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alexandralyman · 5 years ago

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project neverland

Inspired by Colin’s upcoming role on The Right Stuff, I wrote a little 1960s CS test pilot/early NASA AU one shot. I didn’t aim for historical accuracy with this one, it’s more about the feel of the era instead of a literal depiction of the Mercury 7 and their missions.

Summary: Test pilot Captain Killian Jones always liked to go too fast. When he gets asked to join the elite group Colonel David Nolan of NASA has formed to be the first men to fly into space it's all he ever wanted...until he meets his CO's daughter, the beautiful and headstrong Emma Nolan.

Read on ff.net here and on AO3 here

Killian Jones always liked to go too fast.

In fast cars.

In fast planes.

(with fast women)

The NASA shrinks said it was because he had to grow up too quickly, too young when his father finally took off for good and his absence sent Killian hurtling recklessly into adulthood too soon with only his older brother left to try to keep him tethered to Earth. They almost didn't clear him to join Project Neverland, the internal code name given to the mission when someone made a late night crack after one too many pots of coffee about throwing out all the charts and just taking the second star to the right to reach the moon, but he was a hell of a pilot and after rising star Captain Arthur Pendragon, given the call sign "King" because everyone expected him to lead the mission, literally crashed and burned out of training in the Excalibur prototype and actually broke the damn thing clear in half, Colonel David Nolan publicly decided to give Captain Killian "Hook" Jones a second chance to join the team and be the hero.

Alongside a more private warning for Killian to clean up his act if he really wanted to reach the stars.

Killian knew the man wasn't kidding, so he took it to heart and stopped drinking (hard liquor, at least), stopped sleeping around (he'd been given the call sign "Hook" for his ability to hook up with any woman he wanted, including a general's wife, the bold and brash Milah Gold), he cut his hair short and shaved twice a day to keep within NASA's strict grooming requirements for its elite group of test pilots, he wore a suit and tie and smiled politely for the photographers whenever he was told to, doing the whole dog and pony show for the press without a single word of complaint. He wanted to fly to the stars, wanted it more than anything, he wanted to go faster, higher, than any man had gone before and bring home honour and glory for the name Jones.

Dr. Hopper scribbled furiously in his little notebook during their mandatory sessions and went on and on about his clear "father issues" and his "tendency to overcompensate" while Killian tuned him out, thinking instead about the feel of the wind in his hair when he drove with the top down on his 'Vette, rock 'n' roll blaring on the radio and putting the pedal to the metal up and down the Florida coast, or the exhilaration of taking off in one of the sleek new jets, feeling the lift and drag of the wind under the wings as delicate and powerful as a lover's touch along his skin when he aimed straight for the clouds above and pierced the sky fast enough to break the sound barrier. He agreed with whatever the doc said every week just to get out his office, lighting up a cigarette as soon as the door closed and taking a deep inhale to deal with his nerves instead.

Killian was keeping to the straight and narrow as best he could, but he couldn't stop himself from driving way over the limit in the early morning when the roads around the base were clear and empty as far as the eye could see, or taking his boat out just before sunset after a long day of NASA eggheads telling him what he could and couldn't do and blowing off steam by opening up the throttle as far as it would go to ride the waves so fast that the hull barely touched the water. Giving up booze and unhappily married women were one thing, he'd already almost ruined his career more than once over both and he'd learned his lesson the hard way, but the bone-deep need within him to push just a little bit harder, go a little bit faster, always chasing something that lingered just beyond his reach, well, what NASA didn't know couldn't hurt them.

Captain Killian Jones did everything too fast, but when Miss Emma Nolan grabbed the collar of his leather aviator jacket and kissed the smirk right off his face he wanted nothing more than to take it slow for once, since the only thing more off-limits than a superior officer's wife was a superior officer's daughter and Colonel Nolan wasn't just Emma's father, he was Killian's CO, with the power to ground him for good if he knew that his princess had been sneaking out to meet Killian at the underground drag races and after-hours nightclubs in Cocoa Beach. She wore dangerously short miniskirts and pale, frosted lipstick, all the men assigned to Project Neverland were half in love with her and she was the cause of every grey hair on her mother's elegantly coiffed head. Colonel Nolan's illustrious career had taken the family all over, although not always together. Emma had been sent to live with relatives in Boston while her parents were overseas on a remote posting that didn't allow children, reuniting several years later and then taking assignments at several different bases across America until he was handpicked for the most coveted position of them all and the Nolans moved again to Florida.

Emma recited the long list of former addresses without looking at him, staring out at the horizon instead while she sat with her legs folded Indian-style on the beach blanket he kept in the trunk of his car.

"It must have been hard, moving around so much," he offered. Military life was tough on families and tougher on marriages, which was one of the reasons why it had been all too easy to fall into bed with Milah Gold, despite both the ring on her finger and her husband's rank and a bigger reason why he had never followed that track.

"Yeah," she agreed, letting the clean white sand run through her fingers. "If I wanted friends I had to make them quickly, and then as soon as you really got to know someone new orders would come in and either we'd be leaving in a week, or they were shipping out, and sometimes you didn't even get that much notice. Sometimes...sometimes someone you thought you were really close to would leave one night and just never come back."

She said in a way that Killian knew she was referring to someone in particular, someone who'd done just that, walked out of her life one night and broken her heart in the process. But before he could say anything she stood up and took off, sprinting away from the memory on those long legs that looked so fantastic in white go-go boots and that he privately thought would look even better wrapped around his hips instead. She headed straight for the ocean and came to a halt right at the water's edge, waves just licking her toes and lapping at her ankles before rolling back out into the sea. Her hesitance confused Killian at first, Emma was like him, always leaping before she looked, but then she peeled off her lime green two-piece and dropped both halves into the sand, plunging straight into the crashing surf as naked and carefree as any flower child.

Killian Jones was one of the seven best pilots in the entire country, his reflexes were literally off the charts...and yet it took him an embarrassingly long time to pick up his jaw from where it had dropped somewhere around his knees and reach for the knot in his own swim trunks. Turned out there was something that could get his heart beating faster than the sight of the sleek vessel he was slated to fly into space sitting in the hanger at Cape Canaveral, and for the first time in a long time, he didn't look up into the sky when the sun set and the stars appeared.

But a late night skinny dip at a secluded little cove aside, Killian did his damndest to be a gentleman to Emma Nolan, and it wasn't because it was rumoured that the sword her father had mounted to the wall in his office wasn't just ceremonial. It would be easy to fall into bed with Emma, easy for this thing between them to be nothing more than another meaningless fling, but maybe he had been listening more than he realized while Dr. Hopper droned on about how lost boys either grew up and became men, or just grew older and which did he want to be? So he checked his speed and drove much more carefully when she was in his car and didn't let his hands wander when they danced no matter how dark it was in the hole-in-the-wall bars far from the country clubs frequented by his fellow officers and their wives. He made sure to have her home at a reasonable hour afterwards, even though he had to park around the corner and she was going to climb the tree next to her bedroom window and sneak back in anyway.

They got caught one afternoon, not by Colonel Nolan (although there had been a couple of close calls in that regard) but by one of those Florida downpours that came without warning, a sudden and shocking deluge that plastered the clothes to their bodies and ruined Emma's bouffant in a heartbeat before Killian could get his jacket off to serve as a makeshift umbrella. She clung to him while he held it over their heads, cursing a blue streak that would make a sailor blush and her mother faint while he laughed and did his best to shield her with his body. Raindrops slid down her neck and lingered in the little dip of her collarbones when she tilted her head up to the sky, mapping a course on her skin that he longed to follow with his lips until he'd charted every square inch. For someone who was about to take off at speeds men could only dream of a few short years ago and touch the stars, everything he'd ever wanted and more, Killian wished for nothing more now than to make these quiet moments last, for the song to never end when they danced and for the rain to keep falling, to keep them grounded in the here and now.

"You're leaving soon," she said in barely more than a whisper, a statement instead of a question. Suddenly everything was moving too fast, the mission date was measured in days instead of years now and their time together was growing short. The rain stopped, the afternoon showers were heavy but they never lasted long and it ended as abruptly as if someone had turned off a spigot, leaving wet pavement steaming in the sun and nothing to hinder Emma's return to her own car, the cheerful little yellow thing her parents had bought her.

"Yes...but not a day will go by where I won't think of you."

Emma looked at him and he wondered if the dampness on her face was from the rain or from something else. Her lips quirked in a half-smile that made his chest ache.

"Good."

Killian watched while she walked away and got into her car, putting it in gear and driving off. Slowly, at first, until it started to pick up speed. He knew, intellectually, that it couldn't go nearly as fast as his own V8, but it didn't feel that way when she was driving away from him.

He stood completely still until she was gone.

...

The little beach house that he'd rented when he first arrived to join the program went unused, Killian had to cram in his flight hours to stay mission ready after falling behind thanks to a certain blonde distraction, and he was going out daily in the jet that had been nicknamed the Jolly Roger and staying on base at night with other members of the crew. It seemed that whatever he'd had with Emma was over completely, she used to come by on a regular basis to visit her father and once she'd left the colonel's office there were all sorts of storage closets and empty stairwells to hold a more clandestine meeting afterwards. They'd neck frantically against the wall until Killian had to tear himself away to return to the daily physicals and calisthenics and whatever else the brass had scheduled for him, with the waxy taste of Emma's lipstick lingering in his mouth for hours afterwards and his uniform rumpled. But now it was Mrs. Nolan who came to base instead, with her lacquered helmet of dark hair and impeccable manners she was the Jackie Kennedy of NASA, always with a smile and a gracious word for the men under her husband's command.

It would be much more colourful if she knew exactly what her free-spirited daughter had gotten up to with one of them, even though he hadn't crossed that line. They'd come close, too close, moving too fast, too soon, the way Killian did everything else in his life.

Perhaps breaking up before one of them inevitably got broken was for the best.

Life magazine devoted an entire issue to Project Neverland and the men carrying the hopes and dreams of the nation on their shoulders, with each member of the flight crew getting their own double page spread. Captain Graham "Huntsman" Humbert was unsmiling and stoic in his photograph, described as, "the serious, single-minded leader of the elite group and devoted husband to his wife Ruby, as stunning and statuesque as any high-fashion model" while Captain Will "Knave" Scarlet was, "the practical joker, unofficial jester and class clown and a newlywed to boot, to former school librarian Belle, as pretty as her name suggests."

Killian posed alone in his flight suit, with no sweet-faced wife in hat and gloves like the others to stand by his side he was, "the swinging bachelor with the rock 'n' roll attitude and the looks to match, with eyes even bluer than Paul Newman's fixed firmly on the prize."

They were all inundated with fan mail after that, everything from children's crayon masterpieces of themselves meeting little green aliens on the moon to letters from senior citizens who remembered Kitty Hawk and man's first flight, but Killian in particular received a lot of perfumed envelopes decorated with lipstick prints and marked SWAK. Infatuated schoolgirls wrote him mash notes that Scarlet stole and read aloud to the rest of the crew in a high-pitched squeal, suburban housewives offered home-cooked meals with themselves served for dessert, and a Playboy Playmate even sent a few photos too racy to publish with her phone number scrawled on the back.

"Have you rung up Miss November yet, Hook?" Scarlet asked with a wink and a nudge, his caterpillar eyebrows practically doing the Twist on his forehead at the prospect. "Maybe we should start calling you Hef instead."

"Knock it off, Knave," Killian replied around the cigarette in his mouth, trying to snatch the picture back. Scarlet was shorter than he was, but he kept dancing just out of his reach with that smug grin while he continued to make jokes about Killian trading his flight suit for a smoking jacket. Finally, Humbert intervened, smacking Scarlet in the back of the head with one hand and grabbing Miss November away from him with the other.

"Ow! Watch the goods, it's property of Uncle Sam now, you know."

Humbert rolled his eyes. "We all are, dummy, which is why Captain Jones here isn't going to risk catching the clap and getting grounded. Are you, Hook?"

Killian met his expectant look. "Sir, no sir," he said, giving a mock salute and taking the photo delicately between his fingers. He left them to their bickering and headed outside, where he lit another cigarette and then held Miss November over the little flame, bidding her a silent farewell as she turned to ash on the wind before sliding the Zippo back into his pocket. Maybe he would have given her a call, once upon a time, risked a venereal disease and a shot of penicillin in the ass just for the story alone. But Humbert was right, there was too much at stake now. They all had to stay squeaky clean, in more ways than one. He wasn't even supposed to smoke in public anymore, which was even more of a pain when he had to deal with the press. Thankfully access to the base was highly restricted, and the wide swath of tarmac was completely deserted save for him and the line of sleek jets parked in neat rows, under a clouded sky.

The clouds drifted and the moon appeared, just as she had to the ancient sailors who set off in search of riches across Homer's wine-dark sea of old. They'd plotted a course into the unknown with only the stars to guide them and he was about to do the same, on a ship of a different kind but a ship nonetheless, with titanium wings instead of canvas sails to carry them across an ink-black sky, navigate by the stars and then follow them back home.

It wasn't his empty cottage that Killian pictured when he thought of home now, closing his eyes and letting the cigarette burn out untouched, breathing in the clean night air instead and hearing the faint crash of the waves against the distant shore.

...

A decision was made to hold a party at the base a few days before they had to enter pre-mission quarantine, a full on soiree with politicians flown in from Washington to see for themselves where their constituents tax dollars had gone, four star generals, celebrities and the cream of Florida society, and as the guests of honour, the flight crew in full dress uniforms with their brand new commendations pinned over their hearts. Colonel Nolan would lead them in to the fanfare of a naval brass band, each man with his wife displayed proudly on his arm. As the only unmarried one, Killian would escort one of the single women who'd been invited so he wouldn't have to walk alone.

Emma Nolan.

She arrived with her parents, stepping out of the car in a red cocktail dress that matched her red lipstick and drew him straight to her like a beacon.

Ot a warning light.

Maybe it was both.

"Miss Nolan."

"Captain Jones."

He proffered his arm and she accepted, her gloved hand resting lightly on his sleeve. His eyesight was as keen as the rest of his senses and yet everyone else seemed to fade into nothing more than a blur in the background, as far removed as the Earth would be once they broke through the atmosphere and went where none had gone before. The only one he could see clearly as the flashbulbs popped and the band started to play was Emma.

They weren't seated together at the dinner, much to Killian's chagrin while he made polite small talk with the senator's wife on his left and tried not to let his gaze drift too much in her direction. When the floor was cleared for dancing he took a turn with Ruby and one with Belle (neatly evading the rather overzealous senator's wife, a tall redhead from Kansas) and even danced with Mrs. Nolan herself, feeling his back straighten even more under her scrutiny. Her husband might be the one wearing the silver stripes, but she had the bearing of a queen in her golden dress.

"You look lovely this evening, ma'am," Killian said, his posture still stiff and formal despite the modern bossa nova the band was currently playing.

"Thank you, Captain. At ease."

He did relax a fraction at that while her stern expression melted into a smile. Over her shoulder he caught a flash of red and saw that Emma was dancing with her father, on the next pass Mrs. Nolan saw them as well and her face softened even more.

"Part of me is glad he's not twenty years younger or he'd be the one leading this mission instead of overseeing it. As exciting as this all is, don't forget about those of us back down on the ground waiting for you to come back."

Humbert drifted by with Ruby, her arm wrapped tight around his neck and her cheek resting against his chest. The wedding ring on his hand shone under the lights, his fingers splayed across her slim back and looking like there was nowhere on Earth or beyond that he'd rather be.

"I'll bring them all back safe and sound, ma'am, I promise."

Mrs. Nolan's eyes were a lot like her daughter's, a deep gemstone green that reminded him of distant galaxies they'd only caught the faintest glimpse of from Earth. They fixed him in place for a long moment, making his step falter and lose the beat while everyone else continued to dance.

"Not just them, Killian. You come back safe and sound. That's an order."

She had no real authority over him, but as the song ended and she patted him affectionately on the cheek, Killian was tempted to salute her as neatly as he would a general. He settled for giving a respectful dip of his chin instead, wondering as she walked back to her family if maybe, perhaps, his relationship with Emma hadn't been nearly as secret as he thought it was.

"Yes ma'am," he whispered, even though she was too far away to hear.

A few (or several) champagne toasts later everyone was invited into the hanger to view the spacecraft itself up close. Killian hung back, he'd already seen it, after all, more times than he could count, and as tipsy politicians eagerly followed the NASA eggheads through the doors to gape and gawk at what had built in this little corner of the world for the glory of all mankind, he noticed a familiar woman in a red dress with a bottle of champagne dangling from her fingers, heading the other way.

He went after her instead.

"You know, if you mean to christen the vessel with that, love, it's actually that way."

"Hmm," Emma mused, her red lips pursing as she appeared to contemplate the thought. "It's for good luck, right?"

Killian took it from her and swigged right from the bottle, feeling the bubbles pop on his tongue. "For luck," he said, and he was lucky that it didn't break or tip over when he set it down, blindly thanks to the woman in his arms, her mouth hot under his and her fingers fumbling with the buttons on his jacket. She got it open just as he hefted her up in his arms, fingers splaying over his heart while her legs went around his waist and a shoe hit the floor with a thump. They were in a darkened conference room, the walls strewn with maps and schematics of the most modern undertaking ever dreamed while the most ancient and primal of needs clawed at his belly, and he carried her to the couch in the corner that had seen many a hastily-snatched catnap during the late nights of the Project, but never an assignation quite like this one. For all the optimism and hope that they all professed publicly, privately everyone knew that the mission was dangerous, and there was a more than infinitesimal chance that none of them would make it back. Humbert knew it, Scarlet, despite the juvenile sense of humour, knew it, Colonel Nolan knew it and Killian did as well. The fierce claim in Emma's kiss as he fumbled with his belt told him that she was more than aware of that grim possibility, the squeeze of her thighs around his hips was an anchor, one he would remember later once gravity faded and he was floating free. As dangerous as this was it was more than worth the risk, and when he crossed that final barrier it was like both braving the unknown and coming home in one fell swoop, his face pressed to her neck to muffle his groan and her nails digging into his shoulders. The little half-moons she left in his skin had faded by morning, when all of NASA was hung over except for Captain Killian Jones and Miss Emma Nolan had gone home with a pilfered bottle of champagne and without her girdle.

She still cut quite the figure in her dress, even if it was wrinkled just a tad.

They were each allowed to bring one small personal item with them on the mission, something Dr. Hopper had said was to remind them of whatever it was they held most dear. A photo of a loved one, perhaps, or a symbol of their faith, the choice was up to them. The shrink had nodded approvingly when Killian had shown him what he'd finally decided to bring in their last session, leaving his little notebook closed for once. It didn't weigh very much, it couldn't, since it cost a literal fortune for every pound of weight being sent into orbit, and tucked easily into the little zippered pocket on his flight suit set aside for the purpose.

It was therefore the most expensive engagement ring in all of history.

Maybe he was moving too fast, but when he caught sight of Emma on the other side of the glass, come with her mother and the wives to say their final goodbyes on the morning he was going to leave the Earth and take the second star to the right, he knew he'd finally found what he'd been chasing for so long.

#cs ff #cs fic #my fic #cs au fic #project neverland

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retrocelly · 6 years ago

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I Didn't Mean It Pt.2 (Nolan Patrick)

Word Count: 1,693

Part One

Your break from Nolan had given you the time that you needed to think about your relationship. However, the more consideration you did, the more confused you felt. Over the past two weeks, you'd been enjoying the space that you had to spend time with friends and focus on yourself. Although regardless of how happy you felt in the moment, your mind always seemed to drift back to the rosy-cheeked, long-haired boy you’d left behind. The one you had waiting on you. You knew that it was cruel to make Nolan wait for so long without even a text sent between you. Despite that, he had been respectful of your wishes. He didn’t call you when he was feeling down or text you when he’d seen something that reminded him of you. He hadn’t even commented anything on your latest instagram post. And while you were grateful to him for staying true to his word and giving you time to think, you missed his presence in your life. All you were surrounded with now were the gentle reminders of how much you loved Nolan and how much he loved you in return.

But now those memories were tainted with a sour taste left behind in your mouth and a dull ache in your heart. Nolan’s words had left you feeling unsure of yourself; like an outsider in your own skin. Despite the fact that he told you he didn’t mean what he’d said, you couldn’t help but wonder if that was a lie. Maybe he did mean it and he truly didn’t find you beautiful and he’d only told you otherwise as a way to spare your feelings. Maybe he spent his free time talking to all the women he found more attractive than you. You’d spent days going over those thoughts - analyzing them, crying over them, and hating them. But no matter how many tears you shed, they just didn’t make sense.

Nolan was a loving, doting boyfriend. He paraded you in front of his friends and consistently made you feel loved. When you’d first met Nolan after getting sat next to him on a plane, he’d leaned over and told you “if this place has more girls that look like you, maybe I shouldn’t leave after all.” You’d laughed at the line and he had apologized for the cringe-factor of it almost immediately. That first interaction just didn’t fit with the idea that he hadn’t found you “love at first sight kind of hot.” So, maybe he didn’t mean what he said to the guys after all. Maybe it was just Nolan’s profoundly stupid way of seeming less lovestruck than he actually was.

Nolan’s time away from you was pure hell. He didn’t like waking up and knowing that you wouldn’t be next to him. He felt isolated without the ability to talk freely with you. The hardest part for him, though, was the guilt he felt after explaining to his mom that you wouldn’t be staying with him for a while. She knew how much you meant to Nolan. Hell, she was in Philadelphia when he’d pulled her aside and tentatively asked “uh, mom, how should I tell a girl that I love her for the first time?”

Nolan spent every second of the day with a lump in his throat and a clouded head. It was like he didn’t remember how to live without you. He had thought that you would feel the same, but when the first week of your break had come to a close and you hadn’t even called him, he got worried. A few days later when he first opened instagram and was met with a photo of you smiling widely on the couch of your favorite bakery, his heart broke all over again. At that point, Nolan was sure that he’d ruined it. He had been an idiot and you’d finally realized that you deserved better than him (something he’d known and worried about for the entirety of your relationship). It took everything in his power not to text you then - to pour out his heart all over again and tell you how sorry he was - but he knew that that wasn’t his place anymore. He knew that he needed to respect your decision no matter how much it hurt him.

When there was a knock on Nolan’s apartment door, the one that he had once shared with you, he assumed that it was just one of the boys coming to check on him - something that had become a regular occurrence. Without moving from his place on the couch, Nolan shouted “yeah, come in!” He didn’t look away from the TV right away, expecting that whoever his intruder was would just make sure he was still alive before leaving. However, Nolan didn’t hear TK’s heavy footsteps or Claude’s nagging to clean up. So, he looked up, his bloodshot eyes meeting yours for the first time in what felt like ever.

The contrast between the two of you couldn’t have been more stark. Nolan was slumped back on the couch in sweatpants and a dirty t-shirt with unwashed hair. You were standing in the doorway wearing an outfit that Nolan hadn’t seen before and a fresh haircut that made you look so put-together. In Nolan’s eyes, you were everything he had been missing and it hurt his heart to see you. He stood quickly, trying hard to look like he hadn’t spent the past two weeks sitting in his own guilt.

“Are you here to get your stuff?” Nolan asked through a scratchy throat, “I assumed you’d be by at some point to pick it up.”

You gave him a quizzical look, but he never met your eye-line. Nolan wanted to make this break-up as swift as possible so that he could just try and forget what a fuck-up he’d been.

“What?” You responded, causing Nolan to look at you.

“I mean, that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To end this with me?” His voice betrayed him, cracking as his cheeks grew hot.

“No, Nolan, that’s not why I’m here.”

You moved toward the tall man, giving him a gentle smile as he looked at you with wide eyes and an open mouth. Once you were standing in front of him, you reached your hand out to brush against his, earning a wide grin from Nolan.

“Really?” He asked, tears threatening to fall.

You didn’t speak, not trusting your voice. Instead, you nodded up at him. It wasn’t even a full second before Nolan had you in a hug, his hands around your waist. He had his head buried into your shoulder as he lifted you off the ground, your arms immediately going around his neck to keep you against him. Your eyes welled over at the relief of being back in Nolan’s strong grip. You giggled at the vibration against your skin as Nolan mumbled incoherently against you. He lifted his head from your shoulder, not loosening his hold on your body.

“Oh my god, baby, I am so, so sorry - you don’t even know. And I know that I probably can’t make it up to you, but if it helps, life has been horrible without you.”

You had your hands on either side of Nolan’s face as he rambled, comfort flooding your senses as you looked at him.

“Nol,” you quieted, “I missed you too. But I need you to know that what you said really hurt me. I want to be able jump back in and be able to trust you again. And I think I can do that because I know how much you love me and I believe what you said about it being a lie. I just want you to know that if you ever do anything like that again, I won’t be able to simply come back to you.”

Nolan nodded at you, a grin fighting its way onto his face,

“I know, baby. I’ll never be able to take it back, but I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you and proving that I didn’t mean it. I love you more than anything in the world and I’d do anything to show you that. You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.”

You gave Nolan another tearful nod as you noticed his eyes dart to your lips. He leaned down slowly, not wanting to cross any boundaries. You closed the gap, your lips falling instantaneously into a familiar rhythm with Nolan’s. The kiss was feverish, full of everything that had happened within the past two weeks. Nolan moaned into your mouth, but you recognized it as one of appreciation rather than something sexual. When you pulled away, Nolan pouted and leaned in again, causing you to laugh.

“Not so fast, hotrod,” you chastised, “how about you clean up this mess and clean yourself up and then we can talk about making up for lost time.”

Nolan groaned, but dropped his hands from your waist and drug his heels to the living room. He slowly moved around the room, straightening things up and sighing at you dramatically. You laughed at his antics, shaking your head when he wiggled his eyebrows at you. After the room looked organized again, a lightbulb seemed to go off in Nolan’s head.

“Okay, compromise!” He shouted.

You raised your eyebrows expectantly at him, crossing your arms.

“I just cleaned up the house, so how about instead of waiting for me to take a shower and stuff before we make up for lost time, we can kill two birds with one stone and make up for lost time while I’m taking a shower.”

You shifted on your feet as Nolan looked at you, pretending to contemplate your answer. You could see him making his way toward you as you stared at the ceiling in fake thought. Suddenly, Nolan had you thrown over his shoulder as he made his way to the bathroom, ignoring your shrieks and laughs in protest. Safe to say, Nolan made sure that you knew just how hot he thought you were.

#nolan patrick #nolan patrick imagine #nhl imagines #hockey imagines #philadelphia flyers imagine

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smolbeandrabbles · 5 years ago

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Glow - Danny Rayburn x Reader (Bloodline)

☃❄!Holiday Fic 2!☃❄

I STG every time I see GIFs of him I’m like “Let me write for you some more...”

