#he is ALSO on the Christmas card after Nolan leaves | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

cutieodonoghue · 4 years ago

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dark gray (17/17)

summary: Killian Jones operates a lighthouse in the middle of nowhere, preferring a life of isolation, until one day a woman and a baby wash up on his little island and change his life forever.

read it on: ao3, ff.net

and also catch up on Tumblr!

a/n: Hi friends! This is the final chapter! Thank you so much for all of your support. I’ve truly enjoyed reading all of your reactions as you’ve re-read or read this story for the very first time. Please raise your hand if you’re interested in an epilogue! I have one written but I’m not 100% on it just yet. Anyway, love you! Enjoy!

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Seventeen

Top to bottom, the Nolan house is full of the Christmas spirit. They have a tree in their living room, brightly lit with shining ornaments and white bulbs. There are red and green pillows on the furniture and special decorations on every surface available. It smells like gingerbread and peppermint.

Emma’s mother makes Killian a bed in their living room, giving Smee the guest bedroom, but once the lights go out, he climbs up the steps to the upstairs and crawls into bed beside Emma, much to her delight.

Her bedroom is small, but it does its job. Her queen sized bed is covered in blankets, seated on the opposite end of the room from Henry’s crib. The boy rests peaceful, something he’s sure has been a relief to Emma.

Her eyes brighten and she beams at him. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

She kisses him softly. To be with her again feels surreal, so he’s basked in every second, trying to memorize the way she stares back at him in the quiet moments, the timbre of her laughter when he teases her, the gentleness of her fingertips when she’s finding his, and the way she sighs just a little each time they kiss.

After she pulls away, he brings her fingers to his lips and kisses her knuckles, content in the warmth of her bed and their closeness. It’s been far too long and he’s missed her dearly.

Even though they haven’t been together for long, it feels to him as if he’s known her for a long time. It’s funny, what he’s missed about her includes all of her frustration and annoyance with him and his behavior. Has it always been love?

“What happened to you?” she whispers, rubbing her thumb over the apple of his cheek. “Tell me the whole story.”

He winces, hesitant. “I don’t know if you want to hear that right now… we should be celebrating being together again. Trying to figure out what life means now that we’re here.”

“I know… but…” Emma stares at him quietly. “I want to know. Tell me.”

Sighing heavily, he inches closer to her under the piles of warm blankets, resting his palm against the mattress between them. He focuses on his hand, thinking back to that day, where he stood on the beach watching her leave on a boat headed to the mainland.

“They came to the island. Outnumbered me.”

The air on board their ship had smelled thick of smoke, alcohol, and grime. The men had thick accents, but spoke English, and had wasted no time getting to business.

Emma’s fingers trace lines over the healing bruises on his face, tender and worried.

“They wanted to use me as leverage, but I don’t think they knew who I was. Not really. I think they thought, perhaps, I was more important to the government.” He meets her eyes. “They were talking about a nearby cruise ship. Thinking about commandeering it. I’m not sure how, after days of misery, I was able to send an S.O.S., but I did. Then, I was able to do enough damage that the engine stopped. Stalled us for a while.”

He’d been parched and starving, his body numb from the cold air. His fingers were shaking when he sabotaged the engine and his chest ached sharply from a couple of broken ribs each time he took a deep breath.

“They found me and knocked me unconscious.” He closes his eyes at the brutal memory. “And stuffed me into a barrel that they tossed into the water. After that, help came, pulled me out, and they were able to stop them. I guess they’d been trying to put an end to this group for a while.”

Emma covers his hand with hers, soothing him. He meets her eyes, searching them for a moment.

“I just knew I needed to get back to you. You kept me alive.”

She leans into him, their foreheads touching. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“No, no,” Killian murmurs. “Don’t be sorry. It’s in the past. It’s already done.”

“If we’d stayed any longer…” She stops herself.

He kisses the tip of her nose and then her forehead twice. “You and Henry got away safe. I survived. All that happened is just bad memories now.”

He wraps his arms around her when she curls her body into his. He lowers his lips to her head, closing his eyes. She seems to have lost her words, but her being close to him is more than enough comfort.

As time goes on, he finds that they’ve started to breathe in unison.

“I wish we could’ve had a happier beginning, my love, but I promise that we’ll have the happiest future, even when it’s hard.”

She is quiet for a long time, so long that he very nearly falls asleep to the feeling of her breathing evenly against him.

“I love you.” Emma whispers.

That’s all that matters, isn’t it? They have each other.

“I love you too.”

Killian’s arm is draped directly over her belly, which makes Emma’s heart squeeze tightly in her chest. She feels his breath warm against her neck, and their legs are tangled beneath layers of blankets.

Mary Margaret loved him at first sight. Meanwhile, David had kept his emotions close to his chest, hesitant to accept that this was the man Emma had been with for a month.

They fed him, gave him towels and fresh clothes to shower and change, and when it came time for bed, Mary Margaret practically sang him a lullaby.

David, not so much. But it was understandable.

Her father has often admitted to her that this is the part of being a parent he had never been certain of: judging another man to be worthy of his daughter. With Neal, he’d been a little too unsure, to the point that he had to keep apologizing for not having protected her enough.

But with Killian, Emma finds herself worried that her dad won’t accept him regardless of who he is and how much he means to her.

Turning to face Killian, she still allows him to hold her. His eyes open, one after the other, and a sweet smile dances playfully on his lips. “Morning.”

Emma cards her fingers through his hair, biting at her lip. She hums. “Morning.”

She listens for a few moments, wondering if her parents are awake yet. “Do you think my parents know you snuck up here?”

“Oh, most definitely.” Killian says, making her laugh. “I made a lot of noise coming up the steps.”

Emma scrunches up her nose and puts her hand on his cheek, preparing to kiss him. “Yeah. You kinda did.”

Killian laughs into a sweet morning kiss, one of many she imagines are to come. The hope she has for their future is bright, and she knows he feels the same.

When they pull apart, Emma whispers, “It’s Christmas. Merry Christmas.”

He awards her a soft smile, “Happy Christmas, love.”

“How does it feel? It’s your first Christmas away from the island in a long time.”

Killian chuckles. He pulls his hand up over his face and lies flat on his back. Turning his head to her, he says, “I’m just happy to be here with you.”

Her heart very nearly melts. “Killian.”

“Emma.” He smirks when she gives him a daring look, her brow raised. “Truly, I am. I don’t need anything special.”

“You deserve something special.”

She can tell he has something absolutely abhorrent to say before he even dares whisper it. “I do have something special. I have you. We have our little family. That’s enough for this Christmas.”

Damn him. He’s far too charming for his good.

“What about next Christmas?” she wonders, poking a little at what he’d said.

“I’ve got big plans for next Christmas.” She lifts a curious eyebrow as he takes her hand. “We’ll be living in our house by then, so I figure we’ll have it decorated like Santa himself lives there.”

Emma laughs. “Yeah?”

“Giant tree,” he says, gesturing out with his left arm, “Of course. In the foyer.”

She hums. “Yes. Of course. Go on.”

“Lights everywhere. Garland will practically grow from our limbs.” She can’t help but laugh at the mental picture of Killian wrapped in garland. Killian smiles. “Oh, and we’ll have this nice Christmas dinnerware that your mum is going to give us as a wedding present.”

Emma can’t help but smile at him silently. He stops orating, staring at her with bright eyes.

“Did I mention we’re getting married soon?”

She bites on her tongue, keeping her laughter at bay. “Soon, huh?”

The tips of his ears turn pink with the slightest bit of embarrassment. He reaches for his ear, giving the spot behind it a nervous scratch.

“Well, I think so.”

Emma lets him squirm for a second or two before she kisses his cheek. “What else is going to happen next Christmas, when we’re married and living in our own house?”

He takes a moment to gaze at her, sleepy, with a lopsided smile on his lips. His hair is such a riotous mess first thing in the morning, something she gets very nearly distracted by, were it not that he’s talking to her about their future and it’s the most heartwarming feeling she’s ever had.

“Presents. Loads of them. Most for Henry, but at least half for you.”

Emma gives him a skeptical look. “That’s a lot.”

“Well,” he smirks, “I hate to brag, but next Christmas, I have a wife and I worship the ground she walks on.”

She laughs loud enough that she has a worried thought of waking someone. Emma slides close to Killian, putting her hand against his chest.

“Well, next Christmas, my only requests are that I want there to be stockings that we hang by the fire. Because we’re going to have a fireplace.” He nods in agreement. “And... I expect a lot of mistletoe kisses.”

“Anything you wish.” Killian kisses her chastely. “And magical snowflakes for the stockings will be safely stored in our freezer.”

Her heart squeezes longingly as she thinks about what next year might look like. One year from now, things will be so much different than they are today. Henry will be so much bigger. Killian will have settled into his new life in Storybrooke. They’ll have a baby of their own.

Fondly, she thinks about what Henry might be like as a big brother. She hopes he’ll be gentle and kind. She knows Killian will be amazing. He’s proved as much with Henry.

“Next Christmas, what if we…”

Henry stirs to life, blessedly pulling Emma out of anything she was about to say to Killian. She’s on her feet in an instant, going to find him in his crib.

“Merry Christmas, Henry!”

Emma’s mother busies herself in the kitchen even before he, Emma, and Henry join the family downstairs. She wears a bright red sweater and an even brighter smile.

“Merry Christmas!”

Emma’s wearing what she’d dubbed as her “cozy clothes”, an oversized Christmas sweater and leggings below. To his surprise, she dug into her things to find her thick rimmed glasses, something that makes her even more adorable to him.

“Merry Christmas, Mom.” Emma steps into the kitchen, coming alongside her mother. She’s still carrying Henry, so she’s careful as she gives her a side hug.

“Did you sleep well?” Mary Margaret wonders.

Emma hums. “Yeah. Pretty well.”

When her mother turns back to what she’s doing in the kitchen, Emma meets his eyes and gives him a private smile. He winks back at her.

“Dad still asleep?”

“I’m hoping we can wake him up with some Christmas breakfast. What do you think about cinnamon rolls?”

“Sounds good.” Emma nods. She reaches into a cabinet for a bottle for Henry. “Hey, Killian?”

He moves swiftly into the kitchen, already grabbing for Henry before she can ask twice.

“Thank you.” Emma gives Henry’s fingers a gentle squeeze as she smiles up at Killian. “I almost forgot how well we work together.”

He laughs warmly and carries Henry to sit down at the kitchen island, bouncing the boy just a little trying to distract him.

“So, Killian, Christmas day isn’t usually this laid back…” Mary Margaret says, turning from her bowl of ingredients. “We usually have a lot of guests and family stopping in throughout the day, but this year, we’re going to just keep it simple. We’ve all been through a lot. And I think it’ll be nice for Henry, too. We don’t need to overwhelm the baby.”

Emma hums in agreement. “Last year there were forty people here at once.”

“That’s… a lot.”

Mary Margaret chuckles. “Well, David and I both come from bigger families. I have a lot of cousins I grew up with, and he has a twin with a family of his own. Not to mention all of the friends we have in town.”

It’s not all that surprising to him that they’d be popular. In the short time he’s known David and Mary Margaret, they’ve been more than kind and hospitable. Well, except for David asking some tough probing questions.

He finds that Christmas is far more enjoyable here, amongst friendly faces, than it ever has been. While he doesn’t have any gifts to give or to receive, he does have plenty to be grateful for.

Emma sits at his side for most of the day, both of them loathe to be apart. They’d spent hardly a month together, were separated just as long, and suddenly, they can’t get enough.

He can’t and won’t complain.

She runs her fingers through his hair, her nails gentle on his scalp, while they watch Henry playing with some toys David and Mary Margaret had given him. Every so often, he’ll look at her, a smile on his lips, and she’ll award him sweet kisses if her parents aren’t in view.

Mary Margaret gives him far too much to eat and drink, and David peppers him with a series of questions that Emma rolls her eyes at.

“So, where are you thinking you’ll live?”

“Dad.” Emma says, offended on his behalf. “Give him a break. He just got to town.”

David returns her frustrated expression with one of his own. “I’m just curious!”

Killian glances at Emma briefly, whose hands cover her face. She’s clearly mortified. “It’s okay. I don’t want to speak for Emma, but I was thinking once I find some work, we could find ourselves a house somewhere nearby.”

David’s eyes widen a little. “Oh?”

Emma sighs. She stands, deciding to clean up the nearby coffee table to busy herself. “Maybe lay off until the holidays are over, okay? Then you can ask your million questions.”

Her father glares at Killian slightly before turning his attention to his daughter. “Sorry, Killian.” He sighs, a playful smile on his face. “I hate to say it, but I’ve been dreaming of this day for a long time. You haven’t given me the opportunity to interrogate any boyfriends before.”

Emma snorts. “Yeah… for good reason. You’re scary when you’re Sheriff Nolan.” She pauses, looking at Killian for a second. “Besides, your interrogating isn’t going to scare this one off.”

Killian winks at her before she takes what’s in her hands to the kitchen in the room beyond.

“She’s my daughter. I have to.”

“Dad… I can hear your glare from here.” Emma’s voice carries in from the other room. “We’re trying to have a nice Christmas.”

“I’m not glaring!” David calls out. He sighs, looking at Killian. “Sorry if I’m asking too many questions.”

“I understand. You’re curious.”

“I’m not…” David stops himself. “Okay, maybe a little. She was in a bad relationship… and I didn’t even realize how bad it was. I guess I’m overcompensating.”

Killian smiles a little. “Rest assured, David. I have no intention of harming either Emma or Henry. I would do anything for them.”

“What are your intentions?”

The abrupt nature of the question is jarring, but he can understand why David would wonder as much.

Nervously, he scratches beneath his ear. “I don’t think it would come as any surprise if I told you I’m in this for the long haul.” Pausing, he considers his next words with a heavy, cautious heart. “I’ve thought about asking her to marry me.”

David seems at ease by what he’s saying, but still maintains a fatherly glare as the seconds seem to pass into minutes of silence.

“You know, I think I can ask my friend down at the docks about a job. If you’re interested. Mostly desk work during the winter, but later in the year, you’d be out on the water.”

He smiles, nodding. “That’s awfully kind. Thank you.”

“Well,” David sighs, sitting back. “You’re part of my family now. I have to take care of you.”

