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let-it-raines · 5 years

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Storybrooke Haunted Farms

“Want to be chased through a corn maze? Take a ride in a trailer full of hay in the middle of the woods? Play paintball with zombies? Explore a haunted ghost ship? If this sounds like fun to you, come to Storybrooke Haunted Farms where the fun is cheap and the thrills are terrifying. Open from October 1st - October 31st.”

Emma Swan has been working at Storybrooke Haunted Farms for the past four years, and she’s done everything from work the haunted hayride to chasing paying customers through a corn maze with a fake chainsaw. It’s always been a good way for her to make a little extra cash for the holidays for her son, and it’s most likely the best time she’s ever had working.

That is until her assignment changes and she’s made to work on the pirate ship exhibit with Killian Jones, quite possibly the most obnoxious man alive.

Rating: Teen-ish

A/n: I told myself that I didn't have time to write a Halloween story, but then my brain was like “what if” and I figured I’d do something for @cshalloweek even if this doesn’t really fit a theme. So here we are! I hope you have a spook-tacular time reading 🎃

Found on AO3 | HERE |

Tagging: @captainsjedi @wellhellotragic @galaxyzxstark @thejollyroger-writer @spartanguard @searchingwardrobes @snowbellewells @kmomof4 @tiganasummertree @xellewoods@idristardis @karenfrommisthaven @scientificapricot @captswanis4vr @a-faekindagirl @ultimiflos @jamif @dreameronarooftop15 @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke @bmbbcs4evr @onceuponaprincessworld @jennjenn615 @mayquita @teamhook @kmomof4 @ekr032-blog-blog @superchocovian @ultraluckycatnd @cs-forlife @andiirivera @qualitycoffeethings @jonirobinson64 @mariakov81

-/-

Laces tighten around Emma’s back, and her breath hitches as her lungs are very literally constricted from the corset that’s being tightened to cinch her waist and push her breasts up several inches higher than they should ever be.

The money may not be worth this.

There’s another tug, and Emma gasps as she leans forward to curl her fingers around the edge of the antique vanity in front of her, her eyes squeezing shut as she imagines herself to be literally anywhere else.

Anywhere.

And she hasn’t even had to put on the skirts or the top or had her hair pinned back so that bobby pins are sticking into the back of her neck to give her a headache.

“Mary Margaret,” Emma gasps before clenching her teeth as yet another lace is tightened, “it’s too tight. I’m not going to be able to breathe.”

“You’ll become accustomed to it. I promise. It’s really not that bad.”

“You only say that because you’re not wearing one, which is complete and utter bullshit by the way.”

Mary Margaret sighs behind Emma as she tugs again, and Emma’s eyes fly open so that she can see her face in the mirror. And her boobs. And an unnaturally tiny waist. This is not normal, and there’s no way that she’s going to become accustomed to it.

“You know I don’t make the decisions on the costumes. That is completely and totally out of my hands.”

“Your mother owns the place.”

“Step,” Mary Margaret corrects. “Step-mother. She owns it.”

“Yeah, but your mom owned it first. It was her brain child, and I feel like you should get some say in what costumes and attractions people get to work in. I wore jeans and a plaid shirt last year, Marg. I’m having to wear a full-on corset and medieval dress this year. How the hell am I supposed to run?”

There’s a final tug, and Emma almost pops out of the corset. “I don’t think you are. I mean, the haunted ship is our newest attraction, and it’s not going to be like the hayride or the corn maze. There’s not a lot of running after people. It’s more like jump scares.”

“But I hate jump scares.”

“You like the money, and you fit into the costumes we ordered. If you really hate it, I’ll see if you can get put on the rotation for the zombie paintball.”

“I would rather walk around this place in nothing but my underwear than be a team member for zombie paintball.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

It takes another fifteen minutes for Emma to fully get into the costume. There are layers to it, far too many skirts than should ever be necessary, but it’s apparently some kind of authentic costume for a bar wench that would serve pirates in whatever century is being depicted on the ship. Emma doesn’t know, and she doesn’t really care about historical accuracy. All she cares about is the fact that every night for all of October, she’s going to be putting on fifteen layers of a dress and a corset and having her hair teased to look like it hasn’t been brushed in days. At least her makeup is relatively normal.

If smearing mascara down her cheeks and powdering her face to make her look paler than usual is normal.

At least they’re not doing her hair or her makeup today. Just this dumb costume.

Leaving the trailer where the costumes are kept, Emma makes her way outside as a gust of chilled air moves over her, causing goosebumps to immediately rise on the exposed parts of her skin. At least her legs won’t be cold with all of their layers. The rest of her might just freeze to death, however.

It’s only September right now, but from experience Emma knows just how miserable October nights are when not wrapped up in coats and scarves and the warmest knit cap that Emma owns. With how things are now, she knows that this year is going to be even more miserable.

Sucking it up, Emma kicks her leg forward to give herself more space to move, and she follows the pathway in the woods down to get down to the pier. The leaves have already started to change colors, most of them beginning to fall to the ground, and they crunch underneath her feet as she follows the familiar path. There are men up in the trees setting up rigging and hanging props, and she spots Jeff hooking up the speaker system that plays throughout the grounds for music and in rare cases, emergency announcements. Emma has only heard of children getting separated from their parents in her time here, but she does know that there was once an issue with a chainsaw and someone’s foot.

That’s why everyone has to sign waivers now – employees and customers alike.

Welcome to Storybrooke Haunted Farms: The Scariest Place in Maine.

Emma’s been working here for the past four years. It’s a seasonal job, only half of September for training and costume fittings and the month of October for actual work, but it pays better than being a waitress at Granny’s does all year. It’s a great atmosphere working there, but the tips are not great unless she gets one of the good shifts. She needs more money than she’s getting, and scaring the shit out of people isn’t a bad gig.

Well, it wasn’t when she was hopping up onto a moving trailer full of hay and people and frightening the people who were screaming the loudest as well as those who were quietly shaking in fear. The haunted hayride through the woods is by far the least terrifying attraction that they have here, but it’s definitely the most fun for employees to work. Then again, Emma loved working in the corn mazes where people paid her to chase after them with a chainsaw (fake) or in the set that was made to look like an abandoned hospital wing. Though, in that last one she had to wear one of those awful slutty nurse’s costumes, and heels, and that was difficult to move around in as well.

Not like this costume though.

She keeps having to kick her legs to not trip over the stone pathway as the thatch of trees thins out and the ocean comes into view, salt thickening in the air and the sun shining a little brighter down onto her skin. And there, in all of its glory, is a massive ship with tall white sails that are currently being sliced up and painted to look battered as fake moss is added to the sides of the dark wood. None of this will be noticed in the dark, of course, but Regina is nothing if not excessive in her decorations. Anything to make more money when she doesn’t exactly need it.

At least she never shows up to the actual site. That would be more of a nightmare than any of the attractions.

(It’s also how she’s going to get out of having to wear this costume every day.)

“Emma,” a voice calls out, and she twists around to look at Graham Humbert standing with several planks of wood over his shoulder like that’s not big deal.

“Hey,” she greets, not really stepping closer for fear of getting accidentally knocked out. “What do they have you building today?”

“The bridge to the ship. She’s a beauty, don’t you think? Are you working on her this year?”

“What gave it away?” Emma reaches down to grab at the sides of her skirts, picking them up before letting them fall down with enough power that leaves scatter beneath her. “I don’t exactly know my role yet, but they’ve got me in this costume for it. I wish we could do dress rehearsals in normal clothes.”

His eyes flicker up and down her body, and instinctively, she wants to reach up to cover her chest. However, she knows that will just make her boobs looks bigger, and as nice as Graham is, she’s simply not as interested in dating him as he is with her. He’s more of a friend to her than anything, and he’s a really good influence in Henry’s life. If she were to date him, she’d just fuck things up and make him no longer want to spend time with Henry. That’s what happens every time she gets involved with anyone.

“Authenticity, I believe,” Graham finally says back, his eyes landing on her face. “I think it’ll be a fun attraction to work. I’ll have to come by and check it out once you guys open.”

“Is the Sheriff really supposed to pay to be scared by other people?”

“It’s a fun time. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t come here at least once a year.”

“Well,” Emma starts, already the slightest bit uncomfortable with the way that Graham is swaying closer to her with the wood, “thank you for your contribution that goes toward my son’s Christmas gifts. I’ve got to go to rehearsals now. Make sure that this bridge is steady so I’m not falling into the ocean, okay?”