Author’s Note: Hello! Welcome to the second Holiday fic! So, spoilers, Danny is getting two... Because I realise that whenever I write him I always automatically go back to the familiarity of my 10 part series. Rather than, y’know, giving him another reader.

So whilst my friend and I called me out on it, we came up with this plot! Glow ~ Brett Eldredge I’m officially pulling out all the original songs rather than Holiday classics... I’m sorry! 🤣🤣 Disclaimer: Lyrics not mine / Bloodline characters not mine / So - This is basically made up of throwing random questions at Midwesterner’s and some stuff I did when I spent Christmas with family in Chicago...! Premise: On a trip back to your parents, and the Christmas alcohol run, you figure Danny needs to learn about Midwest weather the hard way... Words: 2524 Warnings: Swearing / Drinking

This fire is nice But so are your eyes They twinkle when you smile Ain't felt this warm in a while That northern star Shines straight from your heart Pour on the bourbon it's gettin' late Let's melt all the frost on the window pane Let's never let this moment slip away Just stay, just stay You look good in the light of my Christmas tree You and the mistletoe and me You are my sunshine over a field of snow And I love to watch you glow Come on, just glow Come on and glow, just glow

---

The initial idea wasn’t really to have it pan out like this. You and Danny were going to have a fairly quiet Christmas - at least, that’s what you’d talked about. Maybe see Nolan, maybe go out to his restaurant... but you knew you weren’t going to see his family. Only, a few weeks before Christmas that plan went up in smoke, because when your parents invited you back home, and you said you wanted to stay with your boyfriend, they had simply said bring him too!

Your first thought was you might still get away with not going (not that you didn’t want to see your family of course. But you knew Danny needed you as much here), was that Danny wouldn’t warm to the idea at all and would rather stay home. Not the case. “Oh? Really!” “Yeah that’s what they said...” “That’d be nice-! I mean; you’re from all the way Midwest - I’ve obviously done a little moving from the Keys to here... but... I’ve never been out of State..! This will be nice!” You raised an eyebrow at him; “...You do realise that it’s gonna be freezing. Right? Snow, ice... you name it. You sure you can handle it?! Being a Florida native!!?” “I can handle it.” Danny gave a not of assurance “You ever seen snow and ice!?” He laughed; “Yeah-! You know we get freak weather down here.” “Storms and hurricanes are not blizzards and below freezing.” But Danny insisted; “I got this!” “Geeez... you better have a winter coat, and a good scarf and gloves!! And I still think you should be prepared to eat your words!!”

***

And so he did. Although Danny was prepared to put on a brave face about it when it was cold but dry, not a speck of white in sight, and refused to complain even though it was obvious he wasn’t exactly enjoying it. “Missing your Florida heat-!?” You couldn’t help but tease him “Nah-! It’s just Winter Sun!!” You let that one go. Fairly certainly that Midwesterners would call a trip to Florida ‘Winter Sun’… wait, was that the joke?

He got on with your parents and siblings just fine, which is exactly what you wanted, thinking on his family - but Danny never made himself hard to get on with. Just hard to get to know... There was a lot deep within that he carried everywhere he went; and Danny liked to hide this with a (mostly) positive outlook. Although, that fared better in his usual sunshine. Of course, once he’d volunteered his services for cooking, the more culinary skilled in your family jumped on that; and you knew Danny was going to spend the majority of Christmas Day showing off. Ah, I’m just a chef – He tried to play it down, with a beaming smile, but you obviously weren’t falling for it. Yes, try head of one of the best restaurants in Miami. And that wasn’t just your opinion.

But then it snowed. And whilst he could look at it with a kind of childish wonder falling outside your window, and the way the sun sparkled upon it - when your mom asked you to walk down the road and stock up on alcohol, that was when reality set in. Because half way down the road - as if he wasn’t already complaining - the snow started falling again. It was light and not too bad for you; you were comfortable in a light jacket, you did have a scarf; but it was cotton instead of wool and looked like something you might be able to accessorise with in summer. Danny wasn’t. “How are you anywhere NEAR warm!” “I told you it was going to be freezing!” He jabbed a finger at you, pulling his hat down further over his ears, “You clearly don’t count this as freezing!” You wound your arms around his and put up your umbrella to catch the snow, and stop it falling on your already moody and cold Florida Boy. “I just think you run a little hotter down there.” That at least picked up his smirk and he nudged you; “Damn right.” You nudged him back; “Manners! Or I’ll shove you in it! Then you’ll know what cold really is…” “If you f**king dare-!” Danny had you laughing again; at how red his cheeks were, and his nose. “You look cold.” “Thanks! I am!!!” He buried his face in his scarf and huddled his body, in order to make best of his own warmth, putting his hands into his pockets. “Poor baby...” “It’s not funny! I’m suffering!” “Just seems like someone didn’t listen!” “I listened! I’m prepared! We don’t have to walk this!”

True enough, you could have had a warm cozy 5 minute car ride... “Well, now you can tell all your friends you’ve had the authentic Midwestern winter experience, including being outside on a walk in snow... you may exaggerate in depth... and didn’t die!” He grumbled again, “I could well die by the time we’ve finished!” You tsk’d him “Don’t be such a drama queen!” “And you’re expecting me to carry liquor back-!” “Would be helpful - will also warm you up...” you turned back to him with a grin “and we can’t very well drink and drive...”

You kept walking, but he slowed down, dragging his feet and trudging on purpose to really hit home with you how “difficult” this was for him. “...That’s not getting you there any faster!” “Well, where the f**k is this place!!?” You pointed ahead of you, “Just on that corner! Hey! You could run! That would warm you up!” Instead of saying a variant, and probably much less polite version, of screw you Danny opted to shove you instead. To his own peril, because it was a little too hard, and you ended up on the ground, in the snow.

He was laughing hard right away, which you supposed stopped him from grumbling but it also distorted his apology somewhat; “Sh-shit! I’m sorry!!!” You took about 5 full seconds to look up at him and react - “—oh! You are so dead!!!” “No! No! No!” He shrunk back - but too late as you grasped at the snow around you and threw it - “Stop!!” No way in hell you were about to stop though; as you scrambled to your feet and shook the snow from your clothing “Danny!!!” It was a whine. “Well I told you-!” You threw another lump of snow at him, he didn’t tell you anything, if he’d quit being such a drama queen you’d be there and back by now - “Stop! Dammit!!” “Oh no-! You full on deserve it-!”

And so, even though he was bitterly cold. The two of you wound up in a snow ball fight. The actual purpose of this walk soon forgotten. You were lucky no one else was around with the amount of yelling and laughing that was going on. Volume button clearly on max. Eventually your cold - and getting colder - boyfriend bent forward with his hands on his knees, exhausted. He took deep breaths after nearly every word, “That’s enough... I’m done... oh god...” You folded your arms, and teased him, ready to proclaim your victory; “Thought it might warm you up!” Danny held up his hand, “Maybe, a little. But, you’ve worn me out.” “Ahhh-! This must be the second most fun way to do that...” You couldn’t help your grin He ended up bending lower as he laughed “oh... god! Don’t! It hurts!” You approached him slowly, with a triumphant swagger to your step; “Do you give, Florida boy? Do I win?” “I didn’t say that.” “Do I win!?” You’d give him one more chance to give the right answer. He straightened “No.”

That was also his mistake, because the next thing Danny knew you’d wrestled him to another bent position and ice was sliding nicely down the back of his shirt. “No! NO!!” He almost shrieked, “F**k! Y/N!! Oh god!” “There. That ought to perk you up!” “Oh GOD!! Get it out!!” “Tell me I win and I’ll consider it!” “AH!!!!” It was certainly amusing to watch him twist his body to shake it out of his shirt quickly, to no avail. “Danny.” “I give, I give!!!” He flailed around trying to remove the ice himself - and by the time you’d got him to hold still to find it, it had pretty much melted.

“I hate you.” He was once again huddled up, looking sorry for himself, as you both continued your walk. You were still smiling, replaying his helpless shrieks in your head; “I love you too. It’ll be warm inside you’ll dry off in no time!” “Then we gotta go back!” “At which point the alcohol will warm us-!” You patted his chest; “Danny we got this covered!!”

In fact you spent a good hour perusing the shelves of the store, and he seemed to perk up a bit. Danny wasn’t a wine connoisseur himself, but you knew he knew how to pair dishes and wines. And as he selected them, equally enjoyed telling you how all the flavours were going to work. Then got to laugh at you going a little mad with the mixers. “Whiskey-!” “I knew you’d drag me down here!” “Hush...” He traced his fingers over the shelves, musing over the bottles “What, are you gonna top shelf me?” “If they have it...” “This better be the one you rave about.” He stopped with a smirk, and turned back to you, fingers on the bottle; “It’s gonna blow your mind.”

Funnier still was the cashiers face when he saw all the alcohol, and you had to swear it was for your whole family to last all of Christmas and New Year. And to top that, when he politely asked for your ID and turned to Danny; Your partners face was a picture; “You’re KIDDING-!?” You eyed him; “Tell me you have it.” The look he gave you was murder, “Have you seen my face-!?” The cashier laughed; “If you have it, it wouldn’t go amiss sir...” Danny scoffed and handed it over, “I know you’re gonna try to make me feel good about looking under 21. I’m still insulted...” “That seems to be in order!” He grinned and handed it back to Danny who was still grumbling.

You were staring intently at his face as you left the store; “Fancy getting ID’d in your 40s...” “Clearly my youthful good looks-!” “Amen.” He nudged you at your sarcasm; “Hey! We don’t need a repeat of earlier with all these bottles!” “Oh, I think we do! This time ice is going down your shirt!” “Oh I have no doubt you’ll get revenge..!” You smirked gently “Damn f**kin’ right!”

** By the time you got back the sky has cleared up. But Danny once again looked cold and worse for wear - so you set the fire going and bundled him in blankets on the sofa with a scarf. (After changing his shirt, of course). “Too early to pour whiskey?” “I wouldn’t say so...” You snuggled up with him but he was still grumbling away; “If I get a cold cuz of you-!” “Oh-! It’s just woe and suffering always with you, ain’t it Danny Rayburn.” “Yes. Actually. Especially with you...” You fell silent as to the mock seriousness of his tone. “Geez I’m kidding-!” He wound his arms around you and kissed you gently “.... I love you. I wouldn’t change this for anything.” You pretended to huff; “Just checking!” Danny pulled you further to him and placed his head to yours, “You never should need to check though... should you? I would hope you knew.” “Danny...” Your voice was tender, because the last thing you wanted to do was lead him down that road, especially at this time of year; “I do... I do know.”

You shared a gentle, sweet kiss, before you were interrupted. By a sneeze. “Oh shit!” You hoped you hadn’t spoken too soon. “If this is a cold! It’s on you!” “At least whiskey is medicinal!” You grinned, but he didn’t find it all that funny. “A cold for Christmas! Perfect!” “I think you’re overreacting to one sneeze Daniel Rayburn; I was way less dressed than you.” “You didn’t have ice stuck down your shirt!!” “Okay fair, I take the blame for that.” He huddled further into the blankets and you really did hope that it wasn’t a proper cold setting in. Or you would never hear the end of it. You sat and cuddled and continued to talk quietly, you running your hands through his hair and giving him soft kisses every so often.

The next interruption was on behalf of your parents. Looking from you, not really all that bothered with the fire or blanket, to Danny, blankets and pillows and still wrapped in a scarf and as close to the fire as he could get himself on the couch, and sighed. Typical all they had asked for was an alcohol run. “What have you done to him!” Both of you looked up and you held up your hands defensively - “Nothing!” “Ha!! Nothing!!” He laughed “Sounds like something!” “It was a snow ball fight, no big.” “She fights dirty!” You gasped and nudged him hard; “I was raised right!” “Ah, well you’re a fighter, I knew that one already...” Your parents both gasped in mock horror at the attitude of their daughter; “Y/N!” “Oh come on! He needs to get used to the Midwest!” “Gently!” “What-!? No! Throw him out in the snow and leave him there for a few hours!” You laughed, “Then he’ll be a natural! That’s the only way you learn!” Danny narrowed his eyes as you, folding his arms; “Learned that the Miami hard way, did you?” You turned back to him, “You should ask the past me and her sunburn that.” He sucked his breath between his teeth; “Ow! Yeah I feel ya!”

Your parents brought you back to the real conversation; “How’s the alcohol looking!” “Good! Think we cleared the store!” Danny raised his glass “Thank you! Both of you-! And Danny, you don’t have to put up with her..!” “Oh!” He smiled “I rather believe she puts up with me... she’s no trouble.” He grinned, with a little wink; “Well... maybe a bit of trouble!”

Your parents left you to it after that, and eventually his warmth and being cuddled here with him and blankets and the fire got the better of both of you. So when they returned a little bit later to call you both for dinner, you were both lying tangled in each other’s arms on the couch. Danny’s around you; protective, and yours arms around him; comforting... “Do we wake them?” “No... leave them to it...” “They’re good together don’t you think?” “Good for each other. I would say. It’s nice to see!” “Maybe she could have introduced him to the snow a little nicer.” “Ah... I think... if we know anything... Danny didn’t mind one bit!”

---

🌨 2 down, 4 to go! 🌨 But still happy to take on any requests! 😊

#Bloodline #Danny Rayburn #Danny Rayburn x Reader #(I don't use x reader tags enough...!!)#Basically I just want the image of Danny huddled in winter clothes. Thank you.#94 #Ben Mendelsohn #Linzi Writes #She doesn't even really look like Lili in my mind... I don't know who she is...#Glow by Brett Eldredge is a tune!#A cheesy T U N E but a TUNE.#The ID thing actually happened to my friend. That's real.#For the record I get ID'd for absolutely everything so that makes no sense!#my paragraphing in this fic is wild!#He's STILL the Mendo with the not-Mendo face

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minimonojoon · 6 years ago

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so i was tagged by @kyut-tea (thanks, thanks a lot <3333 i love these games dfkjndgkjdn so much fun dfjgndf) and also made a banner (kyu you inspired me!). i’m tagging @94hixtape , @sleeepysugaa , @wildbeest55, @lady-shurley if you want to do it of course!! if you don’t want to, that’s completely fine <3

last

- drink: water

- call: 4 missed calls from my dad lmao

- text: a friend on our gc where she showed me her cat (so cute dkgjndf)

- song u listened to: thunderclouds by labyrinth, sia and diplo (my current obsession bye)

- time u cried: this afternoon after a fight w my mom but couldn’t relish all the tears lmao

have u ever

- dated someone twice: nope

- kissed someone & regretted it: no

- been cheated on: no

- lost someone special: yes

- been depressed: yes lmao i am right now, but trying to figure things out

- gotten drunk & thrown up: yes but let’s say i tried to threw up to feel better but didn’t succeed lol

favorite colors

1. all pastel colors, no matter what

2. warm colors

3. ok yes basically I love all the bright colors ok

in the last year have u

- made any new friends: yes!!

- fallen out of love: nope

- laughed so hard that u cried: oh yes fjgfd

- found out someone was talking abt u: no

- found out who ur friends were: meaning the ones who stick with u no matter what? well yeah

- kissed someone on ur fb friends list: ahah no

general

- how many ppl from ur fb friends do u know irl: most of them?? I only have ppl I know irl there

- do u have any pets: not right now

- do u want to change ur name: no, not really

- what did u do for ur birthday last year: last year was pretty chill, i went out with some friends in our favorite Korean restaurant and then we bought some useless shit in tiger; dfjkgndf sorry but this year was amazing bc I like had three birthday parties in a span of a week and couldn’t be happier, one of the three was a surprise birthday party and my non kpop friends blasted bts for me :’)

- what were u doing last night at midnight: I was watching just between lovers before miserably falling asleep lol

- what time did u wake up today: 8.07 am

- what is something u can’t wait for: get back w my friends, graduate, to move abroad (japan or australia lmao), to lose all the weight I need to, to finally be able to be happy and peaceful with myself

- have u ever talked to a person named tom: uhmmmmmm no

- something that gets on ur nerves: definitely being ignored/not listened when i’m trying to talk directly to you

- most visited website: tumblr, twitter, wordreference lmao

- hair color: brown

- short hair or long hair: short (or medium long lmao)

- do u have a crush on someone: raw nerve djkgdnf but yes

- what do u like abt urself: my eyes and being honest w others lmao

- want any piercings: no, i don’t particularly like them

- blood type: zero negative

- nicknames: let’s say on tumblr my nickname is liz

- relationship status: single

- zodiac sign: taurus

- pronouns: she/her

- fave tv shows: the 100, games of thrones, the good place, basically all the good historians tv shows and comedies along the way lmao

- tattoos: I don’t have one yet, but be sure I already have three I want to be tattoed on my skin eheh

- right handed or left handed: right handed

- ever had surgery: no

- sport: when I was younger my mom always convinced me into doing some sports, I did swimming, gym activities and idk like running and other stuff, but always left then I did dance and now I’m a runner (and I love it!!)

- vacation: everywhere, where there’s something to visit, to discover, to know about that I didn’t before. definitely best place so far visited was netherlands

- trainers: I want a new pair of shoes for running but I have to wait until December for them sob

more general:

- eating: nothing, i fucked up my diet (again) today bc first me and my family went to the beach and eat watermelon then decided at 3 pm that typical southern italian food (which is not light lol) was the best choice for a late lunch ajfknsdfj

- drinking: water

- i’m about to watch: nothing right now, but surely just between lovers or some anime late in the evening

- waiting for: losing all the weight I need to, be self-confident, be happy, to find inspiration again, see my friends

- want: read above lmao plus exercising and finish writing all my wips and post something I (might) slightly like instead of getting angry with myself and quit everything bc it’s bullshit badly written, but also (this stupid but whatever) talk to ppl here and struggle together for anythink, being bts related or writing

- get married: if it happens, yes. marriage isn’t easy and strong and healthy relationships require patience and willpower (and lots of other things), but I’m willing to do it for the right person.

- career: i’m already struggling right now, i still don’t know what i want to do and that’s making me nervous for when i’ll have to choose my master degree but I JUST WANT A COOL JOB AND MAKE MONEY

which is better:

- hugs or kisses: both, but only from people i really feel comfortable with

- lips or eyes: eyes, if it’s kim seokjin also lips

- shorter or taller: both :’)

- older or younger: don’t care

- nice arms or stomach: idk??

- hookup or relationship: i’m too shy and socially awkward to have a hookup w someone, so…

- troublemaker or hesitant: dkjgnd forever hesitant

have you ever:

- kissed a stranger: HAHAHAHAH nice one but no

- drank hard liquor: yes

- lost glasses: not yet (…)

- turned someone down: yes

- sex on first date: no (and i don’t want to)

- broken someone’s heart: no

- had your heart broken: yes

- been arrested: no

- cried when someone died: yes

- fallen for a friend: uhm, no, not really

do you believe in:

- yourself: working on it, but currently… big fat no

- miracles: yes!

- love at first sight: i can believe you like someone at first sight for their appearance, but love?? nah

- santa claus: wish i still believe in him :(

- kiss on first date: yes and no? idk, depends on how long you know the person you date

- angels: idk, but if they do probably mine is currently having a break down and any other laughing bc of what i do lmao

other:

- best friend’s name: i’ll say in my native language corresponds to the english daisy (yup, the flower)

- eye colour: brown

- fave movie: harry potter series, back to the future (only the first not the saga!!), the holiday, Dunkirk (I loved that movie), basically any historian well made movie, batman trilogy (directed by Christopher Nolan), marvel movies

- fave actor: BOB MORLEY OWNS MY HEART, also ELIZA TAYLOR my babe, but also Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman and idk, no other name came to my mind

#tag game #omg kyu thank you so much I WAS WAITING FOR THIS SINCE I JOINED TUMBLR DGJKDNFGKJDFN #i love asking game they're so fun skjgndkgjdn #also i'll tag random people bc i literally have only mutuals i don't talk to here except for two ppl #liz chitchat #ask game

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woodelf68 · 7 years ago

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A Life Worth Living

A fix-it/improving fic for OUAT 7x04, “Beauty”. Fills in some of the blank space between Gideon’s first birthday and the scene on the bridge. I thought this was going to be a short ficlet, but it just kept growing... Wordcount: 12, 830. Rated G.

“Gideon, wait!” Belle called as their son dashed ahead and clattered up and over the steep curve of the high-arched bridge. “Wait!”

He paused at the bottom, looking back, already tall for his age at ten. “I won’t go far,” he promised. “Come on, Tabby!”

Unlike her brother, it was obvious that seven year-old Tabitha, with her small, fine bones, was going to take after her parents. She took an automatic step after Gideon, then looked back at her mother. “May I?”

Belle sighed. “Oh, all right. But be careful, and stick with your brother. Stay within range of our voices!”

Tabitha beamed her current gap-toothed smile and took off after Gideon, her dark hair flying out behind her. Her brother waited to grab hold of her hand before they both disappeared into the trees at the far end of the bridge.

Rumpelstiltskin chuckled. “They’re just excited. Children aren’t much for scenic views, no matter how stunning.”

“Well, I am,” said Belle, taking his hand in hers. “Did you know that some books say that this bridge is older than time itself? For thousands of years, people have made sacrifices here, making their wishes in this very river. Imagine that kind of ancientness.”

Rumpelstiltskin smiled and stroked her hair, playing with the one white lock that sprang from her temple. “I don’t have to. It’s not the only one to see the generations come and go.”

“Oh, Rumpel -- “ Belle began in exasperation, turning more fully to face him.

“Belle, I’ve been alive for many, many years, and of those years, the last ten have been the happiest I could have ever imagined.” His eyes were full of love as he looked at her.

Belle smiled and ran her hands over his arms, her fingers curling into the soft fabric of his sleeves. “And we’re just beginning.”

“I know. But there’s only one way I want to llve this life from now on -- as a mortal.”

“What are you saying?” Her heart seemed to stop for a split second, then began to beat faster, in hope and excitement.

“I have a confession. This isn’t just another stop on our adventure; I started thinking after we first read about this place. But I didn’t want to say anything until I’d seen the bridge for myself, until I’d felt whether there was magic here. And there is, Belle, I can feel the energy of all those wishes here. It’s like a quiet hum all around us. I’ve been a slave to the Dark One for too long, and now I can only hope that this river can grant me my one and only wish -- “ He reached out and caressed her shoulder. “To live a singular, natural life with you.”

“There’s nothing that I would love more.” Belle took both of his hands in hers and squeezed. “But how?”

“True Love’s Kiss can break any curse,” he quoted, smiling.

“But we kiss all the time.” Her face showed her puzzlement.

“Not with intent. Not in a place imbued with the power of belief built up over the centuries. And not when I was fully, 100% sure that I could live without the power, that I didn’t need it anymore.”

It had been years since he’d regularly used magic, ever since that time during Gideon’s first year when Belle had come upon him using his magic to make Gideon’s stuffed animals romp around him, their boy laughing with delight. She’d smiled at the sight, but later that night had turned to him with a face that showed that she been been thinking.

“All the magic that you do, it all comes with a price, yes? What if that price has been taken out of our relationship, caused us to make stupid decisions, to hide things, to lie and doubt one another? I know that we’re in a good place right now, but every time I look at Gideon I think of how we almost lost him, how lucky we are to be given this second chance. And I don’t want anything to screw it up.”

Rumpelstiltskin had blanched, his gut clenching with a sick feeling of dread. Because it was possible. Storybrooke had finally settled down after the Black Fairy’s defeat, and he had had no call for any potions or spells. But magic had become ingrained into his very nature, and some times it was easier to poof someplace rather than walking, or light a fire with a wave of his hand, or use his powers like he had this afternoon, to entertain a four-month-old baby. They were all small things, things that he barely had to think about -- but Belle was right. They added up. And they were unnecessary.

He had vowed then and there to stop using magic unless it was absolutely necessary. What if the very thing that he felt allowed him to protect Belle and Gideon had in fact been extracting its price from their happiness all along?

It had been hard, centuries of habit needing to be broken, but he had done it. By the time they had left Storybrooke on their travels, it was no longer his first instinct to do things by magic. Outside of Storybrooke, in a world that was virtually without magic -- not quite, because he had felt it, in a few places they’d visited -- it hadn’t even been an option. They’d started their travels in the United States before moving on to other countries. Whenever they’d felt the need to rest and recharge their batteries -- travelling being tiring even without a baby in tow -- they had found a place they’d liked, and settled down for a while. There had been the beach house they’d rented for a month in California, and the rustic wood cabin in the Adirondack Mountains of New York -- except it was probably too big to be called a cabin, but it had felt like one. They’d settled for an entire year in a charming village in the Austrian Alps to give Gideon some routine while he got the challenge of toilet training sorted out, and then for an extended stay in Cambridge, England, after Belle had become pregnant again and they’d wanted the reassurance of a doctor and hospital nearby. Tabitha had been born there, and Rumpelstiltskin wondered how long they might have stayed in that beautiful city, rich with culture and history and enough libraries to delight Belle down to the depths of her very soul, if they hadn’t decided on a visit to Storybrooke, to see Henry graduate from high school.

They’d kept in touch with the occasional postcard and letter and souvenir, Henry always writing back with prompt thanks when he received a present and keeping them apprised of what was going on in Storybrooke. Usually the news was less than exciting, but when he had informed them of his upcoming graduation, saying that he really didn’t expect them to come all that way but he was officially inviting them anyway, they had decided to go, the look of delighted surprise on their grandson’s face making the trip worthwhile. They had spent the summer, airing out their house, introducing Tabitha and letting Henry and Gideon build a relationship. It didn’t take long for Gideon to warm up to his nephew when Henry brought over a whole box full of his old toys for Gideon to play with, or for Gideon to make friends with Neal Nolan when they met at the ice cream shoppe. Soon Gideon was spending frequent play dates on the Nolan farm and working his way steadily through the children’s books in the Storybrooke Library. Astrid was working there now, and had made the children’s section her own personal domain, turning it into something that looked like a bright and cheerful corner of the Enchanted Forest. And Belle was happy to see the whole library thriving under the care of the young woman from the Land of Untold Stories whom she had recruited to help run it when Gideon had been returned to them as an infant. She had wanted to spend as much time with him as possible then, and had known instantly that Matilda Wormwood would make an excellent librarian. It was nice to see the place busy with patrons, and a list of upcoming programs tacked to the bulletin board next to the restrooms. Belle and Rumpelstiltskin had begun to debate staying and starting Gideon at the elementary school in the fall, when Henry had come to them, full of excitement.