Killian finds himself speechless. Years of living on his own, years of his childhood with only his brother at his side… and now, he has become enveloped in one of the most caring families he’s ever met.

He isn’t sure what he did to deserve this, but he’s certainly not upset. If anything, he feels unprepared to give back in kind.

But, maybe he doesn’t have to. Maybe just accepting their kindness and welcoming arms is enough.

“I think they like me.” Killian says quietly.

He sits on the couch with Emma, the room entirely dark with the exception of the television. Her parents and Smee had gone to bed a while ago, leaving them to finish a Christmas movie on their own.

It had been a wonderful day, filled with sweets and laughs, good conversation and new traditions. And even without a single gift given to him, he feels as if the day had been rewarding in many ways.

Emma peers up at him. She’s wearing a blanket up to her chin, her head resting on a pillow over his lap. “Of course they do.”

She sits up and decisively stands. Yawning, she asks, “Bed?”

Quickly, and as quietly as they can, they make their way upstairs. Before turning to the bed, they both approach Henry’s crib, settled against the nearby wall. He’s sound asleep, his arms sprawled out around his head while he breathes in evenly.

He’d had a very busy day, filled with new toys and bright Christmas tree lights.

“He’s so tired,” Emma murmurs. “He had a lot of fun today. I’m glad you could be here for his first Christmas.”

Killian smiles softly. “Me too.”

Emma bites on her lip and goes to sit on her bed, playing a little with a string from a quilt.

“So… how are you handling all of this? Okay so far? You can be honest if you’re overwhelmed.”

Killian smiles to himself. He joins her on her bed and sighs thoughtfully. “I had a perfect day. Thank you for looking out for me.”

“I just don’t want you to feel like you made a mistake.”

He tilts his head to the side, upset that she would still think he would be doubting his choice to be in Storybrooke with her. “Emma…”

“I know you love us and you won’t leave…” Emma whispers, “but my parents are the most important people to me after you and Henry, so… if they were too much, maybe we should’ve started out slower.”

“They weren’t. Trust me.” Killian assures her. He shakes his head. “They’re like the parents I’d always wanted.”

Emma sighs with relief. “I’m glad.”

Smiling again, Killian lifts his hand to gently tuck her hair behind her ear. He finds it sweet that she’d care as much as she does about making sure he’s adjusting well to the situation he’s now in.

She hesitates with something in her mind. He can see it, how she bites on her lip and slowly shifts her gaze from the floor to him again.

“What’s wrong, love?”

Emma turns toward him more. “I have to tell you something.”

He reaches for her hand, shaking his head with concern. “Are you alright?”

“I’m okay.” Emma promises, quickly suffocating his fear. She searches his eyes. “Do you know how we were talking about next Christmas?”

He nods, silent.

“I wanted to ask you this morning…” Emma pauses. She winces a little, lifting her shoulder in a half shrug. “How would you feel if… we had a new baby next Christmas too?”

He can’t help but laugh in surprise, lifting his eyebrows. “Erm… that would require… a little extra effort on our part to make sure it happened in time, I think.”

Emma stares at him, nodding. She smiles nervously, as if wanting him to read her mind. He can’t, no matter how hard he tries.

He scratches beneath his ear, feeling himself get a little embarrassed, though he tries to play it off as coy, “I imagine your parents would hate it if we started trying right this minute, darling.”

She rolls her eyes. “That’s not...” Emma takes his hand, bringing it over her belly. “I’m pregnant.”

His eyes grow wide in shock. His mind races while he tries to calculate what exactly she’s saying to him. “You’re… pregnant? A baby?”

Emma nods and laughs with an adorable wrinkle in her nose. She has tears in her eyes now. “Yeah. We’re having a baby. You and me.”

He laughs along with her in disbelief. This certainly wasn’t something he expected to hear from her, much less so soon in their relationship.

“Are you sure?” he asks. He’s still calculating, trying to understand how. “I… we haven’t… we only…”

“It’s... our gift from the island?” Emma says diplomatically, her eyebrow lifted along with the nervous inflection of her voice.

Killian laughs again, shaking his head slowly. “I’m shocked.”

Emma nods in agreement, eyes wide. “I just found out and I’ve been having a hard time wrapping my head around it.”

She sighs, seeming to have held onto a breath for a long time. “I was going to try to wait to tell you, but I couldn’t. All day, I’ve been thinking how next year, it’ll be so different because there will be a baby, you know? We’ll have a little baby and Henry’s going to be a lot bigger and…”

He nods, chuckling at how she’s started to babble.

“I needed to tell you before I went crazy.”

His hand is still pressed to her belly, thumb caressing. Emma leans into him, pressing her forehead against his.

“Are you happy?” she asks, clearly uncertain and nervous.

“Am I happy?” he repeats her question with a laugh. He pulls away just slightly.

“Yes. Yes. Yes.” He joyfully kisses Emma’s forehead between words before kissing her soundly on the lips, hoping she can tell that he’s more than happy. “It’s unexpected, but… I’m very happy.”

Her gaze is soft and her fingers are gentle on his cheek. “I am too.”

He’d lost literally everything he loved before he settled into his life of isolation. The island had given him nothing but dark gray skies for years, until one day, Emma and Henry arrived. And now, a baby.

Killian takes a deep, clean breath of his future. There’s something so wonderful in the air: a new life, a fresh start, a new beginning. He has nothing but time to enjoy it all.

#cs ff #cs au #cs fic #captain swan #my writing #dark gray #sorryyyyyy this is so late #i went away for a few hours lol #but anyway pls enjoy!

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believingispowerfulmagic · 5 years ago

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“The Christmas Cottage” Chapter 2: Storybrooke

Storybrooke was too small to have an airport, so Regina had to fly into Portland International Airport and drive the rest of the way. Tink had already made arrangements for her rental car but Regina still had to fight the holiday crowds to get to the rental desk. When she got there, the harried clerk handed her a key. “You’re lucky. That’s the last car,” she told Regina.

“I didn’t know Maine was such a hot destination for Christmas,” Regina replied, taking the keys from her.

The agent shrugged. “Everyone wants a white Christmas and we’re predicted to get a lot of snow between now and Christmas Eve. I guess they couldn’t resist.”

“I guess,” Regina replied. She held up her keys. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Drive safe and have a happy holiday,” the agent told her, doing her best to smile despite how tired she clearly was.

Regina rolled her suitcases out to the lot and found her car—the last Mercedes there. She loaded her big suitcases into the trunk before placing her smaller bags into the backseat. After settling into the passenger seat, she turned the heat all the way up and turned off the GPS but turned on the radio. Even after years of living in New York, she still knew the way to Storybrooke by heart. As she pulled out of the lot, Karen Carpenter crooned that there was no place like home for the holiday and Regina found it fitting.

It was about an hour drive up to Storybrooke, which was a hamlet located on the Maine coast. She followed the highway for almost a half hour before turning off onto a mostly deserted country road that carved its way through a dense forest. Most of the trees had lost their leaves but were coated in white snow. Snow also covered the evergreens that were in the forest and, along with the Christmas music playing, Regina felt the Christmas spirit more than she had in years. A Maine Christmas clearly had nothing on a New York City one for her.

A thrill went through her when she spotted the familiar white and blue sign welcoming people to Storybrooke. She smiled as she passed it, feeling a sense of rightness and calm wash over her. Though she wanted to get to her hotel and get something to eat, she slowed down so she could get a good look at the town as she drove through it—and so she didn’t get a ticket for speeding from whoever was sheriff now.

It was about five miles from the town line to the first building, which was the ranger station. The building was locked up for the night but one of the evergreen trees outside the building had been decorated with lights and a star, welcoming Regina back. As she turned onto Main Street, she smiled at the other Christmas decorations that filled the town—including the lights, garlands and wreaths that hung over the streets from wires tied to the lampposts lining the curbs. Many of the stores and the apartments over them had lights and other decorations illuminating the dark December night. And she had to laugh when she spotted the familiar sleigh “crashed” into Granny’s Diner. There weren’t many people out at that time though she could see the diner was filled with many patrons. She figured it was too cold and so most people were seeking the warmth of being indoors, whether in their own homes or not.

She left Main Street and entered the more residential area, which was just as devoid of people but just as lit up. Regina looked at their decorations with a pang of jealousy, wishing she had the time and space to really go out like them. One day, she promised herself. Maybe next year if you make partner.

As she drove down Mifflin Street, she tried not to look at the large white house bearing the number 108. She tried not to think of the days she spent running up and down that very street before going to greet her father when he got home from work at the cannery. And she tried not to think of all the happy Christmases they spent together in that house. But she failed and a lump formed in her throat as tears filled her eyes. While she loved the feeling visiting Storybrooke gave her, she also avoided it so she wouldn’t think of everything she had lost—especially her father.

It also didn’t help that Elvis was now singing about how he was going to have a Blue Christmas.

Regina swallowed past the lump as she reached the end of Mifflin Street, arriving at the harbor. Personal boats were moored at the marina, many of them covered in Christmas lights as well. Some of the ships in the harbor were decorated much the same and she smiled through her tears, always appreciating how much the Christmas spirit permeated through the town. It made her feel a little bit better as she made a left turn, heading away from the cannery and toward her hotel at last.

The Mist Haven Lodge rose up before her and Regina took a moment to admire the building. It had been built during the Victorian era, the gables and the two red polygonal towers flanking the main building, painted white with red shutters, attesting to that. Red shingles covered the roof. The porch stretched from one tower to the other, red and green bunting hanging from the eaves. Evergreen bushes grew along the porch, matching the evergreen trees that surrounded the property, and were decorated for Christmas like the rest of the town.

Regina had always admired the Lodge and had often begged her father to stay there. Her mother had scoffed at her request, saying it was a waste of money since they lived in Storybrooke and could just stay in their house. She also insisted that Regina was too young and immature to eat in the restaurants housed in the Lodge. “Our family is very respectable in this town. We don’t need you embarrassing us with your childish antics,” she had said, sniffing in disdain as her husband chided her.

When her parents got divorced, Regina’s father Henry took her to the Lodge for dinner. He told her not to worry about anything and to just enjoy herself. She felt very grown up in one of her favorite dresses (a red one that had been her Christmas dress, she recalled) and she recalled the large ice cream sundae she had split with her father. While others she knew whose parents had divorced had a rough time of it, she was much happier without her critical mother around anymore.

While her father got primary custody, Regina still had to spend time with her mother. Thankfully, her mother was not as big into Christmas her father had been and was often away on a child-free cruise during the holiday, so Regina could celebrate in Storybrooke with her father. She did have to spend a good chunk of the summer with Cora out in California and it became tradition that her father would take her to eat at the Lodge the day before she left and the day she returned.

Yet they still never stayed in the Lodge.

Henry had promised her that they would for her eighteenth birthday, saying he would book a full weekend package so she could be absolutely pampered. She had been so excited and had started to count down to her birthday.

Her father had a heart attack right after that Christmas. She had raced to the hospital when she got the call from his secretary but there was nothing the doctors could do. Regina barely had a chance to say goodbye to her beloved father before he slipped away from her, leaving her. She didn’t feel like celebrating, even when those around her encouraged her to still go to the Lodge for her birthday. Or when her friends offered to send her after they graduated high school. It just didn’t seem right to go without her father and so she never stayed in the Lodge, that childhood dream remaining unfilled.

Until now.

She pulled into the driveway and parked in one of the spots reserved for people who were checking in. Leaving her bags in the car, she hurried up the porch and entered the lobby.

Warmth enveloped her immediately and she paused, taking in the lobby. Gold carpeting lined a large area filled with wood tables, matching chairs and red couches. Old-fashioned lamps and telephones rested one some tables, making it feel like a rather large living room than a hotel lobby. White tile framed the area and a beautiful crystal chandelier hung over head. Her eyes travelled upward, taking in the five floors of the resort. Guests and staff walked along the hallways, some guests leaning against the railing to look down on the lobby from their floor. Everything always seemed so opulent and she now felt woefully underdressed in her black pants and blue shirt under her black wool Princess cut coat.

She kept to the tiled part of the floor as she walked to the front desk, located directly opposite the front doors. The heels on her boots clicked as she passed a little store and what appeared to be a bar area before she got to the desk. Regina pulled out the printout of her reservation confirmation, setting it on the counter as she smiled at the clerk waiting there. “Checking in.”

“Okay,” the young man said, taking her paper. He typed something into the computer before nodding. “You’re here for the Blanchard-Nolan wedding?”

“I am,” she confirmed.

Clicking was the only noise for a few moments as he typed in her information, nodding as he pulled something up on the screen. “Okay, Ms. Mills, I have your reservation right here. I see you made an alteration to your reservation the other day, changing it to only one adult. Is that correct?”

“Yes,” she said, fighting the bitterness and disappointment coursing through her. It was not the time to deal with those.

“Okay, so do you want one or two keycards?” he asked her.

“Two,” she replied. “Just in case.”

He nodded, pulling two plastic cards out and running them through the scanner to put her room information on them. She watched as he tucked them into a cardboard holder, writing something on the back before he placed them on the counter. “Okay, you are in room 323. Most of the guests here for the wedding are staying on that floor. I’ve written the password for our wifi on the card as well. If you have any questions or need anything, do not hesitate to call us here at the front desk. We are here to make your stay as enjoyable as possible.”

“Thank you,” she said, glad to hear there was wifi. She had a lot of work she needed to try to get done in between everything for the wedding.

“We hope you enjoy your time with us here at Mist Haven,” he said before handing over a piece of paper. “This is your parking pass. Parking is in the back. Please park in spaces that are marked for hotel guests.”

Regina thanked him, taking back her confirmation paper when she grabbed her parking pass. She headed back to her car and drove around to the parking lot, finding a spot not far from the side entrance. It took her two trips but she got all her bags out of the car and she settled into Room 323

The room was painted a soft yellow color with an off-white carpet. A king-sized four poster bed sat against the wall, white blankets and pillows covering it. Two nightstands flanked it, a lamp on one and the phone on the other. A beautiful wooden desk lined the wall opposite the bed, complete with a lamp and several plugs there. Regina was relieved to find a comfortable looking leather chair there, knowing she would be doing a lot of sitting in it. She rested her suitcase next to the chest of drawers that had the TV sitting on it. A closet was located to her left along with the mini-fridge, ice bucket and glasses. Yellow curtains were pulled open, revealing she had French doors that led to a balcony.

