by the way, even when you unintentionally slap me. I like that you’re seeking me out as I seek you out always.

I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, probably much longer than I had any right to, and while I’ve rehearsed the words over and over in my head, they’re coming out a bit differently now that I’ve actually sat down to pen them. You looked so beautiful last night in your emerald dress. It accentuated your curves and your breasts and God, love, your eyes. I cannot even begin to tell you how much I love your eyes and the way they light up when you’re happy. I love the way they widen only to become smaller when your smile is so overpowering that it takes up your entire face.

Seeing you smile is the highlight of my day every time, even when I’m cross with you, my little Sour Patch Kid. Sour and sweet all at once.

For so long, I couldn’t talk to you. You and I both know why. The world has a cruel sense of humor, one I sometimes laugh along with and other times despise, and while those months of us getting to know each other through strained conversations and amusing texts were often long and painful, I found myself laughing along with the world then. This wonderful, vibrant, effervescent woman came crashing into my life, and nothing about it has ever been the same.

Seriously. I have all kinds of lotions and shampoos in my shower, and you should see my kitchen cabinets. They’re overflowing with junk food, and yet you still have that delectable ass.

Anyways, I’m getting off-topic. This is supposed to be a romantic letter, one you treasure forever, and I don’t think our children are going to enjoy hearing their father talk about their mum’s ass when they stumble across this one day.

(It’s bloody fantastic.)

Emma (no middle name) Swan, I love you so much that words can’t even describe how I feel simply by knowing that you are my partner in life. I love you…more than anything. I love the way you unintentionally slap me in the morning, the way that your lips feel against mine, and the way that you laugh at my jokes, even the bad ones. I love that your nose scrunches up when you’re frustrated or amused, and I love that I’m lucky enough to know the difference. I love every freckle on your skin and every small quirk that you possess, like your inability to match your socks. I love that we never seem to run out of things to talk about, but we’re comfortable sitting in silence with our fingers intertwined as we watch whatever documentary we can find on television as you steal my food. I love that the intimacies of your heart, all of the affection and heartbreak residing inside of it, have been shared with me in the same way that I have shared mine with you.

I love you, Emma. Every single part of you, everything that makes up who you are. The good, the bad, the ugly. We live in a world where perfection is sought after and glorified, but loving you is imperfect and messy and wonderful and the best damn decision that I’ve ever made.

Until this one.

Emma, love of my life, will you marry me?

Killian Andrew (asshole) Jones.

“Asshole,” she mutters out loud as she drops the letter onto her lap and wipes the tears from her eyes.

He is an asshole for making her cry before she’s had her coffee or breakfast or is even able to scroll through her phone to look at the pictures from the wedding last night. He is an asshole who she loves so damn much and who she can’t believe just proposed to her in a letter instead of asking her out loud.

(She most definitely can believe it.)

This is…this is the only way she’d ever want to be asked because this is how Killian has asked her. He’s so ridiculous and goofy and just…he’s a mess, but he’s her mess and quite possibly the most romantic man on the planet when she is quite possibly the least romantic woman on the planet.

Oh well. It works out for them.

Carefully folding the letter up and placing it back into the envelope so she can preserve this memory forever – her future children need to hear about how good of an ass she has right now, obviously – she throws the covers off of her legs and rises from the bed, not even bothering to brush her teeth before she’s walking into the living room and trying to find Killian. It only takes a quick scan of the room for her to find him sitting out on the balcony, his gaze toward the ocean and back toward her, and anticipation works its way over her entire body in the form of goosebumps rising on every inch of her skin.

This morning better not be a dream.

There’s no way it could be anything but real.

When she slides the glass door open, Killian doesn’t acknowledge her, doesn’t so much as look in her direction, but she can see the slightest quirk in his lips, a subtle uptick that has her absolutely beaming as she not-so-gracefully puts her knees on either side of his thighs and grabs his face with her hands, looking into the blue that seems to define so much of her life now.

“Well good morning, darling. Did you sleep well?”

“Oh yeah, like a rock,” she laughs, rolling her eyes. So this is how he’s going to play it then, like everything is normal, and he can just snake his hand up underneath her shirt and mess with the clasp of her bra like they’re about to fuck on the balcony. They might, but that’s beside the point right now. “You?”

He yawns, something overexaggerated that makes his own nose scrunch up in a way that she also adores. “It was okay. My girlfriend kept rolling in her sleep and waking me up, so I got up early and did a few things around the apartment.”

“Yeah?” she questions as her fingers caress his face, tracing the lines that reside there and mark years of life and loss and laughter. “Like what?”

He hums, his fingers succeeding in unclasping her bra with practiced ease and his nails tracing her skin, before he presses forward and gently kisses her like this is any other morning. “I had my coffee, which really helped with the bit of headache that I had. Keeping up with you isexhausting.”

“I hear I’m vibrant and effervescent, so I would imagine so.”

She thinks he’s going to break then from the way that he smiles, but ever the strong force in her life, he holds steady. “You are most definitely those things. So I had my coffee, checked up on some news, answered a few emails that I’ve missed, scheduled myself to take a day off tomorrow, and then I wrote you a letter. Did you happen to see that?”

Emma arches a brow, vibrations and anticipation and everything that could possibly be a synonym for being excited coursing through her. “I did. It was kind of long, and I’m still half asleep, so I think you may have to read it to me.”

Killian chuckles as his fingers pinch the skin of her back before he’s moving his hand out from underneath her shirt and trailing it up her arms until he’s cupping her face in the way that she’s cupping his, a tangle of limbs that have never been more perfect.

“I love you, my darling, and I want to spend every day for the rest of my life with you. I am more than happy to choose you every day, and spend the rest of my life accidentally being slapped in the face in the mornings.”

“That’s close but not exactly what you said in the letter.”

An exasperated sigh escapes his lips as his forehead presses forward into hers, his warmth now absolutely everywhere just like it should be. “You are impossible. Will you marry me, Emma?”

There he goes.

“Yes, yes. Of course I will, Killian. How could I not when you write such poetic words about my ass?”

He barks out a laugh, one she feels against her lips and in her heart and probably somewhere in her soul in a romantic and non-creepy way. “I knew that would be what sold you on us spending our life together.”

“Well, you do know me. All I need is a love letter, a basket of baked goods, and someone talking about my ass to be happy.”

“And me?”

“Yeah,” she smiles, slowly gliding her lips over Killian’s in a moment that will be preserved just like all of the letters, “and you.”

#Not Your (soul)Mate #cs fic #cs ff #captain swan fic #Captain Swan #cssns

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