Anton had never given up on the magic beans, and had quietly been experimenting with crossbreeds, creating a new, smaller bean plant from the salvaged remains of the original field, one that would need less resources to grow, and take less time to ripen. This was the first year that he had succeeded in creating a near replica of the original, with the power to open a portal between realms. Leroy had come running down Main Street, shouting the news. And Henry had wanted to see the Enchanted Forest at long last, to have his own adventure.

“And you think they’re just going to give you a bean?” Rumpelstiltskin asked doubtfully. “To go gallivanting? Two, actually, you’d need one to return.” He’d been letting Gideon have a try at spinning, having taken up the craft again during Gideon’s first year, the desire to create something for his son out of wool that he’d spun himself overcoming the memories of being forced to spin by Zelena while she’d held him captive. He’d had to buy a new wheel, one untainted by that experience, and he didn’t think he’d ever touch straw again, but it wasn’t gold that he wanted, but the softest of yarns. He’d shown Belle how to knit, and soon they’d been able to wrap Gideon in a blanket that they had created between them, with little booties and a hat soon following, imbuing the wheel with new memories.

“I have as much right to a bean as anyone,” Henry said, the look of determination settling on his face reminding Rumpel heartbreakingly of Bae. “And I want to see where my family comes from. Plus, I’m the Author; shouldn’t that count for something?”

“Henry go somewhere?” Gideon asked worriedly.

“Yeah, kid -- the Enchanted Forest. Fairy tale land! It’s where most of the people in town come from. It’s got dragons and unicorns and castles, stuff like that.”

“I’ve seen castles,” Gideon said matter-of-factly.

“See?” Henry gestured dramatically. “Even the five-year-old in this family has seen more of the world than me!”

“You could go backpacking across Europe,” suggested Belle dryly. “Less chance of ogres.”

“More chances of plane crashes and terrorist bombings,” Henry retorted. “There are dangers everywhere.”

Rumpelstiltskin inclined his head, glancing at Belle. “The boy has a point.”

“But I’ve never seen a dragon,” Gideon put in, still thinking about what Henry had said.

“And you don’t want to,” Rumpelstiltskin said firmly. “Dragons eat little boys for breakfast.”

“Do they, mama?” Gideon demanded.

“Yes, actually, they might,” Belle said honestly. “You’d make a nice little snack.”

Gideon fell silent, thinking about this.

“Maybe you could put in a good word for me with the town council?” Henry asked hopefully. “There’s going to be a meeting, about the beans.”

“Your father would kill me if I let you go off to the Enchanted Forest alone,” said Rumpelstiltskin.

“Well, you can’t come, you’ve got the kids to look after. And I don’t really want to be tagging around after my parents or grandparents anyway; I want to find my own story. No offense.”

“What about griffins?”

They looked down at Gideon.

“Would griffins eat me?”

“They could, but they probably wouldn’t. Leave them alone and they’ll leave you alone, usually,” Belle said.

“A unicorn wouldn’t eat me,” he said confidently.

“No, but they might nibble at your hair.” Rumpelstiltskin tugged on a silky strand, teasing. “Especially after you’ve been rolling around on the ground and you smell nice and grassy.”

Belle cocked her head and looked at Gideon thoughtfully. “Henry, would you mind keeping an eye on the kids for a few minutes? I want to have a word with your grandfather privately.”

“Uh, yeah, sure.” Henry glanced at Tabby in her playpen, but she was engrossed in the task of stacking some fat plastic rings of graduating sizes atop one another in the correct order. “C’mon, Gideon, show me what you can do with your remote-controlled car.”

Puzzled, Rumpelstiltskin followed Belle into the library when she crooked her finger at him and closed the door behind them.

“I’ve had an idea,” she said.

As expected, none of the Charmings nor Regina were enthusiastic about Henry’s wish to visit the Enchanted Forest when he petitioned for two beans at the town council that had been called to decide what to do with them.

“I’m old enough to take care of myself!” he protested. “You’ve all been there.”

“Let the lad have an adventure,” said Hook jovially.

“Not reassuring coming from a pirate,” retorted Emma.

“Ex-pirate.” Surprisingly, he had turned into not a bad deputy, Emma having appealed to his pride in running an orderly ship. Storybrooke was now his ship, she had told him, and it was his job to enforce its laws just like he had enforced the rules on his ship. He’d had Keith Nottingham locked up for the night on a drunk and disorderly charge before his first week had been up, and if he’d been a little rough, well, the only one complaining had been Nottingham.

“Would it help,” broke in Belle, “If we went along with him? I think Gideon would enjoy seeing the Enchanted Forest, and there are still many places that I always wanted to visit and never got a chance to do so. We could go through together, and then split up. Henry could go off on his own, but if he runs into any trouble that he can’t handle, all he would have to do is call for Rumpel and he could go help Henry in a flash. Plus, if we each had a bean, Henry could just create another portal and return to Storybrooke whenever he wanted, or if he needed to.”

“But what about you guys?” asked Emma. “What if you want to come home before him?”

“We could check up on him before we return, and if I didn’t feel confident that he could continue to take care of himself, we’d either stay longer or convince him to come home with us.”

“I think I’d be okay with that,” David allowed.

Snow looked from him to Henry, and then nodded. “Sounds fair. Yes, all right.”

“it would make me feel better to know that Rumpel’s within reach if Henry needs any help,” Regina agreed. “But do you really want to go off traipsing around the Enchanted Realms with a two year-old toddler in tow?”

“We’ll get a wagon,” Belle said. “A covered one, like the tinkers use.”

“You’ll be washing out dirty diapers in cold streams,” Regina warned her. “No Pampers.”

“We’ll manage,” said Rumpelstiltskin drily. “Just like everybody else who lives there.”

Regina thought of Henry’s early days, and shuddered. “Well, on your own head be it.” She looked at Henry and sighed. “This is important to you, isn’t it?” He nodded. “All right, just promise you won’t try to take on any dragons.”

“Not unless it’s absolutely necessary,” he promised. All eyes then turned to Emma.

“Okay, let’s talk about how you’re going to handle the basics,” she said practically. “Food, shelter, warmth. You don’t know how to catch food and prepare it for cooking. And you’re going to need new clothes if you want to blend in, and I don’t want you stealing them.”

“Well, I thought that Mom -- “ he turned to Regina. “ -- could change some of my money so that it looks like the kind of coins they use in the Enchanted Forest. So I could buy anything I need.”

“I could do that,” Regina agreed. “I’ll make sure you have enough for food and lodging for a while, if you don’t let yourself get taken in by some unscrupulous innkeeper. I’ll change some of your clothing into something suitable as well.”

“That’s great.” Henry grinned. He turned back to Emma. “Well, Mom?”

“How do you plan to get around?’ asked Emma. “On foot?”

“Um, how likely is it that I’d get burned as a witch if I took my motorcycle?” he asked, afraid that he already knew the answer. It had been his graduation present, although he was pretty sure that Regina had been under the impression that it would come in handy zipping around some college town, not the Enchanted Forest. He had been thinking of college, and looking at different places, but... He couldn’t pass up this chance. He hated the thought of leaving the motorcycle, though.

“Absolutely not,” declared Emma. “You want to blend in, not stick out like a sore thumb. Besides, there’s the little matter of a lack of gas stations in the Enchanted Forest?”

“I was hoping one of you could maybe enchant the engine to run on something else,” admitted Henry sheepishly.

“What part of “all magic comes with a price” have you forgotten?” Rumpelstiltskin asked wryly. “Making one coin look like another coin, that’s easy, doesn’t take much magic. Same with changing the cut of some clothes. Enchanting a gas engine to run without gas for an indefinite period of time? No, that’s a different story. I have to agree with your mother here. Walk or buy a horse.”

Henry glanced at Regina, but she shook her head. “It’ll be a good chance to improve your riding skills,” she said encouragingly.

Henry sighed. “All right, no motorcycle. So, do we get the beans?”

Emma threw up her hands in defeat. “Fine. But I don’t have to like it. Is there any way we could work out a way to send messages, though, or get in contact?”

“I might be able to do something with mirrors,” Regina said thoughtfully. “I’m not sure if it’ll work, but Henry can take along a hand mirror, and I’ll try to enchant it to connect with one in your house. We’ll set up a time for you to tune in on your end, and Henry can try to contact you.”

“That would be fantastic,” said Emma gratefully. “And if not...I expect you to come home at some point, Henry.”

“I promise, Mom.” Henry threw his arms around her in a hug. “Thanks. And all you guys too.” He nodded at everyone.

They went through the portal -- which had appeared as a ring of fire instead of the usual nebulous green swirl -- two weeks later, Henry having gotten drilled in swordfighting and archery and how to start a fire without a match (although he still planned on taking plenty) and Rumpelstiltskin and Belle utilising the time to use up all the perishable foods in their house and try to prepare Gideon for the fact that they were going somewhere without such things as refrigerators and electricity and indoor plumbing. They savoured their last evenings catching fireflies in the yard, and days spent berry-picking, and eating burgers at Granny’s. They took picture after picture of Tabby sleeping peacefully in Gideon’s old nursery and of Gideon in his new bedroom that they’d let him help decorate.It had been a good visit, one they had enjoyed, making new memories and fondly remembering the old ones of Gideon’s first year growing up in their house. But without Henry around, and the chance for their children to build a relationship with their only other living relative, the idea of staying had lost its appeal for the moment. There were also calls and emails sent to Cambridge, to secure their house and things on that end. An unexpected opportunity had come up, they said, and they didn’t know when they’d be back. Maybe a few months, maybe a year at the most, they guessed. That was what they said and what they thought as they went through the portal with Henry, Belle clutching Tabitha tight and Rumple with Gideon’s hand held firmly in one of his own, the other holding onto the handle of a large leather trunk, which might have held a lot more than the average person would have thought, and which might have been floating almost imperceptibly above the ground, to make for easy towing.

“Cloth diapers and safety pins,” Belle had said, when they’d begun making out a list of things to take. “The children’s clothes, and ours.”

“They can each take their favourite stuffed animal, and some toys that won’t seem out of place,” Rumpelstiltskin had added. “Maybe some foods that they’re used to. Their blankets.”

“Books,” Belle had said. “Sewing supplies. Toiletries.”

“First aid supplies. Plenty of gold. Maybe a few things from my lab.”

“Pens, pencils, paper. If Gideon’s going to start school a year late, we’ll have to make sure that he’s up to speed with his peers.” Clean, white paper was a precious thing in the Enchanted Forest, not to be wasted by a child practising his letters.

Fortunately they were used to travelling light, but they also were used to knowing that they would be able to easily purchase needed everyday items at local stores. They had to think about what would not be available in the Enchanted Forest, or hard to obtain at best. But at last they had shoved the lid of the trunk down, and latched the trunk shut.

“Wow,” said Henry as he turned and watched the ring of fire close behind them. “That was cool.” He looked his grandfather over. “You don’t look any different.”

Rumpelstiltskin had been prepared to find himself back to looking like a monster with scaly, greenish-grey skin, and had prepared the children for the possible change. But he was pleasantly surprised to see his hand still looking perfectly human, and ran it over his face, feeling nothing but his normal human skin.

“I don’t know why ,” Rumpelstiltskin confessed. “But I’m glad of it.”

“It’s been a long time since you’ve done any dark magic,” pointed out Belle. “Barely any magic at all, really. Maybe that’s why?”

“It’s as good a reason as any.” He shrugged.

Henry looked around, breathing deeply of the fresh air and noticing the quiet, the birds around them having fallen silent. “So, which way?” He hefted his sturdy canvas backpack higher onto his shoulders.

They’d stuck together until they’d reached a nearby town, where Rumpelstiltskin came to the conclusion that they were not in their Enchanted Forest, but another version of it. One that had not been decimated by a Dark Curse.

Henry had grinned broadly at the news. “That’s what I wanted. I wanted to see other versions of the characters I know.”

“Does that mean there’s another version of me here?” wondered Belle. “Another Rumpel?”

“I suppose we’ll find out,” said Rumpelstiltskin.

They had bought a sensible cream-coloured mare called Lark for Henry -- Belle putting her through her paces before letting Henry try her out -- and two heavier-built horses to pull, in turns, the brightly-painted caravan they’d found -- a bright chestnut mare with flaxen mane and tail called Penny and a bay gelding with splashy white stockings reaching up to his belly called Taliesin. The contents of Henry’s backpack shifted into a pair of saddlebags and a magic bean tucked safely away in an inside pocket of his jerkin, he hugged each one of them in turn and mounted up. “Well, I guess that’s it then.”

“Have fun and stay safe.” Belle smiled up at him, encouraging Tabitha to wave goodbye.

“Remember to call if you need anything,” Rumpelstiltskin said. “And let us know when you’re ready to go back to Storybrooke.”

“I will,” Henry promised. “Bye!” He’d touched his heels to Lark’s sides and lifted the reins, clucking to the mare, and they’d trotted off, leaving the rest of them to begin their own journeys.

It had been the perfect time of the year, with the late summer’s warmth easing into a gentle autumn. The harvest had been bountiful, and market stalls everywhere were full of fresh produce and newly-baked breads and jars of fruit preserves and honey, with which they filled the cabinet next to their little stove. It wasn’t long before the interior of the caravan had become a cozy, welcoming space, a mix of things from the old world and the new. Belle had wanted to visit the Frontlands, where they’d discovered that this world’s version of Belle had married a prince whom she had freed from a terrible curse and now lived at his castle. No one had recognise Rumpelstiltskin, though, or his name.

“Which means that I’m not your prince in this world -- but maybe I’m not the Dark One either? Maybe I lived and died in my own timeline?”

“We could ask if anyone’s heard of the Dark One,” Belle suggested, although something about the idea made her uncomfortable. “Or just go see if the Dark Castle’s there, and who lives in it.”

“I don’t know. It might be courting trouble.” He wasn’t sure what bothered him most. The idea of another Dark One running around, or not knowing what had happened to him in this world. Except it was more about what had happened to Bae. Had he had a son? And if he had, had he been conscripted to fight in the ogre war? If so, had he survived that? Had he died young or had he grown up to have a life and family of his own?

Since it turned out that her -- Belle’s -- father in this realm had been an inventor instead of a knight, there was no childhood home for her to stay at, or at least none that held any meaning for her, but the surrounding countryside had looked more or less the same, and she had happily shown Gideon and Tabitha around the places that were so similar to where she had grown up. There were a few awkward meetings with people who “recognised” her, but she soon had her explanation down pat, and she made an effort to avoid her counterpart in this world. The highlight of the trip was the day they had seen a griffin as they’d hiked through the forest. There had been a rustling in the trees above them, and Gideon had been the first to look up, his eyes growing wide as he’d realised what he was seeing.

“Griffin,” he’d hissed, pointing.

“Wha -- ?”

“Shhh.” Gideon clapped his hand over Tabby’s mouth. “Griffin,” he’d repeated, whispering. “Half lion, half eagle.”

“Just be quiet and don’t move,” Belle said softly, crouching down behind them both, putting an arm around each. “They have very good sight and hearing, but movement is what catches their attention most of all.”

Tabby had nodded her understanding and Gideon had released her, glad of his father’s reassuring presence at his side. After a moment the creature swooped down to the ground, all tawny gold flanks and twitching tail and cream-coloured feathers, and wickedly sharp talons and beak. They had all watched, silent and still, as it had curled up in a sunny spot in the glade they had just been about to enter and began to groom itself. They hadn’t moved until finally it had put its head down and closed its eyes, apparently falling asleep, when they had backed away and left, circling around the glade before they had felt safe to resume talking again at their normal volume.

The days turned shorter, and cooler, the trees turning vibrant shades of red and gold. When frost began to appear on the grass in the mornings, they discussed what to do for the winter. Belle was ready to move on, should they find somewhere snug to hole up until the spring? Travel south, to warmer lands? She came up with the idea of visiting Arendelle instead, where she bumped into Anna and called her by name before remembering this wasn’t the Anna that she knew.

“I’m sorry; do I know you?’ Anna had asked.

Belle had shook her head. “You do and you don’t -- it’s a long story.”

“Oh, I like stories!” Anna had said cheerfully “Tell me it?”

When Belle had finished her explanation, Anna had looked at them shrewdly. “So you don’t think magic is bad?”

“Not inherently, no,” Rumpelstiltskin said. “But all magic comes with a price. May I guess -- is your sister having trouble controlling her powers?”

“Yes!” Anna exclaimed with relief. “We’re working on it, but --”

“Rumpel, could you help her?” Belle interrupted.

“Yes, I probably could. I have some experience dealing with magic myself,” he explained to Anna, and her face lit up.

“Really? That would be awesome! Thank you! Can you come home with me now? We could give you dinner and everything.”

Elsa had been at first wary of accepting magic lessons from a stranger, but by the end of the night she had felt for the first time the hope that she might eventually learn to completely control her powers and had invited Rumpelstiltskin and his family to stay with them. Rumpelstiltskin had accepted, giving her daily lessons, Gideon and Tabitha falling in love with the reindeer and spending hours building snowmen and snow forts, and learning how to ice skate and sledding and going on sleigh rides. And inside there were always warm fires where one could read or listen to stories or simply snuggle up in a blanket and daydream while watching the sparks dance. They had left a much more confident, controlled, and happy Elsa in the spring and began making their way south again.

They traveled as the whim took them, seeking out natural wonders and strange creatures, visiting all the places that Belle had once dreamed about, until the sun-baked days of summer began to make the caravan uncomfortably stuffy instead of cozy, and Gideon and Tabitha took it in turns riding in front of Belle on whichever horse was not currently in harness, while Rumple drove, temporarily trading the relief of the shade for some slightly fresher air moving against their faces, and everybody growing more and more crabby and short-tempered.

“It’d be cool in the Dark Castle,” Belle suggested finally, a topic which had been shut down swiftly the last time it had been brought up.

Rumpelstiltskin’s face grew shuttered. “We don’t know if it’s even there, or unoccupied. And you know that’s where she --”

“For the first, there’s only one way to find out. And for the second, I also know that’s where we fell in love,” said Belle gently. “If it’s empty -- maybe it’s time to try to exorcise that particular demon? Maybe it won’t even look that same, but if being there makes you uncomfortable and you don’t want to stay, we don’t have to, but perhaps we could at least visit? Maybe it would help to banish the bad memories, to see Gideon and Tabby running around there? We could even camp in the gardens, if inside is too painful. Or at least stay there in the mountains till the weather cools.”

So they had headed for the lands surrounding the Dark Castle, and found the same village at the foot of the mountain. It had been market day, and Belle had looked around the sellers, choosing an old woman who was chatting garrously with a customer. The counters of her booth held baskets filled with beautifully dyed skeins of wool. “The spinner,” Belle said, pointing, when the woman’s customer had left.

Rumpelstiltskin followed with the children as she led the way, knowing that they needed information before approaching the castle but not quite knowing the best way to go about it. Belle obviously had no problem with it, however, for after complimenting the woman on her goods, she got right to the point.

“Have you ever heard of someone called the Dark One?” she asked boldly.

“Ah, now that’s one of my favourite stories, always has been,” the woman said, her eyes twinkling, and that was not the reaction that either of them had been expecting.

“What do you mean?” asked Belle cautiously.

“You’re not from around here, are you?”

“No, we’re travelers, and we heard the name...”

“Well, famous local legend, I’m not surprised. And who doesn’t love a story about true love?”

Belle glanced at Rumpelstiltskin, smiling, and Gideon bounced on his toes, filled with the secret knowledge that she was talking about another version of his parents. “Tell us!”

“Well, the Dark One was a powerful wizard, but he wasn’t always like that. Once he was but a humble spinner, like myself, but he took on a curse to save his son from being drafted in the Ogre War. Terrible it was, but they were down to taking children to fight, having run out of trained soldiers. It was a death sentence, of course, and the man who became the Dark One knew it. Now the Dark One at that time was in thrall to the Duke of these lands, and was forced to do terrible, terrible things. He was tired of life, tired of being cursed, and he tricked the spinner into stealing the dagger that controlled him and killing him, thus passing on the curse to the spinner. Now the new Dark One, the spinner took his power and used it to end the war, saving not only his son but bringing all the children home.”

Rumpelstiltskin was stunned to hear that all the details of his life were not only the same so far, but were being accurately recounted. He felt Belle slip her hand into his, and he squeezed it gratefully.

“So he was good,” Gideon said with satisfaction. “Then what happened?”

“Well, all magic has a price, you know, and the power changed him, both inside and out. His fingernails grew long and sharp and black, as black as his rotted teeth, and skin turned as scaly as a lizard’s.” She curled her fingers like claws and made a menacing gesture at Gideon, who automatically leaned back slightly but then grinned. It was obvious the old woman was a storyteller in full flow, enjoying having a new audience. “And he was quick to anger, quick to strike out. Although perhaps it was simply that he finally had the power to act against those who had made his life miserable before, who had mocked him and called him coward.”

She paused, and Belle had the sense that she was waiting for a certain question, that she had told this story many times before to her own children and grandchildren. “Why did they call him coward?’ she asked softly.

“Because he’d lamed himself to get out of the army,” she said promptly. “Took a great big sledgehammer and smashed his own leg.”

Gideon winced visibly, and Rumpelstiltskin began to wonder how she knew all this, things that had been long forgotten by anyone but himself as he had outlived the villagers who had once known him as an ordinary man.

“That sounds painful,” Gideon said sympathetically, and the woman nodded.

“I’m sure it was! Very painful! He might have lost part of his leg, for all he knew! Personally, I’d rather take the chance of getting killed by an ogre in battle than the surety of living with a horrifically mangled leg, in pain, every day for the rest of my life. So why do you think he did it? ”

“Maybe,” said Gideon carefully, “He had a family at home who needed him.”

“Right you are!” The woman beamed at him. “Do you know what had happened? A seer had told him that his wife was pregnant, but he would die if he went on the battlefield the next day. And he didn’t want his child to have to grow up without a father, like he had, after his own no-good father had abandoned him as a child.” Scorn dripped from her voice, but it was obviously for Malcolm. “Can you imagine that, your daddy just up and leaving you?”

“Never,” said Gideon stoutly, and Rumpelstiltskin squeezed his son’s shoulder, filled with a rush of love. “I think what the spinner did was brave, not cowardly.” Belle looked at Rumpelstiltskin oddly, realising that this woman knew an awful lot about his story that certainly hadn’t been common knowledge in her time. He raised his shoulders helplessly. But as disquieting as it was to hear his life story recounted by a stranger, as least she seemed to understand, and be on his side -- or at least, this other Dark One.

“That’s what I think, too,” said the old woman, “But most people didn’t. He was sent home in disgrace from the army when he was healed enough to be able to walk, although a slow, painful walk it was, hobbling along with a stick for support. News had flown ahead of him, though, and he came home to a wee baby boy and a wife who hated him for what he had done.”

“She was mean!” Gideon said heatedly, defending his father. “He had done it for her, for her and the baby!”

“So he had, but she didn’t see it that way, nor care much for being a mother. But Rumpelstiltskin -- did I tell you his name was Rumpelstiltskin? Funny ol’ name, isn’t it? -- oh, how he loved being a father! He never regretted what he had done, because it meant he could be there for his son, to raise him and love him as fiercely as he knew how.”

Rumpelstiltskin felt a lump form in his throat, as his actions were validated by a perfect stranger.

“And then what happened?” prompted Belle, squeezing Rumpel’s hand.

“Well, eventually his wife leaves them, runs off with a pirate.” The woman sounded like she wanted to turn her head and spit. “And he’s left to struggle all alone, raising his boy. But he does it, until the day came when he became the Dark One. And then it wasn’t a struggle any longer, because they weren’t poor anymore, one of his powers being the ability to spin straw into gold. So he buys them a fine new house, and fine new clothes, and there’s good food, and plenty of it, on the table. But...his son wasn’t happy. He could see the darkness taking over his father, turning him into someone frightening and strange, someone who could kill without a thought. He wanted his old papa back. So he called on the Blue Fairy, and he asked her what he could do.”

Rumpelstiltskin couldn’t quite keep the snarl from escaping his throat.

The old woman looked at him with surprise but continued with her story. “And what do you think she said?” she asked, looking at Gideon.

“That they needed to go to a land without magic?” he suggested.

The woman frowned. “What? No. She asked him if he still loved his father, and he said yes. And she said that True Love’s Kiss could break any curse.”

Rumpelstiltskin looked at Belle, startled. Could it have been that simple? Could the Blue Fairy of this realm actually be someone who wanted to help people?

“Do you mean that B -- “ Gideon caught himself, remembering that she hadn’t mentioned the son’s name. “-- the son kissed his father, and it broke his curse?”

“He did indeed. And they lived happily ever after. And do you know how I know all this?”

“You said it was a famous local legend,” Belle reminded her.

“Yes, but who’s been telling it all these years, passing it down from one generation to another?”

Rumpelstiltskin had the first inkling of a guess. “What happened to the boy, the son?”

“He grew up, married his childhood sweetheart, and they had a flock of kids.”

“And you’re -- “

“His great great granddaughter.” She beamed at them.

Rumpelstiltskin’s head was spinning. Bae had lived, had married, had had children. Presumably had died at a ripe old age, as the old woman had said they had lived happily ever after. And this other Rumpel had been there to see it all, to be part of it. There had been no separation. He wanted to cry.

“Wow. That’s an incredible story. Thank you for sharing it,” Belle said. She glanced at Rumpelstiltskin, and saw that he had pressed his face into Tabby’s soft curls, his eyes closing briefly to hide his reaction.

“But...” Gideon’s brow was furrowed, until he remembered that in this world, his mother had married somebody else, that his father -- well, sort of -- hadn’t lived long enough to meet her. But he had been happy, and his uncle Bae had been too. So he guessed it was all right. “Did the spinner ever marry again?”

“As a matter of fact he did. He became friends with a widow woman who was struggling to raise her daughter on her own. He soon doted on the wee lass, and loved her like she was his own.They say it was a marriage of convenience at first, his son needing a mother and her daughter needing a father, but there are worse things to base a marriage on than friendship. And after a while, love grew and they had a very happy marriage by all accounts.”

“Oh.” Rumpelstiltskin was taken aback, but glad for his other self. “Well, that was nice for all of them.” Bae would have loved a little sister, he thought. “I guess the talent for spinning has stayed in the family, then,” said Rumpelstiltskin, recovering and bringing himself back to the present.

“Not gold, but worth a few coppers, eh? See anything you like?”

Rumpelstiltskin would have given her a silver coin just for her story, but he knew such largesse would raise suspicions as to his identity, and he also knew the satisfaction that came with having one’s hard work appreciated. He shifted Tabby in his arms so that she could see the yarns. “What colours do you like, sweetheart? We could use them to make you a new sweater for autumn.”