She walked over and opened them, stepping onto the white balcony. There was a small metal table and two chairs out there, though she doubted she would spend much time out there due to the cold. Regina leaned against the railing, admiring the beautiful view of the forest and mountains behind the resort. Lights from the hotel glistened off the snow and it seemed like a painting come to life.

It was the perfect setting for Mary Margaret and David’s fairy-tale Christmas wedding. It was the perfect setting for a romantic Christmas vacation.

And she was all alone.

Regina pushed that thought away as she grabbed her phone. She hit Daniel’s contact and pressed the phone to her ear, counting the rings. Disappointment flooded her when his voicemail picked up but she tried to sound as cheery as possible as she left him a message.

“Hey, Daniel. I’m settled into my room here at the Lodge. I’m in Room 323 in case you need to reach me. The room is absolutely gorgeous. I can see why people always wanted to stay here, especially given the good views. My room faces the forests but I’m sure the other side has beautiful views of the harbor and ocean.

“Anyway, I’m going to get ready for dinner with everyone,” she continued. “I’m really excited to see them again but I miss you. Hope we can talk tonight. I love you and I’ll see you soon.”

She ended the call and placed her phone on the desk. With a deep sigh, she opened one of her suitcases and pulled out her garment bag. It was time to get ready and to start the wedding festivities. And she was going to enjoy herself.

Continue reading on FFN, AO3 or Wattpad

#once upon a time #outlaw queen #oq au #oq ff #oq advent #the christmas cottage

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let-it-raines · 6 years ago

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Betting on the Bullseye (21/?)

Summary: Emma Swan loses a drunken bet that means she has to ask her celebrity crush - if you can call him that - to be her date to her office’s annual fundraising gala for Boston’s Children Shelter. Killian Jones is that celebrity. She expects all kinds of humiliation and for her dignity to be completely lost all because of the ridiculousness of the situation. What she doesn’t expect is for him to say yes.

What she truly doesn’t expect is to actually like the man.

Rating: Mature

A/N: I think you guys might like this one!

Found on AO3: Beginning | Current

Tag list: @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke @wellhellotragic @bmbbcs4evr @onceuponaprincessworld @jennjenn615 @mayquita @captainsjedi @teamhook @skyewardolicitycloisdelena91 @artistic-writer @branlovesouat @dreadpirateemma @kmomof4 @ekr032-blog-blog @galaxyzxstark @lifeinahole27 @andiirivera @ultimiflos @hollyethecurious @thejollyroger-writer @superchocovian @cs-forlife @qualitycoffeethings @jonirobinson64 @notoriouscs

“Good God, it’s hot in here,” Emma murmurs to herself as she walks into her office, sweat already beading at her forehead. After the disaster with the air conditioner breaking earlier this summer, she cannot deal with this again. “Did they turn the damn air conditioning off over the weekend?”

She’s got to stop talking to herself.

She keeps walking down the hall, flicking lights on as she goes. She couldn’t sleep last night, spending it all staring at her phone and the message Killian had sent her after she’d told him she got home.

Killian:I’m sorry too.

It was only three words, three words that she’s seen before, but for some reason she couldn’t text him back. She didn’t know what to say. It’s kind of hard to figure out how to voice “hey, I’m still really freaking out about everything, but I love you and don’t like arguing with you.”

Okay, so she could have voiced it exactly like that, but every time she went to text those words or three other more familiar words or to press his contact name, she couldn’t do it. She doesn’t know why, but she couldn’t do it. And even as she tried to stay present in meeting Brody (who is absolutely freaking adorable) and checking on Mary Margaret, her mind kept playing over everything that had happened. She’d freaked out. There really aren’t any words for it other than that. She freaked out over all of the little things that have been building up into this one big fear of she and Killian not working out because their lives are so different and three thousand miles apart.

A little voice in her head reminds her that it’s two thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine, technically, and she knows that little voice is Killian’s. He looked it up. Maybe he looked it up to see how many frequent flyer points he’s been earning lately, or maybe he just full on Jess Mariano’d it. That’s totally not a verb, but it is kind of all she can think about. That and the fact that this good thing she’s got going for her that could end.

She doesn’t want it to end.

Talking to Killian would probably help things not to end…but it also could make things end more quickly. She thinks that may be what kept her, what keeps her from talking to him. It’s not that she’s mad at him or upset with him or any of that despite the harsh words that he said to her too. It’s more than she’s worried that the third party in their relationship, the damn distance, is finally going to be the breaking point. She’s terrified of it being the breaking point, and she has no idea how to handle it. If anything, she’s doing everything she can to avoid handling it.

She ran. She knows that she ran, that she fell back into this old pattern of hers, but she also knows that she had to leave California anyways. She was coming home yesterday regardless of if Brody was born or she and Killian got into an argument. She was always going to come home. Maybe she wouldn’t have spent her night in his guest room and left without saying goodbye, but sometimes she makes dumb choices. She’s human, and she’s not going to always do the rational thing.

Looking back, she can’t believe how much things would have been different if she had taken a moment to breathe.

If they had both taken a moment to breathe in the heat of the argument.

She’s always been a fan of avoiding her problems, avoiding the fact that her parents left her with nothing, avoiding the fact that the first person she ever trusted with her heart betrayed her in a way that she still cannot wrap her head around, and avoiding every little heartbreak in between. Usually she shuts everything out, shuts everyone out, and hides away from it all, never thinking of it again until something triggers the memory. Now, though, all she can think about is Killian and how she should have talked to him, should have never left him to worry like she knows that he did. It’s not the first time that they’ve argued. It hopefully won’t be the last, but she knows that this time she can’t walk around blaming Killian for everything.

Really, she can’t blame herself for it either. She can’t deny that she’s screwed up, that she has things to own up to, but she also knows that she’s not fighting with Killian because of something either of them did wrong besides a few harsh words they shouldn’t have said. It’s simply the circumstances their lives have put them in.

Normally she needs Mary Margaret or David or, hell, even Ruby to drill things like this into her head, but she had a long time to think in Killian’s guest room and on the plane ride home. She may have her own set of issues, but she apparently is starting to figure them out.

Even if she really wants to avoid people right now.

That’s likely why she’s walking into her office before seven in the morning on her first day back at work after her vacation. She doesn’t think anyone in the offices even comes in this early, which is probably why it’s so damn hot in here. That or September is just off to this awful start. She wants fall. Maybe everything will be better in the fall.

Maybe she’ll have talked to Killian by then.

No, definitely. She definitely has to talk to him. She’ll call or text tonight. Yeah, that’s exactly what she’ll do. She’s not going to chicken out. She’s not. She has to call. She knows Killian, and he is definitely waiting on her. He’s always waiting on her and following her lead, and as sweet as that is, if Killian wants something, he should be able to say it without worrying about if it’s going to freak her out or not. So she has to talk to him.

She’s terrified, but she has to talk to him. They’re not going to break up. They’re not. They’re going to apologize and fix things and make it all better. She thinks that as if a band-aid can heal a bullet hole, but if it’s big enough, maybe it’ll stop the bleeding for a little while.

There’s a reason she’s not a doctor. Okay, there are a lot of reasons.

The fact that she keeps repeating things over and over and over again in her head to keep herself from crying in the middle of her workplace is likely another reason. She’s cried a lot in the past forty-eight hours. She sobbed the night of their argument when she was pacing in Killian’s guest room, the room she stayed in when they weren’t dating, and she’d sobbed on the plane even with all of her thinking through things. Maybe because of her thinking through things. The woman next to her likely thought she was crazy. She’s honestly surprised that the woman didn’t ask for a different seat so she can be away from the crazy woman.

Emma surely would have.

Her tears finally stopped when she got to the hospital, only to start again when she saw all of the Nolans in Mary Margaret’s hospital room. It was like a freaking post card or Hallmark card or an entire Hallmark movie. But not one with Lori Loughlin or anything. She’s probably not going to be playing a devoted mother any time soon, which Emma thinks is pretty ironic because she seems pretty devoted to her kids. But they were all so happy, and Leo was fascinated with his little brother, if not a bit jealous when he realized Brody was coming home with them. So obviously she cried. She’s not sure if it was all happy tears or if she was just feeling so damn much right then and there that every little emotion she had ever felt was flowing over until her eyes were more red than green.

She was like a Christmas tree.

And maybe her mind is a little all over the place because she hasn’t exactly slept in two days. She’s had a lot to think about.

“You’re here early.”

“Holy shit,” she gasps, literally stumbling backward and grabbing her chest like she’s clutching pearls or something ridiculous like that as her heartbeat speeds up and Kathryn comes into view with files cradled in her arm. “Kathryn, you startled me.” “Well, maybe if you were in the office a little more, you wouldn’t get so startled about people being here to, you know, do their jobs.”

Kathryn pushes past her, their shoulders hitting, and she turns around as Kathryn walks away. “What the hell do you mean by that?”

Kathryn stops in her tracks, turning around and giving Emma a stare that could melt ice while in a freezer. “I mean,” she snaps, taking several steps forward until she’s in Emma’s face, their noses close enough to touch, “that maybe if you spent time at work instead of traipsing around with your boyfriend all the time, maybe you wouldn’t be surprised that I’m here.”

“I’m entitled to a personal life.”

“Your personal life is on the front page of gossip magazines and in a million articles online. Your personal life is everywhere, and ever since the damn Christmas gala, I’ve had to spend my time answering phone calls on a daily basis asking if I can get them in contact with Killian Jones. Time is taken out of my day to deal with you all the while you suntan on a boat in California.”

“Kathryn,” she begins calmly even as her entire body begins to heat, her stomach swirling in a way that’s totally different than it has been in the past few days, “if you have a problem with my personal life, I suggest you keep it to yourself. I can guarantee you that it doesn’t affect your life nearly as much as it affects mine, and if you’ve got such a problem with it, why don’t you complain to HR? I’m sure they can help you get the stick out of your ass by telling you that I’ve done absolutely nothing wrong here.”

“You’re kind of entitled for someone who literally came from nothing if all of the articles are correct.”

“Well, I may have come from nothing, but look at that,” she says, moving her arms out to the sides to encompass the room, “we’ve ended up in the same damn place. Have a good day, Kathryn.”

She’s absolutely done with that conversation. Kathryn has always been awful and petty, but that’s taking things to new levels. Emma was much kinder than she wanted to be, but she is at work and calling someone an asshole and then slapping her would do nothing but get Emma fired. Her life is a mess right now, and the absolute last thing she needs is to get fired. She’s got savings but…she’d have nothing. Her apartment is crappy, but it still costs a hell of a lot to live without a roommate in the city.

Her job is kind of a necessity for her to live.

She also really loves her job.

That saying when it rains it pours seems to hold true throughout the day. She did take two days off, but there really shouldn’t be that much for her to do, especially since she answered some of her emails last night. Everything is pretty much nonstop, and if it wasn’t for Ruby bringing her a salad, she wouldn’t have eaten all day. She’s not even sure that she ate yesterday, and all she’s had today is some lettuce with a couple of pieces of cold chicken in it. And barely even that. From the way Ruby looked at her and talked to her, Emma knows that Ruby is aware that she and Killian are in a fight. Emma didn’t say anything, but Ruby knows. Either Ruby knows her that well or she’s talked to Killian. She’d bet on both, but if she had to pick one, it’d be Killian calling Ruby to make sure the Emma was okay.

He probably didn’t call Mary Margaret because he didn’t want her to worry.

But her day is pretty much the day from hell, the past few days have been really, and when she gets home, she collapses on the couch, unbuttons her pants, and wonders if maybe she could prove Kathryn right and just not go to work and yet still have a job.

“Shit,” she groans, rolling over on the couch and reaching for her purse on the ground, fumbling for her phone. “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.”

She was going to call Killian. She is going to call Killian, but she’s not exactly in the best of moods. Being in a better mood would probably help this conversation a hell of a lot, but she doesn’t think she can go another day without at least talking to him. They don’t have to fix all of their problems today. That would be impossible. All she really wants is to hear his voice for a little while and to know that they’re not broken.

They really screwed up a little bit, didn’t they?

She really screwed up.

Taking a deep breath and then three more, closing her eyes and attempting to calm the way butterflies are fluttering in her stomach, she presses down on his contact name and waits as the rings begin. And then as they end and his voice message pops up.

Well, that’s not the way she wanted to hear his voice.

Disappointment washes over her entire body, and she feels tears prickling in the back of her eyes, which is ridiculous. She’s not often ashamed of tearing up, but tearing up over her boyfriend not answering her call when that happens all the time for them, well, she feels a little ridiculous over that. She needs some ice cream or something. Or donuts. She could probably eat an entire box of donuts.

But then her phone starts buzzing on her stomach, a picture of she and Killian from his premiere just a few days ago popping up, and she’s so frantic to answer it that she nearly misses his call from how her fingers are shaking.

“Hello?” Killian audibly sighs, and she does the same, relief washing over her before he speaks again. “Hi, Swan.”

“Hi,” she squeaks, choosing to ignore the fact that she actually just squeaked. “Hi, hi, hi. I’m so glad you answered or called or I don’t even know. I was waiting and missing and didn’t really know and – I’m just going to shut up right now.”

Killian chuckles on the other end of the line, and it lessens the tension she feels in her shoulders, the knots softening even further. “I’m glad you called and glad that I called back. I don’t…God, I’m sorry, Swan.”

“I’m sorry too. You don’t absolutely hate me for just boarding a plane like that?” “I don’t hate you, no. I’d rather you not do shit like that, but I don’t control what you do. That’d be barbaric. I just like when we talk, when you don’t disappear in the middle of the night.” “I know. That was a shit move. I knew it then, and I know it now. I guess I was just upset. We’ve got – we’ve got some stuff to figure out.” “Aye,” he sighs, and she can practically see him running his hand over the hair on his chin in contemplation, “but if you’d let me, I’d like to have that conversation in person.” “Killian, you don’t have to do that.” “I think I do, darling. You’re right when we say we have some stuff to figure out, and while I don’t doubt our abilities to get things done over the phone, especially with the wicked tongue that you have, I do think I’d rather be able to see you while we’re talking these things through. I have a feeling it’s not a one-time thing kind of conversation. It’s going to be more than an hour.”