Graham salutes her before she’s stepping away from him and heading down to the docks, nearly tripping over her dress and the uneven ground. If this continues, she’s going to the costume department and getting a pair of pants to work in. Pants would definitely be better than this.

People are already milling around down here, most of them in tattered pirate costumes with cups of Starbucks in their hand, and while she recognizes a few of them, most are new to her and must not frequent Granny’s too often or only come during Ruby’s shifts at night so that Emma would have never run into them. She recognizes Will Scarlet, though, and she waves to him before turning to take a shaky step up onto the ship where she comes face to face with a man dressed in all black leather with a red vest that’s nearly unbuttoned all the way to his navel.

What in the world?

Emma trips again on a piece of loose board before catching herself and looking up past the dark chest hair and skull and bones silver charms only to a stubble-covered jaw that belongs to a man with some of the bluest eyes that she’s ever seen. He must have gone through makeup today because his eyes are lined with black eyeliner and his hair is messily coiffed, and Emma feels the slightest bit of fire stir in her belly that she immediately tampers down.

Who the hell is that?

“You okay there, lass?”

Emma almost stumbles again at the deep timber of his voice, and she is definitely asking if she can get an alternate costume that includes pants. This is ridiculous.

“I’m fine,” she huffs, brushing her hands against her skirts and turning away from him. “It’s this damn costume. I’m so uncomfortable.”

“Your discomfort is a cross I’m willing to bear”

“Ha,” Emma scoffs as her eyes roll and her mind immediately decides that she hates this guy. Who is he to try to joke around and compliment her? She doesn’t even know him. “You’re hysterical. Is the abundant amount of cleavage you have showing your choice or the company’s?”

“A combination of both.” He uncrosses his arms and his legs and steps forward so that he’s back in her space. A chill runs down her spine as the ship rocks beneath them. “I’m not particularly modest.”

“I assumed.” “What about you, love?”

“Not your love, and what about me?”

“Is the amount of cleavage your choice?”

Emma curls her hands into fists and turns to look at this obnoxious man who is way too comfortable with her, and the smirk on his lips does nothing to lessen the hatred that’s simmering beneath her skin. “It is obviously not my choice.”

“It’s a pity nothing can be done about that.” He sticks his hand out in front of her, and she almost laughs before she realizes that he’s serious. Begrudgingly, she reaches forward and takes his hand in hers. “Killian Jones.”

“Emma Swan.”

“Swan,” he repeats back, his tongue visibly running behind the back of his teeth. Is it possible to hate someone so much within one-hundred and twenty seconds of meeting them? “I like it.”

“Oh, well, if you like it, I guess I’ll have to keep it forever, won’t I?”

Killian winks, and she imagines him having to wear a corset so tight that he can’t breathe too. It’s a weird form of torture, but it’s all she can focus on right now. Obviously the blood can’t reach her brain right now, and there’s only so long she can live like this.

She’s got at least six weeks.

Shit.

Emma opens her mouth to say something, most likely to tell him to go screw himself but in less friendly terms, but then there’s a loud clap from across the deck where David is standing on top of a barrel with a clipboard in hand. He was made to be a detective and a cruise director all at once. Emma doesn’t think that he married Mary Margaret simply so that he could be a part of the Blanchard-Mills Storybrooke Haunted Farms legacy, but she wouldn’t be surprised if it was part of the initial appeal.

Holidays are kind of a big deal in this town, and being in love with them is pretty much a requirement for living here. If they (whoever they are) find out that you don’t buy flowers for Valentine’s Day or candy for Halloween, they have the power to kick you out.

Probably not, but Emma has heard rumors. This is the best place she’s ever lived, and she’s not really a big fan of the thought of having to leave. Henry wouldn’t be either. He’s too in love with Ruby for him to want to leave.

“Okay,” David starts, his voice louder than the sound of a hammer hitting against wood and a saw cutting down the beams for the bridge between the docks and the ship. “So welcome aboard the Storybrooke Haunted Farms team. We’re excited to have you here, whether or not you’re new or have worked for us before, and my wife and I want you all to remember that while we want you to scare the ever-loving shit out of people, we also want you to have fun. But also to be safe. If you haven’t signed a waiver, please see Belle to my right to sign your forms.”

People shuffle across the dock over to Belle, and she begins handing out papers as Emma shifts her weight to one side, trying to put as much distance between she and Killian Jones as possible. He’s got to be one of those obnoxious people who thinks his looks can excuse his actions, and she is not here for that. But she’s also not here for causing issues at work before it even really starts, so she doesn’t want to make it too obvious that she’s moving away from him.

“So, this our newest attraction,” David continues with his arm outstretched to show off the ship, “and you guys are going to be our guinea pigs, so please bear with us on any issues or problems running it. We’re counting on you guys to notice problems and report them, so if you see a way we need to improve, don’t be scared to ask. Only our customers are supposed to be scared around here.”

There’s an awkward laugh that emits from everyone. It’s really a shame that David isn’t a dad yet because he’s already got the jokes down.

“Now, after all of our waivers are signed, Belle and I are going to hand out your roles before we start practice out here. We’ve got two weeks before opening, and while that’s not a lot of time, I know that you’ll all get the hang of things.”

“The Nolans are quite the optimistic bunch, aren’t they?” Killian questions, his breath hot as he leans into her ear. She jumps away, this time visibly putting space between them, and if someone doesn’t smack the smirk off his face before the end of October, Emma is doing it the day she gets her final paycheck.

“How do you know the Nolans?”

“Dave went to the Police Academy with my older brother.”

Great. That means Killian is here as some kind of friend to David, and Emma is going to have to be nice to him. This feels a hell of a lot like when she tells Henry to be nice to his classmates even when half of them are six-year-old devils.

She’s a really good mom, obviously.

“How do you know them, love?”

“Not your love,” Emma repeats as she steps away from him and moves to where Belle and David are handing out paperwork. “And they’re pretty popular in the town. Everyone knows them.”

“Well, I’m new to town, so I guess I’ll have to get used everyone who is popular in town.”

“Okay.”

At that, she tries to dodge out of his way, but that’s a bit difficult when it’s a small area crowded with dozens of people all headed into the same direction, so he’s constantly at her heels. At least he’s not talking any longer, but it’s almost like there’s this overwhelming presence following her around, like he’s peering over her shoulder and waiting for her to slip up or fall into the charms that he very obviously thinks that he has.

“Emma,” David smiles when she walks up to him. The annoyance she’s felt from Killian fades away, if only for fifteen seconds, at the sound of a familiar voice who isn’t going to annoy her or try to flirt with her. “Your costume looks fantastic.”

“You know, that’s what I said, mate, but she didn’t seem to like my compliment too much.”

David’s eyes glance at her before fliting behind her to look at Killian, and from the smile that’s still on his face, Emma can tell that he does, indeed, know Killian Jones.

Of course.

“Do you two know each other?” David asks.

“No,” Emma blurts out.

“We just met a few minutes ago,” Killian explains as he bumps his shoulder into hers like they’re old pals. “I think we might be fast friends, me and Swan.”

Emma can’t hold back her scoff, even when David’s eyes slant at her. “Yeah,” Emma sighs as her hand moves behind her to slap Killian’s back, “fast friends. That’s exactly how I would describe the two of us.”

Her stomach drops, which really doesn’t help anything when the corners of David’s lips turn up and stretch all the way up to his eyes.

“That’s actually perfect.”

“And why’s that?”

-/-

“He has me playing some kind of damsel in distress,” Emma huffs out as she paces back and forth in the kitchen of her apartment, a glass of wine in her hand that she really wishes had more alcohol in it. “I mean, it’s not technically a damsel in distress, but it pretty much is. I have to work with this jackass who thinks he’s all that and a bag of chips with his pirate costume and deep accent and the way that he swaggers across the deck, and the two of us have to act like some kind of old-timey couple on the bow of the ship pretending that we’re in love and having a fight to distract everyone from the people sneaking up behind them before he’s pushing me off the side of the boat.”

“What’s a jackass?” Henry asks her from his seat on the couch in the living room, and Emma immediately reaches her free hand up to cover her mouth.

“I shouldn’t have said that, kid,” Emma apologizes, flashing him a smile as Ruby snickers from her spot sitting on the counter. “That’s not a word we use. I’m sorry.”