Tabby picked out some soft greens and a lovely shade of plum.

“That’ll be twelve coppers,” the woman said, and Rumpelstiltskin gave her the silver coin, worth twice that.

“For the yarn and the story,” he said. “One more question -- a flock?”

“Well, four. Which is quite enough with children, mind you.”

“What about the castle, though?” asked Gideon, remembering what they really wanted to know about.

“What castle? The one up on the mountain?”

“Yes.”

“That was where the previous Dark One lived, not my ancestor. Nobody’s lived there since, nobody would dare. And who’d want to anyway? Think of all those rooms to clean!”

Belle smirked. “You’d need a maid.”

“Several, I should think! Or magic, I guess.”

Rumpelstiltskin shared a look with Belle, and grinned. “Thank you for everything -- may I ask your name?”

“Jennet, and you’re welcome. Nice to have new ears for my old stories.”

“That’s a lovely name,” said Belle. She took Gideon’s hand. “Come on Gideon, let’s go.”

The long-abandoned castle was a mess. A window had broken, and dirt and debris lay all over the Great Hall, and piles of leaves where animals had come in and made a dens for themselves. Things had fallen over, been smashed, begun to rot. The place was both familiar and unfamiliar, but that could be fixed. When Rumpelstiltskin automatically raised his hand, intending to set the castle back to rights in an instant, Belle had grabbed it and shook her head.

“No magic. We do this by hand.”

“Could I just mend the window?” he asked meekly. “We don’t want a bear or a wolf wandering in and carrying off the children.”

“Oh, all right,” she agreed.

With a quick gesture, he mended the window, then pivoted around, his hand still raised, and all the windows in sight became sparkling clean as well.

“Rumpel!” she chided.

“We need light to work,” he explained, unrepentent, and she had sighed.

They had all pitched in, deciding what was ruined and what could be kept, Belle allowing Rumpelstiltskin to provide a little magical assistance in conveying the trash outside as she realised that there was no way they would be able to shift some very heavy furniture otherwise without breaking it into smaller pieces. When they’d cleared out as much as possible from the kitchen, Great Hall, and two bedrooms, they set to work sweeping and mopping and polishing and dusting, Gideon sturdily helping until he was too tired, and then proving invaluable in keeping Tabby entertained and out of trouble. It was so obviously not his Great Hall that the image of a cage, of being trapped in it and at Zelena’s mercy, simply didn’t impose itself upon this place, for which he was profoundly grateful. And despite the fact that they had never lived in this particular Dark Castle, between all their hard work in cleaning it and seeing Gideon and Tabby running around it, by the time it -- or at least those rooms they’d concentrated on -- was habitable, they had made it into their place. They could tackle the rest of the castle at a more leisurely pace. The hardest thing, in fact, was how difficult he found it to abstain from magic in a place where it had been his whole life. It prickled under his skin, kept his fingers constantly twitching with the urge to clean up, or summon meals, or place protection spells on the children to keep them from touching anything dangerous. There wasn’t the huge collection of magical objects on display here that he had accumulated in their own realm, if this castle had belonged to a version of Zoso, then he would have been a mere pawn who had been kept dancing attendance on the duke who held his dagger, but he didn’t know what might be hidden away, waiting to be found.They’d had a conversation with the children about the price of magic, and how it should never be used without good reason, but after that Gideon had quickly learned the tell-tale movements his father made when about to do magic, and hearing his 7 year-old son pipe up with a chiding “PAPA, NO” did more than anything to remind Rumpelstiltskin why he was avoiding using magic in the first place. Once the castle was back in order again, they made it their home base for the summer, but spent just as much time outdoors as in, in the gardens or exploring further out, the air in the mountains pleasant enough compared to the lowlands. They headed back down to more populated lands in time for the harvest festivals, joining in the singing and dancing and feasting that they offered, and Belle suggested visiting Sherwood, and seeing how Roland fared.

In place of the cherubic child they remembered, they were greeted by a lean young man of striking good looks, but the dark, wavy hair was the same, as were the dimples that appeared in his cheeks when he smiled. After expressing surprise at their appearance, he had asked after Regina, and had been glad to hear that she had been doing well the last time that they had seen her. The band was a mix of old and new faces, and they’d stayed with them for several days, Gideon getting his first lessons on how to shoot a bow and how to tickle trout.

In the winter they journeyed south to Agrabah, and then spent a while on the nearest coast, all white sands and blue waters, where the children could paddle in the warm waters and Tabitha learned to swim. As spring approached, though, their occasional thoughts of Henry solidified into a worry that they couldn’t ignore any longer.

“I mean it’s good that he hasn’t had any need to call on you,” said Belle. “But I’m surprised that we haven’t heard from him yet. It’s been almost two years!”

“We should have told him about messenger doves,” Rumpelstiltskin said. “Let’s head back towards the Enchanted Forest and we can send one.”

Where are you?, they’d sent, as soon as Rumpelstiltskin was able to call a dove to him. It returned several days later, and Rumpelstiltskin held it gently while Belle untied the scroll of paper that had been attached to its leg.

“What does it say?” he asked, releasing the bird. It hopped onto a nearby branch.

Belle unrolled the paper. “Tiana’s kingdom. Married Cinderella --

“What?”

“ -- Having a baby. Come visit.” Belle glanced up with wide eyes, meeting Rumpelstiltskin’s own dumbfounded look.

“Surely he’s joking,” he hazarded, unable to wrap his head around the idea of Henry having not only gotten married but in the role of expectant father.

“There’s only one way to find out. Do you know where Tiana’s kingdom is?”

They arrived to find all was as Henry had said, and Regina already there. Gideon ran to Henry, who bent down to hug him.

“Hey, kid! I missed you. And look at you, Tabby, how big you’ve grown! Do you remember me?”

Once their reunion was over, they settled down for tea and to exchange stories.

“Henry told Emma, and Emma told me, and I decided my family was here,” Regina said, smiling at Henry and Ella, visibly pregnant.

“Where is Emma?’ asked Belle.

Regina shrugged. “Still in Storybrook. She’s a 21st century girl -- this isn’t really her scene. And besides, someone has to look after the place now that I’m gone. But the mirror link works, so she and Henry get to talk every week.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t invite us to your wedding,” Rumpelstiltskin said indignantly, looking at Henry.

“You didn’t invite me to your wedding,” Henry accused him. “And I thought the magical summoning thing was only for emergencies. I didn’t want you to think I was in danger and you had to come immediately and leave Belle and the kids alone.”

Rumpelstiltskin looked abashed. “Yeah, well, I wasn’t thinking clearly back then. It happened spur of the moment, and...” He shook his head. “Would you have come, would you have been my best man if I had asked?”

“Of course!” Henry exclaimed. “I would have been honoured. And I’m glad you came looking for me; I’m glad you’re here now.”

“So am I. I wouldn’t miss the birth of my great-granddaughter for the world.” He glared at Regina. “You could have found me, once you came. Or told Henry about messenger doves. Why didn’t you?”

“I...just didn’t think about it, I guess. I’m sorry; I should have.”

She sounded genuinely contrite and Rumpelstiltskin accepted the apology. “Well, no matter. We’re here now.”

Lucy was born three months later, and after mother and baby had had a rest, Rumpelstiltskin got a chance to hold her for the first time.”Hello, sweetheart,” he said softly, cradling her in expert arms. “I’m your great-grandpa.” He made a face at Lucy and was rewarded by her reaching out to grab at his nose with her tiny fingers. His face split into a grin, Belle smiling as she waited her turn to hold Lucy. After a few more minutes he gently handed the baby to Belle as she held her arms out.

They’d stayed for a while longer, until it was clear that the new parents could handle things on their own and that perhaps Henry and Ella might like more chances to be alone than they could get with five guests staying with them. The kids had grown restless by then, Gideon especially chafing under the need to be quiet when the baby was sleeping and missing the Henry who used to have time to play with him. With Regina staying, they didn’t feel like they were leaving Henry and his new family alone or unprotected.

“But now you know about doves,” Rumpelstiltskin said as they said their goodbyes a few days later, embracing Henry and thumping him on the back. “Stay in touch. And take care of that little daughter of yours; they grow up all too fast.”

“I will,” Henry promised.

They took to the road again, the years waxing and waning and the children growing and thriving. They began talking of the future; the caravan was becoming more cramped than cosy and Gideon old enough that he wanted some space of his own to be private in. They could buy a house near Henry, they suggested. Or maybe it was time to return to the Land Without Magic, while the children were still young enough to adapt more easily. They were still unsettled as to a decision the day that they’d passed through a town large enough to have a school for boys. They had been walking by its fenced-in yard when the door of the school had opened and boys of all ages had come streaming out, running and yelling. Some had quickly formed up into teams and had begun kicking a ball around, another group of younger boys had pulled out long strings of shiny conkers from their pockets and had begun their game of trying to hit and smash their opponent’s conker not far from where they were standing.

Gideon had pressed himself against the fence, his face coming alive with excitement. “Can I go play with them, Papa?”

Rumpelstiltskin glanced at Belle, unsure. “I don’t know; this is a school, and you’re not a student here.”

“Could I be?” Gideon’s eyes were still on the playing boys, and Rumpelstiltskin suddenly became more aware than ever that Gideon was growing up, that he was no longer a little boy who was content with his parents’ company and who might yearn for playfellows of his own age. In Austria, he had had the neighbour boy Felix to play with, and it had taken a long time after they had left before Gideon had stopped talking about his friend on a daily basis. And in Storybrooke he had quickly made friends with Neal Nolan, and had spent many a day playing on the Nolan’s farm with Neal and their dog Wilby.

“Would you like to be?” Belle asked, startled, but it touched on something that she and Rumpel had been discussing. So far, they felt that they’d been able to give Gideon a good general education, but he was reaching the age where he would really benefit from proper teachers in more specialised subjects. And if they were going to ever return to the Land Without Magic, should they be teaching them about its history, its world of science?

Gideon thought about it for a moment in his usual careful way. “I don’t know. What’s it like, going to school?”

“Well, I’ve never been and your Mama had private tutors, but you’d be learning things like what she and I teach you,” Rumpelstiltskin explained. “Reading and writing, and math and science and history, but you’d be learning them in a class with a bunch of other boys your own age. If it’s like the school that Henry went to, you’d go there in the morning, eat lunch there, and come home in the afternoon. Would you like that?”

Gideon scrunched up his face, thinking. “Yes, I think so.”

Belle’s heart gave a pang as she came to the same conclusion that Rumpelstiltskin had. Gideon needed -- no, he deserved --friends that he wouldn’t have to leave in a week or a month. And someplace to call home, some stability. “We’d have to ask some questions,” she said. “Find out if this is a good school, first of all. We could look for another, if not. And if they’re willing to accept a new pupil.” The boys looked happy and healthy enough, she thought, which seemed a good sign.

At that moment one of the smaller boys, perhaps a couple of years younger than Gideon, came wandering along the fence, eyes on the ground as he sought out any newly-fallen conkers from the huge horse chestnut tree in the corner of the yard, seizing on a couple and dropping them into a rough sack that he carried. Gideon, seeing what he was after, spotted a few of the spiky-hulled pods on their side of the fence and picked them up.

“Hey!,” he called. “You want these?” He held them out.

The boy’s eyes lit up as he came over, big blue eyes in a pleasant, freckled face framed by thick brown hair. “Don’t you want them?”

Gideon shrugged. “You can have them.”

“Thanks!” The boy accepted the gift. “Oh, great, these two are already cracked.” He dropped them on the ground and drove the heel of his sturdy boot down onto first one and then the other, stooping to pick out the glossy brown conkers from the shattered hulls. He pocketed them and looked from Gideon to his parents and back again. “Are you new here?”

Rumpelstiltskin moved closer, holding onto Tabby’s hand. She squatted down and picked up a stick to play with, swishing it back and forth through the air. From the muttering under her breath, Rumpel thought that she might be playing fairy wands. “We might be. Can you tell me, is this a good school?”

The boy’s nose wrinkled up. “I guess so. Most of the masters are pretty nice, as long as you do your work and don’t goof off in class. And we get playtime every day.”

“What about subjects?” asked Belle. “What are you taught?”

The boy shrugged. “The usual stuff, I suppose. Sums, and writing.” He brightened. “We’re doing botany right now. Do you know what that is?”

“The study of plants.” Rumpelstiltskin smiled.

”Yes. Like these --” He took one of the conkers out of his pocket. “It looks like it would be good to eat, like a regular chestnut, doesn’t it? But it’s not; it’s poisonous. Eat it and you’d die,” he said with relish.

“That’s very true,” said Belle. “And important information to know.”

“Like with mushrooms,” Gideon agreed. “Some you can eat, some you can’t, and sometimes they’re hard to tell apart.”

“Yep.” The boy nodded. “Hey, do you know the difference between poisonous and venomous?”

Gideon thought for a moment. “Well -- “

The boy didn’t wait for an answer. “If you bite it and you die, it’s poisonous. If it bites you and you die, it’s venomous.”

Gideon laughed. “Like snakes.”

“That’s actually a very good definition,” Belle approved. She looked around. It was a pleasant-looking town, tidy and prosperous, the sign for a booksellers visible directly across the street from the school. She could be happy here, she thought.

“It’s up to you, Belle,” Rumpelstiltskin said, watching her.

“Well, if we talk to the headmaster and everything sounds good and he’s agreeable, then if Gideon wants to go to school here, than Gideon shall go to school here,” she said firmly.

“I don’t have to go to school, do I?” Tabby looked up, sounding faintly alarmed.

“Do you want to?” Belle asked.

“No,” she declared in a very decided fashion.

Belle laughed. “Then you can continue to stay at home and keep me company, she assured her daughter.

“All right, let’s go find the headmaster,” Rumpelstiltskin said.

“His name’s Master Jerrold,” the boy supplied. He eyed Gideon. “You’d probably be in the class ahead of me, but I could still show you around if you like. If you start coming here.”

“Well, thank you, Master -- “ Rumpelstiltskin hesitated. “May I ask your name?”

“Roderick.”

Rumpelstiltskin and Belle shared a startled look, barely hearing Gideon introducing himself in turn. Gideon, in the brief time they’d known him as an adult, hadn’t told them much about his time in the Dark Realm, but he had shared a name, a name of a boy that he felt that he had failed. Surely it couldn’t be the same boy...could it? Could the lives of all the stolen children have been reset as Gideon’s had been? Gideon, blessedly free of any memories of his time there, was oblivious, showing no reaction to the name.

“Well, Roderick, thank you for the information and the kind offer,” Belle said, and the boy took that as his leave, waving as he ran off. She looked at Rumpelstiltskin, her voice low. “It’s got to be a coincidence, right?’

“Has to be,” he replied, just as softly, but not sounding entirely certain. But...he died, he could still hear Gideon say, his voice wrecked. It wasn’t a particularly unusual name; it was just that the age was right. A couple of years younger than him, Gideon had said. He shook his head. “I don’t see how it could be otherwise.”

Belle nodded. “But it feels like a good omen, though, doesn’t it? Like we’re meant to be here.”

“Yeah, it does.”

“What are you two whispering about?” Gideon demanded, coming over.

Tabby tapped him with her stick.“Be a frog!” she commanded.

“Ribbit,” he said automatically, but he wasn’t in the mood to play, watching his parents.

“Oh, we were just thinking that maybe it’s time to put down some roots,” Belle deflected, ruffling his hair.

Master Jerrold had turned out to be pleasant and welcoming, and his curriculum having passed muster, they’d enrolled Gideon, and he’d taken to formal schooling like a duck to water, soon excelling in the classroom and making friends amongst the boys, his long legs making him a popular choice when the boys divided up into teams to play football during their afternoon break. They’d found the perfect house for them on the edge of town, made of the local warm yellow stone, with a walled garden and a fenced-in field behind the house that was perfect for Taliesin and Penny. There were separate bedrooms for Gideon and Tabitha, a water pump right in the kitchen, and even a room that had obviously been a library, its bare shelves waiting to be filled with books. In fact, it had seemed almost too perfect, but when Rumpelstiltskin had run a finger through the dust on the kitchen table and asked the property owner why the place had obviously lain vacant for some time, the man had shrugged and said that most business people lived above their shops, and newly wedded couples looking to start a home of their own usually wanted something smaller and cheaper. It was a perfectly reasonable explanation, and it wasn’t till the year turned and the spring days grew ever warmer that they discovered that the smell from the nearby tannery -- something that they had soon grown used to over the fall and the winter -- intensified into a pungent reek with the heat.

But since by then the house had become a home, moving seemed unimaginable, especially as Gideon had delightedly discovered on their very first day that Roderick was the tanner’s son, the boys’ friendship soon leading to Rumpelstiltskin and Belle becoming friends with the tanner and his wife. So they simply spent the worst days within the confines of the walled garden, surrounded by the fragrant scents of lilacs and roses and wisteria, and Belle had agreed that perhaps a tiny whisper of magic to keep the smell out of the house was allowable. Hopefully the price was no more than the renewed shock of the briefly-forgotten smell when they ventured outside again in the morning. Roderick became an even more frequent visitor on those hot, still days, expressing his puzzlement that the smell didn’t carry inside but glad of it. Midway in age between Gideon and Tabitha, he was a welcome playfellow, amenable to both the rough-and-tumble play that Gideon had been craving and Tabby’s more imagination-based games. Midsummer came and went, and the boys’ school closed down until September.

“Master Jerrold says we’re all too hot and sleepy to learn anything in summer,” Gideon said. “We just have to write a paper on anything that interests us over the holiday.”

It didn’t take long for Belle to suggest a trip, and Rumpelstiltskin had sought Master Jerrold’s advice on places of interest in the region that they might visit. He’d already learned that the man had an excellent library of his own, and Jerrold was kind enough to lend him a volume on the history and geography of the area. Belle had seized upon the book happily, and they had worked out an itinerary for their trip. With their caravan freshly washed and loaded, they had put Penny between its shafts, and set out with Gideon riding Taliesin bareback alongside them.

And now here they were, on the bridge that they had read of, the tales associated with it having gotten Rumpelstiltskin to thinking. Maybe it was a foolish hope to think that it would be that easy, but he could feel the energy surrounding the place. And they had to start somewhere.

“What if it doesn’t work?” asked Belle, concern large in her eyes.

He shrugged. “Then we try something else. Maybe I should just chuck the dagger in the river.”

“That doesn’t sound like a very good idea,” she said dubiously.

“Well, then you’d better put some effort into your kiss,” he teased.

Belle smirked, and threaded her fingers into the silky, feathered hair that fell past his collar. “I’ll do my best.” She gazed into his eyes, remembering that first kiss back in the Dark Castle, the absolute conviction she’d had that he loved her as much as she loved him, despite nothing having ever been said on the subject. Now she had years of memories, so many years of knowing to call upon, image after image flitting through her brain as he bent his head down to her, their lips touching. Their heads tilted in synchronization, finding the perfect angle, and Belle felt Rumpel’s arms come around her as their breaths mingled and she concentrated as hard as she could. I love you, she thought. I will always love you.

Rumpel felt the first tingle of magic, but was afraid to let go, to stop kissing Belle, lest it be too soon. Go, he thought at it. I don’t want you, I don’t need you. Just Belle. Belle and Gideon and Tabby. He tightened his arms around Belle, as a fierce pang lanced through him. And Bae. Oh, son... He felt the magic strengthen, and then it flared, strongly enough to cause him to jerk back in shock

Belle’s eyes flew open and she surveyed him anxiously. “What happened? Did it work?”

Rumpelstiltskin took a deep breath. He felt lighter, somehow. Hesitantly he probed for the voices; they’d gone mostly dormant after he’d given up using magic but he could always waken them with a thought. Now, nothing responded. Heart thudding in his chest, he reached down to pull out the dagger sheathed in his boot. Slowly he lifted it up so they could both see.

The blade was bare of any name.

“Rumpel! We did it!”

Belle flung her arms around him and he quickly moved the dagger off to his side. “Careful, you don’t want to be the next Dark One!” he chuckled, even as he hugged her back with one arm, a giddy sense of freedom sweeping through him.

“Oh! Is it still cursed? Or did we destroy it altogether?”

He hesitated. The blade felt inert to him. But he could still feel the energy surrounding the bridge, buzzing now even more strongly than before. “I think... it’s gone from the dagger. If the Dark One still exists in any shape or form, it’s no longer bound to the dagger. If anything, it went back to the Vault and is safely contained there, with no way to summon it out. But I think...I think that it’s been finally laid to rest. But better safe than sorry, I’m not about to stab someone to find out.”

He sheathed the dagger back in his boot. thinking he would bury it somewhere. Maybe beneath the foundation of a building, let it be covered by tons of brick or stone. He didn’t want to see it ever again in his lifetime, but he didn’t want to take any chances that even the smallest shard of the curse might still cling to it and be discovered by someone else. “Belle?”

“Hmm?”

“Can you feel the magic here?”

Her smile changed to a frown. “You mean at this bridge? I felt like this was someplace special, when we came here, like I could believe the stories about it? But not specifically magic, no. What do you feel?”

“It was like a low-level humming when we first got here; now it’s crackling with new energy. But if I could feel it then, when I was still the Dark One, and I can still feel it now...”

He held out his palm. The fire didn’t come to him with barely a thought, as it used to. He had to think it into being, as he had taught Regina and Cora and Zelena to think it into being. But it came, a small fireball forming in the air directly above his hand, hot but not burning.

“You can still do magic,” Belle exclaimed. “Does that mean -- “

Rumpelstiltskin shook his head, grinning, as he closed his fist over the flames and extinguished them. “No, I’m not still the Dark One. It’s different, I can feel it, there’s not that endless well of power on tap. But my mind still knows how to harness energy and emotion and transform it, and there’s a lot of it in the air here right now. Don’t worry, I’m not going to abuse it, but it’s still nice to know that I have some skill left in that area if it’s ever needed.”

“Well, I’m glad, then.” She took his hands in hers. “What about Henry, though? You won’t be able to hear him if he calls for you, will you?”

“No, that was something that came with the curse. I think he’s proven that he can take care of himself, but still, we should visit and tell him the news. He needs to know that if he runs into trouble, I won’t be able to show up at his call. It’ll be nice to see them, anyway; Lucy must be starting to walk by now.” They’d visited a couple of times, but it had been almost a year now.

“It still seems hard to believe sometimes that Henry ended up staying here,” Belle observed. “Do you think he’ll ever go back? Do you think we will?”

Rumpelstiltskin shrugged. “I don’t know. There are some things I miss, but the children are happy, and so are we. Maybe we should try to convince Henry and Ella to move someplace closer to us.”

Rumpelstiltskin and Belle had reached the bottom of the bridge when the bushes ahead of them rustled and Gideon popped back out. “Aren’t you coming?” he demanded. “We found something that we want to show you!”

“Where’s Tabby?” asked Belle, when she didn’t appear behind Gideon. “We’ve got something to tell you.”

“Can it wait? They might leave. Hurry!”

“You left her behind?” Rumpelstiltskin demanded, picking up his pace. “And what do you mean by ‘they’?”

“It’s not far, and she promised not to move from the spot where I left her.” Gideon’s eyes danced with delight.. “And I’m not telling, it’s a surprise.” He turned and began weaving back through the trees, glancing back to make sure that they were following.

Rumpelstiltskin and Belle looked at one another and Belle shrugged with a smile and took Rumpel’s hand as they followed their son. If Gideon felt that it was safe to leave Tabby, she undoubtedly was. “I bet it’s some baby animals,” she guessed shrewdly, and though Gideon didn’t say anything, the look on his face as he glanced back was telling.

“Twin fawns?” suggested Rumpelstiltskin.

“Fox kits playing in front of their den?” hazarded Belle.

Gideon’s excitement seemed to warrant something more out of the ordinary, though. “Unicorns?” Rumpelstiltskin asked doubtfully. Not aggressive usually, but a mother guarding her foal might take even a little girl for a threat. Still, both children knew not to approach any wildlife, to watch from a distance only.

Gideon grinned and put his finger to his lips, cautioning silence, as he slowed his steps, taking care where he put his feet. Belle glanced ahead and saw Tabby sitting cross-legged on the ground beside a large tangle of blackberry vines, scratching a unicorn foal whose head rested in her lap contentedly. The mother was nearby, nibbling at the berries, keeping one eye on them but obviously not too concerned.

Tabby looked up at their approach, her expression one of rapture. “I didn’t go up to it, I swear! He came to me, and I just reached out and stroked him, and he liked it and plopped right down!”

Gideon eased down beside her, but didn’t attempt to touch the unicorn, afraid he’d startle it away and ruin it for Tabby.

Rumpelstiltskin glanced at Belle helplessly, unsure what to do.

“Don’t look at me, Rumpelstiltskin,” she said matter-of-factly. “That’s your daughter, not mine.”

“What do you mean?” he protested, although he knew. Gideon was more like his mother, with his bold, inquisitive nature. Tabby was the quiet one, who could be happy playing by herself, who could hold still for an impossibly long time until a squirrel came down to take the sunflower seeds she held out in her open palm. She was the one who loved to watch him spin when he had a chance to do so, and was already developing a keen eye at spotting the plants needed to produce different dyes. The one who had declared to Joan, the tanner’s wife, that she was going to be a hedgewitch when she grew up. “You’re the one who tamed the beast.”

“Are you comparing yourself to an innocent little unicorn?” she teased.

He lowered his mouth to her ear. “Well, I was certainly horny enough in those days,” he said sotto voce. “And terribly confused by my maid when she seemed to like me. I was so certain that I was reading the signs wrong; that she must just be feeling pity for me.”

“Compassion, yes. But I was also admiring the way your leather pants fit.” Smirking, she ran a hand down over his backside to emphasise her point.

“I knew it,” he said sagely. “That’s the only reason you wanted to come back to the Enchanted Forest.”

“I can hear you,” Gideon sing-songed.

Rumpelstiltskin grinned as he pulled Belle to stand in front of him, resting his chin on top of her head and putting his arms around her waist. “Sorry son. I can’t help it if your mother is an incorrigible flirt.”

“What’s that mean?” He finally dared to touch the unicorn foal, finding it liked to be scratched in the same places that the horses did.

“It means I believe in reminding my husband that I think he’s attractive,” Belle said firmly. That was one problem with traveling in the caravan, a lack of privacy.

Now that a second person was touching her baby, the mother unicorn came to investigate, lipping at Gideon’s hair. Gideon froze with a comical expression on his face, and Belle remembered her camera and quickly raised it, framing both children and the two unicorns in the shot. At the alien whirr of the camera, the mother unicorn jerked up her head and moved back, calling to her foal. He scrambled to his feet and got up to follow her.