“I know.”

“And you…you want to have this conversation?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” she insists, messing with the tips of her hair simply so she has something else to focus on. “I know I said I couldn’t do this, and Killian, I’m terrified that we’re going to talk about everything and realize that we can’t work this out, but I think I was – I know that I was spiraling that night. A lot of the things I said were legitimate, but a lot of them were the fear speaking over the logic. I do that a lot”

“It’s okay.”

It’s really not. They both know that it’s not. He should tell her that it’s not, that she hurt him.

“It’s not. I love you, you know? And I know we fight, but this one felt different.”

“Aye, I know,” he admits, and she sits up on the couch, pulling herself into a ball and wrapping her arms around her knees to comfort herself. “It was different. And I love you too. I don’t…could I fly in tomorrow or do you want more time?”

“I’d be okay with tomorrow.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she smiles, feeling better than she has in several days, hope settling somewhere deep inside of her.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

“Sound like a plan, Stan.”

Time ticks by the following day at what has to be slower than a snail’s pace. She goes into work early again, simply because she couldn’t sleep, but it’s only after she’s dropped some food off at David and Mary Margaret’s house. She knows that she’s not much of a cook, but she figures that there’s only so many ways she can mess up bringing over several frozen casserole dishes. Seriously, unless she drops them or buys them expired, she can’t mess that up. A part of her still feels guilty over missing Brody’s birth, over not being there for Mary Margaret and David when they needed her, and maybe a little of her trying to help is to assuage herself of some of that guilt. It’s not really working, but Mary Margaret’s tired smile helps a little bit.

Sometimes Mary Margaret drives her insane with her positivity and her refusal to see the bad in things, but she’s her family. Emma loves she and David – and Leo and Brody too – so damn much that she would do anything in the world for them.

Same for Ruby.

And for Killian.

She’s never had a biological family. Sure, they’re probably out there somewhere, but that doesn’t mean a thing to her anymore. She didn’t get to grow up with the family she always wanted, but she’s glad to have learned that found family is just as good. If not better.

It’s probably why this day is ticking by so slowly. She’s been up for an exhausting amount of time, and she’s anxious to be able to see Killian, to be able to talk to him, and to be able to try to work this out. How the hell they’re going to solve a long-distance relationship, she has no clue.

If Boston and Santa Monica could, like, merge somehow, that would be great. That’d be a funky climate, but that would be great.

“Have you eaten today?” Ruby asks her, startling her out of her thoughts so that she looks up toward her office door. “Because you barely eat yesterday, and Ems, you can’t starve yourself just because you and hot stuff are in a fight.”

“I ate breakfast with the Nolans.” She rolls back in her desk chair and stretches her arms up over her head, the ache pleasurable. She needs to stretch more. “Are you ever down in your office, Rubes? Don’t you have kids to counsel?”

“I am in between sessions, and I figured I had an Emma to counsel.”

Emma rolls her eyes even as her lips tug up on the sides. “I am fine, and, again, I ate this morning. But I really appreciate that you’re the type of friend to consistently feed me.”

“Food is the way to your heart,” she sighs, walking into the room and closing the door behind her. “But seriously, you okay? You’ve been all out of sorts ever since you came home on Monday.”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I just – we just – Killian and I did get into a fight, but he’s on a plane right now so we can talk in person. The long distance is kind of killing us lately, even with how good this summer has been to us, and I know that things are really only going to get worse with time or when Killian starts working again. He’s picking up a new movie, and I’m so proud of him. I just know that’s going to be months of missing him on top of us already being separated. It’d be different if we lived in the same place.”

Ruby raises her brows, her forehead wrinkling with the movement, before she’s neutralizing her features and looking at Emma with the softest of smiles. She’s channeling Mary Margaret. She has to be. “Have you told lover boy any of this?”

Okay, so Ruby mixed with Mary Margaret. Like a two for one deal.

“Kind of,” she shrugs, lifting her legs up to tuck them into the chair as much as she can. “I mean, I don’t really know how. We talk about it all, but it’s hard. He gave up a movie for me, you know? And I can’t ask him to do that again. It’s one of the reasons I told him to take this new one. He loves it, and he should get to do what he loves.”

“Well, if I can give you some sage advice from someone who has done long distance, it’s that you have to talk. My relationship failed, but as I’ve just learned recently, it failed when we lived in the same damn city too. Vic and I probably aren’t the best match when it comes down to who we are now, and while I don’t get to know the intimacies of your relationship no matter how much I try to get you to tell me about how wonderful the sex is, I have a good feeling about you and Killian, kid. But you gotta talk to him about some terrifying future shit if you’re going to make it work.”

“I know.” She untucks her legs from her chair so she can stand and walk to the other side of the room, wrapping her arms around Ruby in an embrace. “I really hate when you get all wise about things.”

“Well, baby mama wasn’t about to tell you the truth if you’d talked to her it all this morning, so someone has to. I also really wanted you to come get lunch with me.”

She laughs into Ruby’s shoulder before pulling back. “Yeah, let’s go get lunch then.”

-/-

Killian’s sitting outside of her apartment door when she gets home a little later than usual, the sun already beginning to fade away as it shines through the window at the end of the hall. He hasn’t seen her yet, his head still tilted down, hair falling over his forehead as he messes with his phone. He has a key. She knows that he has a key because she gave it to him, and yet he’s sitting on a disgusting hallway floor that probably hasn’t been cleaned in months. If ever. And with all of the things she knows about Killian Jones, one of the most prominent is how he doesn’t like germs or for anything to be unclean.

“You know,” she sighs, pushing the nerves down as she walks toward him, her flats tripping her up for a moment, “there’s this amazing invention called a key. If you have the right one, it lets you into certain rooms.”

His head snaps up to her, his fingers stopping their movements on his phone, and she can’t help her laugh at the way his lips part, surprise very obviously crossing his face as he stares up at her, and she knows if his hands weren’t grasping his phone, he’d be scratching his ear or his chin. It’s just how he is. “Swan.”

“What are you doing sitting on the floor, KJ?”

“Ah, didn’t feel right to let myself in.” He stands from the ground as she unlocks the door, swinging it open eve as her hands shake a bit. She’s not sure if it’s out of nervousness or excitement. “And I’ve only been here for a little while.”

“How long is a little while? Why didn’t you text me that you were here? Didn’t we just talk about this?”

“Well, two hours or so, I’d say. I didn’t want to worry you or bother you at work. If you’ve been anywhere close to how I’ve been today, you likely didn’t need extra worry. I’m, well, I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but for the first time since before we started dating, I’m nervous to talk to you.”

“Killian,” she murmurs, turning around and wrapping her arms around his waist, feeling his warmth even as he takes a moment to return the embrace. But he does, his arms moving around her and his hug so tight that she swears he picks her up off the ground if only for a moment.

“I know,” he mutters into her hair, the vibrations hitting against her skin at the same time she feels his scruff scratch her neck. “I’m sorry. I can’t – I’m sorry.”

“Me too, but we already said all of that.” She pulls back from their embrace so she can look him in the eyes, the blue lighter than the last time she saw him, the darkness no longer swirling. As nervous as she’s been, as anxious as she’s been, she doesn’t think anything really compares to how she’s feeling right now. She should have known that there wouldn’t be yelling. At least yet. She should have known that talking over the phone and making a plan to talk would not have been nearly as fiery as their argument in California. Tempers aren’t hot, so of course they’re like this. It’s Killian. It’s not the others. It’s Killian. “I don’t – I don’t even know how to start.”

“Why don’t we get something to drink and move out of your doorway, and we can talk, okay?”

She fixes them two cups of coffee, the caffeine likely not going to help the nerves that are starting to build again, before they sit down on her couch, her legs curled up underneath her so she’s as small as she can possibly be. It’s silent for long enough for the silence to be awkward, and since that makes her entirely uncomfortable, she breaks it.

“I don’t know how long I can do this long distance thing.” As her shoulders heave, the words finally off of her chest in the calmness of the day, she watches as Killian smiles across from her, his lips turning into one of the brightest smiles she’s ever seen from him. “Why the hell are you laughing?”

“Bloody hell. You just blurted that out like if you didn’t say it within five seconds an explosive would go off.”

“Well that’s how I felt.”

“I know, I know,” he chuckles, waving her away. “I’ve felt the same way. You just amuse me, darling.”

“That’s because I’m so damn funny.”

“I’m aware, but you’re also right. The distance fucking sucks, and I guess I’ve been ignoring how much of a strain that it’s putting on me, which is making me ignore how much of a strain it’s putting on you. I don’t – I mean, I noticed, but I brushed it aside.”

“So did I. And we can’t really do that because then I have meltdowns over missing Mary Margaret giving birth when it really shouldn’t have been that big of a deal.”

“Hey, no, don’t do that. Don’t diminish your feelings, Swan. If I had missed Aiden’s birth, I’d have been beside myself. I realize that I didn’t react in the best way, but I’ve had time to think about it. We’ve both been missing so much of our families’ lives and our friends’ lives since we started dating. You’ve had to miss some bigger, more important moments, and, darling, I am so sorry for that. It’s not fair or easy, but I love you more than anything in the world. I will get my damn pilot’s license if it means that I get to be with you more often.”

“Captain Killian Jones has a pretty good ring to it.”

“Aye, it does, doesn’t it? Seriously, though. I love you, Emma, and I’ve got no idea what kind of timeline we’re supposed to be on, but I don’t think any of that matters. I want to be with you for a long time, and if we’re going to do this, I think one of us has to think about moving.”

And there it is.

There’s the crux of the problem. There’s the entire problem.

“I know,” she whispers, taking a sip of her coffee to give herself more time to think as she watches Killian’s face and the way his eyebrows struggle to stay still. He wants to furrow them, but he’s trying to stay still. “I love you, and I know that if we want to make it work, that we have to think about that. I just…there’s no good option, KJ. If I move to California, I leave my friends and have to find a new job. If you move here, you leave your family and friends and half of your work stuff. Plus, you’re already gone when you’re working all of the time, and Boston would probably be more of an inconvenience than anything. California is better for you.”

“And Boston is better for you.”

“So what do we do?”

Killian shrugs, and her nerves race to new heights, the realization she’s always known just reconfirming itself to her. What do they do? How do they solve this? There’s nothing that’s better for both of them, and she can’t ask Killian to leave his family. She can’t.

“I can’t ask you to leave your family.”

“I’d do it though, Swan,” he offers, placing his mug on the end table. It’s been empty for awhile, but he must have been holding onto it simply so he’d have something to do with his hands. “It’s a hell of a lot more convenient for me to move. My finances are more flexible, I don’t have to worry about finding employment in a certain city, and I can fly back to Santa Monica to be with my family whenever I need. Work for me isn’t always in LA. It rarely is. I can be based somewhere else.”

“What about your house? You love that house.”

“What about it? I can keep it. I’ll rent or buy an apartment here, maybe something down by the harbor, and that way we don’t have to broach the conversation of moving in together if you don’t want to. We can have our separate spaces.”

“Oh.”

“Unless you want to,” he interrupts, reaching his hand across the cushions until it’s placed on her knee, his fingers squeezing her skin. “I just – bloody hell, Emma. I would love to live with you, but I figured it might be too much for you at once.”

“Fuck that.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Fuck that, Killian,” she chuckles, the sound leaning a bit on the sadistic side. “Killian, I know that I’m more skittish than most normal human beings, but disregarding this weekend, when have I ever run from you? I haven’t. Yes, this is all scary as hell, and I thank you for being so considerate with me all the time. But I want you to tell me what you want. I want to know exactly how you feel about things, not how you feel filtered so that you think you won’t scare me.”

He lunges forward so quickly that she doesn’t have more than a moment to prepare herself before his body is covering hers as well as his lips, her breath completely leaving her the moment Killian makes contact. It’s not at all what she was expecting, but she doesn’t mind as she gets to feel the softness of his lips, the taste of coffee lingering on them, mixed with the roughness of his beard on her. It hasn’t been that long since they last did this, only a few days really, but it feels like a lifetime.

“I want to move in with you,” he huskily whispers, their mouths still so close that they don’t completely part as they talk. His breath and his body are warm, and she sinks further into the couch cushions as she blinks her eyes up at him, that light blue turning a little darker. “I think it should be Boston. I really do, Emma. It’s not just to make you happy. I think it’s the best solution for us right now, and maybe one day in the future, we can move back to Santa Monica. We don’t have to have everything figured out, but I think this is a good step. I have been thinking about this for a long time, longer than this weekend, but I didn’t know how to say it.”

“Thank you,” she mumbles before grazing his lips again as her hands trace up and down his back, landing at the dip between his hips and his ass. She’s so damn glad that he spoke to her like that. “Thank you for telling me how you actually feel. We’re partners, okay? It’s not just about me or just about you.”

“Aye, I know. But what do you think about me moving to Boston, about us finding a place?”

“What? This place isn’t good enough for you?”

“Swan.”

“I know, I know. Deflecting.” She moves her hands over his back again, feeling just how real and how present he is even as he presses down on her with their breaths still intermingling. “I mean, I kind of like it. I still think maybe we should be super nerdy and make a pro-con list about things before we pay a deposit, and I’m kind of terrified that maybe we’ll start hating each other if we spend more than a week together with no end in sight.”

“So separate bedrooms then?”

“Definitely not. Wherever we live has to have your mattress, though.”

“That’ll likely stay in the house. We can get a new mattress though.”

“What about mine?”

“Swan, I have every intention of making good use of that mattress in about two minutes, but it either has to go burn somewhere or we keep it in a spare bedroom.”

“I’m not sure whether I want to talk about the fact that you think we’re getting a two-bedroom apartment or whether I want to talk about this whole two minute thing.”

“The two minute thing, and then afterwards, we can talk about everything else, make that damn list of yours so that you can try to convince me that Santa Monica is better for us right now even though we both know that it’s not.”

She laughs as he captures her lips again, and the sound disappears to be replaced by her gasp, everything else drowning out for a quick moment. There’s always been something so intoxicating about him, about Killian, and while some things with them are still new, there are others that feel like they’ve been doing it for years. The way he kisses her, his ability to take her breath away, that’s one of them. She hopes that it never stops, that it never changes. Life is hard, relationships likely more difficult, and it all evolves and changes over time. But maybe some things can stay the same.