Henry shrugs his shoulders and goes back to watching his Ninja Turtles Show. There’s no reason she should have such a good kid, but the universe obviously decided that she needed some kind of good luck.

By far the best thing ever to happen to her even if the circumstances of her pregnancy sucked.

“Is it really that bad, though?” Emma’s head snaps back over to Ruby to see her tossing a piece of popcorn into her mouth. “Like, I saw this guy when he got into town. He’s apparently moving here and staying at Granny’s until he gets an apartment. He’s not a bad looking guy, Ems. In fact, I would say that he’s attractive. How bad can it be to be paid to flirt with him while he’s wearing all kinds of leather and eyeliner and looking sinful?”

“I am hooked up to a rigging system and get thrown off the side of the boat.”

“Okay, granted, that part is bad, but it’s not all bad. You literally used to have to run for hours a night with a chainsaw to scare people. This is much better.”

“I don’t think you understand how bad this guy is.”

Ruby arches a perfectly manicured brow and tilts her wine glass to her lips. “Do you want to know what I think?”

“I usually don’t.”

Ruby’s eyes look over to Henry, and that’s when Emma knows that she really doesn’t want to hear what Ruby is going to say. “Henry is how old? Six?”

“Mhm.”

“And you’re twenty-four, correct?”

“Yep.”

“And you’ve had one boyfriend since he was born, right?”

“It’s been more than one.”

Ruby holds up her hand and bends one finger back before pointing that one finger at her chin. “Walsh Osbourne is the only one I can think of. Would you like to enlighten me as to who the others are?”

“I have been on dates with men other than,” Emma makes sure to lower her voice so that Henry can’t hear, “Walsh, but I haven’t introduced any of them to Henry after him. I can’t take the risk that Henry is going to get attached.”

“Which is exactly why you won’t date Graham.”

Emma’s cheeks flame up. She really needs more wine, but she’s working the early shift at Granny’s tomorrow and still has to go to practice tomorrow night. “I don’t want to date Graham. He’s a nice guy, but I’m just not in the mood for dating. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I literally spend most of my day working multiple jobs. When I’m not working, I’m taking care of my kid. That’s what happens when you get knocked up at seventeen and have literally no resources.”

Ruby raises her hands in the air, an apology already on her lips, but then the volume mutes on the television and Henry is moving over to them in the kitchen, his mop of brown hair messily situated on top of his head as he opens up the fridge.

“What are you looking for, kid? I’m pretty sure you ate dinner at Granny’s with Ruby.”

“Yeah, but I’m thirsty, and water just isn’t cutting it.” He turns to smile at her then, and Emma’s heart aches over how much he looks like Neal. Couldn’t he at least have gotten a little bit of her in him? Would that have been too much to ask? “Can I have orange juice?”

“No,” Emma says as she steps over him and grabs the gallon of milk from the shelf and turns around to place it on the kitchen countertop while Ruby hands her a glass from the cabinet. “There’s too much sugar in orange juice for you to have it this late at night.”

“But it’s Friday, Mom.” “And?”

“I don’t have school in the morning.”

“Yeah,” she smiles as she pours him a small glass of milk, “I know. You’re spending the day with Mary Margaret and David tomorrow while I’m at work, and I can almost guarantee that one of them will give you all kinds of sugar so that you never go to bed ever again.”

His lips stretch into a smile so large that Emma can see them under the clear plastic glass. “That would be the coolest thing ever. Can I wear my Ninja Turtles costume tomorrow?”

“Now, that, is something I can agree to.”

Henry nods his head and walks back to the couch, and Emma smiles to herself before turning back to look at Ruby who is sipping her wine. Emma wonders if maybe just maybe she’ll have forgotten the conversation they were having, but that’s unlikely.

“Hot pirate dude makes you all tingly inside, and you’re nervous that you’re going to act on it.”

Yep. Ruby isn’t going to let this go.

“That is not true. I am not going to sleep with him.”

“Whatever you say. I think he’d be a good one to bang one out with so you can release some of the tension in your shoulders.”

“I’m going to kick you out.”

“No, you’re not,” Ruby sighs as she gets down from the counter. “You and Henry love me too much to do that. Isn’t that right, kid?”

Henry doesn’t say anything, too furiously blushing at having Ruby talk to him to form words. Poor kid has it bad.

-/-

The morning shift at Granny’s on Saturday is as hectic as ever, none of the tables ever emptying out and nearly every single person being annoyed until they get their coffee, and if Emma didn’t like the tips that came with working one of the busiest times of the week, she’d request another time. One day she’s going to have to find another job, garner some skill set that will actually give her normal pay and normal hours, but she hasn’t exactly figured that out yet.

Thankfully, cost of living in Storybrooke is not high.

Being a waitress still sucks sometimes, though. She has enough of cleaning up after other people at home, and if one more person tells her to smile when she’s cleaning a table where their kid spilled syrup, she will lose it.

And then probably lose her job.

But she does finish work around two with a little bit more cash in her pocket, and that’s all that really matters. That’s also all that matters as she drives her yellow bug across town to Storybrooke Haunted Farms so that she can get into costume and go to practice.

(Mary Margaret agreed to letting Emma buy a costume with pants for some of the nights, and she’s never been so excited over such a little thing.)

The grounds are pretty much empty when she gets there, and it’s weirdly peaceful that way. It’s a beautiful place, almost completely out in nature, and if it wasn’t for the fact that someone is driving around in a golf cart with a pile of fake dead bodied behind them, Emma could forget that this is all one big Halloween event.

Mary Margaret said that she was down by the docks with Henry supervising the continuing construction on their pirate ship, so Emma heads down that way, not bothering to change out of her uniform quite yet. She just tugs her red leather jacket a little more tightly around her as the air gets a little bit cooler the closer she gets to the ocean.

Emma sees Mary Margaret first. She’s sitting in a golf cart, the red one she always drives, but there’s no Henry. If Emma didn’t know that Mary Margaret was one of the most responsible people on the planet, she’d take off running looking for her kid, but there’s no way that Mary Margaret has lost him.

“Hey,” Emma greets as she slides into the seat next to her and catches a glimpse of Mary Margaret’s text to David, “where’s my kid?”

“Killian is giving him a tour of the ship.”

Emma blanches, and it takes everything in her not to run down to the docks and pull Henry out of there. Why the hell would Mary Margaret pass him off to a stranger?

“You just let my son go hang out with a stranger? That seems safe.”

Mary Margaret looks over to her with a shake of a head. “Killian is not a stranger, Emma. We’ve known him for years. Plus, you know him. He’s your scene partner.”

“I’ve known him for less than a week. I don’t send my six-year-old off with people I’ve known for a week.”

Mary Margaret clicks her tongue, and Emma scoffs before crossing her arms over her chest. What is this guy’s deal?

“Killian is a nice guy, maybe a little rough around the edges, but Henry saw him walking around in his pirate costume and lost his mind and begged to go talk to him. Killian played along with it, acting like he really was a pirate, and Henry asked him if he could show him the ship. It’s really not that big of a deal.”

“The big deal is that the guy is a flirtatious ass, and he didn’t need to know that I had a kid.”

Mary Margaret’s lips part, but she never gets to say anything. “Mom,” Henry yells out as he runs toward the two of them at what she knows is his fastest speed, “Mom, Mom, Mom.”

“What?” Emma laughs, willing away all of her negative emotions to put a smile on her face as Henry gets closer to her, Killian unfortunately following right behind him. “You’re going to be out of breath if you keep running that fast.”

Henry keeps running until he comes to a skidding stop right in front of the golf cart. His cheeks are red and his chest is heaving, but there’s an undeniable joy in those brown eyes of his. As annoyed as she is that Mary Margaret sent him off with a guy who she doesn’t like, at least he’s happy.

“Mom, I have had the best day. I got to eat pancakes with David and then they let me go up into the treehouse and then I met Killian and he gave me a tour of the pirate ship. Is it true that you get to work with him on it? Really? Do you get to be a pirate? I want to be a pirate! Can I be a pirate for Halloween?”

“Woah,” Emma laughs as she pulls Henry up onto the cart so that he can sit in her lap as she pushes some of his hair back, “slow down and take a deep breath. Not even the Flash goes this fast.”