“I’m sorry, Tabby,” Belle apologised. “I didn’t mean to frighten them away.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “My hand was getting tired anyway.” She jumped up. “Did you get the picture? Let me see!”

She and Gideon came crowding around, exclaiming as the picture came into being.

Belle suddenly giggled. “Rumpel, do you remember -- “

“Saying that a unicorn wouldn’t eat Gideon, but it might nibble on his hair?” He laughed. “Yes, I do. I didn’t realise I was seeing the future at the time.”

“When was this?” Gideon demanded.

“Back in Storybrooke, before we came to the Enchanted Realms,” Belle said. She ruffled his hair. “Do you remember Storybrooke?”

“Yes, vaguely.”

“I don’t,” Tabby said. “Was I there?”

“Yes, but you were very young. Maybe one day we’ll go back there, but there’s no guarantee that we’ll be able to come back here if we do. We have a magic bean to create a portal to go there, but we might not be able to return here if we left.” Even if there were a good supply of beans, returning to the exact same time and place might prove to be a challenge; the magic was tricky. Best not to risk it, not now.

Tabby began besieging them with questions. Could she see the magic bean? What was Storybrooke like? Their big news was forgotten for the moment, to be remembered and told later in the quiet evening over supper. But it could wait. Right now, they had a life to live. And it was wonderful.

#rumbelle fic #ficwoodelf #rumbelle #a life worth living #gideon gold #just an extra 10k words than my first draft #every time i proofread it #i added more details #ahahaha #*forces myself to stop writing and post it*#ouat au #oneshot #fix it fic #post ep fic #i'm sorry for the lack of detail in the TLK #i can't write kissing

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sophia1644 · 7 years ago

Text

Stuck With Me

Pairing: Nolan x Reader (yes ty for the request)

Warnings: angst, sad lil bean Nolan (I’m weeping), Dom!Nolan at the end ;), fluffy fluff throughout, no smut but sort of heated at the end

Summary: Nolan’s anxiety leads him to believe that Y/N will be torn away from him, and that’s the very last thing he wants to happen, because he doesn’t know if he could even live without his girl.

Word Count: 1.8k

A/N: I honestly love froy sm like I recently found out that he’s the sweetest person in the whole world and he speaks fluid Spanish?? that’s hot af and he cares abt mental awareness and all this other stuff and oh, did I mention, hE HAS THE SAME MUSIC TASTE AS ME!! that’s so hard to find in a guy bc they all like rap nowadays and oh now I’m talking to much… ok enjoy this fluffiness

I turn the key in the ignition, turning off the car and opening the door, my boyfriend doing the same. I round the vehicle, Nolan clasping his hand into mine as we walk towards the school building together. As we near closer, Nolan groans, readjusting the strap of his backpack on his shoulder and turning to face me, obvious distress splaying over his features. He stops walking and so do I, standing in the midst of the bustling parking lot, filled to the brim with high school students. Nolan takes both my hands in his, biting his lip as he searches around the area restlessly, looking for something or maybe even someone. I place my hand gently on his cheek, his attention bouncing back to me. “Nolan, what’s wrong?” I query as his eyes travel downwards to our interlocked fingers. He doesn’t answer me, muttering something under his breath and shaking his head, then his eyes widening and fixating on something behind me. I turn to see Scott McCall and Liam Dunbar talking to one another I’m hushed voices, glancing towards our direction a couple times. Nolan takes me by the hand, dragging me into the school as quickly as he can manage, avoiding the five feet radius of where Scott and Liam were standing. We stop in front of one of our hiding spots, a place where we met during class if something was wrong or even if we just missed one another. I swing open the door to the empty closet, pushing him in and locking the door behind me, annoyed with not understanding the situation. “Nolan, baby, you have to tell me what’s going on,” I whisper, both of my hands resting behind his neck. He sighs, ruffling the blonde hair atop his head and looking into my eyes with his beautiful blue ones. “You already know all the Monroe stuff…” I nod, knowing how scared he got over the supernatural stuff happening in town recently, sparking his anxiety. “Well, I’m trying to help Scott’s pack, but-” “Woah, woah, woah,” I say, interrupting him. “You’re doing what? Nolan, I don’t want you to get into this any deeper than you already are. I want you to focus on getting out of all this, not throwing yourself in the middle.” His hands land on my hips, his fingers hooking into the belt loops of my jeans. “I know, it’s just I can’t stand helping Monroe anymore, when Scott and them are good people.”

“Nolan, you have to get out.” “But Monroe will kill me,” he nearly shouts, but I muffle him with the palm of my hand. He backs up into a wall, slumping against it and sitting down, bringing his knees to his chest and hugging them. “I don’t want to die,” he says, his voice breaking between syllables. I immediately drop to my knees, throwing my bag aside and kneeling in front of him. “Baby, baby, baby, you’re not going to die,” I say, grasping his face in my hands again, and planting a quick kiss against his lips. “You’re okay. I won’t let anything ever happen to you.” He bites his quivering lip, nodding hesitantly while I wrap my arms around his torso, moving his legs down gently and sitting on his lap to get as close as possible to him. He rests his chin on the top of my head, hugging me tightly and kissing my hair. The shrill noise of the bell sounds shortly after a few minutes, bringing us back to the reality that is high school. I stand up first, brushing off my jeans and flipping my hair back behind my shoulders, then giving a hand to Nolan to help him up as well. He smiles at me, taking my hand and brushing it against his lips lovingly, then getting up.

We swing our bags back on and he turns the knob to the door to leave, but I grab his forearm, stopping him. I press my lips against his one last time, kind of shocking him a bit, until he relaxes, sinking into it. “I love you,” he says, his hot breath hitting my lips. “I love you too, Nolan.” . I rub my eyes, yawning as I look down at the book I was reading, closing it and setting it down on my bedside table. I pull on the chain connected to my bedside lamp, the light flickering off. I lay down, pulling the cotton sheets over me and closing my eyes. Not even after two seconds, my phone rings and I know exactly who it is, due to the personalized ring tone. I roll over, grabbing my phone and sitting back up. I tap on the screen and answer the call, my chest hurting at the whimpers coming through the receiver. “Y/N,” Nolan’s voice comes out as a whisper and every single muscle in my body tenses, concern washing over me. “Can I c-come over?” “Of course, Nolan,” I respond quickly, hoping he’ll get here as fast as possible, so I can just hug him and talk out whatever what was on his mind at this time of night. “I’ll see you soo-soon,” he musters to say, hanging up the phone, after I hear a sniffle.

Twenty minutes later, he’s at my window. Thank god my room was on the first floor, because we had a lot of impromptu meetings like these. He knocks on the window lightly, and I bolt out of bed, gripping the bottom of the glass pane and pulling upwards. “I’m s-sorry for waking yo-you up, but I just needed, um, to talk to you,” he says, and I don’t fail to notice his tear-stained cheeks and his red eyes contrasting the dark puffy bags under them. His blonde hair is disheveled and sticking up in all directions, his hands probably been playing with the strands in hopes of calming himself down, something he did more often than not. “I’m always up for you, Nolan,” I whisper, moistening my chapped lips and pulling him into my room. I engulf him in a bearhug, giving him a peck on his wet cheek. Without any reluctancy, his arms encircle my waist, pulling me deeper into the fabric of his grey sweatshirt. I slowly tug him towards my bed for him to sit down and spill whatever was on his mind. He complies, sitting on top of the covers and just as I’m about to sit beside him, he murmurs a ‘no’ so quietly that I barely hear. He pats his lap and I quirk a brow at him, but he nods his head firmly, confirming what he wants. And how could I say no to him? Especially, right now? I straddle his legs, my hands combing through his hair and scratching his scalp to help calm him down. His fingers land on my thighs, his eyes watching every movement as he traces my stretch marks with a feather touch. I wait for him to speak first, occupying myself with the golden locks and not wanting to rush him into explaining what was on his mind.

He eventually stops making shapes along my thighs with his fingers, his eyes finding mine, a slight tiny of red still coating them. “I was thinking about Monroe earlier and I’ve been getting some anxiety because of it,” he says with more composure than he spoke with earlier. I nod along, sad about the idea of him undoubtedly curled up in a ball and crying over something like this that he had no control over. My instincts take over at the saddening thought and I take his hands in my own, bringing them to my lips to pepper with kisses. He smiles half-heartedly at my affection, then continues. “Earlier today, I said I was afraid of dying and honestly I am and that’s half of my fears, but mostly… I’m afraid of losing you in any way, shape, or form. Just the thought of me getting torn away from you or especially you getting torn from me, I just, I just couldn’t do it. I don’t know if I cou-could live without you, Y/N.” The second his voice starts breaking, I break down too, my eyes watering at the words slipping from his mouth. “Don’t say that, Nolan. Baby, you’d have an amazing life with or without me,” I correct. Teardrops threaten to fall down his face, barely balancing on his lower lashes. “Bu-ut, I can’t imagine a life wi-without you, Y/N.” I raise my hand, brushing away the tears blurring my vision and the ones now fallen onto his cheeks. “Nolan, I promise I will be in your life. I promise I’ll be in your life for as long as I possibly can and we’ll have an amazing family and kids and you’ll be an amazing dad and-” “You’ll be an amazing m-mom too and wife,” he adds, the corners of his lips moving up at the notion. “Yes, we’ll both be amazing parents with amazing lives, and it’ll all just be amazing.” He frowns again, a pout also forming onto my lips unintentionally at the sight. “But, you can’t promise that, Y/N. I might die or you mi-might die.” I wrap my arms around his neck, pulling him into the crook of my shoulder. “No, I refuse to believe that. I believe that everything happens for a reason and us meeting each other isn’t the end. I found the love of my life and now you’re stuck with me. You hear? You’re never getting rid of me, Nolan.” I pull back, placing my hands on his cheeks again and forcing him to look me in the eyes. The eyes I’d feel honored to stare into for the rest of my existence. “Okay, then you better learn how to deal with me,” he jokes, his frown diminishing by the minute. I laugh, the action causing him to really smile for the first time in the last hour. “It’d be my pleasure to deal with you, Mr. Holloway.” I lean in, Nolan taking no time to get the hint. I squeal as he picks me up abruptly and throws me onto the bed, his dominant side contrasting the previous version of himself that just spilled his guts to me. He climbs over me, hovering above my body, only an inch or two separating us. He bites his bottom lip seductively, his eyes flashing to my lips. He bends down, our mouths finally touching, the taste of salt from our tears prominent as I swipe my tongue over his lips. “Can I stay over?” Nolan asks, before proceeding to take off his sweatshirt, nothing underneath. “Anything for you. I’m stuck with you, remember?” “Get used to it.”

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ive-always-been-a-pirate · 7 years ago

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Standing In The Outfield (2/2) + A CS Fanfic

A two part fic about baseball, the friend zone, and what happens when your unresolved feelings bring you home after five years away. Inspired by the song 'The Outfield' by The Night Game.

Okay, here’s part 2! Sorry for the delay, but I decided to finish this and then do a third part that will be like a smutty outtake of sorts. Thanks for your patience, friends! Hopefully the next one won’t take as long. Enjoy! :) [Read Part 1 Here]

Word Count: 4.8K Rating: Still T for now

"Emma….hi."

It was almost like the world stopped spinning as Killian braced himself in the swiveling desk chair. He silently willed his legs or mouth to move, but both were definitely far too difficult with the way she was standing so nonchalantly in the small office's doorway. He'd allowed himself to dream of this moment once or twice since they exchanged conflicted goodbyes all those years ago, but his imagination had clearly fallen short.

Seeing Emma again wasn't something he could have ever prepared for - and his wide eyes and timid smile gave him away in an instant. Then again, maybe she'd always noticed how he looked at her. It's not like that had changed in the time they spent apart.

"Hey, I….didn't mean to interrupt, but I heard you were back," she said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "I guess I had to see for myself."

She hadn't changed much since they'd last seen each other, but Killian allowed himself to take in the beautiful details that made up this woman like it was the first time. Her hair was slightly shorter, but still hung in loose waves over her shoulders. She was dressed a bit beyond casual - jeans that were more tailored than the ones she used to wear and a detailed white top paired with a gray jacket - which made him feel a bit self conscious about his worn out denim and zip up hoodie. Her suede flat shoes certainly rivaled his laced up Nikes and he wondered briefly just what was causing her to dress so differently these days.

People change, he silently reminded himself - and while the idea tugged at his heartstrings, he couldn't help how he felt so elated to see her. He hoped desperately that she felt that way too, but the anxiousness written all over her face was definitely giving him pause.

"Aye," he nodded, standing slowly and rocking on his heels a bit. "Haven't been here long yet. I'd planned on seeing if you were still….well, once I got settled."

He didn't finish his reply, not knowing exactly how to admit that she'd been on his mind since he landed back in town. He'd kept in touch enough with David to know that Emma had never left Storybrooke, but he'd never dared inquire why. He had always believed she was destined for big things and it made him a little sad to hear that she'd never opted to explore life beyond small town Maine.

"Good," she answered, her smile a bit bolder. "I mean it's good to see you."

He smirked at that, her words sinking in and shoving him right back into a world where all he wanted was to see her happy. He'd never stopped wanting that for her, even when he had partially convinced himself that she didn't need him to be part of it anymore.

Yes, it was only a partial belief….because on some level, a life where they were little more than a memory to each other would never make total sense to him.

"And you as well," he agreed softly. "I wasn't sure….I, uh, didn't know if-"

"If I'd want to see you?"

He nodded, shoving his hands nervously into his pockets. It wasn't a lie - he had wondered just what this reunion might ultimately be like. Did she actually want to run into him again? Could they pick up where they'd left off?

"Well, I can't say I expected that I'd have to track you down in the haunted part of the high school," Emma replied, moving a bit further into the room. "But you aren't the worst sight for sore eyes."

Her eyes watered a bit as he breathed a sigh of relief, his lips parting without words. There was so much he knew he should say in that moment - so many explanations that she deserved to hear and so many things he wanted to tell her. He was in the middle of summoning any courage he could and trying to decide where to begin when his efforts were halted by her knee-weakening smile. He couldn't help the way his arms moved, widening as she rushed into them. Her embrace was tight around his neck and he hugged her fiercely as everything seemed to right itself. He could have stood there for hours, holding her close and breathing in her presence without a care in the world - if only the world would have allowed.

"Oh….sorry to barge in," Principal Hopper said from the doorway, clearing his throat awkwardly. "Just wanted to make sure you're all set here, Killian."

Watching a slight blush color Emma's cheeks as she pulled back and avoided his new boss's eyes, Killian felt his heart turn a quick somersault in his chest. He wasn't sure what the reaction meant at first, his old insecurities regarding the woman standing before him sneaking back in. As she bit her lip fast and rolled her eyes the tiniest bit, Killian peered toward the school's principal with realization. They obviously knew one another - and he wondered how as he nodded.

"I think so," he answered with a kind smile. "That team meeting is tonight, right?"

"Six o'clock sharp," the man reminded him with an entertained tilt of his head. "The turnout should be great. Lots of parents and players are excited to hear what you've got planned for the season. I take it you'll be there to take notes for the Mirror as well, Emma."

"Uh, yep," she replied quickly. "Planning on it."

Principal Hopper offered them both a grateful expression before departing and Killian couldn't contain the sheer amusement in his gaze as his sight turned back to her. He felt a semblance of their old banter tingling on his tongue as she gave him a warning stare.

"So that's what you've been up to-"

"It's a new thing," she mumbled with a sigh. "Unexpected but….not the worst job. Just temporary though. I don't plan on making a career out of writing about who wins every Friday night high school football game."

He didn't dare tell her that he still received the regular copies of their hometown paper or that he'd actually caught a glimpse of her first article. He didn't tell her that he knew she'd be as phenomenal at this as she was at everything else, even though she definitely deserved to hear that.

There were a lot of things Killian knew he should have said over the years to the green eyed girl currently giving him a humored smirk, but as his thoughts began to straighten out, he realized in there was really only one thing he wanted to say.

"So I have a few hours before I need to get stuff set up for tonight," he started slowly, scratching behind his ear. "Do you maybe want to…."

"Yeah….I'll call-" Emma cut in, digging her phone out of her pocket and batting her eyelashes teasingly. "-but you're paying, Jones."

Killian bit back a laugh as he listened to her rattle off their typical Granny's Diner takeout order via phone. It had been years since they'd done this, but as he looked at her across the desk, he almost believed nothing had changed at all.

It didn't take long for him to realize that one thing definitely hadn't changed - he was still a heartsick fool when it came to Emma Nolan.

If he was being totally truthful, he'd known it the moment he finally laid eyes on her again. All it had taken was a glimpse of that long blonde hair and those bold green eyes for him to fall right back into the same mindset he'd held tight to all those years ago - the one where she utterly captivated him in more ways than he could ever explain.

It wasn't wise to stroll right back down the narrow path of being her friend - especially when he'd likely always want more - but he couldn't resist. The simple lunch and catch up conversation they'd set out to have that afternoon quickly evolved into hours of sharing stories and reliving the past. Emma's laugh still sounded the same and the way it made his heart pound was the only thing distracting him from watching her wandering fingers as they snatched a few fries from his plate - not that he truly minded.

After all, it wasn't the first time.

It was almost strange the way they landed right back in that specific sort of togetherness that was so characteristic of them. It was that same comfortable yet nerve bending relationship - the kind where he was elbowing her teasingly one moment and studying the smooth appearance of her lips the next. It wasn't just friendship. There was something more.

There had always been something more - well, at least for him - and he was trying desperately to table that idea the following night when she dropped by his office again. She looked so perfect strolling through the doorway with two hot cups of coffee in hand that it was difficult to imagine either of them to exist anywhere but with each other. Maybe it wasn't enough, but it was something - and if he still couldn't have her, he could have this. Even after years apart, he realized how much he still needed some part of her in his life.

He'd have to take what he could get for now - and perhaps always.

"I remember this," Emma said suddenly, reaching across the desk and snatching the copy of his first player picture from his minor league days. "I didn't believe it until I saw you in a Pirates uniform."

"Hmmm," he answered with a rather foolish tilt of his head. "Didn't believe what exactly?"

"That you were….gone-" she replied, swallowing hard as she ran a finger over the crisp photo. "-or that you'd actually made it I guess. I mean, I always knew you could, but I think I always kinda hoped you'd turn up back here one day after you lived that dream."

Killian felt his shoulders slump at the realization - the idea that Emma believed his aspirations ever meant to discredit their friendship. He'd spent years of his life loving the game that brought them together, but she'd unintentionally become his dream somewhere along the way too.

God, how he wished he could tell her that.

"I came to see you once," Emma blurted out. "In New York….I came to one of your games."

"You….what? When?"

"It was your second season," she explained with a nervous smirk. "The fourth home game I think. It was against-"

"That little triple A team from up north - the Arendelle Icebreakers," he cut in, finishing her sentence with a disbelieving gasp. "Emma, why didn't you tell me? I would have….I….I never even got to see you."

"That was kind of the point," she replied quietly, looking up at him timidly. "Moving to New York to play baseball was one of the only times I've ever seen you do something for yourself. I never wanted to make it about me. I just….wanted to know you were alright. I wanted to make sure you were happy."

"I wasn't."

Killian nearly bit his tongue at the unexpected admission. He wasn't sure why he said it. Sure, he hadn't been entirely blissful living in the city and falling out of touch with her, but he'd managed to get along fine. Her eyes went emerald with a mix of sadness and understanding, a sight that made his jaw flex with tension.

"Neither was I."

Whoa, he thought as his eyes widened. He certainly wasn't expecting that.

"Everything was just so different after you left," she said with a shrug. "Like, they closed the ice cream shop on Main and the baseball team became terrible….I mean, really terrible. Then I gave up on the idea of law school and then everything with Neal and I just-"

Her words hung heavy in the air as he tried to process them, his head spinning with everything she'd just divulged. He knew he should be sad about the fact that he could no longer meet her at Any Given Sundae for a scoop of Rocky Road and his breath shuddered at the thought of her heart breaking without him around to keep count of the pieces. She was telling him so much and while he was thrilled that her sincerity regarding their conversations was obviously still a point of pride, he felt the subtle prod of his old insecurities.

She was being honest with him. He owed her at least that much too.

"I left," he acknowledged quietly. "But I'm here now."

"Yeah, you are," she nodded. "But does that change things?"

He paused briefly, wondering what the right answer was. He knew what he was hoping for, but as for what Emma wanted….well, he'd never truly been able to pin that down.

"It doesn't have to," he finally offered. "I know the store bought stuff isn't as good as the slow churned ice cream from that little shop, but it's decent - and Cassidy was a fool for messing things up between you two."

"Maybe it was me who ruined it-"

"Don't even try that, love," Killian grinned, shaking his head. "He was always a moron."

"Hmmm," she laughed with a slight blush. "And what about the Storybrooke Knights, Coach?"

"I'm working on it, darling," he chuckled, scratching the scruff on his jaw. "Just gotta give them a chance."

Emma's lips rose into a smile that made his heart ache as she held eye contact for several more moments. The request he'd just given her was ironic and Killian realized quick enough that there was a bit of a double meaning to his words.

Give me a chance, he thought silently as he held back a deep breath.

The baseball team he'd come to supervise wasn't the only thing that deserved some time to prove its worth and telling her so was something he would get around to doing one day.

Eventually, he reminded himself - or at least that was his plan for now.

It was something he kept promising himself he'd bring up during the week that followed. He tried to convince himself it was time to come clean - to tell her that though baseball had taken him away once, it wasn't the only thing that brought him back - and he was still attempting to work up his nerve when she knocked on his old house's front door the night after the first team practice.

He had never sold his childhood home - not after his father finally passed away and not even after he left Storybrooke behind. There was something about the creaking porch swing and dimly lit living room that made him hope he could come back to it someday. Seeing her beneath the porch light all wrapped up in a leather jacket with a nostalgic smile made him instantly believe that he'd made the right choice in keeping the place in his name.

Letting her in was as easy as it had always been - both literally and emotionally. She settled into the couch cushions as they filled in the blanks from the past few years with conversation and a few photos she located in a box on the coffee table.

It was almost like she'd….missed him. Lord knows he was hoping she had.

"Awwww," she gushed, grinning at the sight of him in an action picture from his first season in New York. "You look so cute here."

"Hey, love, I prefer-" he countered with an eyebrow raise. "-devilishly handsome."

"You know, you never changed - at least not to me," she told him softly as her eyes dropped down to the picture again with fond familiarity. "Same old smirk and messy hair. Same stupid ability to get anyone to adore you….and that scar."

"Not my fault, if I recall correctly," he smiled with a glance down at the left hand Emma's older brother had once cleated by accident. "Dave wasn't always the most graceful bloke-"

"Not that one," she returned, leaning in to brush her thumb over his cheek. "This one."

He tried not to flinch beneath her sudden touch, the feel of her hand gentle and even a bit caring. Her eyes flickered with embarrassment as she nearly pulled back, but he somehow slowed her reaction with a reassuring half smile.

"Sorry," she blushed, skimming his jaw lightly. "I just….I guess I've had a hard time actually believing….this."

"This?"

"That you're here," she clarified with a nervous sigh. "That you came back."

He noticed it then, his focus zoning in on her watery eyes and loose wavy hair. She had missed him.

"I always wanted to," he admitted. "This place, it's…."

"Home?"

With a nod, his mind became clear with what he should have said. You are my home, he thought.

"Aye," he smiled. "Something like that."

It was the first inning of their third varsity game when Killian realized just how much hadn't changed since the last time he stood at the edge of his hometown field. The sun had barely dropped in the sky and the cool feel of the spring night air was halted by the black windbreaker he'd just pulled on. It was similar to the one Emma used to steal from him, back when she used to grin at him from the stands and long before she had a boyfriend who wouldn't stand for her wearing some other guy's jacket - even if that other guy was nothing more than a friend.

Friends, Killian thought with a furrowed brow as he glared toward the bleachers. That's what they were and as he watched his old teammate take the empty seat next to her, he decided that perhaps that's all they'd ever end up being.

He didn't even know Neal was still living in Storybrooke - well, not that he'd taken the time to ask. Discussing the whereabouts of that git hadn't exactly been a priority for Killian since he'd started rekindling his friendship with Emma. They'd spent hours bantering and reminiscing since the first night she'd stepped into his half unpacked office and while they'd certainly recounted dozens of memories, Killian had made sure to steer clear of those that involved her old flings and boyfriends.

Ex-boyfriends, he thought as he zipped up his jacket with a hard tug. That's what he wanted to believe Neal was, but as he watched the pair of them engage in a quick hug, he wasn't optimistic about his assumption.

"Game on, Coach," his third baseman - a quirky sophomore named Roland - greeted as he exited the dugout. "You ready?"

Peering back up toward the girl who'd never lost her hold on him, Killian let out a shaky sigh. She was there - right there - and yet as he took in the way she smiled at the man sitting next to her, Killian couldn't help but think about just how far away she really was.

A game, he pondered silently. That's what this was - and he was finally down to his last out.

They'd lost that night. Well, to put it more accurately, they'd been completely annihilated by the seventh inning. When they'd all taken the field for the customary stretch and small town rendition of 'Take Me Out To The Ballgame' - a baseball tradition that Storybrooke never failed to honor - he'd chanced a glance towards the stands. It took only a second to notice she was gone and his face had grown hot when he realized Neal was too. The small crowd was in the middle of chanting something about peanuts and Crackerjacks when he felt his hopes fall fractionally.

She hadn't left the other two games early. In fact, she'd arrived early to the first one and talked him out of his very nervous frame of mind almost too easily. She'd stayed late at the second game, even helping him haul the bag of aluminum bats and crisp baseballs to his car afterward. Emma had always been his most consistent fan and while he knew it shouldn't, her absence made the team's loss that much more frustrating.

He knew he probably didn't have the right to feel annoyed about something so trivial, but convincing himself of that was proving to be very difficult as he read through his game notes in the lowlights of his office.

"You always were ridiculously studious."

He jumped a bit in his seat, his sight jerking up to meet the eyes of his visitor. He definitely wasn't expecting such an intrusion and his heart thumped rapidly in his chest as he bit his lip.

"Aye," he answered, setting down the stack of papers. "I suppose it's true what they say about old habits."

"Admirably consistent, Jones," she smirked. "I've always liked that, you know."

God, she was beautiful, and even more so in the article of clothing she'd put on since he last caught sight of her - his well worn windbreaker from all those years ago. She'd kept it, he realized as his eyes admired her tangled blonde hair and cautious green gaze. That had to mean….something.