Or maybe they can evolve in a good way.

“Has it been two minutes?”

“I’ve got no bloody clue, but I don’t think it even matters.”

There’s a pointed rolls of his hips into hers, once, twice, three times, before he’s actually rolling off of her, a groan emanating from the back of his throat as he stands up, his limbs obviously aching a bit. She’d crack a joke about him being an old man, but she herself feels a little lifeless pressed into the couch, the cushions molding into her body. Killian offers his hands, and she takes them, allowing him to pull her up and onto her feet before he’s dipping his head and running his lips over her wrist, something that always causes nearly every inch of her skin to stand on edge in the best way. She knows that when he does that, he’s saying he loves her. He’s never admitted that in the exact words, but she knows.

She also knows that she doesn’t have as many eloquent and thoughtful ways to express her feelings for Killian, that she tries her best, but she doesn’t have a spot to kiss or flowery words to reassure him how much he’s loved. But she does want to reassure him of that, to make sure he knows how much she is in this for the long haul too, and maybe one day she’ll get better at letting Killian know that he has completely turned her life into something not unrecognizable, but different.

In an infinitely good way.

But she’ll figure all of that out later as she tugs at Killian’s t-shirt until he’s helping her take it off, dark hair covering lean muscles now exposed to her gaze as her nail traces up and down his skin, her eyes not finding his even though she knows that he’s looking at her.

She’s taking things deliberately slowly, savoring it even though every inkling she has tells her to go faster, and apparently Killian feels the same. He’s just acting on it.

“You in a hurry there?” she asks as his hands fumble with her shirt, yanking it up over her head even with the way he’s deliciously trailing his lips against her neck. He’s eager and a bit rough, and her legs are already beginning to lose a bit of their strength.

“Yes.”

A giggle escapes her lips, her breath already uneven, and she pushes his chest to make him move away from the couch. It could work, but she’s got other ideas. “I thank you for your honesty.”

“I would thank you to stop teasing me and to get these bloody pants off.” “So impatient.”

“Again, yes.”

It’s faster after that, the two of them officially stumbling back into her bedroom, clothes hastily being pulled off and dropped to the floor. Killian’s hands land on her thighs, warm and rough, and her stomach twists in anticipation as he picks her up for a brief moment and deposits her on the mattress, his tongue constantly moving against the flesh of her collarbone while she arches her back up, their hips coming together in such a way that she and Killian both groan at the contact.

“You’re a damned tease,” Killian whispers against her lips. She can feel every inch of his skin on hers, the hair on his chest brushing against her breasts and creating friction, and she can feel how he rests heavily between her thighs, gooseflesh rising on her bare skin once more. She’s missed him. She can’t comprehend how she could miss someone so much when she just saw him, but she has. She’s missed him, and she loves him. “A bloody minx.”

“I know,” she manages to murmur right back, hooking her arms underneath his shoulders and running her nails against his back and between his shoulder blades, the muscles twitching with every touch as he grunts in response, slanting his lips over hers until she can’t breathe. She knows breathing is important and everything, but she’s okay with the lack of air for right now. She’s not going to die from it.

She might die from the way when Killian releases her, he moves down her body, tracing every inch of her skin with the softness of his lips and the harshness of his beard, a contrasting combination that causes the pleasure to increase in between her thighs. Then his mouth is on her breast, lips closing around her nipple, and she swears if magic existed, it would feel exactly like that. She needs it to feel exactly like that, especially as Killian expertly works her up, his tongue lavishing her while one of her hands bunches into the sheets and the other into his hair, likely a bit too rough.

He doesn’t stay long, though, her hand in his hair not keeping him there, and he moves down her stomach, kissing and whispering against the muscles of her skin as her entire body hums. She wants to speak, has a million words on her tongue, but all she can really focus on is Killian’s tongue on her inner thigh and the way that he’s nibbling her skin so close to where she’s aching. She’s never been the best with words, but right now she simply doesn’t know any.

Anticipation is building, his breath hot on her flesh, and with her eyes closed to try to calm herself down, it takes her a moment to realize that his mouth is no longer situated over where she wants him and is instead working its way back up her body. Every inch of hair she has is standing up, even the ones on her head, and she imagines it makes quite the look.

“What are you doing?” she whines, opening her eyes so that she’s suddenly engrossed in the deep, dark blue of Killian’s. How many colors can his eyes be in such a short period of time? They’re kind of like magic too, she guesses.

He hums, but he doesn’t say anything, his lashes landing against his cheeks before opening up again. When he runs his thumbs over her cheekbones, all of her focus is pulled away from the way that she can feel his arousal against her thigh, the heat of it likely more than the heat of her skin, but she can’t focus on anything except the softness of his gaze. It’s almost as if he’s memorizing her features, memorizing her, and she does the same for a moment, watching a freckle by his nose.

“When I first saw you on that video, I thought you were so beautiful even in that damn sweater. I can’t – I never could have imagined that you would be the love of my life.”

Well, fuck. That is not at all what she was expecting, and as the tears pool in her eyes, all she can do is kiss him, harsh and demanding mixed in with the occasional soft movement as their tongues tangle together in a warm, wet dance. She pushes him to roll over, whispering words too, and her lips trail along his skin in the same way that his did to hers, making his muscles twitch as she explores him and lets him feel how much she loves him too.

It’s like she’s breathing him in and letting instinct carry her as she moved above him.

“I love you,” she murmurs against his hipbone before she’s taking him in hand and pumping him a few times, the guttural groan he emits leisurely making its way down her body in the form of a shiver until she’s maneuvering herself above him and joining them together on a deep sigh. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

So maybe her words aren’t as flowery, but they get the meaning across.

Her hands find their way to his chest, gripping into the hair, and his land on her hips, helping to guide her as she moves up and down. Her entire body is a mixture of emotion and the haziness of pleasure, each thrust, each push and pull, each trace of Killian’s fingers over her skin making her lose herself a bit more as her stomach tightens and everything else loosens. Before she knows it, they’re moving, Killian slipping out of her for a brief moment that feels like the longest ten seconds in the world, before his body is hovering over hers, lips devouring her, and yet he stays completely still inside of her.

“KJ,” she whispers, and he pulls back to look at her, brows furrowed together as he stares at her again, “are you going to move?”

“Yeah, yeah. I just – ” He stops talking to kiss her cheek, the gesture somehow more intimate than them being joined together in the most intimate of places. “I don’t know. I got lost in my head for a moment.”

She runs her hand across his cheek, tapping her fingers against the skin while she swivels her hips for the lightest bit of friction and relief. “That’s okay if you did.”

“Aye,” he mumbles before fiercely snapping his hips into hers, her body and the bed moving with him as the pleasure resumes more quickly than she ever could have imagined, her hands gripping into the sheets and into his skin simply so that she does not turn to dust beneath him. He’s a man on a mission who’s making her get lost in her head as the bedframe creaks (they’re definitely not keeping this one) and she swears that it almost falls out from underneath them.

Or maybe that’s just her. Maybe her body is so on edge, so ready to fall, that she can do little more than listen to Killian’s whispers in her ears while her legs wrap around his waist and he continues to move with her and within her.

“Fuck,” he groans against her skin, the vibrations nothing with the way that she’s tingling. “You are so magnificent.”

She almost says thank you, really and truly, but then the coil that’s been building bursts inside of her as sweat grows all over her heated skin and Killian’s mouth whispers delicious, filthy, sweet words into the strained cords of her neck as she falls apart beneath him. Even with the slight numbing feeling that she has, her mind not fully there for a brief moment, she makes the effort to move with Killian, to let her hips swivel as his do the same. She can tell that he’s close, the flushed skin and insistent thrusts giveaways, and she tries to coax him through it, to lead him to the end even as a pleasure starts to hum within her once more.

But then he’s falling apart too, his thrusts coming once, twice, three times more, before he groans practically every filthy word she’s ever heard and lands on top of her with a gentle thud, his weight only uncomfortable for a moment as the “I love you” he whispered makes its way into her brain as well.

“We should fight more often if it’s going to be like that.”

“Shut up,” she giggles as she looks up at the smirk he’s currently got going on, his hair disheveled and face still flushed. He’s being cheeky and maybe a bit smug, and she can do nothing put push back his hair, sweat moving back with it as she makes an attempt to catch the breath that’s been so evasive today. “We weren’t even fighting today. That was more…celebratory.”

“Well, my love,” he sighs, leaning his forehead down to rest against hers, nose pushing into her cheek, “we should have this combination of makeup sex and celebratory sex more often.”

“You know, every time we fight you can’t just ask me to move in with you. That would be impractical.”

“Eh, well, I’ll figure something out. And I was so right.”

“About what?”

He moves them as much as he can, the bed squeaking with each thrust of his hips. “We’ll have to get a new bed. This one makes too much damn noise.”

#betting on the bullseye #captain swan #cs fic #cs ff

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ineffablecolors · 7 years ago

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BLUNDERS AND (HAPPY) BEGINNINGS [8/8 - COMPLETE]

Blunders and (happy) Beginnings; CHAPTER 8; ~ 3, 100 words; FF.NET || AO3

Thank you to everyone who went on this ride with me (your feedback and love gave me a huge boost in the completion of this little endeavour) and to everyone who might decide to do so now that it is complete (I know wips are scary af). Hope you like this! ;)

The ceremony is beautiful and far enough from modest to satisfy the groom and the bride’s family but not so far as to aggravate the bride herself. All of Storybrooke is abuzz with news and gossip, genuine happiness and only mild surprise for weeks before and after the wedding. The bride’s dress is brought all the way from Arendelle. The flowers are only in bloom in that particular month. The cakes – oh, Mrs Lucas will talk anyone’s ear off about the cakes for months to come.

Mrs Chillton looks 15 years younger. Mr and Mrs Nolan have been all too eager to lend their superior knowledge and experience. Miss Anna has barely slept for more than 6 hours out of sheer excitement.

And Mrs Elsa Jones would’ve scolded her but she is much too happy and much too busy dissuading her husband from any grandiose and imprudent honeymoon ideas.

Miss Swan and Captain Jones are involved both in the ceremony and in assisting with said imprudent ideas but not quite so busy as not to be able to throw many knowing looks and smug smiles at the bride and groom.

And that would probably be a high note on which to leave our characters to their celebrations. But as it is we have one more story to tell. The story of Miss Emma Swan and her hand much desired in marriage as it turned out.

5 weeks before Captain Liam Jones and Miss Elsa Froster’s wedding

“The audacity!”

She drops the letter on his desk and plunges in the chair across from it with all the grace that Killian has come to expect from Miss Emma Swan in the last week of cohabitation with her.

“Am I to take it that you have taken the liberty of going through my correspondence or that you are requesting that I read yours?”

“You don’t have a correspondence.”

“I assure you Commander Nemo and I are very particular about our annual Christmas cards.”

“How personal. Please do look at this so you can share my outrage.”

Jones picks up the discarded letter, then makes to rise to get his glasses, only to find Emma already thrusting them in his face. Exasperation and fondness – it would make a good title for a memoir about life around Emma Swan.

He takes the glasses and ignores her satisfied little grin as he quickly glides over the lines on the single page. It is not a long letter and it is not a particularly good one, especially if it is supposed to be what it appears to be.

And Captain Jones cannot help but feel a spike of irritation – dare he call it jealousy – at the possessive manner in which another man sees fit to address the woman across from him. For a moment, he wonders if inciting his jealousy is, at least in part, the very purpose of him being shown the letter.

But he finds that the part of him that was conceited enough to believe so once upon a time has grown rather old and wary of making such assumptions. So he makes a point of keeping his expression neutral and his voice even when he finally looks back at Miss Swan.

“It is a proposal, if I am not much too rusty to recognize one.”

The way she rolls her eyes around all the time is definitely not befitting of a lady but it tugs at the corners of his mouth all the same.

“Not the most passionate or well-worded one I can imagine,” he cannot help but add.

“Passionate – as if it can be passionate!” and like that Miss Swan is back on her feet. “I have seen this man all of four times in my life!”

“You must admit people marry on much less.”

“Three times then?”

He does not laugh but it is a near thing and that is just the magic of Emma he has come to realize and grown rather comfortable with that realization.

“That, substantial fortunes and the appropriate positions in society on both sides.”

“Oh. Oh, now that you mentioned it… why, I must accept, mustn’t I? What shall I ever do, if I do not take my ‘appropriate positions in society’? How shall I live?”

Killian does his best to remain unmoved and unamused in the face of her fluttering eyelashes.

“Took it a bit too far at the end there.”

Emma huffs in exasperation and sits back down, snatching the letter from his loose fingers.

“I swear I am never to understand the way men think.”

“Usually it is along the lines of ‘beautiful woman and a sizable income equals marriage’. Not the most sophisticated logic I admit but…”

“Was she rich?”

He looks at her in confusion.

“Your wife.”

“Ah,” Captain Jones strokes a hand down his beard – slightly longer than usual – something should be done about it, perhaps tomorrow, before their walk. “Her family was. But her family did not approve of me very much. At the start. Or at the end, come to think of it.”

“But she was in love.”

“I would like to think so.”

“Of course she was.”

He realizes he has dropped his eyes to where his shirtsleeve hangs around his wrist. Brace and all has proven too much of a hassle for one with a bullet hole inside him. And Emma has been much too insistent on him not leaving the grounds and not needing his whole ‘armour’ on when in his own home.

His stomach is churning painfully for some unidentifiable reason.

But then he looks up and she is all soft, golden curls falling from her braids and ever softer eyes and the kind of smile that he hadn’t really seen on Emma’s face before he came to consciousness to find it hovering over him a week ago.

His insides settle and he tries to shake his head at her but his face has certainly betrayed him twice over by now. Especially given her next words.

“I think you should help me pen my rejection, Captain. Might lend it some diplomacy.”

4 weeks before Captain Liam Jones and Miss Elsa Froster’s wedding

This time is infinitely harder. This time she has known him for years – years ago but she remembers the fondness she had for him in her early teenage years all too well. This time he is in front of her and he is earnest and hopeful and a little nervous. This time she looks inside and tries to move away the brashness and exasperation and find her own diplomacy and understanding tucked somewhere for safekeeping. This time when she says no – because there is simply nothing else she can say, no hope she can possibly give – she can see the way his face falls, the way his eyes dim and flit away from hers, his hands dropping the one he had so ardently asked her for.