“I want to be a pirate for Halloween,” Henry says a bit more slowly, his words still coming out the slightest bit stilted, “because pirates wear cool clothes and have swords and get to talk all funny sometimes. And they hunt for buried treasure. Do you think there’s buried treasure here?”

“I – ”

“There might be,” Killian adds in, and Emma is going to bite off her tongue and fill her entire mouth with blood to keep from spewing every word she’s told Henry that he can’t say out at Killian. “I think we’d have to find a treasure map to know for sure.”

Mary Margaret gasps next to Emma, and she quickly turns to the side to look at her.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“No, seriously. What? You don’t get to just gasp like that and then not tell me what’s going on.”

“I will tell you later when we aren’t around so many people, but I have an idea for an activity.”

Emma narrows her eyes, but Mary Margaret doesn’t pay any attention to her, immediately pulling her phone back out and typing something in that Emma can’t see because Mary Margaret turned the brightness down.

“Or,” Henry suggests to Killian, obviously still stuck on this whole treasure map thing, “we could use those things that old men use on the beach to find money.”

“We could, lad, but do you know where we’d get one?”

“Probably from an old man.”

Emma squeezes Henry a little tighter and buries her face in his hair to try to stop laughing. He needs a shower, but that’s going to have to wait until after her practice.

“Henry,” she begins, “why don’t you and Mary Margaret go check out what else is going on around here while I go to practice? I’ll come get you when I’m finished, and then we’ll go to dinner, yeah? I’m thinking grilled cheese.”

His eyes light up with his smile, and Emma’s heart pangs the slightest bit. “Really?”

“Yeah, really.” She leans down to kiss his cheek over and over again until he’s a giggling mess. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

It takes a few minutes before Mary Margaret and Henry drive off, and then she’s left alone with Killian as he kicks his heel into the ground and digs up a bit of dirt and sand. He’s in his costume today, the same one as before, but this time a long black duster has been added. If it’s anything like her dress, Emma knows that it has to be heavy, but he doesn’t seem to have any problem moving around in it. And she swears that even more buttons are undone on his shirt so that she can see more of his stomach and the hair that seems to go all the way down.

Who even is this guy?

“That’s a nice kid you’ve got there, Swan,” he tells her. She nearly jumps at the sound of his voice, and Emma realizes that she let her defenses down, if only for a moment.

She shouldn’t have.

“I tend to think so, and no, I’m not biased at all.”

Killian flashes a smile, and her stomach flips without her permission. “I think so without any bias. He was so curious about everything. It was great. I think I’ve turned him into a pirate yet.”

Emma’s lips curve up before she remembers who she’s talking to. It’s so easy for her to forget things when someone is gushing about Henry – she likes to think she isn’t a total screw-up when it comes to him – and she doesn’t need to be doing that, especially not around this guy.

“Look,” Emma starts as she crosses her arms over her chest, “thank you for spending time with Henry today. That was really nice of you, but I’m not going to suddenly fall into your arms because you know how to charm a kid. And I don’t want you thinking that I’ll date you if you’re nice to Henry. That’s not how this works, so if you’re using him to get to me, you can stop.”

His brows furrow together, two dark black patches of hair nearly forming into one, and the smile that was on his lips curves downward into a scowl as his shoulders straighten up to make him taller than she knows that he is. “You may not believe me, love, but I had no intention of using your kid to get in your pants. Don’t think so highly of yourself.”

And at that, he turns around and walks away, his coat swirling behind him, while Emma is left standing there wondering what the hell just happened.

-/-

For the next two weeks, Emma splits her time between waitressing, spending time with Henry, doing final run-throughs for Storybrooke Haunted Farms, and very occasionally sleeping. It’s hectic. Honestly, she might be delusional and imagining some of the things that have happened, but she’s going to chalk that up to lack of sleep and extreme physical activity. Her feet probably don’t fit in anything other than her sneakers because they’re so swollen from her standing for about eighteen hours a day.

It’s a lot.

But it’s also her favorite time of the year.

The temperatures have officially dipped to the point where she can wear jeans and a thick sweater every day while sipping on hot chocolate, and all of the leaves have changed colors so that everything just feels like fall. It’s the best time of the year, and Emma will not change her position on that.

Except, well, the fact that working at the Haunted Farm is an actual nightmare for her this year.

(They do, however, have a new kid’s attraction that’s a treasure hunt and not at all scary, and Emma is thankful that Mary Margaret got the idea and executed it so that Henry has somewhere to stay for a little while before Granny picks him up and takes him home to go to sleep.)

It’s going smoothly, relatively speaking. She’s got her routine down, even the part where she falls off the ship and suspends in the air while a speaker plays a splashing sound as fake thunder roars above them, and she’s got all of her scenes with Killian memorized to the point where she doesn’t jump when someone screams anymore….but it’s all like torture.

Emma has always prided herself over not caring too much about people she’s not close to so that she can save that emotional energy for something more important, but something about Killian Jones makes her feel horrible for pretty much being a bitch to him all the time. He is most definitely still this conceited, self-centered, far too flirtatious guy, but he is also the first person to help someone out when they get too freaked out by the jump scares, the guy who will bring people coffee (even her), and he never fails to make Henry smile even though Emma’s pretty sure that she scared Killian more than she has scared any of the people who pay to come to the Haunted Farms.

She hates it.

She hates that he’s probably a good person who wasn’t actually using Henry to get into her pants. That’s not something she’s totally decided on, but she feels a little more guilt every single time he opens his mouth to say something, takes one look at her, and then either turns away or makes some kind of innuendo that causes her cheeks to flame up.

Nothing about Killian Jones makes any sense, and for some reason her mind wants her to care about him.

It’s the law of proximity or something. That has to be it. They’re spending over half of their day together, every day, and it’s some kind of biological reaction to be tricked into wanting to know the other person so that things aren’t awkward.

Emma would honestly rather things just be awkward.

At least right now they’re in the middle of a shift, and there’s not exactly time to make awkward small talk. Instead, she’s sitting on a wooden barrel in the corner waiting for a new set of customers to walk across the bridge so that they can get this show on the road.

Or on the sea. It’s whatever.

The music starts playing over the speakers that are attached to the ship, and Emma slowly stands from the barrel, smoothing out her skirt and rubbing her hands over her arms to try to get the chill bumps to go away. It’s a little past ten o’clock, the sun having set several hours ago, and the only real light is coming from the way that the moon reflects off of the ocean. They’ve got these smoke machines out here to make everything look a little hazier, but it’s really not needed. It’s already hard to see a damn thing.

Killian follows right behind her, his duster hitting against her back, and she’s the slightest bit jealous that he gets to wear a coat. It’s under forty degrees out here right now, the ocean not helping that at all, and Emma is never going to be warm again.

“You ready to do this again?” she asks Killian.

“Aye,” he whispers back. “You know, I don’t mean to upset you Emma, but I think we make quite the team.”

A chuckle escapes from her without her permission, but she quickly corrects it and gets into position so that she and Killian can begin their fake fight.

Getting paid to fight with an (kind of) asshole? Quite possibly the greatest job she’s ever had.

They start their back and forth as people move closer to them, their eyes wide as they take in the ship from a new perspective, but Emma makes sure that her eyes only stay focused on Killian as he glowers above her with his hands resting on the buckle of his belt.

“But you said you loved me,” Emma screams out, pushing her hands against Killian’s chest.

“I’m a pirate, darling,” he seethes, stepping into her space and dipping his head down so that they are eye-to-eye. “I don’t love, especially when it comes to a bar wench like you. You’re more entertainment than anything else.”

Emma pushes back at him as she steps backward, moving closer and closer to the edge of the ship while Killian crowds her in, still spitting words at her to keep everyone entertained. Emma feels her harness tighten, the technician obviously preparing to fling her off of the ship now, and Emma sucks in a deep breath in preparation.

She is not working this attraction next year.

“It’s a pity that you thought I loved you, truly. I think you would have been nice to keep around.”

Her heart quickens at the sound of Killian’s words, the ones that are the final warning sound before she’s flung off of the ship, and then she’s being pulled back and suspended into the air, the harness tightening around her chest as the fake thunder rolls over the speakers and the audience gasps. They’re about to be scared shitless too. They just don’t know that part yet.

And then there’s a snap.

And Emma’s falling.

It’s quick, really. She doesn’t have time to think or do anything, not that there would be anything for her to do, before every last breath is being shocked out of her as sharp icicles poke around her and everything goes black.