"Nice jacket," he said softly, his eyebrow raising. "Though I should apologize that our current team might not deserve such kind support."

"It wasn't that bad, Killian….and I'm sorry I missed-"

"You shouldn't be," he lied. "I know you've been….busy."

His response sounded clipped and the way it made her shoulders straighten immediately made Killian wish he'd spent a little more time picking a casual way to answer her. She moved into the room, her arms folded as she finally paused near the edge of the desk. He wasn't sure why, but she looked….nervous?

"I didn't intend to leave," she started, her teeth worrying her lip. "I just….needed to take care of something."

"With Neal?"

Shit, he thought as his heart raced. Why did he even bring up that jerk? Why did he even care?

"You saw that?"

"I, uh, yeah," Killian stammered, trying to avoid her eyes. "But it's okay, Emma. You don't have to-"

"Killian, I wanted to explain-"

"You don't have to," he cut in, rising to his feet. "Whatever's going on with you and Neal, Emma….it's none of my business-"

"But that's what I wanted to tell you, Killian, there's nothing-"

"He let you walk home, Emma," he blurted out, watching confusion fill her eyes as he shook his head. "I mean….that night of the dance - the Sadie Hawkins dance. After your date, he let you walk home by yourself. I know that because you were freezing by the time you got to my house and your feet were obviously sore from walking in those shoes you never wanted to wear in the first place."

Emma's lips parted slightly, a slight sense of bewilderment filling her stare as she listened to him ramble. He steadied his breath as their eyes locked and it didn't take long for the words he'd never said to resuming rushing out of his mouth.

"Then when you got sick the next week, he didn't bring you the notes you missed in World History or get you chicken soup from Granny's," Killian listed, his face hot with frustration. "He gave you roses for your birthday, Emma, even though you don't like them because you think they're a cliche. Oh and he doesn't like The Princess Bride - something he flat out told you the third time he got you to bail on movie night."

Her eyes were glassy as she listened, his rant obviously causing something to stir in her. Killian knew this was different for her - he'd never been quite this bold about how wrong he thought Neal was for her. Maybe this was wasn't how it was supposed to go. Maybe telling her that Neal didn't deserve her wasn't his place, but Emma was his best friend….and he'd spent far too long pretending that was enough.

"I know Neal….he's-" Killian said, biting his lip with a huff. "-but he's not…."

"He's not what, Killian?"

Her eyes were nervous yet permissive as whatever she was about to say faded into a charged silence. He could feel his nerves vibrating as he tried to be remain calm and rational. This was it though - the moment he'd been searching for since they were kids. It was that single instance he'd been waiting for since long before he chose to give her the space he'd assumed she once wanted.

He had to say something.

"He doesn't know….that you like bearclaws."

Yes, something - but not that, he thought as he began to mentally berate himself.

"That I like….bearclaws?"

"Yeah, the ones from the diner," Killian started, finally allowing his eyes to soften. "It's what I'd always bring you the morning after a tough loss - and not because you couldn't stand to see the Storybrooke Knights get their asses kicked, but more because it cheered me up to see you so happy about a morning pastry."

She laughed softly, a pink blush warming her cheeks as he stepped a few paces in her direction. He had no idea where his confidence was suddenly coming from, but as a small tear rolled down her cheek, he resolved not to question his instinct to wipe it away.

"He probably doesn't know that you're an outstanding writer either….and not just small town news either, love - I mean fiction stories and book reviews," he continued, giving her a nod. "The only girl who could convince eighteen year old me that Peter Pan was worth reading."

"It was," she sniffled, her smile weak. "But I-"

"He doesn't know that you don't like apples and that you can't dance, but you're pretty cute when you try," he smirked. "Or that you know more World Series trivia than any woman or man honestly should."

"Mmmm," she teased, raising an eyebrow. "Still bitter about that I see."

"You're patient, Emma - and passionate," he carried on. "You love traditions and sappy movies and appreciating the sweet things in life like that stupid discount cinnamon you always put on your hot cocoa."

"It's the best kind."

"Aye," he said, his eyes hopeful and his smile honest. "So are you."

The air hitched hard in her throat, his fingers grazing hers as they intertwined and Killian lifted her hand to his lips. She gasped at the contact and he took comfort in the way she shifted forward the tiniest bit.

"So why does it matter so much to you that the guy I am not and will not be dating-" she subtly clarified before forming her question. "-knows all of this?"

“It matters to me that you know, Emma.”

"You want me to know that you're….observant?"

"No," he said slowly, allowing the feelings he'd pushed away for years to surround him. "I want you to know that I don't want you to be with Neal because….I want you to be with me."

It took what felt like ages for a slow grin to spread across her face, the years he'd spent avoiding the truth melting away as she placed her hands on the sides of his jaw. It was like a dream when her thumb ran over the scar that had been beneath his eye for quite some time now and Killian closed his eyes briefly while he awaited the reply he could only pray she'd give him.

"Took you long enough, Jones."

He chuckled slightly as her forehead fell to his, the moment pulling them into a careful first kiss he'd almost believed he might never receive. It was pure and easy as her lips moved against his own, the quiet space of his office ignored and insignificant as his fingers wove their way through her hair. He could have dissolved into thin air as the kiss broke after a few minutes, but when his gaze returned to her beautiful one, he was beyond grateful that he didn't.

"So," she breathed, leaning into his gentle caress. "Now what?"

"Well, I guess-" he began with a smile that felt permanent. "-we take it a base at a time?"

"Hmmm, maybe," she countered, tilting her head from side to side. "-or how about we agree on no baseball puns and I let you take me out anywhere except a ballgame?"

He laughed a little harder that time, placing a soft kiss on her head as she nuzzled his chest. The game he'd been focused on earlier that evening had ended in exhausting defeat, but this….this was the real victory he'd been hoping for.

Tagging some folks: @optomisticgirl, @xpumpkindumplingx, @laschatzi, @jennifer-morrison, @spartanguard, @teamhook, @kat2609, @thesschesthair, @timeless-love-story, @its-like-a-story-of-love, @shady-swan-jones, @kmomof4, @deathbycaptainswan, @cocoa-and-rum, @ascolinwishes

#cs ff #cs au ff #cs two shot #captain swan #killian jones #emma swan #baseball!killian #cs fic update #standing in the outfield

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initiala · 8 years ago

Note

CS prompt: First sex after childbirth

I missed Storybrooke Downs. A lot. Also this went kinky. And super Real. If you aren’t comfortable with what probably falls under ‘erotic lactation’, then keep on scrolling.

And it’s pronounced “EE-fah” ;)

March 3, 2020

They wind up naming her for his mother.

Aoife Elizabeth Jones, dark of hair and strong of lungs, has his nose and her mother’s chin. Her eyes haven’t quite made up their mind on what color they want to be just yet and she spends an abnormal amount of time simply observing the world around her.

She’s been in his life for only a few short months, and yet he can hardly remember a time without her in it.

Emma’s been slow to get back on her feet, poor lass; her pregnancy had been a difficult one and a whole slew of postpartum difficulties had kept her down for much of the last few months. He’s tried not to hover, truly, but it wasn’t easy (still isn’t, sometimes) to see her lethargic and unable or unwilling to get out of bed some days. The crying jags were the worst of it: the mood swings he was used to, but seeing her still and sad and prone made his heart stutter and a sense of hypervigilance to take over. When Killian had decided to all but pass the reins, as it were, of the farm to Will while throwing himself headfirst into fatherhood and caring for his wife, she’d been able to get the necessary treatments to be well once more. It had been difficult to promote Will, to take a step back in the day-to-day affairs of the farm. But his family had supported his decision, encouraged it, and if he was honest with himself it was worth it to see the look of shock on Will’s face. And with his extra support of her at home, Emma began to improve, slowly returning to her old self once more.

Now, Killian leans against the door with his arms lightly folded across his chest, watching as Emma bounces Aoife gently, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet as she hums. He tries not to hover much these days, but it can be hard to shake the habit. And, if he’s honest, he’d rather not miss out on little moments like this. Emma’s not wearing a shirt, a sure sign that Aoife’s bedtime snack has just ended. Her hair is pulled up in a messy ponytail and away from little fingers just learning to grasp with intent. There’s a burping cloth over her shoulder and the nightlight that sends stars and moons-shaped light across the walls is already turned on. The floor creaks as he steps into the nursery and Emma speaks quietly, without turning to look. “She’s almost asleep.”

He comes up behind them, loosely wrapping his arms around Emma’s waist and pressing a gentle kiss against Aoife’s crown. She fusses a little, her tiny fist clenching and relaxing as her face scrunches up in discontent. Killian chuckles. “Apologies, little love, Papa didn’t meant to disturb you.”

“You get to be on sleep duty if she doesn’t settle down,” Emma tells him as he reaches up to take the cloth and toss it into the washing pile.

But settle she does, as her parents sway and her mother starts humming again. Killian’s chin tucks up against Emma’s shoulder and he presses kisses against her skin. This is his favorite time of the day – the quiet moments before Aoife’s bedtime when she makes little cooing sounds as she falls asleep; when Emma, tired after a long day, leans into him a little more and allows him to set the pace of their gentle sway, rocking their daughter to sleep; when his whole world fits right here in the circle of his embrace.

He sticks close by as Emma lays Aoife in her crib. She fusses a little, her face scrunching up once more as she’s left to lay alone in her crib, and Killian can’t help but sympathize: between sleeping alone or cuddling with Emma, he’d choose the latter every time. They watch her settle for a moment before walking quietly towards the door. The moment they’re out of the nursery, the door left open just a bit, Killian sweeps Emma up in his arms, grinning at her surprised squeak. “What the hell?”

“Am I not allowed to spoil my wife?”

She glowers at him, but wraps her arms around his neck and if he isn’t mistaken (and he rarely is when it comes to her) there’s a small smile threatening to spread on her lips. “You spoil me plenty, I just can’t figure out the occasion.”

What little ire remains in her tone and face is rendered exponentially less threatening by her half-bare state. He carries her down the hall to their bedroom, bypasses the bed, and straight into the bathroom where he’s run her a hot bath. Her doctors have all told him that anything that can be done to ease her burdens (imagined or not) will help exponentially, and he’s taken to doing such things whenever the thought occurs to him; he also figures that little reminders of his love and care for her never hurts. He’s added some of those fizzy, scented, confetti configurations she’s grown to like, and lit a few candles and placed them around the rim. She inhales sharply at the sight, her arms tightening around his neck. “Oh, Killian.”

He sets her down, his hands lingering on her hips. He kisses her forehead, then both cheeks, watching the way her eyes close and smiling at how she leans into his touch. “The occasion is that I love you, that I can’t remember a time I’ve been happier, and that it’s entirely due to you that I feel this way.”

She ducks her head and he catches her smile before she tries to hide it. “That’s the sleep deprivation talking.”

“Perhaps, but perhaps you should also take advantage of it while I’m feeling charitable,” Killian teases.

She demures. “Seriously, Killian, I know I’ve been a pain in the ass and none of this has been easy. If anything, I need to be doing all this nice stuff for you, not the other way around.”

There’s an itch under his skin that he wouldn’t be able to scratch even if he wanted to remove his hands from her. His heart aches for her, his stubborn Swan; if it hadn’t been for the Nolans nagging her as much as he did himself, he’s not sure she would have accepted help for her problems. “Emma, you’re not a pain in my arse or anyone else’s. Aye, it’s not been easy, but this is how our partnership works. Even without the vows,” his hand finds hers, fingers running over the rings on her fingers, the ones she’d had to wear on a chain around her neck for months, the ones he’d sworn for better or for worse over, “I’d not want to be anywhere else but here by your side.” Her eyes are shining at this point, a watery smile on her lips, and he kisses her forehead. “Take your bath, sweetling, I’ll keep an ear out for the little one.”

Her hands catch his before he can pull away. “Stay? Er – you can join me? If you want to?” she asks and the hopeful look in her eyes makes his breath catch in his throat.

It’s been almost a year since they’d last lain together. She’d been a tempting sight for months, lovely and glowing as their child grew within her, but the difficulties with her health had prevented them from being able to indulge in their desires for one another – and God only knew how irritated Emma had been about that. He’d seen her phone’s calendar with certain dates marked for when she might be cleared for sex again. But that had changed after Aoife arrived in a whirlwind of long labor and eventual emergency C-section, and then the host of other issues Emma had to combat in recovery. He’d done his best to keep from causing his wife any unnecessary guilt or pressure, and truly her health matters more to him than anything else.

As she’d said it hasn’t been easy. None of it has. And while part of him really, truly misses his wife in the biblical sense, the rest of him prioritizes gratefulness for Emma’s returning health and happiness, and the health of their daughter.

Emma smiles as she searches his eyes. “I wouldn’t suggest it unless I felt ready,” she says, as if she’s reading his mind.

Some days he’s not so sure she can’t.

“I know, love, it’s just – you’re certain? Truly?”

She nods and slides his hands up to her bare ribs, her smile turning decidedly more devious as his breath catches. “It’s been way too long since we’ve done something like this together.”

She giggles at how quickly he divests himself of his clothing, her own strip out of her leggings and underwear much slower than his hurried flinging of garments this way and that. He’s not sure if his speed coming from his own fear that she’ll change her mind or that he’ll lose his nerve. (Maybe both. Maybe something else he can’t name.) He almost stumbles when she kicks her clothing aside, as agog as he’d been as a lad at his first sight of a woman bared. Her breasts and hips are fuller these days, and a thin red line scars her lower abdomen, but little else has changed; it’s only enhanced her natural beauty and he finds her as beautiful as she was the day they met almost six years ago.

The water is pleasantly warm as he steps in, easing the minor aches of the day as he sits down and holds out his hand to assist her. She fits easily between his legs, her back resting against his chest, and they share a sigh of content as she lays her head back against him and his arms envelop her. He turns into her a bit, breathes her in and grazes his lips against the shell of her ear; in a way it’s almost an extension of earlier, being pressed against her like this, but decidedly… more. It’s not her skin against his, not the way water clings to her skin, the ends of her hair as they sink down a little farther. It’s just — he feels closer to her like this, lighter and less anxious (because he’s always anxious, deep down, feels it flare up at each hiccup or setback, every bad day even after a string of seven good ones), and there is something about water that simply makes him feel… safe.

(Like he could drift, and not drown, and keep his love afloat with him.)

And, well, the view from here isn’t too bad, either, a fact his wife seems to know all too well if the stifled snicker she lets out is any indication. “I’d say my eyes are up here, but.”

Killian hums into her hair, drags his lips down her jaw and tries (fails, miserably) to hide his smile against her skin. “Lovely as they are, Swan, I can’t say I’m all that displeased to finally have these,” he murmurs, hands reaching up under the water to cup the underside of her breasts, a soft, gentle thing that has her breath hitching, “and you all to myself for a little while.” He can tell she’s smiling even without seeing her, can practically feel it rising up out of her chest and blossoming bright onto her face as he drops his lips to her shoulder.

“All I ask is for you to be gentle,” she says with a sigh, turning her head slightly to nestle against him better. “Your daughter doesn’t seem to understand the word just yet.”

Her skin feels like silk under his fingers as they glide down her stomach, coasting over new curves and scars. “Ah, so she’s my daughter when she’s misbehaving, is that how it is?”

“Absolutely.”

He chuckles, his lips brushing against the soft skin of her temple, then her forehead. He skims down the length of her nose and captures her lips in a kiss. Emma sighs happily, opening for him immediately. Something about the glide of her tongue against his, coupled with the delightful way her arse wriggles against his cock, causes his restraint to snap. He groans, surging forward and causing the water to slosh noisily in the tub, turning her enough to better devour her mouth. She mewls into him, her hand slipping between them to grasp his cock. The feel of her nimble fingers on him after so many months without makes him shudder. He allows her a few pumps before taking her hand in his. “Need you,” she whispers against his lips.

“I know, pet, but if you don’t stop then it’ll be over all too soon,” he says.

She whines in protest, but soon they turn to whines of pleasure as he kisses her again. His tongue tangles with hers, his teeth scraping against her lower lips and sucking it into his mouth; he does so love the way her lips plump up, full and red, when he kisses her. He turns her back to their original position, keeping their left hands entwined as his right slides down her stomach to the thatch of hair between her legs.

God but she’s soft, softer than he remembers. There’s slickness between her folds that’s pure Emma and he slides two fingers into her pliant flesh with ease. She gasps into his mouth, her body arching as he begins a gentle thrust with his fingers. His thumb grazes the side of her clit in a pattern that alternates between rough and gentle, and judging by the way her hips cant against his hand, she likes it very much.

She turns her head, meeting his mouth with hers again. Her kisses are rough and demanding, more tooth than lip, and it awakens something darker, something greedier inside of him. He brings their hands to her breasts, kneading and massaging each in turn. Their fingers trace nonsense on her chest, on her stomach, trailing up and down and returning to tweak and tease her nipples at each pass. “More,” she demands, gasping the word between a kiss, and he’s more than willing to give it to her.

He slides in a third finger, stretching her, prepping her for later, and groans in unison with her as her walls squeeze him. “I can’t wait to feel you,” he tells her, surging forward to kiss her again. “Been so long – missed you –”

“‘M right here,” she says, her voice cracking as he puts more pressure on her clit. “God, Killian – close –”

His eyes drop to her chest as her head falls back with a broken moan; there’s a flush creeping down her neck towards her lovely, full breasts. “Are you going to come for me?” he murmurs right behind her ear, kissing a sensitive spot along her hairline. “Look at you, all flushed and pink and wanton.”

Her breathless agreement has him quickening his pace, his thumb swiping her clit in rapid succession as he pumps his fingers into her. Her walls flutter around him, not quite at the peak of pleasure but well on the way there. He turns his attention to her ear, her neck, nibbling and sucking little red marks into her skin, relishing in her gasps at each addition. She’s starting to shudder, and his lips find her ear, his voice dropping to a growl, “My needy, greedy wife.”

At the word wife, Emma tenses, her cries filling their small bathroom as her body convulses around him. If his eyes weren’t trained on the way her breasts pinked up from pleasure, he’s sure to have missed the liquid leaking from her nipples.

That’s interesting.

She relaxes as he withdraws his fingers, pressing a few kisses along her neck and shoulder while pondering this new discovery. Sure, there’d been all sorts of cautionary details in their numerous baby books about milk leaking out when the baby cries, but unless he’s going quite deaf (she’d been loud, but not that loud) that’s not the case here. He leans back, sliding them both down into the water a little more as his hand rests lightly on her thigh. Her grip on his other hand loosens and he flexes his fingers slightly to bring the feeling back into them. After another long minute, she exhales slowly. “Hand me the soap?” Emma asks quietly, reaching for a washcloth.

He obliges, hardly noticing at how quickly and efficiently she scrubs herself, rationalizing it at how she must be in a hurry to get to the bedroom. He does get to fix her ponytail for her, tucking it up into a bun so it doesn’t get soapy as well as wet at the ends, but she hardly swipes at her back where she can reach with the cloth before she’s rinsing off. “I’ll clean up in here,” he tells her, kissing her wet shoulder. “Go dry off, I’ll be with you in a mo’.”

She hums, her tone noncommittal, and gets to her feet. He’s treated to a lovely view of her backside while she reaches for a towel, but she steps out and away before he can tease her with his hand.

He gives himself a brief scrub and rinse before opening the drain, grabbing his own towel and slinging it around his shoulders before blowing out the candles. It’s only when he’s emerged from the bathroom and toweling himself dry, the simmering smell of smoke still lingering in his nose, that Killian really takes note of Emma in the aftermath of that little incident. She’s standing idly next to their dresser, hair tugged out of the bun he’d crafted for her as she towels the damp ends dry and she is, much to his surprise and dismay, wearing a robe.

That’s… decidedly rather against what he’d been hoping for — what he’d been expecting, really.

But she looks… almost churlish, his Swan, brow furrowed and lips thinned into a line. Any traces of that lovely little high she’d experienced at his hands seem virtually non-existent now and that — that just won’t do. Anxiety flares briefly under his breastbone as he wonders what he could have possibly done to cause such a pivot in her mood, but he does his best to stamp it down. After another moment’s consideration he crosses the room toward her, towel still grasped in hand as he steps just outside of her space, hovering just around the edges. “Emma?” he prompts. “What —”

“Nothing,” she says, a short, clipped thing that doesn’t bear much heat. The flare in temper evaporates as quickly as it had appeared, and at the breath she lets out the room suddenly feels unusually empty. Her shoulders sag slightly. “Can we just… not? I really don’t want to do this.”

“Do what?” he asks, but she’s already out of the conversation, pressing her towel against his chest as brushes past him quickly, deliberately avoiding his gaze. It’s his turn for his brow to furrow but he turns toward her again with put-upon ease, intent on finding out what’s bothering her. He falters, though, over the first question that might have followed when he sees the way she nearly throws herself onto the bed with a disgruntled huff and draws her knees up toward her chest, face turning toward one of the plumper (his) pillows.

The arousal he’d felt earlier has completely disappeared by now, quickly consumed by confusion and worry. It’s been ages since he’s seen her so defensive, her walls and her armor long since shed, but she curls in on herself ever so slightly even as he sits on the edge of the bed to try and talk. His pulse hammers in his throat; it feels paper dry and his voice feels very small as he asks, “Did I hurt you?”

Her eyes flick up to his, the lines between her brows vanishing as her gaze softens. “No,” she says, the honesty plain on her face. “No, Killian, it wasn’t… it’s not you.”

Killian drapes the towel over his hips for modesty’s sake as he stretches out on the bed next to her. He believes her (she’s a terrible liar, he always could read her like a book) but the anxiety gnawing at his insides makes him ask, “Are you certain?”

She reaches across the gap between them and he takes the offered hand, lacing their fingers together. She looks tired, drawn, the circles under her eyes not entirely from the little sleep Aoife allows them. As much as he’s been able to do for her, it pains him that he cannot relieve all of the burdens that weigh her down, that catch her off guard when she’s unawares. “It’s everything I’ve been missing,” Emma says. “Well, almost.” The faint smile on her lips brings one out on his own face. “But the—the thing. I knew it was a possibility, but I wasn’t really expecting it? And it…”

He’s about to ask for clarification, but she’s frowning down towards her chest, red flags burning on her cheeks, and he’s struck with understanding. “Emma, that wasn’t at all odd.”

“Yeah, but it’s kind of embarrassing. And weird. And it ruined the mood.”

He waits until she’s out of qualifiers before reaching for her and pulling her close. She stiffens briefly, but she inhales and then buries her nose in his chest and relaxes against him. Killian feels the anxiety easing off at her touch, resting his chin on the top of her head. “First, it did not ruin the mood.”

“You were all distracted after it happened.”

“Yes, but not because I was thinking ‘goodness, Emma’s breasts are disgusting, producing the very thing that keeps our child alive at what may not be the most opportune moment’.” She snorts at that and he smiles. “I was thinking ‘that’s very interesting, how quickly can I get her to do that again and will it disgust her if I wanted to taste?’”

Emma jerks back, looking up at him with a raised eyebrow. “Seriously?”

“So it does disgust you?”

She chews on her bottom lip, looking uncertain. “Well, I don’t know. It’s not like I’ve ever thought you’d want to, so I guess it never crossed my mind.“

He shrugs. “It’s not like I’d thought of it before now either, but I have to admit I’m curious now. Aren’t you?”

She makes a face, shaking her head, and he supposes everyone has their limits. He strokes her back, soothing circles. “I’m sorry I made you uncomfortable,” he says quietly.

“Don’t,” she replies, just as quiet. “I should have expected them to leak.”

“There’s no way you’d have known it would make you feel this way, though.”

“I just don’t like not being in control of my own body,” Emma admits. Her breath hitches and Killian stills, feeling that this is about a lot more than leaking breast milk. “Everything over the past year… I love Aoife and I’m glad we have her, but… I don’t like feeling like this.” She sniffles and he pulls her in even closer. “First all the crap with my body changing and then every goddamn scare and bed rest and my hormones all over the place and now this… I seriously don’t know how you haven’t run for the fucking hills at this point. God knows I want to leave me behind.”

He doesn’t know what to say, but he knows enough from his own experiences that just letting her get it all out there can be enough; he might not have to say anything. There’s another moment of silence and then she laughs wetly. “God, first I throw myself at you and now I’m a crying mess, talking about what a terrible mom I am. I’m a fucking trainwreck.”

However, he has his limits, and letting her beat herself up over something like this is one of them. “No, love,” he says, urging her to look at him. He wipes some stray tears from her cheeks. “You’re my same, beautiful Swan. We made promises to each other, you remember? No secrets, no hiding anything, just you and me. After everything we’ve been through, you truly think I’d want to leave when things got hard? I love you far, far too much for that.” She’s quiet and watches him with those big, sad eyes. “And you, my own sweet lass, are far from a terrible mother. I know this hasn’t been easy on you, and I know that you know it’s okay that you aren’t bouncing back so quickly. But you’re fighting, love, and that’s what matters.”

He holds her close as she breaks a little, soothing her with soft words and light touches. This is not something he’s unused to, more mood swings and tears, and it kills him to be unable to do anything but be there to hold her and let her work it out; he’ll have to convince her in the morning to make another appointment with her doctor, but perhaps if she’s being so insightful about how she’s feeling it won’t be the wheedling and pleading it normally is.

When she stills and her breathing evens out, Killian gently untangles himself from her. “Let me hang up the towels and put something on, we’ll turn in early, aye?”

She’s so quiet that he thinks she must have fallen asleep. He presses a kiss to the crown of her head and gets up, heading to the bathroom with both towels in hand. The evening’s gone down several extremely unexpected avenues and Killian suddenly finds himself exhausted; guilt pinches in his gut – it’s not as if he’s the one going through these severe mood swings, he’s just along for the ride – but weariness drags at his bones regardless. He braces himself on the sink with one hand, scrubbing his face with the other.

Perhaps Emma’s not the only one who needs to call their doctor in the morning.

Picking up his pyjama pants from where they’re slung over a clothes rack, he heads back into the bedroom, then stops short.

Emma’s ditched her robe, lounging enticingly across their bed.

Killlian’s chest feels tight and he knows he’s failing from going slack-jawed. Emma’s mouth curls into a delightfully devious smile as she takes him in. “Cat got your tongue?” she asks.

Actually, his head’s spinning from how quickly things are changing, but he shakes his head and climbs onto the bed next to her. “A bit confused, but never speechless,” he tells her. “Regardless of how stunning you are.”