“I see. And if I were to ask again in a month or even a year-“

“Mr Humbert.”

“No. I understand… But if time is what you need-”

“It is not a question of time. I… well, given the time, I hope… That is I am to… I don’t think you will be able to ask in a year. I hope.”

Emma squeezes her eyes shut and tries not to curse under her breath the way a lady should not even curse in her head. If people could stop asking her to marry them, it would be of great help. She has some things of her own to think over and execute and ask and hopefully achieve the desired results.

“Oh. I… I was led to believe that you rejected Mr Cassidy. I deeply apologize, if-“

“I did reject Mr Cassidy,” she says it in the mocking tone that she only allows herself in front of Elsa or Killian – much to their consternation. “His offer was preposterous and his assumption that it will be received favourably doubly so.”

“But then perhaps after some time to consider the merits of marriage-“

“Graham, I do wish to be married! Just not...”

“To me.”

She tries not to flinch.

“It’s not that. It’s not… it’s just… someone else.”

The gentleman’s brows draw together and for a fleeting moment his lips twitch and Emma knows with perfect certainty that he thinks she is playing a joke on him.

Neal Cassidy is one thing. Neal Cassidy might have money aplenty and his father might be a magistrate but he also has a reputation of caring little for what people say and, what truly matters to Emma, how people feel – even people supposedly close and dear to him.

But Mr Humbert is a man of indisputable character, fine manners, fine fortune and an even finer looks. He is young, pleasant and by all expectations should not want to settle to family life so early on. He is, to put it simply, the most coveted bachelor in Storybrooke, perhaps in the whole county.

And Emma is the ridiculous girl who has apparently seen fit to reject him. For someone else.

“Stranger things have happened.”

“You should tell Mary Margaret that.”

Instinctively Emma turns her head to the side, to try and catch a glimpse of their gracious host in the beautiful gazebo but her and Captain Jones seem to have walked much too far into the Nolan’s luscious gardens and her vision is obscured by far too many roses red as blood.

She is just about to scold the gentleman beside her – who is not supposed to be walking around at all, her hand tightening around his forearm and her eyes narrowing on his profile when-

“She was quite adamant that I tell her right away, if it is a promise to me that is holding you back from Mr Humbert.”

“Wha-“

“Not to worry, I told her that she should know I have more sense than that.”

Once, when Emma was about 6 years old and skating over their favourite lake with Elsa, she heard the ice crack under her and in the next second she was in the water.

It felt a lot like this.

She pulls her arm away from Killian and steps to the side, there’s noise in her ears and her body feels like it did all those years ago – like she is not giving it enough air. Jones keeps going for another meter or two before he stops and looks back at her in confusion.

“Swan?”

It would probably be better, if her first – or second or at least third – thought was that it was all fine, she could just turn around, go back to the garden party, take Mr Humbert to the side and accept his incredibly enticing proposal.

But Emma doesn’t think of that. She doesn’t think about much of anything other than the fact that she is a complete and utter fool. And, frustratingly enough, that Jones should really get off his feet already. So she focuses on that.

“We should head back. Liam is going to have my head for letting you go this far out.”

“Wait, wait, what-“

“I think we should rejoin the party, Captain Jones.”

She watches him draw back as if she is the one that slapped him in the face.

“Emma, what-“

And she can’t help it. How dare he look at her like that. How dare he.

“And you, being the man of sense that you are, surely must be tired of the company of a silly girl and all her silly problems.”

He opens his mouth to respond but, much to her relief, quickly snaps it shut. Much to her distress, however, he decides to move closer instead, his hand reaching out for her.

“Emma, surely you don’t think- I did not mean-“

“That you were gravely offended at the mere suggestion that you might have expressed an interest in being engaged to me?”

“Of course not!”

Emma takes a step back and watches his hand fall along with his features. She crosses her arms over her chest protectively.

“Then what, pray tell, did you find so offensive to your sensibilities in Mrs Nolan’s remark?”

She says it in a deliberately haughty tone and is almost glad when she sees it achieve the desired effect – the Captain’s eyes blazing and his nostrils flaring as his hand curls into a fist at his side.

“I meant rather the opposite to what the lady has decided to conjecture. I meant that I have more sense than to believe that you would settle so far below your stature, were I to ask such a question.”

And Emma can’t quite help herself, can’t refrain from throwing her arms in the air and almost growling at the damnable man in front of her.

Oh, he was the complete and utter fool.

“We’ve been through this! I already told you that I would very much have you, you insufferable-“

She presses her lips together hard and tries to regain some measure of control over herself. It’s hard when he responds with utter confusion and a painfully pinched brow.

“That was not… That is to say, it was clear that, given the dire circumstances-“

“Yes, because dire circumstances are known to make women partial to matrimony.”

“Are they not?”

“No, Killian, no. Love makes women partial to matrimony.”

“Oh.”

Emma lets her arms unfold and finally does away with the space between them. Her hands settling on his shoulders and sliding down to hold his hands – real and wooden.

“And I don’t mean to sound impatient but given recent events-“ she cuts off and hurries to add. “I don’t mean to sound conceited either but-“

“Miss Swan, are you… propositioning me?”

She tries to keep her expression serious, she truly does, but Killian’s eyes are twinkling and his eyebrow is going up and so are the corners of his mouth and after all she is propositioning him and she does not seem to be in the least bit embarrassed about it.

“Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I am. Would you- Do I have to ask Liam first?”

“Swan-“

“Would you marry me, Killian?”

She is rather proud of how steady her voice comes out, how she looks him in the eyes – his very wide, very blue eyes. He seems rather proud as well.

“Only you, Emma Swan, would receive multiple offers of marriage in the span of a single week and proceed to make one of your own.”

“I was hoping mine would be a smidge more successful.”

Captain Jones sways closer, now completely in her personal space, her breasts almost brushing the buttons of his vest.

“If I were still a betting man, I’d say it would be an astounding success.”

3 months after Captain Liam Jones and Miss Elsa Froster’s wedding

Perhaps the younger Captain Jones should’ve indeed put money on that bet, he does turn out to be absolutely right.

The ceremony is as unconventional as the mysterious proposal that everyone seems to have a different opinion for – held on a windy beach on an only partially sunny afternoon, it satisfies the sensibilities of no one but the bride and groom. Hardly anyone but the groom��s brother and his wife know of the whole thing before it is already happening. The bride’s dress is picked by the bride alone at a time equally unknown. Flowers are needed only for her bouquet and picked single-handedly by the groom the day before. There is no cake. There is some rum. Mostly to warm up anyone who finds the sea spray and breeze hard to bare.

Mrs Chillton is somewhat put out by the short notice and the inability to invite any of her friends and acquaintances but much placated by the sheer joy on the bride’s face as she waves her into the carriage. Mr and Mrs Nolan are equally baffled but much easier to be prevailed upon – given Mr Nolan’s predisposition to cheerfulness and Mrs Nolan’s penchant for romantic and spontaneous gestures but mostly thanks to the groom’s very persuasive and excited manner, rumoured to have been unseen in years. Miss Anna is taken with the whole idea and beyond delighted to be whisked away to the mysterious ceremony close to sunset.

Miss Emma Swan and Captain Killian Jones are said to have never been in higher spirits and that by the older Captain and Mrs Jones, said to know them best of all.

In the first year of their marriage it is believed that they are rather an unlikely pair and thus unlikely to be much too happy together.

By year two, they are believed to be rather inconsiderate and verging on scandalous with the amount of times that Mrs Jones sees fit to display her affection for her husband in rather public places and gatherings and with the amount of invitations for more such gatherings that Captain Jones feels justified in refusing in order to take his wife to the seaside or to “reorder their library” as he dares put it to some of their closer friends.

By year three Mrs Emma Jones and her husband have surprisingly little time to shower their twin nephews with gifts and affection – a practice much encouraged by the older Captain Jones and for reasons completely unimaginable to the other three labelled as “spoiling” by Mrs Elsa Jones – and this mostly due to the fact that they have provided the other Joneses with a niece of their own to “spoil”.

To this day Mrs Emma Jones is rumoured to have actually put a curse of sorts on a lady who insinuated that she had been extremely foolish to accept Captain Jones when she had much more becoming offers made to her. The legend of exactly how many gentlemen she had refused while waiting for the Captain to propose has taken on a life of its own – from some stating that no such offers had been made at all to other whispering of numbers in the dozens – all this resulting in much undignified eyerolling from the lady in question and quite a bit of amusement and preening from her husband.

To this day Captain Killian Jones is rumoured to propose to his wife anew every year to “reaffirm her willingness” and pledge his own, much to the sighs and flutterings of the young ladies of Storybrooke and the groans and muttering of gentlemen who are being more and more often asked by their wives why they have been proposed to only once.

But Emma, when among their friends and family, takes extraordinary pride and delight in stating that Jones can propose as often as he wishes – she’d accept every time, but he should never forget who did it first.

Captain Jones doesn’t seem to mind his wife’s boasting one bit.

#cs ff #cs au #captain swan #frozen jewel #captain swan fanfiction #B&B

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ssvperboy · 2 years ago

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Ultimate Ship Meme Christmas Edition - Grace & Skate

Ultimate Ship Meme Christmas Edition || accepting

Which one of them:

Spikes the eggnog? Skate of course. 😂😭

Hangs the stockings? Grace. I feel like she grew up helping get the house ready for Christmas, so she definitely would be the one to hang the stockings. Skate doesn’t even know what the stockings are for dkhskdja

Leaves cookies and milk out to keep up with the Santa tradition? This may seem STUPID, but Skate does it because he thinks Presley still believes in Santa ngl. He and Nolan make it a whole thing and Presley just lets them believe she thinks Santa is real at her big age. Grace thinks this is cute af though.

“Accidentally” throws away the fruitcake: I can’t see Grace as someone who likes fruitcake at all, so her. Skate is the kinda person who would keep pastries and cakes and shit around even if he doesn’t end up eating them, to not waste them because idk, maybe someone else will have some lmao

Goes overboard on the whipped cream? Graceeeee and she would definitely go overboard on Skate’s drinks too <3

Is the inevitable Christmas Grinch? Hmm... this could go either way because Christmas could be a huge trigger for either of them tbh

Wakes up first on Christmas? Grace! 300% it’s Grace!

Rolls their eyes as the same cheesy carol plays in the stores for the millionth time? Skate but he smiles happily every time Grace sings or mouths the words 🥹

Starts playing Christmas music the day after Halloween? Graceeeee lmaooooo

Decorates the Christmas tree? I think Grace would have the idea to and Skate would help her bc he loves her 😌

Who wears the ugly Christmas sweaters: Both of them, 300%. Skate loves an ugly sweater and Grace would wear one for the christmas spirit 🥰🥰

Picks out the holiday movies and who makes the hot cocoa: I think Grace does both, because it’s been proven that Skate can’t make hot cocoa for SHIT and he’d also let Grace pick the movie every time 😌

Starts the snowball fight: I may be wrong, but I think Grace would to try and get Skate to smileeeeeee but it could be either orrr

Drags the other under the mistletoe: Grace, because Skate still doesn’t really understand how mistletoe works dskhlksdja

Decorates the house: Grace would start and any time Skate sees her struggling, he’d jump into help!.

Hangs up the ornaments on the tree: Same concept as decorating!

Cooks Christmas dinner: Grace. Do not let Skate cook. ever...

Invites the other to sing a Christmas duet: Grace and Skate would go 100% because it would make her happy.

Has any holiday traditions: Grace probably has the most. Skate’s holiday traditions stop at leaving cookies out for Santa lmaoooo

Who would start a food fight during baking: Skate, because he doesn’t know what he’s doing and wants to be annoying lmaooooo

Would get drunk off of eggnog: Grace, because... well Skate is Skate lmaoooooooo

Who starts putting up decorations in October? Oh God, I think Grace might want to but knowing it’s Skate’s birthday on Halloween, she wouldn’t. So neither.

Buys the advent calendars? Grace, and Skate would want to open them all at once so she would have to teach him how to do it lmaoooo

Places mistletoes all around the house? Grace, to teach Skate about how it works lmaoooo

Wraps the presents for other people? Grace. Skate can roll a blunt no problem, but you should never ask him to wrap a gift lmaoooo

Puts the final star/angel on the top of the Christmas tree? Grace, and Skate would lift her up to do it 😌

Is the one that hates eggnog? Skateeeeee lmao, he doesn’t understand it 😂

Is the one that bakes Christmas cookies for guests? Grace. There is not way Skate knows what goes into making a cookie lmaoooooooo

Sends out the Christmas cards? Grace, because she thinks it’s nice to wish people a merry christmas 🥹

Knows all the words to Twelve Days of Christmas? Grace! Skate maybe knows up to day 5 😂😂😂

Is the better snowman builder? I feel like they might both be good??

Starts snowball fights? Could be either orrrr

Is the one that wakes the other on Christmas morning by playing Christmas songs really loudly? Grace, but Skate would not wake up pissed tbh. he’d probably wake up in the christmas spirit 😂

#skate h. & grace c.#skate h. // headcanons #skate h. // ships #i scream at her teaching him christmas thingsssss #answered #wingsandahalo

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newagesispage · 6 years ago

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JANUARY 2019

PAGE RIB

***** James Cromwell has been busy with 3 productions in the works And you can see him in Counterpart right now on Starz.

***** Pete Davidson did 2 sold out shows in Boston on NY eve.

***** Stranger Things season 3 will be upon us on July 4.

***** Clint Eastwood’s The Mule is a hit.

***** The latest to be accused of sexual misconduct: Neil Degrasse Tyson is being investigated by Fox. They do seem to hate science but I will always believe an accuser first.

***** Do people really like Kid Rock? It is really hard to believe.

***** Days alert: We will meet Leo’s Mama and Leo will be taken with Xander who is back and plotting with Eve. Rafe arrests Stefan. He later heads off to help Sami and Hope turns to Ted. Rex is back from Chicago. So glad that Jack is back.

***** Amazon has the new Modern Love which will star Tina Fey, Anne Hathaway, Catherine Keener and Andy Garcia.

***** Robert Mueller is finally releasing his first reports. The long list of lies and Russian connections keeps growing.