The water is freezing around her, and her lungs are like bricks inside of her, the heaviness of her dress weighing her down, and even though Emma knows that she needs to swim to the surface, the shock of it all is making it a little difficult. She can’t see or breathe or even think, and her legs are simply kicking while her arms are flailing in search of something, anything.

She is not going to drown in the ocean wearing some kind of medieval dress.

She is not going to leave Henry this way.

Henry.

Oh shit. That seems to knock a bit more sense into her, or at least some kind of panic, and her arms are even more frantic as she’s moves through the icy water, just trying to find air.

She needs air.

Suddenly, Emma feels hands on her arms, and there’s actual movement happening, her body feeling it as she moves in what direction she thinks is up, and then for the first time in what feels like hours, she can breathe.

And she can see.

“Swan,” a voice gasps out, and she blinks away the salty water to see Killian’s face directly in front of hers, his hair matted down against his forehead. “Swan? Are you okay? Emma? Emma, are you alright, love?”

“Cold,” she manages to gasp out, and he nods his head in response before they’re moving again.

Emma’s senses are beginning to come back, but her head is still foggy. One moment she’s drowning in the darkness and the next she’s being pulled onto soft sand, her clothes feeling too heavy for her body to hold up. There are so many noises, voices and screams and the damn music still playing over the speakers, and Emma can’t focus on any of it. It’s too much stimuli, too many distractions, and she barely even notices the fact that Killian rips off a few layers of her dress before hoisting her into his arms while murmuring words she can’t quite pick up or understand.

What is happening?

“Emma,” Killian repeats, and all the sudden she looks around and she’s inside of one of the offices near the front of the farms. “Emma, I really need you to look at me, okay?”

She blinks a few more times before turning away from looking at the office to looking at Killian. His eyes are so blue. How is that possible?

“Do you think you can strip out of these clothes yourself? Or do you need help? I can do it or we can wait for Mary Margaret to get here. She’s on her way.”

Those words snap Emma back into reality, and she can feel absolutely…everything. Her lungs are burning, her skin is like ice, and it hurts to breathe right now. She probably hasn’t stopped shivering in hours.

“I need…you’ve got to undo the corset, and then I can do it.”

Killian nods his head before walking around her, his fingers quickly undoing the corset until it’s no longer constricting her chest, and that makes her breathe the slightest bit more easily. When he’s finished, he tells her to undress and change into the clothes that are sitting on the chair in front of her while telling her that he’s going to step into the other room to do the same.

Why does Killian have to do the same?

Oh, right, because he was in the water with her. He pulled her out of it.

Laughter bubbles up within her belly, warming her, while she sheds the last of the wet clothes and picks up a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants that have Storybrooke Haunted Farms written across them in this awful orange color. But it’s either freeze to death naked or put them on, so she puts them on with still shivering limbs and laughter still escaping her lips.

Her harness broke, and she fell into the freezing cold ocean.

Holy shit.

“Swan?” Killian asks as he steps back into the room wearing the same awful clothing that she’s wearing. “Why are you laughing?”

“Did I,” she starts, unable to finish. “Did I…did I…did I fall into the fucking ocean and have to be rescued while working at a fake haunted ship? Is that a real thing that just happened to me?”

“Aye,” he says a bit hesitantly before picking up a blanket and wrapping it around her while his hands rub up and down her shoulders. Holy shit that feels good. “Are you okay?”

“No,” Emma laughs, leaning forward to bury her face in Killian’s shoulder. He’s warm. How is he warm? He was in the water too. She knows that she didn’t hallucinate that. It was real. “No, I’m not okay. What even is happening? This is ridiculous, and I’m still not convinced that I’m not going to roll over in bed and wake up to find Henry having poured a bucket of ice down my back or something like that.”

Killian’s chest moves beneath hers, and she feels his hand shift from her arm to her back, quickly moving up and down over the blanket. It feels so good and warm, and she might stay like this forever.

“Is that something the lad would do?”

“No, not at all. He’s too good for that. It’s something I did as a kid, though.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhm, I hated my foster dad one time, and he refused to turn the heat up to make it warmer in the rest of the house, so I poured a bucket of ice on his bed. I got reassigned to a different house two days later, but let me tell you, it was worth it.”

Killian laughs again, and she feels it underneath her cheek. “That sounds exactly like something you would do. My brother used to pull shit like that, too, to our dad. He was always getting onto me for misbehaving, but then he’d cut holes in the crotch of Dad’s trousers.”

“This the brother that went to the Police Academy with David?”

“One and the same.”

“Where does he live now? Is he moving here too?”

Killian’s hand stills against her back, just for a brief moment, before starting up again as Emma nuzzles her nose a little further into his t-shirt that smells like detergent. Later, Emma knows that she’ll regret holding onto him like this, but right now, all she cares about is the fact that she’s finally starting to feel warm.

“Liam was killed in the line of duty two years ago, so I don’t think he’ll be moving from his plot in Boston.”

Emotion burns in Emma’s throat, weighed down by everything else that’s happened tonight, and someone should probably take her to the hospital for lack of airflow. This can’t be healthy. “I’m sorry, Killian.”

“Don’t be. ‘Tis not your fault. It is why I moved here, though. Believe it or not, it wasn’t to push you off of a ship while people are chased around by zombies wielding paintball guns. It was somewhere with a familiar face without having to move back to England, where I haven’t actually lived since I was a teenager.”

Emma huffs into Killian’s neck before wrapping her arms around his waist and rubbing up and down his back in the same way that he’s doing now. She doesn’t like to think that she needs saving, and she usually doesn’t…but tonight she did, and the least she can do is help to warm him up in the same way that he’s doing to her.

“I moved from Boston too, actually.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she sighs. “That’s where…I met Henry’s dad the summer before my senior year of high school. He was older, cooler, you know? And I found out I was pregnant halfway through that year. It was…” She stops, not really wanting to get into all of it with this man she doesn’t really know as well as not wanting to relieve it for herself. “It wasn’t a good time, pretty much, and I needed someplace new. This town has pretty much been the only thing that’s kept me on my feet.”

“Technically, it knocked you right off of them tonight.”

It’s the perfect time to make a joke. Honestly and truly it is because Emma could already feel herself pulling away and becoming uncomfortable with where this conversation was heading. She doesn’t just tell people about Neal or being in foster homes or any of it, and here she is letting it all out to a man she told herself not to get close to.

It’s also the exact moment that Mary Margaret walks in followed by David, and she and Killian spring apart so that they’re no longer standing together. Mary Margaret worries over the two of them, talking far faster than usual and giving them both jackets and more blankets along with socks, all of them from the merchandising table, before David hands them cups of hot chocolate, which may be the best hot chocolate that Emma has ever had.

That’s saying a lot considering how Emma is with her hot chocolate.

Things are overwhelming and wild as David explains the mechanics behind her harness snapping, and as quickly as David and Mary Margaret come in to check on the two of them, they’re having to leave to go check on the crises that are happening around town, and she’s left sitting in an office, still shivering the slightest bit, wondering where the hell does she go from here.

The answer to that question is apparently nowhere. She and Killian get sent home that night with instructions to come back in the morning for new assignments and to fill out some paperwork over the incident. They’re having to alter the performance that happens down at the ship, apparently, and while Emma expects to simply have her role slightly change, she ends up getting assigned to the hayride path with Killian. It’s a little sad to have to do this halfway through the month, but at least now she can wear jeans and flannel and hide her hair under a terrifying mask instead of having to have it teased every day.

And she won’t be falling into icy cold waters either. That’s definitely a plus.

Killian takes to scaring people on the hayride like a champ. He easily manages to jump up onto the trailer, oftentimes without anyone noticing, before screaming bloody murder and making everyone else do the same. One time, he manages to sit down between two couples without them noticing because they’re too busy sticking their tongues down each other’s throats, and the way they jump when Killian claps his hands together makes Emma jump off of the trailer and stumble back into the woods so that she can laugh without breaking character.

What she would give to have their faces on camera.

Things…shift in a way once they start working on the hayride instead of the ship. Emma had seen Killian’s good side before, had acknowledged it if even only to herself, but she still rejected it in a way. She didn’t want to see him as anything other than a cocky asshole who was using being nice to Henry to get into her pants, so Emma didn’t let her perception of him change.