Her hand splays across his chest. Her face is a little puffy and her eyes are still a little red, but her breathing’s steady and her gaze is sure. “Look, I know I’m being a crazy person today, but I started something earlier and I damn well intend to finish it,” she explains. “And before you start, I’m positive it’s okay. I love you, I want to do this, and I want to do this with you.”

“Not your other husband?” Killian asks and she smacks him lightly, giving him a look.

“Killian, you’re being super great about all of this and I’m grateful for it. And I know, I know, vows and promises, but it still means a lot to me that you actually hold yourself accountable for all of that. So let me make love to my damn husband for the first time in forever, okay?”

“Twist my arm a little,” he says, and she takes his wrist, struggling to twist it behind his back as he chuckled. “Alright, love, if you’re sure, then I submit myself to your carnal desires.”

She rolls her eyes, then pushes him onto his back. “You’re so dramatic.” He opens his mouth and she promptly covers it with one hand. “Not a word, buster, or I’ll edge you for an hour.”

Killian’s not sure he’d be able to last that long and Emma has to know that, but he nods anyway. She replaces her hand with her mouth, kissing him deeply. He can’t help the groan that slips out as her tongue slips between his lips. He feels her climb on top of him, her weight a welcome presence on top of his body. Her hands wander, sliding up and down his arms, his chest, reaching behind her to play with the hairs at the base of his cock. He’s rapidly growing hard again, any lingering worries washing away under waves of lust and love for this woman – his wife – currently trying to kill him with her bare hands.

She rolls them, mumbling, “You’re on top but I’m in charge,” against his lips. He can only moan an affirmative, his lips too busy being sucked and nibbled on to be used for much else.

He pushes her hands away from their exploration, feeling certain that even a light breeze could set him off at this point. He sinks his teeth into her lip and she groans, a throaty thing dripping with lust, before he dips his head down lower. Killian nips at her collarbones and makes his way down between the valley of her breasts, intent on tasting her core, but her hand in his hair stops him. “I thought you wanted to try something,” she says, guiding him towards her left breast.

“I thought you weren’t comfortable with it?”

She shrugs a little. “Can’t know for sure if you don’t try, right?”

Killian meets her eyes and she nods, ever so slightly. He smiles and runs his nose along the curve of her breast, noting not for the first time how much firmer, how much fuller it is. He draws lazy circles with his tongue, meandering his way to her peak, mindful of her whispered “Gentle” before wrapping his lips around her nipple.

He nails dig into his scalp and he eases off the pressure. He listens to the way she gasps, moans, or whines, switching up ministrations and how hard he sucks depending on her reaction. Some milk does leak out, just a little, and Killian hums in surprise. “What?” Emma asks, her voice thick.

“It’s sweet,” he mumbles, kissing the side of her breast before moving to the other, neglected one. “Like… that vanilla coffee creamer you buy me.”

“Oh my God.”

“You asked,” he tells her before getting to work on her other breast.

There’s nothing to taste but her skin this time, and how much pressure and what kind he puts on her doesn’t seem to matter as much as it did before. When she tugs on his hair, he starts to move towards her sex, thinking that’s what she wants next. She doesn’t let him go down on her, though; he does whine rather pitifully about it, giving her a full pout, but she only glares at him, reminding him that she’s in charge tonight. Instead, she rolls them once more so that his head is nestled between their pillows and slides down the length of his body. Hurriedly, Killian shoves a pillow under his head so he can watch, his breathing growing shallower and quicker as Emma’s hand wraps around the base of his cock and her tongue flicks out to taste the tip.

It takes every ounce of his willpower not to come immediately as she wraps her lips around him. He grasps at the sheets, at the pillows, at her hair – he can’t seem to keep still, even as she lays her arm hard across his hips to keep him from thrusting too deeply down her throat. After a few moments, she lets him go, reaching down between her legs. “You like this?” Killian rasps.

She nods, his cock not leaving her mouth; she brings her hand back up and smears her own wetness around his length, tasting them both the next time she bobs her head. He groans deep at the sight, babbling as she alternates licking and sucking him. “Turns you on, doesn’t it? Having a cock in your mouth, it makes you so fucking wet–”

Her cheeks hollow out when she pulls away, cutting off any more words and drawing a long, throaty groan from him – he’s so close, he’s gonna –

She stops and he almost snarls in frustration; this must be how she feels when he teases her.

“Do you want to come or do you want to fuck me?” Emma asks idly, still stroking him lightly.

He notices she’s got her other hand between her legs again. His cock twitches, watching her pleasure them both at once.“Both,” he says, trying to catch his breath.

She smiles, then does the cruelest possible thing by letting him go. He watches her as she reaches into their bedside stand, pulling out tissues and a bottle of lube. “Just to be safe,” she says at his inquiring look.

She’s using the warming kind, he discovers, sending tingling pleasure all the way down to the tips of his toes as she strokes him and makes sure every inch of his cock is coated in the stuff. He grips her hips as she straddles him, positioning him at her entrance, and slowly sinks down.

Neither of them breathe for a long moment, the seconds ticking by as she takes him in inch by agonizing inch. He feels her tense up and as distracted as he is by how wonderful and warm and soft she feels, he still tries to get her to relax, gently rubbing her thighs and her backside, wherever he can reach. “Alright there, love?” he asks through gritted teeth.

She nods, but her face says otherwise. “Just – give me a minute to adjust. You’re big.”

In another circumstance he may have gloated at that admission, but for now he just felt too overwhelmed and elated at being seated within her again. He forced himself to breathe normally, for his hips to remain still, for his wilder urges to have, take, possess to settle down and let her set their pace. His hands continued to roam and soothe, and soon Emma’s hands were stroking his chest in return. He ventures a smile and she returns it, wiggling a little in place to see if it hurt; judging by the way her face brightens, it doesn’t, but it’s another cruel trick and one that Killian has difficulty restraining himself from reacting to.

Something must show on his face, though, because Emma giggles and it’s that more than anything that sets a soothing balm on his heart. “All right, I’ll have mercy on you,” she says.

He opens his mouth to respond, but she rocks forward and all coherent thought flies out of his head. The only things running through his mind is God yes, harder, so soft, so warm, so wet, harder Emma, and some of those things he’s not entirely unsure he hasn’t said out loud. Her mouth finds his several times, biting and nipping and kissing, and her nails run in progressively harder lines down his sides, but despite all of her attention he’s trying his very hardest not to come before she does.

She takes one of his hands in hers and guides it to her clit, her fingers staying with his as they rub circles around her sensitive nub. Killian pushes himself up on his elbow, planting his feet on the bed and thrusting up hard into her core. Emma rakes her fingers through his hair, anchoring her hand in the short hairs at the nape of his neck as her breath hitches. His thrusts turn wilder as soft pleas escape her lips, “Please, Killian, let me come, come for me,” and he loses whatever rational thought is left to him as he chases their highs.

It gets sloppier with Emma bouncing in his lap, but she’s trying to meet him thrust for thrust. He’s damned if he comes before she does, but it’ll be a near thing –

She squeezes him once, twice, and white heat courses through him, his hips stuttering as he spills himself deep into her womb. Emma’s cries are faint after the roaring in his own ears, but he feels her sex rippling and constricting around him, milking him for every drop of seed he’s got. There’s dampness on his chest, and as he regains sense, he looks down, seeing several pale droplets sprayed across his dark hair that must have come from her breasts. Emma’s cheeks are red again, likely not entirely from her own orgasm, and Killian surges forward, cupping her face with one hand as he kisses her. “You were magnificent,” he mumbles between kisses.

She holds him tight, wriggling delightfully in his lap and causing them both to groan over too much stimulation, peppering his face in kisses. “You weren’t half bad yourself – you’re getting us both messy.”

“Should probably take a shower.”

“Yeah, probably.”

But neither make the effort to move, too sated and relieved and eager to have this renewed closeness, instead falling back on the bed in favor of trading more kisses. It’s only when he feels his cock has gone too soft that he urges Emma off of him, not wanting to hurt either of them and cause another lengthy separation. She keeps rolling, right to the edge of the bed and then to her feet, beckoning him to the shower with a sly smile he hasn’t seen in far, far too long. As helpless to her wiles as a sailor is to a siren, Killian gets up with a groan, muscles that haven’t been used in far too long protesting the movement. He follows her into the shower, where he proceeds to not only clean them both thoroughly, but gets her a little dirty again by fingering her one more time; this time he holds her up, with one of her legs lifted up onto the soap dish so she’s spread nice and wide for him. She’s almost dead weight when it’s over, her legs useless and she’s more than willing to let him carry her back to bed after they dry off. Her cries of pleasure echoing off the tiles stay in his mind, the most delightful lullaby to soothe him into sleep later, Emma curled in his arms.

When Aoife wakes them a few hours later for her midnight feeding, Killian gently urges Emma back to bed. “I’ve got her, sweet, rest.”

“Have I mentioned I love you?” she mumbles, pilfering his pillow.

“A few times.” He kisses her brow, then leaves her reluctantly. He heads into the nursery, gathering a sobbing Aoife into his arms and bouncing her gently, gently shushing her as he takes her down into the kitchen. Movement always helps, and her sobs quiet into whining hiccups as Killian goes about the process of warming a bottle. “There, there, little love, Papa’s got you. There’s a lass, we don’t want to wake your mother.”

“Even if she’s still awake?”

Killian turns; Emma’s wearing her robe, leaning against the doorway, smiling at them both sleepily. “Love, I told you to go back to bed.”

“I know. I just… wanted to be with my family.”

She tests the bottle for him, then lets him hold it while Aoife drinks greedily. Emma tucks herself against Killian’s side and for the second time that night, he finds himself thinking that this is his favorite place to be: when the whole world fits in the circle of his embrace, all three of them sleepy, content, and together.

#captain swan #cs ff #cs fanfic #cs smut #cs kink #storybrooke downs #amanda writes #Anonymous #get back on the horse that bucked you

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misscamthenorwegian · 8 years ago

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Fic: Like Swans

Like Swans by misscam Summary: It's a cold, rainy summer Wednesday when Mary Margaret Blanchard meets David Nolan again, seven years after the first time – and he meets six-year-old Emma too. AU. [Snow/Charming, Emma. Charming family stuff.]

Rating: Teen. Some implied adult activities, nothing explicit. Disclaimer: Not my characters, just my words. Author's Note: Set in an AU with no magic. A03 / ff.net II It's a cold, rainy summer Wednesday when Mary Margaret Blanchard meets David Nolan again, seven years after the first time. The first time, she accidentally knocked him into a tree and even caused a scar on his chin from a sharp branch. This time, she only knocks herself into him, not looking as she walks into the tiny library and finding herself crashing into a muscled chest. Clumsy, clumsy, she manages to berate herself with as she lifts her gaze. “I'm so, so sorry,” she rambles, as soft hands steadies her. “I'm...” Blue eyes meet hers, and the words die on her lips. She knows these eyes. She spent many an evening gazing lovingly into them. “Snow!” she hears him exclaim warmly, and her cheeks flush at the nickname. His nickname for her, and only his, and thus she hasn't heard it in years. It manages to sound just as right on his lips now as it did then. Snow White. He used to call her that, as if she was the princess in his fairy tale. Life is rarely a fairy tale, she knows now. But for a couple of months, when she was just 18 and had the most wonderful summer holiday of her life, it felt like it might become one, Prince Charming and all. Then she had her heart broken.

She feels paralyzed, too many emotions slamming into her at once. He's here. He's really here. After all these years, they're in the same place. “Snow,” he says again, just as warmly. “You're here. You're really here.” “I...” she tries, swallowing. “Hi, Charming.” Her use of his nickname makes his smile break into a grin. He looks positively giddy at seeing her again, his hands running up and down her arms. “Hi, Snow,” he murmurs, and she remembers how that tone of voice could make her toes curl. “I can't believe you're really here.” She can only nod at that. She can barely believe it herself. “I...” she begins, trying to find the words, any words. “Mommy?” a soft voice asks, and Mary Margaret feels a small hand grab hers and cling on. Emma. Oh. Of course it's Emma, who was just petting the dalmatian outside while mommy returned the books quickly. Meant to be quickly, at least. Oh. Emma. “Mommy?” David repeats, his gaze shifting to look at Emma curiously. Emma is looking just as curiously at him, Mary Margaret notes, and she feels... She has no idea how she feels. “She's my mommy,” Emma says, sticking her chin out slightly, as if ready to challenge the world. She might only be six, but she has never lacked courage. “I'm Emma. I'm six.” “Six,”David breathes, his forehead crinkling. “You're six years old?” “She is,” Mary Margaret manages to say, and his gaze shifts to her again. It's no longer warm, just confused and... Hurt? “I...” “Is she...?” he whispers. Oh yes, he's done the math. He knows the last time he saw her was almost seven years ago. “Yes,” she manages to say, and his eyes close for a moment. When he opens them again, he seems almost lost. “You didn't know?” “How would I know?” he asks, voice brimming with hurt, and she swallows. Oh. He didn't know. He didn't... “Mary Margaret, how would I know?” “Mommy?” Emma says again. She looks confused, staring from one to the other. “Emma, why don't you go talk to Belle and let her help you find some new books,” Mary Margaret manages to say, trying to smile reassuringly. “Mommy has to talk to... To David for a while, okay?” Emma looks suspicious, glaring at David for a moment. It's so similar to how David would do it that it makes Mary Margaret's heart ache. “David's an old friend that mommy hasn't talked to in a long time,” Mary Margaret hurries to add. “It's okay. Please, Emma.” “Fine,” Emma relents. She stomps slightly as she walks over to Belle, just to demonstrate she is not doing this entirely willingly, but Belle soon has her all smiles and laughter. David is just watching her, awestruck, seeming to memorize every detail. “She's beautiful.” “She is,” she agrees, moving away from the door and to the nearest corner. He follows, a little dazed. “David...” “Why don't I know about her?” he asks, a touch angrily, fixing his gaze on her. “Didn't you want me in her life?” “Of course I did!” she says hotly. “I wanted nothing more than... I wanted Emma to have her father. Of course I wanted you in her life.” “Then why...?” he starts angrily, then exhales, calming himself. “Sorry. Why didn't you tell me?” “I couldn't find you,” she whispers. Her voice sounds breathless and wobbling even to her own ears. “I spent weeks looking for you. I sent letters. I looked everywhere... I couldn't find you. Your father found me instead and coolly informed me that you wanted nothing to do with me. He... He said I was just a summer fling. He threatened to make sure I would lose custody of my child if I kept persisting in trying to contact you.” “My father,” he repeats, and his eyes darken with anger again, but not at her this time. “Mary Margaret, I swear... He never told me. I didn't even know that he knew about you.” “Oh,” she breathes. “My twin brother was in an accident. That's why I had to leave so suddenly. He was in a coma for weeks, and then... Then he died. I never meant to... I sent letters. I looked for you when I came back, but I couldn't find you. When I finally tracked down your home town, I met your step-mother. She refused to help me.” “Regina,” she breathes, feeling her heart break a little. She always knew her step-mother didn't care much for her, but it still hurts to have it confirmed. “I never got your letters. Maybe... Maybe Regina made sure I never got those.” He stares at her intently. “Mary Margaret, I swear I didn't know. I would never have... I never wanted to leave you. I came back to find you, to... continue what we had. You were never just a summer fling. Please, please believe that.” “I...” she breathes, trying to make sense of the storm of emotions inside her. “I believe you.”

He exhales, as if relieved. For a moment, they just stand there, both overwhelmed. “Do you still want to be in her life?” she finally asks, and his eyes seem so, so bright with longing as he looks at her. “Of course I do,” he breathes. “She's my daughter. She's... I'm a father.” “You are,” she agrees, her heart aching for him. “Do you want me to tell her?” He closes his eyes, and without thinking, she takes his hand. They used to hold hands as if it was the most natural thing in the world back then, she remembers, but that was then, and this... He laces his fingers in his and his palm is as soft against hers as it was then. “Don't tell her yet,” he finally says, voice filled with determination. She remembers how assertive he would be when he had made his mind up – one of the qualities she really loved in him. “I want her to know me as something other than the father who wasn't there before we tell her. I'm going to earn being her father, Mary Margaret.” “You don't have to,” she tells him, and he shakes his head. “David. You already are. You don't have to earn anything.” “Yes, I do,” he says, and she knows she can't change his mind. “Please, Mary Margaret.” “Okay,” she agrees, glancing over to where Emma is happily pointing at something in the book Belle is showing her. “If that's what you want.” “That's what I want,” he says, smiling softly at the sight of Emma, before shifting his gaze onto her again, “to begin with.” II He starts by taking both her and Emma for ice cream by the harbor. If Emma is still suspicious of him, ice cream seems to at least temporarily quash them, and they end up sitting on a bench together even after the ice cream has been devoured. The ocean is calm, with gentle waves that seem to brush the beach more than crash into it. A few sea gulls are flying above, making Emma point happily. “Do you like birds?” David asks, and Emma looks at him shyly before nodding. “Just like your mother.” Of course he remembers, Mary Margaret thinks, wondering why that still makes her stomach flutter slightly. “Mom likes blue birds,” Emma says after a moment. “I like swans.” “Ah,” he comments lightly. “Why swans?” “Emma once found a baby bird in the park,” Mary Margaret fills in, and he smiles at that. “It was almost dead, but she wanted to save it. She thought it was a duckling at first. It was a swan. We managed to nurse it back to health.” “Mommy saved it,” Emma says with satisfaction. “She saved a blue bird once too,” he says, and Emma looks at him. “That's how we first met. Your mom climbed a tree to save a bird that had gotten trapped in some plastic. I was taking a walk there that day and spotted her high up there and foolish thought she might need saving. I was very wrong. Your mother not only managed to jump down on her own – she hit me when she landed.” Emma laughs. “Did you, mommy?” Mary Margaret smiles a touch bashfully. “I did.” “I even have the scar to remember it by,” David goes on, pointing to his chin, and Emma peers at it. “Did it hurt?” Emma asks. “It was worth it,” he says warmly, smiling at them both. “Certain things are worth the hurt.” “I know,” Emma says, sounding almost grown-up for a moment. “I fell off the swing once and my knee hurt, but it's worth falling off sometimes. I like swings. I like feeling like I can fly.” “Do you?” David asks, and she nods. “I'd like to see this swing that dared throw off Emma the brave.” Emma giggles, then jumps off the bench. “I'll show you!” She does; they all go to the playground and try the swings, and Emma laughs in delight as David pushes her on the swings – high enough to give her the sensation of flying, but not so high as to risk her falling. II He walks them home after a few hours. She doesn't ask, he doesn't ask, Emma doesn't ask. It just seems to happen. Emma is beginning to warm up to him, as he shows earnest interest in anything she says without pushing her. Emma doesn't like being pushed, Mary Margaret has long since learned about her daughter. Perhaps David has picked up on that, or perhaps he just instinctively knows. For someone who only learned he was a father today, he is doing very well indeed. The part of town they live in is not exactly the most well-to-do, and she can see David notice it. Still, he says nothing, and is all smiles at he follows them up the stairs and to the door to the loft. He pauses there. “I... I have to go back to Boston today. I have a few things to sort out. But I'll be back here tomorrow.” Boston, she thinks as she nods. So he lives there. She doesn't even know what sort of life he's currently living, what sort of life she and Emma are disrupting. His father had great plans for him, she remembers. Law and politics. Plans he didn't want disrupted. “Tomorrow,” Emma says. She peeks up at him curiously. “Tomorrow,” he repeats. “Do you like mommy?” Emma asks after a moment, as direct as children so often are. “I do,” he says earnestly, and Mary Margaret swallows. “Very much. Is that okay?” Emma regards him, then finally gives a regal nod. “I'll see you tomorrow, then,” he says warmly, holding out a hand. “It was very nice to meet you, Emma.” Emma shakes it solemnly. “It was very nice to meet you, David.” II After David has left, they make dinner together, mother and daughter, and later Emma sits down to draw a picture of mommy saving a blue bird. She even draws David looking on admiringly after thinking it over for a while, making Mary Margaret's heart ache a little. Emma has never complained about the lack of a father in her life (or a grandfather, for that matter, something that could also have been), but even so, she has wanted more of a family, Mary Margaret knows.

Hell, she wanted more of a family for her. For her precious, beloved daughter she wanted the world, but she's had to make the best of what she had. Before bed, Emma nestles against her on the couch, and they read Winnie the Pooh together for half and hour. Mommy and daughter reading time, a tradition they've had since the first night Emma rested in her arms out of the hospital. Emma seems particularly thoughtful tonight, not commenting much and not quite listening either. But whatever is going through her mind, she doesn't put it to words and Mary Margaret doesn't ask, as much as she wants to. “I love you,” she tells Emma instead, kissing the top of her head. Oh, how she loves her daughter. These last seven years may have been the hardest of her life, but they've also been wonderful, all thanks to her precious daughter. Certain things are worth any hurt. Emma doesn't protest bedtime for once, and is soon out like a light. Mary Margaret watches her for a few minutes, mostly to postpone confronting her own tangled mess of emotions. Finally, she closes the door and walks downstairs to the silence and emptiness of the kitchen and living room, curls into her armchair – and cries. She can't help it. She made a sort of peace with it, six years ago, that the young man she had loved was now lost to her and that Emma wouldn't know her father, a painful, heartbreaking peace with it, but knowing now it could have been different... It's a new sort of pain, and she hugs herself to keep from trembling. She could have had David. Emma could have had her father. They could have been a family. How long she sits there, she isn't sure, but it must be a while. Distantly, she hears a soft knock on her door, then another. Without really thinking, she gets up to open. It's David. He looks worked up, she notices, all energy and determination. “Sorry,” he offers immediately. “I know I said tomorrow, but I couldn't wait, I... Mary Margaret, have you been crying?” “I...” she tries, but it comes out like a sob, and immediately his arms go around her. The aching familiarity of his embrace brings out another sob, and another, and soon she is crying helplessly. She can hear him close the door, and feel herself guided to the couch and onto his lap as he sits down. “Mary Margaret,” he murmurs comfortingly, kissing the top of her head. “I'm here.” She isn't sure how long she cries, but he holds her through it all, his hands warm and supportive against her back. Every now and then he presses a kiss against her face, gentle and soft, until she's all out of tears. “I'm sorry,” she whispers against his chest. “Don't be,” he says, lifting a finger to her chin and tilting her head upwards to look at him. His cheeks are lined with tears too, she realizes. Oh. It isn't just her feeling the loss of what might have been, then. She swallows, trying to regain her composure. “I thought you were going to Boston?” “I did go to Boston,” he says, his voice a sort of restrained calm that doesn't seem very calm at all. “I went straight to my father. He didn't just admit what he had done – he bragged about it.” “Oh,” she says, putting a hand against his chest. “David, I'm so sorry.” “He kept all your letters from me. He even contact Regina to make sure I wouldn't be able to contact you. Apparently she was very happy to do it. I'm so sorry.” “I think she resented me,” Mary Margaret murmurs. Her voice sounds far away. “My father married her to give me a mother. She didn't want to be my mother.” “I'm sorry,” David whispers, kissing her temple. “Is she...” “She convinced dad I had shamed the family by becoming pregnant before getting married,” she says, and feels the sharp pain of that day even now. “My father is... Old-fashioned. He demanded that I give the baby up for adoption after she was born. I refused. I couldn't believe he could even ask that of me. So I walked away. I... I haven't talked to anyone in my family after that day.” “Oh, Mary Margaret,” he says, looking at her with pained eyes. “You were just 18.... How did you...?” She gives him a trembling smile. “I managed. For Emma. I didn't even know where I was going. I just... got on a bus and ended up in a small town. I was a waitress there first, and I became friends with one of the others waitresses there. Her name's Ruby. She and her grandmother helped me a lot. The last few years I've been working while getting a degree. I'm a teacher now. That's why we moved here a few months ago. I got offered a position here after the summer break.” “I'm impressed,” he says, and knows he means it. “You're very resourceful, Mary Margaret. Emma's lucky to have you.” “She'll be lucky to have you too,” she says, and he sighs softly and presses his forehead against hers for a moment. “My father told me that you and your bastard child wasn't good enough for me,” he says, and oh, she can hear the anger now, barely restrained at all. “I told him he was wrong, that you were both far too good for me, but that I would spend a lifetime making myself worthy of you both. Then I punched him and left. He was screaming that he would disinherit me if I walked out that door as I left, but I'm not going back, Mary Margaret.” “But...” she breathes, and he shakes his head. “All my life, he's made me feel not good enough. Not like James. After James died, I tried very hard to be what my father wanted, but I was wrong to. I'm just David.” “You're not just anything,” she protests, and he looks at her. “You're... You're wonderful. You're a true Prince Charming.” “Your Charming,” he says softly, and he looks at her as if she's the world. “You really were my Snow, you know. My princess. I would have slayed dragons for you.” “I know,” she whispers, and he kisses her. It's a soft, comforting kiss, lips brushing hers while his thumb brushes her cheek. It still floods her mind with memories of hundreds of kisses from those weeks, leaving her a little breathless. She leans her head against his chin as he breaks the lips, drawing her finger across his scar. All these years, and he still has a mark left by her. “I've rented a room at the local bed and breakfast,” he says after a few moments. “I packed the truck with some stuff that's just mine, and I got some savings of my own, but that's all I can offer you and Emma right now. I'm sorry.” “Don't be,” she murmurs sleepily, feeling her eyes slide shut. She's exhausted, she realizes. “You're offering us you. That's... That's better than anything else in the world.” She can feel him kiss her temple again, a lingering kiss that helps lull her to sleep. II In the morning, she wakes in her own bed to find that David must have tucked her in after she fell asleep in his arms. Other than that, there is no sign of him, and she finds herself almost fearing the previous day was all a dream. Emma wakes early too, padding into the kitchen as Mary Margaret is making tea, looking as grumpy as she always does in the morning. Her daughter is not a morning person, but she does light up when there is a firm knock on the door. It's David, freshly showered and smiling, holding a bouquet of snow bells in one hand and a large bag of pastries in the other. “I thought I would have a better chance at being invited to in for breakfast if I brought breakfast myself,” he says, winking at Mary Margaret.”But since I wasn't sure what princess Emma would like for breakfast, I got a bit of everything for her.” “And only flowers for mommy?” Emma asks, folding her arms and looking very unimpressed. “Mommy's favorite flowers,” Mary Margaret hastens to add, as David looks a bit crestfallen. She takes the bouquet from his hands, and smiles at him. “Thank you, David.” “Hmm,” Emma simply says, but finally reaches out to take the bag of pastries. “Mommy likes pancakes, you know. I like buttercups.” “I see,” David says solemnly, and a sort of understanding seems to pass between him and Emma. He follows her into the kitchen, and Mary Margaret bites her lip and tries to blink away tears as the two of them begin to divide up the pastries. A family breakfast. The first of many, she now knows. The first of... the rest of their lives, maybe, and oh, how she wants that. II They decide to have a picnic that day. It's warm and sunny, and so they make a picnic basket and bring blankets and set off in David's truck. Mary Margaret remembers his truck. He'd saved up for it himself, she remembers, by working at a local farm, something his father apparently hadn't approved of. Emma does like the truck, and David's stories about working at that farm too. They agree between them that sheep are best, and Emma lets it slip that she's always wanted a sheepdog. She looks guilty the moment she realizes what she's said, and Mary Margaret has to swallow a lump in her throat. Emma. Oh, Emma. So much she's probably always wanted, but hasn't dared to voice it aloud. They find a quiet spot by a small lake, putting down the blankets and having a light snack before Emma proceeds to draw the birds she can see while humming happily. David seems content to just sit and watch, though he does seem to suspiciously be edging closer and closer to Mary Margaret's spot on the blanket. It reminds her of that summer, seven years ago, when they spent so many evenings by the sea, huddled together on a blanket. He must be thinking of it too, because she catches the way he looks at her from lowered eyelids. “Look!” Emma calls, and they both look up. “Ducks!” Sure enough, there is a whole family of ducks gliding across the water; mother duck and her little ducklings. “Ducks,” Mary Margaret agrees. “A family of ducks.” Emma frowns. “But there is no daddy duck.” Mary Margaret exhales sharply. She can hear David hold his breath. “Emma, ducks don't... That's... That's normal for ducks. That's how they do it. The mom raises the ducklings alone.” Emma looks across the water for a moment. “What about swans?” “Swans are different,” Mary Margaret says softly. “They... They stay together. They are a pair the rest of their life and raise their babies together.” “Oh,” Emma says in a far-away voice. “I like swans.” “I like swans too,” David says, and Emma turns to look at him. She looks hesitant, almost afraid, but then she nods, a touch shyly. II David takes them to a rather lovely restaurant for dinner, insisting that just spending time with them is occasion enough. Emma seems pleased with that, especially when she's allowed her own choice of dessert. She doesn't seem to want to finish it, as if she wants to prolong the meal for as long as possible, and Mary Margaret has a very good idea why. David seems to pick up on it too, exchanging a look with Mary Margaret before clearing his throat. “Would you like to go to a petting zoo tomorrow? I've found one about an hour's drive from here.” “A petting zoo?” Emma repeats. “With you?” “With me. I'd like to spend time with you both tomorrow,” he says warmly, and Emma looks at him quizzically. “Just like we did today.” “And after tomorrow too?” she asks, her voice almost hopeful. “And after tomorrow too,” he promises sincerely. “Tomorrow and the day after and the day after. I'm going to be around every day from now on, Emma.” She considers that thoughtfully. “Every day?” “Every day,” he repeats, and it sounds like a vow. Slowly, Emma holds out her hand. He takes it and shakes it solemnly. “Every day,” Emma agrees. When Mary Margaret excuses herself to use the rest room, she even finds them whispering together when she returns, heads close together and almost identical expressions as they look up at her. II Mary Margaret isn't entirely surprised when she wakes to soft giggles from the kitchen and the smell of pancakes. And sure enough, when she walks into the kitchen, she finds David already there with a very happy Emma.