***** John Kelly is out. Nick Ayers, Chief of Staff for Pence turned it down. Kelly has since told us that Jeff Sessions surprised him when he instituted the family separation at the border.** Mick Mulvaney who seems to hate Trump is the new chief of staff.

***** Wisconsin approved their shady bills that strip power from incoming Dems. They approved 82 appointees from Scott Walker in one fucking day. How long are we gonna take this shit?? WAKE UP PEOPLE!!

***** Ivanka has won approval for 16 new Chinese trademarks including voting machines and sausage casings.

***** Rudy Giulliani tried to blame twitter for a conspiracy to invade his account. He accidently tweeted a link to a website that called Trump a traitor to our country. The site didn’t exist until he wrote G-20.in and a designer bought the domain.

***** The number of caged children keeps growing.

***** It seems Stevie Wonder has a huge amount of unreleased songs. LET’s GO!!

***** It seems Pelosi and Schumer and Trump had quite a meeting in the Oval Office. Trump took pride in a possible Government shutdown but weeks later blamed the Dems. Pence sat in silence.

***** Mike Pence is just as slippery a liar. –Seth Meyers

*****Defense Secretary Jim Maddus is out.** Brett McGurk, special Presidential envoy for global coalition to counter Isis has resigned.

***** Elizabeth Warren is the first to dip her toe in the water of Presidential insanity for 2020.

***** The 2019 stamps include Walt Whitman, Gregory Hines, Rivers, Alabama 1819 statehood, Marvin Gaye, frogs, state and county fairs, Woodstock, Joshua tree, winter berries, Bethesda fountain and coral reefs.

***** The Grammy noms have been announced C’mon Glover and This is America for song of the year!! The comedy category is tough with Chris Rock, Patton Oswalt, Dave Chappelle, Jim Gaffigan and Fred Armisen.

***** Happy New Year!!

***** In sexual predator news: Kevin Spacey sent out a creepy Christmas Eve message as his House of Cards character claiming his real life innocence. He also filed a motion asking to be excused from appearing at his hearing. Coward! ** Cybil Sheppard claims Les Moonves whined to her about his wife and mistress not turning him on back in the day. He asked if he could take her home and when she said,”NO!”, she found her show cancelled.

***** Trump has pulled out all the troops from Syria, declaring victory! He has also pulled out half the troops in Afghanistan. Putin is very happy.

***** The top 6 banks made $100 billion in profits thanks to the tax cuts. The U.S. stocks have had their worst year since 2008.

*****

***** There are lots of Nicolas Cage movies on the way including A score to Settle with Benjamin Bratt, Grand Isle, Kill Chain, Primal and Running with the Devil with Laurence Fishburne. He is just starting Prisoners of the Ghostland.

***** Bill O’Reilly is already tweeting about replacing Justice Ginsberg and she is already on the mend.

***** The Golden Globe noms are out and the show will air January 6. I will be routing for Robert Redford The Americans, Keri Russell, Barry and Patricia Arquette. The toughest category has to be the actors, Jason Bateman or Matthew Rhys? Bill Hader or Jim Carrey? Kieran Culkin or Henry Winkler? OMG! Sandra Oh and Andy Samberg will host.

***** Kathie Lee Gifford will leave Today in April.

***** Netflix is putting out A Ted Bundy series with unheard audio interviews in 4 parts.

***** Kevin Hart was asked to host the Oscars but 2 days later, he stepped down after he would not apologize for some old homophobic tweets. Wouldn’t they look into that first? C’mon. Publicity?

***** Bohemian Rhapsody is the most streamed song of the 20th Century.

***** Finn Wittrock and Sarah Roberts have had their first child. Finn will be appearing in Plus One with Ed Begley Jr. and Jack Quaid. He is also in Semper Fi ad If Beale Street could talk. I’m looking forward to Next Deception with Thomas Haden Church and The Last Black Man in San Francisco with Danny Glover and Mike Epps. Renee Zellweger will play Judy Garland in Finn’s next flick, Judy.

***** Britain’s New Year’s Honours list includes Twiggy, Michael Palin, Jim Carter, Chris Nolan, Philip Pullman and 43 others.

***** Woodstock’s 50th Anniversary will be held on August 15-17 on the same site but will not be produced, sponsored by or affiliated with Woodstock Ventures LC. Michael Lang says that he will hold a 59th Anniversary but so far no details.

***** Let’s lay it right on the line. Bigotry and racism are among the deadliest social ills plaguing the world today…. The only way to destroy them is to expose them… If man is ever to be worthy of his destiny, we must fill our hearts with tolerance. – Stan Lee (1965)

***** R.I.P Philip Bosco, Bill Siegel, Sondra Locke, Nancy Wilson, Frank Russell Parker, Sister Wendy Beckett, Peter Masterson, Norman Gimbel, Richard Overton, June Whitfield, Melvin Dummar, Ringo Lam, Don McKay, Don Lusk and Penny Marshall.

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apostleshop · 6 years ago

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#GoodPriest

Great News has been shared on https://apostleshop.com/goodpriest/

#GoodPriest

Recent revelations have uncovered wolves in shepherd’s clothing within our Church. The details of their betrayal is horrid, sickening, and heartbreaking. As lay people, we have a responsibility to help in the healing process and make sure the guilty are held responsible.

We also ought to reach out to the many faithful and wonderful priests and bishops in our lives. They, too, are feeling betrayed and embarrassed by the scandals. Furthermore, some have been cursed at, spat upon, or even beaten, as in the case of Reverend Basil John Hutsko. These suffering servants need our love and support.

Fellow CatholicMom.com author Jane Korvemaker blogged last Monday about an effort on Twitter to recognize good priests, started by Sr. Brittany Harrison. Sister asked that the faithful share stories about the men in black who are doing it right, because, in all honesty, most of them are. I bet you cannot read through the responses without a tear and/or a sense of gratitude welling up inside you.

While there are hundreds of stories under the hashtag #goodpriest about priests who have made a positive difference in the lives of individuals, I would love to see that increase 10-, 20-, or even 30-fold. Thus, I am sharing the story of a few good priests that God placed in my life. I encourage you to do the same.

One such good priest was Fr. Henry Hughes. Fr. Hughes was a soft-spoken man. When I decided to enter the convent, Father was thrilled and supportive. He bought me my expensive four-volume set of Liturgy of the Hours books.

After two months in the convent, I was so homesick, I plotted to go home with my parents when they came to visit me at Christmas time. I wrote Fr. Hughes to tell him of my trials and plan.

He wrote back, encouraging me to stay. He told me if I left too early I would always wonder if I had given it my all. Then the wise priest explained to me that my homesickness was a sign that I was greatly loved and loved greatly, a beautiful quality for a religious. He included a holy card on which he scribbled on the back:

To seek God is the greatest of all human adventures; to find Him, the greatest of all human accomplishments; to fall in love with Him, the greatest of all romances.

Needless to say, I stayed. By the end of the year, I was excited to receive my habit and religious name. When I made temporary vows, he traveled to Tennessee to concelebrate the Mass.

After my temporary vows were up, I discerned with the help of my superiors that it was not God’s will that I remain a religious sister. God, indeed, had something else in mind for me. I never regretted, however, staying those five years. My convent days sustain me to this day and have made me a better Catholic, mom, and wife. Fr. Hughes, for his part, witnessed my marriage three years later and never asked for a reimbursement for the Liturgy of the Hours books! Fr. Henry Hughes was a #goodpriest.

Another Fr. Henry who was a good to me was my boss at Our Lady of Fatima in Baltimore. When my first child was born, I hated going to work and leaving him at a daycare. Yet I couldn’t afford to not work; therefore, I looked for a job that would enable me to stay home.

Fr. Henry, C.Ss.R, needed a Director of Religious Education. With my background, I was qualified for the job. At my interview, however, I explained to Father that I wanted to work from home so I could raise my son. He hired me, nonetheless, packed the computer into my car, and said, “I’ll see you on Sunday!”

I had seven more children while working at Fatima. The Redemptorists always rejoiced with me with every announcement of another pregnancy. Fr. Henry and the Redemptorists were #goodpriests to me and my family.

While there are many more stories of good priests that I could share, I wish to give a shoutout to one more special man in black: Fr. Brian Nolan. Fr. Brian was campus minister at the university where my oldest two sons attended. At a time in life when many young people abandon their faith, Father encouraged my boys to remain active in their faith and deepen their relationship with God. Through good (even if a bit long) homilies, spiritual direction, and honest friendship, Father kept my sons on the narrow path throughout their college career. I also heard he plays a mean game of basketball and ultimate Frisbee! Thank you, Fr. Brian, for being a #goodpriest.

Share your own #goodpriest story on social media: Facebook, Twitter, whatever you use. Or feel free to share your story in the comments below. Likewise, tell your stories orally to family and friends, especially non-Catholic friends. And don’t forget to personally thank your parish priests, pastor, and any other good priests you know.

We need to share our #goodpriest stories even as we pray and fast for the Church. -@nun2nine Click To Tweet

Hopefully, the sharing of these stories will inspire you to pray and fast for the protection of all our good shepherds out there and for the healing of those in the universal flock who were abused by the very shepherds who were supposed to love, protect and guide them. May God have mercy and heal us, and may He bless our good priests.

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cutieodonoghue · 7 years ago

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more than all the stars (6/18)

summary: In a world full of soulmates, Emma Nolan doesn’t know who hers is. Enter Killian Jones, attempting to stop his brother from proposing to his soulmate, only to be thrown a curveball when he’s sent to spend Christmas on a farm with a bunch of strangers. (soulmate modern au)

rating: k+ (mild language, suggestive situations later on)

word count: ~3,800

catch up: read it all on tumblr here

also find on: ff.net, ao3

six

Killian rides into town with David, Emma, and Henry in the black pickup truck because it has the best wheels for snow, according to David.

On the way, he texts Liam to ask where he should meet he and his new fiancée. Granny’s is the answer, sent several minutes after the initial question.

“I suppose I’ll just… meet you back in front of Granny’s in an hour?” Killian asks.

“Why don’t you just give Emma your number?” David suggests. “I’d get it, but I left my phone at home.”

Emma makes a sound that causes both Killian and David to glance back at her. “Dad doesn’t use his phone even in emergencies anyway.”

“Not true,” he defends himself. “I do use it most days. I just… get tired of the dang thing.”

Killian hums. He hesitates with his phone in his palm. “Uh, I have an international number, so-”

“Oh, right,” Emma pulls her phone from between her legs and opens an app. “Here. You can just type it in.”

With Emma’s phone in his hands, he feels oddly like this should be a bigger moment between them. He’s giving her his number, which could lead to all sorts of things down the road. Like texting when he’s gone, and maintaining a friendship. The prospect strangely thrills him.

After typing his number in, he adds his name and then passes the device back to Emma. “There you go. I’ll just-”

“I’ll text you so you can let us know when you’re ready to head back.” Emma nods. She wears a soft smirk on her lips, like she knows something.

“Right.” Killian smiles back. “Thanks for the ride into town, Dave. I’ll be in touch.”

“Have a good time.” David says, sounding every bit like a parent dropping his child off for school for the day. It almost makes Killian laugh, but he keeps the thought to himself and pulls open the truck door.

It’s freezing outside, so he moves as fast as he can to get into Granny’s Diner. The establishment is nearly packed to the brim with people, to the point that he thinks he might be at the wrong diner.

Thankfully, Elsa comes to his aid at the front door. Today, she’s wearing a Christmas sweater and smiles brightly at him.

“Hey, Killian. I’m so sorry you got stuck this morning. I heard the snow was pretty bad last night.”

Killian shakes his head. “Small town. Small plow.”

Elsa chuckles. “Too true. C’mon. Liam is starving and we have to talk to you about so much.”

Killian raises his eyebrows. “Not too much, I hope.”

Either she doesn’t hear him, or she chooses not to have. They arrive at the booth toward the back of the diner and Liam immediately smiles kindly at him.

“Brother, it’s nice to see you. How’s life on the farm?”

“It’s…” Killian pauses to find the right word and shifts out of his coat and scarf. “It’s very homely. You’d like it there.”

Liam hums thoughtfully. “Well, I’m glad you seem to be enjoying it at least.”

“Not as much as I would if I were here with you like I was supposed to be at the start.” Killian sighs. He settles his hands on the table. “So what have you been up to while I’ve been away?”

Elsa and Liam exchange happy glances.

“Well, Killian, we’ve set a date for the wedding.”

Killian’s heart plummets to his belly nervously. “Oh?”

Elsa nods. “Yes. We’ve decided to get married on Christmas.”

He blinks once. Twice. A third time. Narrows his eyes slightly, then widens them. “Christmas. You mean, as in, next Christmas. So you’ll have a year to plan.”

Elsa laughs and looks up at his brother fondly. “No, I meant this Christmas.”

“That’s in two days.” Killian blurts out with frustration lacing his tone. “You can’t possibly expect to plan and execute a wedding in two days.”

Liam shrugs and shakes his head. “We found out that we can get a same-day marriage license. Anna’s going to be Elsa’s maid of honor. I thought you’d be my best man. We’ve got rings from the pawn shop.”

Elsa nods excitedly. “And we’ll have it at Town Hall at dusk with string lights and folding chairs. I’ve already found someone to officiate too.”

The fact that they’ve thought so much of it through has his mind spinning. He scrambles thinking about all of the things they haven’t considered, like the repercussions of getting married on a complete entire whim.

“Dad’s in England, Li. You can’t possibly-”

Liam makes a face. “I don’t need Dad here for this.” He takes Elsa’s hand atop the table. “I have everything I need right here.”

He looks between them for a few silent moments. Then, staring at his brother, who he’d grown up thinking was his hero, he feels frustrated tears rise to the surface.

“Liam, you can’t be this stupid and naive. I won’t allow it.”

Elsa shrinks back slightly and looks up at the man she’s engaged herself to. Liam’s jaw clenches and he meets Killian’s gaze firmly.

“I’m not asking your permission, Killian.”

Killian laughs. “That’s obvious. I thought you were smarter than this.”

His brother clears his throat and says lowly, “We should take this outside. If that’s how you feel.”

He grabs his coat and scarf and is out of the diner before Liam even has a chance to get to his feet. Killian waits on the snow-covered patio, near iced over tables and chairs that have no use in the winter season.