Not until now.

Killian’s still a cocky asshole, but Emma’s starting to understand that the innuendos and his flirting might be a defense system. There’s something underneath the smirks and moving eyebrows, and while Emma doesn’t necessarily want to find out what it all is, she wouldn’t necessarily be opposed to it.

And he really is good with Henry, which Emma actually appreciates.

Apparently, when Killian isn’t scaring people for money, he works at Henry’s school as a receptionist for the front office as some kind of temp job, something no one seemed to deem important enough to tell her. Emma only found out when she called up to check Henry out to take him to a dentist appointment and she heard a familiar voice on the phone.

And now, somehow, he’s sitting across from her on a park picnic table as Henry climbs up and down the playground, his movement only slightly stilted by the giant puffer jacket that Emma has on him. She has no idea how Killian was out here running with only a thin pullover on.

“So, is he still going to be a pirate for Halloween tomorrow, or has that changed now that his mum has gotten pushed off a pirate ship and shunned to the hayride? I guess he could be a scarecrow, but I’m pretty sure six-year-olds aren’t into that.”

“No,” Emma sighs as Killian moves across the monkey bars and Emma braces herself for disaster, “I don’t think he would be. He’s got the pirate costume and still wants to do that. I’ve had to keep him from wearing it around the house so that he doesn’t mess it up before tomorrow.”

Killian raises his brow. “How exactly are you going to take him trick or treating when we have work? Isn’t that something that happens once the sun has set?”

“He’s six. we go in the middle of the afternoon, and then I drop him off to stay with Granny for the night. It’s not the best situation, but it’s what works for us.”

“You’re a good mum, Swan.” Emma feels hear rise in her cheeks, and she reaches up to brush her hair behind her ears. “With a good kid.”

“Yeah, he is pretty great, isn’t he?”

“Mom,” Henry shouts as he jumps down from the playground and runs toward the two of them, his cheeks flushed and hair pushed back off of his forehead, “I have an idea.”

“Oh yeah?”

He nods his head, bright smile on his face, before stepping closer to her and cupping his hands around his mouth up against her ears. “Killian should come trick or treating with us tomorrow, and you can give him some candy to tell him that you like him.”

Emma nearly falls off the bench, and her heart takes off like a freaking rocket. For one, Henry just said that loud enough for everyone in Storybrooke to hear, but mostly, he just said that so that Killian could hear.

But also, why in the world does Henry think that she likes Killian? Where the hell did he get that idea.

Hesitantly, Emma looks over to Killian to see that he’s on his phone, very obviously faking texting someone, and as much as she appreciates it, there’s no getting around the fact that he heard Henry say that she likes him.

Which she doesn’t.

Not at all.

That would be ridiculous. And dumb. And a horrible, horrible idea.

But he is a very pretty man on, like, a vain level, and Emma will admit that she can sometimes be a little bit into vanity. And he is good at banter and flirting and making her laugh and causing a smile to curl onto her lips. Maybe, just maybe, there might be butterflies the flutter around in her stomach, but Emma has very adamantly been chalking that up to the fact that her eating hasn’t been the most healthy lately.

No, she doesn’t like him. That’s not a thing that happens.

Except maybe it is because she does get excited to go to work, possibly a little bit more than usual, and there are times when she purposefully makes sure that she inches a little bit closer to him so that they have to talk.

Oh shit, her six-year-old just had an emotional revelation for her, and she doesn’t know how to feel about it.

Feelings are not her strong suit.

And neither is dating a man who her son is attached to. That’s just…what happens when he leaves? They always leave, and while Henry hasn’t known Killian for that long, she just knows him not showing up anymore would upset him.

But Killian wouldn’t do that, right?

“You know what, Henry,” Emma starts slowly, her voice cracking a little bit, “you have to ask Killian if he wants to come with us, okay? He might be busy.”

“Okay,” Henry whisper-shouts back at her before walking across the table and whisper-shouting into Killian’s ear as well. “Will you come trick or treating with us tomorrow and let my mom give you candy because she likes you?”

Emma groans and lets her head fall to the picnic bench, not caring about the weird stickiness that’s left there. Anything could be better than this.

“Yeah, lad,” Killian chuckles, and Emma peeks up to see Killian winking at her, “I think I can do both of those things.”

Killian shows up at her apartment the next day wearing his full-pirate garb, eyeliner and fake jewelry included, and it goes along perfectly with Henry’s costume as well as the costume she’s wearing. It’s not the bar wench one because that is in a trashcan somewhere, but it is the one that includes pants and these really cool boots and a vest that she’d probably like to wear on days that it’s not Halloween. Emma ignores the fact that they look like a family, especially when at least ten different people comment about how cute they all are, because this is about Henry and his happiness. This isn’t about the battle that’s been happening in her mind for the last thirty-six hours.

There is absolutely no reason for her to be able to have good things like this. She’s a screw up foster kid who has never had anyone love her the way that she thinks she’s supposed to be love, but she has this kid who, even on his worst days, she would do absolutely anything for. He came from such a dark place in her life, one that she didn’t think she could get out of, but here she is in a town that supports the both of them.

With someone who has spent the past hour talking in a strange accent to indulge Henry and make him laugh while they stuff their face with more candy than Emma would usually allow.

Today is a good day.

And it continues that way when she drops Henry off with Granny so that she and Killian can go to work, the two of them changing out of their pirate garb and back into comfortable jeans and flannel with the ridiculous masks that they’ve been changing up every day. It’s one last day, one last night, and Emma can’t wait to share the shit out of some people.

-/-

“Did you see her face?” Killian chuckles as they walk through the woods back to the clearing behind the front office building. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone be so terrified by a clown mask.”

“Clowns are creepy. That’s why they make horror films about them.”

“Aye, I know, but you have to admit that the woman’s face was priceless.”

Emma bumps her shoulder into Killian’s, and he looks down at her to smile, the moon reflecting off of half of his face. Those damn butterflies are not moving around in her stomach at the sight of his smile. Nope. Not at all.

“It was,” she admits as a few hundred people come into view, all of the employees over the past month gathering together for the wrap party that Mary Margaret and David throw for everyone full of drinks and junk food and all of the Halloween candy in the world. “That’s what will have to carry me over until next year.”

“Good. You want to grab some pizza and a few beers and go hit the hay?”

“You want to go to sleep?”

“No, Swan,” he laughs as his hand comes up to wrap around her shoulder, “not quite yet. I meant we can go sit in the trailer of the hayride. No one seems to have occupied it.”

Emma’s eyes glance over to where the trailer is parked, and it is, indeed, empty. “Yeah, I think that would be okay.”

They load up on food and drinks, carefully balancing them in their hands, before walking over to the trailer and easily climbing up onto the trailer, settling down into the middle and placing their plates of food up onto the haybales. She’s probably going to have hay stuck in her clothes and her hair for the next week and a half, but it might almost be worth it.

The pizza and beer are cheap, but after hours of running around, that doesn’t matter to Emma at all. Besides, the conversation is good, Killian telling her about his adventures in interviewing with Leroy to see if he can get a job on his construction crew since that’s apparently what he did back in Boston after he left the Navy earlier than planned due to Liam’s death.

There’s so much that she doesn’t know about him, that she can’t know after only knowing him for a month and a half and only tolerating him for a little less than that, but maybe Henry was right in his assumption that she might just like the guy who pushed her off a ship and almost caused her to accidentally drown.

Something she likes to remind him quite frequently only for him to remind her that it wasn’t his fault and that he did save her.

They can agree to disagree.

(They’re both technically right.)

A sharp wind comes moves through the woods, and a shiver runs down Emma’s spine so that she has to tighten her coat around her a little bit more. She needs a beanie, pretty much desperately, but there’s not a lot she can do about any of that right now. She’s been colder than this before. She’ll last.

And it’s such a nice night with the stars up in the sky and the moon shining overhead, no deadlines or schedules looming over her for at least a few days, and all Emma can do is relax in it, leaning back into Killian’s shoulder and sighing in relief.

He taps his foot against hers then, and Emma ignores it. But then he does it again and again and again until she looks over at him to see him holding a Kit Kar bar in between his fingers.

“What?” Emma groans. “Why are you being so annoying?”

His eyelashes flutter down then, just for a moment, before he’s looking up at her with a soft smile that she’s only seen from him a few times before. “I want to give you this piece of candy.”