He's brought pastries, a bouquet of snow bells and one of buttercups (Emma's favorite flowers) and now he is cooking pancakes. The table is already set, all ready for her. “Look, mommy!” Emma exclaims, beaming at her. “is this what you two were whispering about last night?” Mary Margaret asks, and Emma nods happily. “Operation Rooster,” Emma says, dangling her feet in the air. “I got up early to let David in so he could cook you pancakes for breakfast.” “I was reliably informed you like pancakes,” he says, and his smile could light up a whole room, Mary Margaret is sure. “He means I told him,” Emma points out. “Do you like it, mommy?” “I love it. Thank you,” she says warmly, tip-toeing to kiss Emma on the forehead. Emma folds her arms, then looks pointedly at David. Oh. Mary Margaret feels a faint flush to her cheeks. Is Emma suggesting she...? Emma seems quite put out by the delay, giving another pointed look. “He did most of it!” “I know, darling,” Mary Margaret manages, and her cheeks are definitely flushed now as she feels David's gaze on her. “I... I love it, David. Thank you.” “Hmm,” Emma says, sounding disapproving. “Doesn't David like being kissed?” “Emma!” Mary Margaret protests, and David lets out a bark of laughter. “He likes it very much,” he says, voice filled with mirth, and Emma looks at him. “When the time is right for a kiss, that is.” “Hmm,” Emma says again, but this time, it sounds more thoughtful than anything. II The petting zoo ends up being a wonderful experience. Emma gets to ride a horse, pet sheep, feed pigs, play with rabbits, and Mary Margaret gets to watch her daughter be utterly, utterly happy and watch David see the same. He seems to delight in every smile, every laugh, and after the first few minutes, he takes Mary Margaret's hand and never lets go. Emma seems to delight in that too, smiling at them when not completely enthralled by the various animals. “She seems in her element,” David says as Emma laughs when one of the dogs lick her hand. “Yeah,” Mary Margaret says softly. “I wish I could get her a dog, but the place we have isn't....” “Shh,” David says softly. “You've done wonderfully with her, Mary Margaret. Just spending time with her tells me that.” She swallows. “I wanted her to have the world.” “She had something better,” he says, his voice so loving it hurts. “She had you.” “David...” “Don't argue,” he says, putting a finger on her lips. “I know how it feels like being loved by you, and nothing compares to that. Nothing. I know that better than anyone. I've spent almost seven years missing it.” “I've missed you too,” she says, closing her eyes when he cups her cheek. “Being loved by you was...” “Is,” he corrects, and she opens her eyes to see him gaze lovingly at her. “I never stopped. Did you?” She licks her lips. “No.”

He kisses her. Not soft and comforting this time, no. Hard and demanding, lips tugging at hers until she parts them, one hand at her back to press her even closer. She soon feels breathless, moaning softly into his mouth as he lifts her off her feet and spins her around. He caresses her ear lovingly when he breaks the kiss, as he always seemed so fond of even then. Gently, he lowers her onto her feet again, stealing one last peck as he does. “Mary Margaret,” he says, just a touch huskily. “I don't know if you could tell, but... Being Emma's father isn't all I want.” “I could tell,” she says, and he laughs softly. Then he seems to spot something over her shoulder, and smiles bashfully. “I think she could tell too,” he says, and she turns to see Emma looking at them from across the field, eyes wide. II Emma falls asleep in the truck on the way home, and instead of waking her when they get there, David simply lifts her up and carries her inside, looking as if he's carrying all the treasures of a kingdom. To him, Emma probably is. After all, in a way he has given up a kingdom to be her father. Mary Margaret knows how much money and influence his father has, money and influence he has now rejected. It makes her heart ache with love for him. “Goodnight, princess,” he murmurs as he lowers Emma onto her bed. Then, after a moment's hesitation, he presses a soft kiss to her forehead. Emma sighs happily at that, her eyelids fluttering for a moment. “I'll be right out,” Mary Margaret tells him, and he nods before softly walking out. She spends a few minutes carefully getting Emma as undressed as possible without waking her, then gently tucks her in and kisses her forehead. David is leaning against the kitchen counter as she enters, looking down at the floor and looking lost in thought. Whatever he is thinking of, it doesn't seem to be sad. He looks more as if he's mulling something over, or perhaps considering alternatives. “Thank you for today,” she tells him, and he lifts his gaze to look at her. His gaze feels like a caress, as it always has. From the first day she met him, the way he looked at her felt like a caress. “Emma loved it. I loved it. It was lovely.” “Am I getting kissed?” he asks, voice husky, and she shakes her head. He looks almost crestfallen for a moment, and then she holds out her hand. “You're getting more than kissed,” she tells him, and he follows her to her bed. II David was her first back then. Oh, she had flirted with other boys before, kissed some, but there had never been anyone she'd wanted to do more with until him. He was her first, in every sense of the word. She was his too, she knows. He told her as much afterwards, and the fact that he wasn't ashamed of it, that he had willingly waited for someone it felt right with, was another reason to add to the thousands of others to why she fell in love with him. They were both nervous that first time, she remembers, and slightly awkward, all desire and no experience. They still managed to make it wonderful together, and she still remembers that first moment of realizing just how much pleasure it's possible to feel. It got better and better after that, as they learned together, spending most nights just... Exploring. Discovering.

She supposes that makes this a re-discovery. They make love twice; the first time oh so slowly, face to face, truly taking their time to relish every touch, every kiss, every caress, every stroke, and finally, every moment of their bodies joined. It feels like slowly waking up again, as that part of her has been dormant for far too long. The second time is far more impatient, insistent, his fingers and hard thrusts making her come apart in his arms twice over before he's satisfied. They can still make it wonderful together, she thinks afterwards, as David kisses her neck almost leisurely. Maybe... Maybe that's the key. “David?” she murmurs, and he brushes his nose against her. “I know we've lost seven years together. I know you've lost six years with Emma. But... I want us to... I want to focus on what we can still have. I don't want to us to lose ourselves in regret.” He smiles at her so tenderly it makes her breath catch a little. “You always tried to find the best in every situation. You always had such hope. I loved that in you so much then. I think I love it even more now. I'd like that too, Mary Margaret. In fact, I've already started thinking about what we can have now.” He kisses her very softly, his lips still upturned in a smile. “You've probably already made some plans for us,” she comments after a moment, and he chuckles. “You always had such faith that things would work out for the best. You always made plans for that. I loved that in you so much. I'm going to love it even more now.”

She can see how much his words means to her, as he closes his eyes and exhales. Softly, she kisses his eyelids and the bridge of his nose. “I may have made some plans,” he admits, and when she laughs, he kisses her until she far too breathless to laugh anymore. II Mary Margaret wakes to a myriad of sensations. Strong arms caressing her, a warm body pressed against her back, and light, light kisses against the back of her neck. David, of course, and she has to admit she could get used to being woken like this rather than by the alarm. “Good morning,” he murmurs into her skin, as she shifts slightly. “Good morning,” she agrees, feeling him smile against her skin. “Mmmm.” “It's going to be a very good morning soon,” he informs her cheekily, and her eyes widen as his fingers dip down and he nuzzled a kiss against her shoulder. Oh. Right. She can remember a few mornings those seven years ago when she woke to... Well. He was always an early riser, wasn't he? He still is, as it turns out. II A very, very good morning later, David is making pancakes and Mary Margaret is making toast when Emma walks into the kitchen and pauses at the sight of them. “Hello, Emma,” David says, trying to sound casual. He almost manages, but just almost. “You're wearing the same shirt,” Emma says, then glances over at Mary Margaret. “Mommy looks different.” Oh no, Mary Margaret thinks. They should have thought about the shirt. They should have, but they had so many other things on their mind. “I... I stayed here last night,” David says carefully. “I... was tired. I needed to rest. I... Yeah. Rest.” “Mommy helps you rest?” Emma asks suspiciously. “Very much so,” David says, and Mary Margaret bites her lip hard. “By resting you mean kissing,” Emma says, folding her arms. “That's what grown-ups do when they like each other like you like mommy. I'm six. I know that.” “You're right,” he says softly after a moment, flipping the last pancake onto a plate and then stepping over to her. Carefully, he kneels down to look her in the eye. “Your mommy and I... We're... We're going to be kissing from now on. Sometimes, when grown-ups like each other in a special way, they like to kiss. I like your mother in that way. She's very special to me.” “Like swans,” Emma says, looking at him thoughtfully. “Not like ducks.” “That's right,” he says softly. “This won't be like with ducks, Emma. I promise you that.” “She's special to me too,” Emma says. “Not like grown-up-kissing special, but special. She's my mommy.” “I know,” he says, and Mary Margaret can see him ache with wanting to tell her the truth. He will feel like he's earned the right to soon, she is certain. “That will never change. She'll always be your mommy. But I hope... I hope that I will become someone not grown-up-kissing special to you too.” “Hmmm,” Emma says thoughtfully. Then very slowly, she nods. II They all spend an utterly wonderful week together. They go to the lake again. Another picnic basket, another warm summer day. Only this time, David begins to teach Emma to swim and she laughs in delight at it when she finally manages. Mary Margaret laughs in delight too, when she dives into the lake with him, and they steal a few kisses while under water. They go to a museum in Boston with a special bird exhibit, and Emma walks through it twice, eyes bright with marvel. They get her several posters of birds to put up in her room, and David gets Mary Margaret a blue bird painting. The day it rains, they spend in the library, just reading. Emma listens to David read the Gruffalo with a myriad of different funny voices, and then both Emma and David nestles against Mary Margaret as she reads Winnie the Pooh. It also turns out Belle is an old friend of David, and the whole reason he was there for Mary Margaret to bump into that day, and Mary Margaret makes a note to get Belle something special for Christmas. They take a local ferry to another town, visiting a local market with a small fun fair, mingling among other families also there, and Emma holds both Mary Margaret's and David's hand as they walk.

They spend a day in the backyard, making a bird house that Emma paints and they hang up together, making a new home for a new family. Then David makes them all wooden swords, and he duel merrily with Emma until Emma inevitably wins (as David wouldn't have any other outcome), and has to be comforted in his defeat by mommy. They go with Emma to her weekly paint class, and watch her paint two swans and a little swan baby, and Mary Margaret takes David's hands as he swallows and knows it's time. II As it turns out, George Nolan thinks it's time to say a few things too. He is waiting by door to her loft as they walk home that day, and David tenses the moment he sees his father. “Get out,” he says hotly, angrily. “You have no right to be here.” “I have every right,” George says coolly. “Do you think I'll stand by and watch you throw your life away on this... This one night stand you had one summer and her bastard? You don't even know if it's your child.” “Mommy?” Emma asks, her voice thin. “Oh, I know,” David says, balling his fists. “But it wouldn't even matter if she wasn't. Because I love them, father. I'd love them no matter what. I've loved Mary Margaret since the moment I laid eyes on her, and I love her daughter too. You wouldn't understand that. You've never loved anyone. Not even James. Not really. You just loved making him into you. But I'm not you. I'm....” “You'll be nothing without me,” George spits, and Mary Margaret balls her fist. “He won't be nothing,” Emma suddenly says, sticking her chin out. “You're mean. David's not nothing. He'll be mom's swan. He'll be... He'll become my daddy. That's not nothing. ” David looks at her, and Mary Margaret can see the myriad of emotions that play across his face. He swallows, then swallows again. “You're right, Emma,” he says, a single tear running down his cheek. “That's everything.” “You don't...” George begins, taking a threatening step closer to Emma, one step too far. It feels very, very satisfying to hit a man who has just insulted the love of your life and your darling daughter, Mary Margaret reflects, as her fist connects with George's nose. He looks absolutely startled for a second, then he falls backwards against the door. “Stay away from my family,” Mary Margaret hears herself say, and David just stares at her for a moment before he smiles brilliantly. “Mary Margaret Blanchard,” he says, lifting her hand his lips and kissing her bruised knuckles, “I love, love, love you.” II It takes several minutes to get George out of their hallway. He makes noises about pressing charges, but Mary Margaret already knows he won't. That would take admitting what had really happened, and he's far too concerned with appearances for that. Emma doesn't say much, looking very, very thoughtful as David nurses Mary Margaret's knuckles, and biting her thumb absentmindedly. “I'm sorry about that, Emma,” David finally says. “That was my father. He... He isn't happy with me, but that's not your fault.” “He called me a bastard,” Emma says tonelessly. “Is that like a duckling? Someone who just has a mother?” Mary Margaret and David exchange pained glances. “No, it's not, honey,” Mary Margaret says softly. “It means something else. It's... It's not a nice word, Emma, but he's not a nice man. He was wrong to say those things.” Emma nods slowly. “You're not a duckling, Emma,” David tells her, kneeling down. “I wanted to.... This isn't how I wanted you to find out, but... You're... You're the daughter of two swans who loved each other very much and just lost each other for a while.” “You and mommy?” Emma asks. Her lips tremble slightly. “Are you really...?” “I am really your daddy,” David manages to say. “I'm so, so sorry I wasn't here your first six years, Emma. It wasn't because I didn't want to. I...I lost your mother and I didn't know about you.” “He's telling the truth,” Mary Margaret manages to confirm. She's crying, she realizes, but tries to smile through the tears. “He's my daddy,” Emma says, looking at him intently. “I am,” he says, and Emma leaps into his arms and clings to him. After a moment, Mary Margaret leans into the embrace as well, and they just hold each other for a long, long time. II After dinner, Mary Margaret encourages David and Emma to go to the playground together, just the two of them. They'll need time for just the two of them as well, she knows. They've made a good start, but they'll still need time and space to build on what they've started. They'll probably go on the swings, she thinks fondly. It will be their thing, the first of many things to come that they'll find joy in together. She can't wait for that, to see their relationship grow and prosper. A soft knock on the door interrupts her pleasant thoughts, and for a moment, she wonders if it might be George returned. She considers not opening, but after a moment, she sticks her chin out and goes for it. He won't scare her. She refuses to let him do any more harm. It's not George. It's Regina. “Hello, Mary Margaret,” Regina says quietly. “You've been hard to find.” “I didn't know you were looking,” Mary Margaret says, swallowing. “I have been for a while,” Regina says, sounding tired. “George Nolan called me today. Told me David had managed to stumble across you and intended to be with you. He told me where you lived. He wanted my help to break you two up.” “Like you gave him last time,” Mary Margaret says, feeling bile at the back of her throat. Regina just sighs. “Are you going to?” “No,” Regina says, closing her eyes. “I... I adopted a baby boy a few years ago. It... It changed a lot of things for me. I'm not going to help George. I... I'll help you, if you need it, if you want it.” Mary Margaret feels slightly dizzy. “And dad...” “He died a few months ago,” Regina says quietly, and Mary Margaret feels a sharp jolt of pain. Despite everything, she did love her father. “He... He had a lot of regrets near the end. The biggest one was you. I don't think he ever forgave himself for what happened. He's left you almost everything, apart from a few things for me and my son.” “Oh,” Mary Margaret says slowly. Money. Money she can use for Emma. “Now that I know where you are, I'll put the lawyers in touch,” Regina goes on. “I gather from George that you did keep the baby?” “Emma. Her name is Emma.” “Emma,” Regina repeats. She smiles distantly. “You know, when you walked away that day, I couldn't understand why you did it. Why you were so determined to try to find your David, to keep your child in the face of losing everything else. I didn't think love – any love – was worth it. That's what my mother taught me. But she was wrong.” “She was wrong,” Mary Margaret agrees. II David and Emma returns a few hours later, full of stories about swings and going for ice cream, and she lets their happy chattering fill her. David clearly picks up on something being off, but settles for just stroking her hand now and then. They read the first few chapters of Matilda for Emma together, with her nestling between them, until Emma almost falls asleep on them. And so, they take her to bed together, and she regards them with sleepy eyes as Mary Margaret kisses her forehead first, then David. “I love you, my little swan,” David whispers to her, and Emma nods a few times at him before her eyelids close and she drifts off. They hold hands as they leave. They seem to be doing that more and more, Mary Margaret thinks, and delights in it. It is becoming the most natural thing in the world again, as it once was. Only now it will be just as natural when Emma holds hands with them too. They sit down on the bed together, and David tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, waiting. He was always so good at this, letting her take her time to find the words, a patient listener. “My father died,” she finally says, hearing her voice crack. “Oh,” he says softly, and she leans against his shoulder. “All these years, a part of me has hated him,” she says softly. “But I never stopped loving him as well. Now he's gone.” “I'm sorry,” David says softly, kissing her temple. “What can I do, Mary Margaret?” “Comfort me,” she murmurs, and he gazes lovingly at her. “Be my Charming.” “I always will be,” he promises, stroking her cheek. “I love you, Snow.” She'll tell him the rest tomorrow, she thinks, as his lips find hers and they find comfort together. II Mary Margaret wakes to find herself still being held gently, just like she fell asleep, but David isn't the only one in bed with her, she realizes. There's also Emma, sitting on the side of the bed and watching them both. “Emma,” she mutters, glancing at the alarm and seeing that it's still much too early for Emma to be willingly up. “What's wrong?” “Nothing,” Emma says stubbornly. “Emma,” Mary Margaret says softly. She can feel David stir as well. “Is it what George said? He won't come near you again, I promise.” “Or mommy will punch him again,” David adds, going for a joke, and Emma smiles faintly. “It's not George,” Emma says. “I just... I wanted to make sure daddy was still here.” “Come here,” David says, and Emma scoots over, sitting down on the covers between David and Mary Margaret. “Emma, when I told you I would be here every day from now on, that was a promise. I'm going to keep that promise.” Emma swallows. “I want to believe that. I just... I'm... scared.” “So am I,” he says softly. “I'm afraid you won't like me as your daddy. I'm afraid your mommy won't want to be with me. I'm afraid I won't be good enough for you. For both of you. But Emma... When you're scared, but dare to believe anyway, that's when you're truly brave. Do you want to be brave with me?” “Yes,” Emma says. She holds out her hand, but David shakes his head. “Wait,” he says. “I want to show you something first. Both of you.” II He takes them to a farm just outside town. It's a white two-story farm house, slightly weather-worn, with lots of green fields around. It has a barn too, which needs a new coat of paint but looks otherwise rather charming. A lovely farm, and Mary Margaret can already tell what's coming. “What's this?” Emma asks, her forehead crinkling in the same way David's does as she takes it all in. “It could be a home,” David says, sounding just a bit nervous. “I have just enough in my savings to buy it.” “For you?” Emma asks. “So you can stay in town and visit me and mommy every day, like you promised?” “No,” he says, kneeling down. “For us to live in. You, me and mommy. So we can be together every day. If you say yes, that is.” “Oh,” Emma breathes. Softly, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a black box. “Is that for mommy?” “I have another one for mommy,” he says very softly, glancing up at Mary Margaret. She blinks away a few tears as he smiles lovingly at her. “I've had a ring for her since I was 18. No, this one is for you. It's not a ring, but I hope you'll like it anyway.” Gently, carefully, Emma opens the box. “Mommy, it's a swan necklace.” “It is,” David is. His voice sounds thick. “Emma Blanchard, would you do me the great honor of accepting me as your daddy?” “I accept,” she says solemnly, holding out her hand. This time, he does shake it. Softly, he helps her put on the necklace. “You got my name wrong, though.” “Did I?” he says, looking slightly crestfallen. “Emma Ruth Blanchard,” Emma says, and he looks at Mary Margaret in astonishment. “That's my full name.” “You named her after my mother?” he manages, eyes bright with tears. “I knew how much she meant to you,” she replies, and he smiles at her, oh so very lovingly. “I... I never stopped loving you, you know. I wanted Emma to have something from you.” “Propose to mommy now,” Emma says eagerly. “Propose to mommy before she cries too much.” “Too late for that,” Mary Margaret manages, as David stands up, then kneels down on one knee in front of her. Softly, he holds out a black box and opens it to reveal a ring with a green stone. “I've had this since my mother died,” he says softly. “She wanted me to find true love, you know.” She can only nod. She knows. He told her all about Ruth that summer seven years ago, and she hoped then that maybe she could be it.

Now she knows. “When I came back after James died and tried to find you, I had this ring with me,” he goes on. “I wanted to propose to you then. I loved you so much back then. I still love you. I think I might even love you more now. Mary Margaret Blanchard, would you do me the great honor of marrying me?” “What do you think?” she manages to say, pulling him up into a fierce kiss. “I think that means yes,” Emma says, and David chuckles into the kiss before he swings Mary Margaret around and she is the one laughing. She feels as if she might be able to fly, so much happiness bubbling up that she feels light with it. Slowly, he lowers her onto her feet again, smiling at her all the while. He leans his forehead against hers as he takes her hand and slowly slide the ring onto her finger. It seems to fit perfectly, and Mary Margaret swallows at the sight of of it on her finger. “And the farm?” he asks after a moment. “I like the farm,” Emma says. She already eyeing it a bit possessively. “I could build a treehouse in that tree. We could have sheep.” “We could get a dog too,” he says, and Emma's eyes widen in excitement. “Anything the two of you want.” “I have money too,” Emma says excitedly after a few moments, and Mary Margaret knows her daughter is thinking of her little piggy bank with just a few dollars in it. “Emma,” she says softly. “You were saving that. You don't have to...” “I want to,” Emma says stubbornly. “I was saving up for something special. This is special.” “This is special,” Mary Margaret says softly, smiling at her daughter. “I like the farm. I like it very much. I'd love to live here with you. But only if you let me and Emma pay for half.” “But...” he says, and she puts a finger to his lips. “My father left me money, as it turns out,” she says softly. “I'll tell you everything later. But I insist. We'll do this together, David Nolan. We'll do everything together from now on.” “Like swans,” Emma interjects happily. “Like swans,” David agrees, smiling at them both. II They buy the farmhouse. They get a dog, a small sheepdog that seems to instantly fall in love with Emma, and Emma happily names Wilby. Emma gets her treehouse too, and repaints it every few weeks to suit her mood. They get sheep, and David seems more than happy to properly get into farming. He often takes Emma with him, and the two of them seem to bond very happily over sheep, farming and Wilby the most amazing sheepdog in the universe. They build plenty of birdhouses too, Emma and Mary Margaret, and spends a lot of time bird spotting while David makes them hot chocolate with cinnamon and smiles at them as if they're the loveliest sight he knows. They get married at the town hall. A small, intimate ceremony with a few guests of hers and a few guests of his. He's wonderfully handsome in his tux, and he seems to find her utterly mesmerizing in her simple white dress with a flower crown of snow bells, and Emma utterly spellbinding in a yellow dress and a flower crown of buttercups. David insists they're both the most beautiful women in the whole world, and even gets Emma to shake on it and Mary Margaret to kiss on it. They repaint the barn and fixes up the house, and in September, when Mary Margaret discovers their family is going to expand, they start building a nursery too. And most of all – they're together. They're happy. Truly, really happy. It doesn't make Mary Margaret believe in fairy tales again, though. For a couple of months, when she was just 18 and had the most wonderful summer holiday of her life, her life felt like it might really become a fairy tale, Prince Charming and all. It wasn't to be, as it turned out. She was so young then. So very young. So much hurt still to come. Life is never a fairy tale, she knows now. It's too messy for that. Too painful. But she can still make a mostly happy story out of hers – and it will be worth it.

Love always is. II FIN

#charming family #ouat #snowing #ouat ff #snowing ff #au #cam writes fic like the wind

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