The cold bites his ears and cheeks. Every time he takes a breath he sees it in the air before him. Eventually, Liam emerges from the diner with his coat on and a hat covering his ears.

“Killian, when I told you I was coming on this trip, I told you I planned on proposing. I know it’s not the life you want for yourself, soulmates, but it’s the one I’ve chosen.”

“When you found out who she was you hid the envelope and lied that you’d ever read it.” Killian says. “You didn’t want her. For four whole years.”

His brother looks down at the snow and then up at him again. “That’s not true.”

“No?” Killian asks. “You looked her up. You knew exactly where she was. What she looked like.”

He searches his eyes. He’s started breathing faster now, years of pent-up emotion coming forward all at once.

“Killian, it’s not what you think,” Liam says hardly. “I was afraid. I didn’t have the money. Papa was breathing down my neck about starting grooming me to take his place. I couldn’t just… leave and go find her. I had you to think about. I had-”

“Don’t give me that.” Killian shakes his head. “Don’t give me that. It’s a complete load of garbage. I think you spent your whole life running from it because you were afraid you’d end up like him.”

Liam suddenly comes closer to him, snow crunching violently beneath his boots. He grabs him by the collar and shakes him. “You listen to me. This has nothing to do with him. Nothing.”

“You’re the president of the company, Liam.” Killian says, a snarl on his lips. “You tell me who’s more like our father.”

His brother releases him and steps away. He sniffles due to the cold and glances away briefly when people walk past them on the sidewalk.

“I’m marrying Elsa. In two days. I still want you there, but I’ll understand if you don’t come.”

“Don’t do this,” Killian pleads. “Liam. Please. Just wait a while.”

His brother takes a generous step backwards away from him. “I’m in love. I don’t want to wait.”

Killian sighs heavily. He runs his hand over his head as his brother heads back inside. He flexes his fingers before curling them in toward his palm and out again.

Going back inside is out of the question, for fear of ruining the rest of the day with his bitter attitude. Instead, Killian turns toward Main Street and thinks about where else he might be able to grab a bite to eat.

He remembers seeing a bar called The Rabbit Hole on his initial tour around town, so he starts in that direction. At the very least, he can drown his sorrows in cheap spirits and American football on crappy televisions.

///

Emma finishes picking out gifts for Hannah and Charlie and steps outside with Henry busy chattering to himself from his stroller seat.

She still needs to find Killian something, but she imagines he might be happy with something made at the farm, so she starts thinking about what sort of handmade soap or candle he might want from her mother’s secret stash.

Her phone vibrates in her pocket, causing her to stop moving so she can check the message. It’s from Elsa, of all people.

Elsa: If you’re in town I really need to talk to you. I’m at the park behind my apartment.

Sighing, Emma bites at her lip. She really doesn’t have the energy to be on board with Elsa and her non-stop soulmate talking points today, but as one of her best friends, she has an obligation to.

Emma: Hang tight. I’m on my way.

Luckily, the walk isn’t too far, even in the cold, so when she gets to the park and finds Elsa sitting on their favorite bench, her patience isn’t terribly stretched thin.

“Hey. Everything okay?” Emma asks as she approaches Elsa.

Her friend, who had been looking away from her, turns slightly startled by her arrival. “Emma. Yes, yes, sorry. I should have specified that in the text.”

“It’s alright.” Emma smiles a little. She brushes off the spot beside Elsa on the bench and sits down. It’s freezing and she knows her jeans are going to be wet later, but this is what friendship is. “What’s going on?”

Elsa turns to Emma after waving at Henry. Her smile is kind, and her eyes are bright. “Liam and I are getting married on Christmas. Not in the morning, because families and presents, but in the evening.”

Emma’s eyes widen faster than they ever have before. “Wow! That soon, huh?”

Her friend laughs joyously. “Yes. I know it’s a little fast, but we decided that we’d rather not wait and deal with all of the back-and-forth for a year while we planned the wedding. And this way, Liam can get a green card because we’ll be married.”

“He’s moving here,” Emma says, to which Elsa nods. “Wow. That’s… a lot of great big decisions in less than, what, half a day of being engaged?”

Elsa tilts her head to the side ever so slightly. “You sound like Killian. He doesn’t want us getting married this soon either, but… it’s like Liam said, we love each other, we’re both here, and it just makes sense. Why wait?”

Emma certainly can think of a few reasons to wait, but Elsa’s so happy and she knows they both have their heads on straight. They’ll be fine, even if it’s fast and they’re likely going to encounter a lot of issues down the road because of rash decision making.

“I’m really happy and excited for you,” Emma finally says. She leans in for a hug, one Elsa happily accepts.

“I’m so glad.” Elsa pulls away from the hug. “I was hoping I could count on you being there. Anna’s going to be my maid of honor, but I want you to be a bridesmaid.”

It’s flattering to say the least, that her friend would want her to be part of her wedding party. It’s something they’d joke about as teenagers, but for some reason, Emma never thought it would actually happen, so to hear Elsa so enthusiastic about the idea makes her almost blush with delight.

“I’d love to.”

“Yeah?”

Emma laughs. “Of course. You’re my best friend.”

They hug again, this time a little bit longer. Elsa pulls back with tears in her eyes. “Sorry. I’m just… so happy.”

“It’s okay,” Emma chuckles. “Hey, let’s go get cocoa at Granny’s. I’m freezing.”

Elsa bobs her head in agreement. “I just came from there, but I don’t want to go back to my apartment just yet. Liam’s still a bit upset from his conversation with Killian.”

As they walk toward Granny’s Diner, Elsa informs her that Killian left shortly after arriving to the establishment, after fighting with his brother outside. The thought makes her wary, not knowing where he went or in what condition he’ll be in when he decides it’s time to go back to the farm.

Her father had promised to meet her outside of the toy shop in about half an hour, at which point they’d wait on Killian’s text. But apparently, Killian has disappeared.

Maybe it’s a good thing she has his phone number.

After they sit in a booth at the diner and Emma has Henry coloring the kids menu, she decides to pull out her phone and check on Killian.

Emma: Hey. You okay? Ran into Elsa. She said you disappeared.

Almost within a full second of her sending the message, three typing dots appear on screen. Her eyes widen slightly at the eagerness of his reply, and she looks up as she waits for it.

“So, any plans tonight?” Elsa asks. “Liam and I are planning on going to Granny’s special dinner ball.”

“Granny’s having that this year?” Emma wonders. “Didn’t one of the dwarves almost set the place on fire last time?”

Elsa laughs. “I don’t know. I wasn’t there.”

Emma hums. While it does sound kind of fun, she has Henry and she’d really rather stay at home when she has the chance to. She’s really surprised her mother hasn’t been on her about going. A dinner and dance are just up her aisle.

Her phone vibrates in her hand and immediately, she looks down to find Killian’s response.

Killian: I’m alright. Where are you? I can meet you. I’m done in town.

Hesitantly, Emma looks at her friend.

“It’s my dad,” she lies, holding up her phone slightly. “He says we need to get going.”

“Oh,” Elsa frowns. “Well, will I see you tonight?”

Emma starts to get Henry ready, much to his chagrin. He fusses, wanting to color still. “I don’t know. It depends on what’s going on at home.”

“I understand.” Elsa smiles slightly, though Emma can tell she’s disappointed. “Well, I’ll for sure see you on Christmas at least.”

Emma nods. “Yes. Of course you will. If you need anything, you can call or text. I’ll do whatever I can with the storm coming in.”

“Oh, shoot. That’s right.” Elsa’s eyes go wide. “Do you think it’ll clear out by Christmas?”

“Dad seems to think so.” Emma shrugs. She gets Henry into his stroller and buckles him in. “I don’t know though. We can talk about backup plans later, okay?”

“Okay.” her friend nods. “Well, we’ll hope for the best and prepare for the worst.”

///

Emma tells Killian to meet her at the toy store, where apparently they’re due to meet David.

He’s freezing when he gets there, the wind in the air not a help at all. He tugs at his scarf, trying to get more of his cheeks covered, and turns just in time to find Emma approaching, looking every bit as miserable as he feels.

“Let’s go inside,” she says, her face brightening up at the sight of him. She laughs when a gust hits her particularly hard. “It’s freezing out here!”

Her joy makes him smile behind his scarf. He hurries to the door and gets it open for her to push Henry’s stroller inside. Almost instantly, as soon as they’re safe with the door shut, he feels warm relief.

They both sigh contentedly and tug at their scarves so they can see each other.

“I can’t wait to get back home and not have to deal with that,” Emma says with a shiver. She stares at him cautiously. “So what’s going on? Elsa said you and your brother had a… heated conversation.”

Killian’s heart sinks to his belly and he feels embarrassment, for whatever reason. He reaches behind his ear by force of habit and scratches for a second before dropping his arms to his sides.

“Ah, yeah. We… don’t agree on a lot of things lately.”

Emma studies him and nods in understanding. “Charlie and I were the same way when he found out who his soulmate was.” She takes a breath and looks down when her son makes a noise. “I know, kid.” She laughs a little and lifts an eyebrow at him. “Maybe coming inside a toy store was a bad idea.”

Killian gets the feeling that she’d rather not talk about soulmates, something he wholeheartedly agrees with. He’d rather never think about them ever again, but apparently it’s something that’s started following him around recently.

“Dad said he’d meet me in front of this store in ten minutes,” Emma tells Killian. “He’s never late. He’ll probably be early, so it shouldn’t be too long at all.”

“That’s good. I’m finished with my business in town, so I’m ready when he arrives.”

He gestures to the bags in his hands, gifts he’d purchased for the Nolan family when he found out the bar wasn’t serving much food from the menu today.

His companion hums. She flexes her fingers at her sides while she looks around at the toys in the quirky and fun shop. There are a lot of other customers wandering the aisles, as well as children playing with trains and building blocks set out for such activity.

Killian watches Emma move away from him, staying near enough to the window to check on her father, but enough that she can also peruse some toys he imagines Henry would love.

Helpless and feeling just slightly awkward, he follows her. His presence at her side draws her attention to him with a tiny, thin-lipped smile. She’s staring and running her fingers over a fuzzy bunny with floppy ears.

“I had one of these when I was growing up,” she explains, “Charlie ruined it when I was ten by dragging it through the mud and yanking one of his eyes out.”

Killian frowns. “Well, that’s not very nice.”

Emma hums and moves forward, away from the rabbit that clearly carries great emotional meaning for her.

“It’s kind of Henry’s first official Christmas,” she says, “because last year, he was too small to do anything but sleep and eat and poop.”

Killian chuckles. “I see.”

“I bought him way too many toys and I know my mom did too.” Emma shakes her head. “He’s going to be so spoiled.”

He admires the way she softens around the edges when she talks about her son. Often, she seems hard to reach, a little tough after what life must have brought her through.

Killian looks at the wall before them, at the stuffed animals that Henry’s little fingers reach for from the stroller seat. He goes to one and plucks it off of the shelf, giving it to the boy, who receives it happily.

“Uh oh,” Emma teases. “Now you have to get it for him. He won’t be happy if you take it away.”

“He loves it!” Killian beams at the way Henry cuddles the teddy bear. He hasn’t had much experience with children, but Henry makes him want to do everything in his power to get to play with kids more often.

Emma leans in and attempts to take the toy away, but Killian stops her with a gentle hand against her arm. “No need. I’ll buy it for him.”

Emma doesn’t appear to know what to do with that information. Killian peeks up at the lad’s mother and shrugs. “An early Christmas gift from me.”

“You don’t have to.” Emma says.

He shrugs. “I want to.”

She sighs helplessly. “Fine.”

Suddenly, her phone rings, and she frowns before she digs into her pocket to discover who it is. “It’s my mom. Okay, I’ll be right back. You can get the bear.”

He grins and nods. “Thank you for your permission.”

“Watch him?”

Before he can assure her that he has Henry, she steps away from him and to the front of the store, so she can take the call in privacy and not disturb the other shoppers.

With a quick glance her way to make sure she isn’t watching him, Killian murmurs on a smirk, “Don’t worry, Nolan, I’ve got you a gift as well.”

He goes back a few steps until he finds the rabbit she’d lingered on and grabs it from the shelf. It’s soft in his hands. He can see why Emma would have liked it so much.

With Henry still holding the teddy bear, he walks to the register to pay.

“Hi,” the saleswoman, whose nametag reads Aurora, chirps. “All ready to check out?”

“Aye, yes,” Killian gestures to Henry in the stroller. “I’ll buy this as well, but he doesn’t fancy letting go.”

Aurora chuckles. “That’s alright. I’ve got it.” Her eyes go to the head of the store where Emma went and then back to him. “It’s nice to see Emma happy.”

Killian frowns. “Is she usually unhappy?”

“No,” Aurora shakes her head. “It’s just that she’s been through a lot lately.” With a bigger smile than before, she amends, “It’s nice to see Emma’s moved on.”

He opens his mouth to refute the idea that she must have about he and Emma, but he has no time because she tells him how much he owes instead.

As soon as he’s done paying, he pushes Henry’s stroller forward and to the door. He can see David’s truck parked out front, and Emma’s got the door open while she talks to him from the ground.

On a frown, he checks on Henry to make sure he’ll be warm outside. “Alright, you ready, lad? Out we go.”

Henry says something that sounds like, “Weee!”

The thought at least makes him smile. He adjusts his scarf and tugs at the edge of his hat with one hand holding the bags from his shopping while pushing Henry.

When he ends up near Emma, she sighs and turns back to him. “Oh, hi. Sorry, I totally abandoned you guys in there.”

“It’s quite alright. Everything okay?”

Emma’s eyes widen slightly. “Yeah. Yeah, everything’s fine. Mom just wanted to know when we were coming back. No big deal.”

She sets to grabbing Henry out of the stroller and feeling like he should help, he folds the stroller down once Henry’s out.

It takes just as long for Emma to get Henry buckled into his seat as it takes for him to fold up the stroller, so when she turns around and he has the stroller ready to get slid into the backseat, her eyes widen again.

“Oh. You- okay. Thanks.” Emma puts the stroller inside the back of the truck’s cab and then hops up to climb inside.

Killian does the same, entering the front row with ease.

David grins at him. “Howdy. How was town?”

Killian lifts his eyebrows. “Inspired.”

#cs ff #cs au #my writing #mtats

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