“Um, why?”

His eyes roll, and Emma doesn’t know what to think of it because there’s really no reason for him to be so exasperated. “Your son, brilliant lad that he is, told me that if I like you, I should give you some candy. This is me giving you candy.”

Oh.

Emma’s heart stutters. Actually, it probably completely stops. She’s having a hard time knowing exactly what’s going on when her head is a mess, a mix of alcohol and confusing feelings and a little bit of being terrified of making the wrong mood, but Killian most definitely just took dating advice from a six-year-old and told her that he has feelings for her.

She’s really not ready for Henry to start dating if he’s going to be able to do things like this.

With a small, trembling smile on her face, Emma turns around and finds a red Starburst on her plate and reaches over to hand it to Killian, whose smile stretches up to his eyes now. “Okay, but just so you know, this candy is going to come with some stipulations, okay?”

“Like what, Swan?” Killian asks even as the rough pads of his fingers come to cup her cheek, pulling her closer to him so that their mouths are so close that she can’t tell whose breath is whose as it comes out in white puffs of air. “Because if it’s about Henry, he’s already given me a stern talking to about how I’m only allowed to make you happy and not sad like his dad did.”

“Did he really?”

“Aye, love, he did. And I understand that there will be boundaries and limitations and that Henry comes first. I want him to come first, always. I just – ”

Emma doesn’t let him finish before she’s pressing forward and gliding her lips over his and wrapping her arms around his neck in one swift moment. They’re both still at first, and Emma takes in the fact that his cold lips taste like pizza, beer, and chocolate. It’s not the best combination in the world taste-wise, but it is pretty good in general. So is the kiss when Killian starts moving his lips against hers, tugging her closer with his hand and tilting her head to the side to deepen the kiss, mouths quickly opening and tongues lightly swirling together in a slick, wet slide.

She’s had first kisses before, more than she’d care to admit, and as absolutely magnificent as a lot of them were, Emma doesn’t think her heart has ever felt quite this way – like a mix of happiness and magic and a little bit of Halloween spirit.

It is the best holiday of the year, after all. She can be whoever she wants.

Right now, though, she doesn’t want to be anyone other than Emma Swan or be anywhere other than in this moment.

-/-

They don’t tell Henry that they’re dating for four more months. It’s hard to keep from him, honestly, but Emma knows that it’s for the best. Things could still go wrong, her fears are still valid, and Henry is easy to accept the fact that Killian sometimes spends a little bit more time with them than usual. But still as his mom’s friend.

It’s pretty easy for Henry to accept when Killian makes the transition from friend to boyfriend.

Even easier when he goes from his mom’s boyfriend to his step-father. It makes picking out family costumes for Halloween even easier.

(Emma is ignoring that Henry will eventually grow out of liking doing that.)

Killian gives her a piece of candy every day to make sure that Emma knows that he has feelings for her.

She’s got a pretty good idea.

#Storybrooke haunted farms #cs hallloweek #cs fic #cs ff #captain swan fic #Captain Swan #captain cobra

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hollyethecurious · 4 years

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CS AU: Some Legends are Best Kept as Legends (2/?)

Summary: Years after ruthlessly humiliating the man known as Rumple von Stiltskin, Killian Jones faced him once again on the battlefield, though it was clear his foe was no longer an ordinary man. Before succumbing to the fatal injury the Dark One’s blade had inflicted, Killian managed to strike a blow of his own with the being’s own ripple-edged dagger. Now, nearly two hundred and fifty years later, Killian finds himself alive and back in his hometown. However, whatever awoke him from his cursed sleep had also raised the Dark One. With all of Storybrooke at risk, can Killian find a way to stop the Dark One once and for all? Perhaps so. With a little help from Deputy Swan and her boy.

A/N: Based on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow short story by Washington Irving, and the Sleepy Hollow Fox tv show.

I failed to mention my intentions as to a posting schedule for this fic when I dropped it earlier this month. I’m planning on updating every other week, trading off with my csmm fic, which drops next Sunday. So far, this is shaping up to be four parts total, but as always, I am at the mercy of the muse.

Thanks again to all of the mods and participants of the @cssns! Much love to @artistic-writer for her beta services (and for the amazing Killian manip in the art!), and to @kmomof4 for her cheerleading support.

Content Warnings for this chapter include character death.

Rated T / Available on ao3 and ff.net / buy me a coffee / Part One

~/~

Part Two

Present Day, Storybrooke, Maine

Leaves crunched under Deputy Emma Swan’s boots, despite how careful she was trying to be while searching the perimeter of the old farmhouse. A call had come into the station about a disturbance. Hunters who’d been setting up their blind for the weekend said they’d spotted a suspicious figure, so now here she was, traipsing about the abandoned farm on an unseasonably cold night instead of manning the phone at the station, or patrolling the quiet streets of Storybrooke in a warm squad car.

One day she was going to beat her brother in rock, papers, scissors, forcing him to join Sheriff Humbert on pointless calls searching after figments of other peoples’ imaginations.

Graham had insisted they split up when they’d arrived. The farm was extensive, with a dilapidated house, a storm cellar, and old barn rotting away on the property that had once been the sight of a Revolutionary War battle. The Storybrooke Police Department had fielded a number of calls regarding the property over the years, enough so that some people in town considered the place haunted. Just another colorful tale for the tourists.

Emma had never put much stock into any of the legends and fables her town had become famous for; Revolutionary War ghosts, curses, the Dark One. It was all nonsense. Something she had to remind Henry of on an ongoing basis as his fascination for such legends had continued to grow over the years. Still, she couldn’t really fault his obsession. Mary Margaret assured her that most kids fell down the occasional rabbit hole, becoming something of an expert on subjects they immersed themselves in, and having a notorious legend like, the Dark One, originating from your hometown seemed like the kind of thing that would spark the imagination of any twelve year old boy.

The piles of books were getting a tad out of hand, though.

The snap of a twig jolted Emma back into her current reality. Even if this was a wild goose chase, Emma couldn’t afford to get distracted with thoughts of her son and his other-worldly interests. Especially when she heard Graham call out halt! to someone from the other side of the barn.

Emma jogged towards where she’d heard Graham’s command then broke into a full on sprint when his scream pierced the night.

“Graham!” she cried out, gun drawn and flashlight searching the area. “Graham! Where are you? Call out!”

Pained gurgles echoed in Emma’s ears when she turned the corner of the barn. Raising her gun, she trained it on the hooded figure standing in front of her boss and friend.

“Freeze!” she ordered.

A twittering giggle that sent shivers up Emma’s spine spilled from the man as he flicked his wrist with a simpering remark. “You first, dearie.”

Emma’s heart began to hammer wildly in her chest when she realized she couldn’t move, but she didn’t have time to wonder how he’d managed to paralyze her, not when she’d just become aware of the man’s other hand impossibly embedded in Graham’s chest cavity. With a sharp tug, he removed it and Emma knew she’d never forget the scream that left Graham’s lips as something glowed a bright red in his attacker’s palm.

Incapable of moving, even if she weren’t frozen in place, Emma had no choice but to watch as the figure reached into his own chest and removed a hardened lump of something black and rotten. He then pressed the object he’d taken from Graham into his chest and smiled wickedly as the sheriff crumpled to the ground before him. Clenching his fist, the blackened item disintegrated in his hand, ash pouring to the ground and scattering over Graham’s still form before the man dusted off his fingers and started to approach her.

A rush of cold wind swept between them, halting the perpetrators steps. His head snapped up as the clouds parted, the moonlight revealing a scaled quality to his skin that had Emma’s stomach rolling in revulsion. His eyes fell shut as if he were straining to listen, but the only sound stirring in Emma’s ears was the thundering of her pulse.

The man flicked his wrist once again, and impossibly vanished in a swirl of dark smoke. It took Emma several erratic heartbeats to realize she’d been freed from her paralysis, shock and disbelief making it impossible for her to move until she remembered Graham and stumbled towards him. Her knees slammed into the cold, hard earth and a sob caught in the back of her throat when her eyes met Graham’s vacant stare. Even knowing it was too late, Emma reached for her walkie and called for back-up.

“Officer down,” she called out with a lamenting strain choking her voice. “I repeat, officer down. Need an ambulance and back-up, over.”

~/~

The buzzing of the overhead fluorescent lights helped to drown out the not so hushed whispers of her fellow officers. It had taken every ounce of restraint Emma possessed to not move Graham’s body before the paramedics, followed by the coroner, arrived. She knew the scene had to be maintained, but all she’d wanted to do was gather Graham into her arms and hold him, or maybe just close his eyes so he could at least look at peace. Instead, she’d sat cross-legged beside him, the terrible scene playing itself over and over again in her mind until she was no longer present in the moment.

That’s how David and August had found her.

She remembered giving a vague description of the man who’d killed their sheriff, but hadn’t recounted the whole story yet. How could she when she could hardly believe it herself? A man with glittering, scaly skin - a detail she’d left out, even though it was possibly his most distinguishing feature - who could rip people’s hearts out and vanish in a plume of smoke? She knew what Henry would claim she saw, but there was no way it could be true. Legends weren’t real. They were myths, made up to serve as cautionary tales. No. There had to be an explanation for what she saw. She couldn’t confess to having witnessed Sheriff Humbert being murdered by the freaking Dark One on record; everyone would think her crazy.

No. There had to be another explanation, so until the coroner came back with the preliminary report of how Graham died, Emma was going to keep her mouth shut.

“Jefferson,” David greeted, snapping Emma’s attention to the front of the station at the mention of the coroner’s name. “Please, tell us you found something?”

“Oh, I found something, alright,” Jefferson muttered, making his way into the station and taking a seat. “Or rather… I didn’t.”

“What the hell does that mean?” David questioned, leaning over his desk with his palms braced against its surface.

“I examined Sheriff Humbert’s body and took the standard x-rays so my assistants could prepare him for the autopsy,” Jefferson paused, swallowing uneasily and wetting his lips before continuing on. “While I can’t give a definitive cause of death until after I perform the post-mortem, the x-rays showed something… odd. Something I can’t explain.”

Emma’s pulse raced in anticipation, feeling certain she knew what the x-rays showed that had the medical examiner looking so pale and confused. Before he could confirm Emma’s trepidations, a strange voice spoke up from one of the cell’s behind her.

“His heart was missing.” Grime covered fingers wrapped themselves around the bars, knuckles turning white from the fierce grip the man was applying to them. “His heart was missing, though there was no evident trauma to the body.”

Jefferson blanched, and the others stared suspiciously as he sputtered, “How d-did you know that?”

“What do you know about the Sheriff’s murder?” David demanded, approaching the bars before turning towards Emma. “Is this the guy, Emma? Did this guy kill Graham?”

The man straightened his posture, his tone full of offense. “I assure you, I did no such thi-”

“No. It couldn’t have been him,” August replied. “I found him wandering Main Street, clearly high as a kite. He took a swing at me when I tried to get him into the squad car to drop him off somewhere he could sleep it off, so I had to cuff him. I’d only got him in the car when Emma’s call for back-up came through. So, he can’t be our guy.”

“But you know who it was, don’t you?” Emma said, taking the man in for the first time since she’d entered the precinct in a complete daze.

Mud and debris caked his long hair, and smudges streaked his face. He was strangely dressed, as though he’d come from one the war reenactments the town regularly put on for tourists, and his clothes were also covered in layers of dirt that muted the details of his uniform. Disheveled as he was, what caught Emma’s attention the most was the way his eyes, a fathomless blue, swirling with hints of confusion, shock, and alarm, held hers as his Adam’s apple bobbed and the muscle at his jaw ticked before he gave her a solemn nod.

“Well?” David demanded. “Who is the sonofabitch?”

Emma stood and put herself between the man and her brother, holding David back with her hand pressed against his chest. “David,” she said calmly. “Let me take him to the interrogation room and question him while you talk with Jefferson. August should go back out on patrol, see if anyone’s seen a guy who matches my description.”

“Emma, we don’t know who this guy is or how he’s involved. I’m not gonna let you question him on your own.”

“He’ll be cuffed to the table,” she reminded him. “And I think he’ll talk to me.”

David put his hands on his hips and stared down at her with an evaluating gaze. “You know, you still haven’t told us what happened out there. I should take your statement and send you home, that’s procedure.”

“I know the protocols, David,” Emma replied shortly, crossing her arms over her chest. “But do I need to remind you that I have seniority here?”

David’s stance relaxed and his expression softened. “I’m only looking out for you, Emma. You’ve been through a trauma.”

“I’m fine.” Emma waved him off. She felt anything but fine, but was desperate for answers the muck covered stranger might provide. Answers that might help prove she wasn’t crazy. “And we need all hands on deck if we’re going to find Graham’s killer before anyone else gets hurt, so let's stop wasting time.”

David’s shoulders sagged and a resolved sigh expelled from his lungs. “You’re right. He’s all yours.”

With a fortifying breath, Emma turned and demanded the man’s hands. Reluctantly, he slipped them through the bars so Emma could cuff him before opening the cell and taking hold of his arm, marching him towards the interrogation room. With a second set of cuffs, she restrained him to the table then took a seat on the opposite side. A notepad and pen were at the ready, but her trembling hands testified to the actuality that she may not be. Undeterred, Emma took another deep breath and flicked her gaze up at the man who was observing her rather intently.

“Name,” she said in her most authoritative tone, tucking a section of her hair behind her ear when she bent her head back down to focus on the notepad in front of her.

“Captain Killian Jones,” the man replied, and for the first time Emma noted his accent.

“Where are you from, Captain Jones?”

He shifted in his seat, the metal of the cuffs jingling as he ran his fingertips over the pads of his thumbs while he seemed to weigh his answer. “England, originally. Though, I’ve called Storybrooke home for most of my life.”

Emma set her pen down and laced her hands together, placing them on top of the notepad while she scrutinized her subject. She’d always had a gift of knowing when someone was lying to her, it’s why she was the one who usually did the interrogating, and while his statement didn’t set off her internal lie detector, she knew he couldn’t be telling her the truth.

“Funny. I don’t recall ever seeing you before.”

He ran his tongue over his lips then grimaced at what she assumed had to be an unpleasant taste of dirt flaking off them. “May I have some water, please?”

Emma reached behind her to where a few water bottles were kept on a credenza, and loosened the cap before passing it to him. His brows scrunched together and water nearly exploded from the plastic when he gave the bottle a squeeze. He looked at her sheepishly with an apology on his lips before leaning forward to take a sip, blinking several times when he pulled away to examine its contents with incredulous eyes.

If Emma didn’t know any better, she would have thought he’d never seen a disposable water bottle before.

“May I ask you something before you carry on with my interrogation?” Jones asked.

“I guess,” Emma hedged with caution as to what he might inquire about.

“What year is it?”

Emma’s brows shot up. “Excuse me?”

“The year,” he croaked before taking another sip of water. “What year is it, and which… which nation has authority over these lands?”

“Uh… it’s 2013, and last I checked Storybrooke, Maine was a part of the United States of America.”

A rush of air left his lungs and an almost disbelieving giddiness overtook his expression. “We won?”

“Excuse me?”

He didn’t seem to hear Emma’s question, evident by the color draining from his face as his eyes latched onto hers. “2013?” he parroted back to her with a pained expression of distress.

His head fell forward into his still cuffed hands, his fingers kneading his forehead, dislodging more dirt and debris.

“Hey,” Emma said, reaching out and placing a hand on his forearm. “Are you okay?” When he didn’t respond, she shook him a bit harder. “Hey. I need you to focus. Tell me who you really are and what you know about the guy who killed Sheriff Humbert.”

“You would never believe me,” he lamented into his palms.

Emma stood and leaned over the table so she could grasp his hands and pry them from his face. When his eyes met hers, she knew, by the way his lips parted and his brows arched, that he could see the desperation and camaraderie in her eyes.

“Try me,” she whispered.

When he nodded, she resumed her seat. Leaving the pen where it lay, she sat and listened to his tale, begging her ‘super power’ to refute what he was saying, but regardless of how impossible his words were, none of them rang false in her ears.

“Let me get this straight,” she said hollowly once he was finished. “You’re a two hundred and fifty year old Revolutionary War veteran who was killed on the battlefield outside of town by… the Dark One, who you suspect is responsible for the death of Sheriff Humbert, and you can prove all of this by showing me the grave you dug yourself out of at the cemetery.”

“I know you must think me a madman, but I swear it all to be true.”

Emma sat there a moment longer, her gaze fixed on an imperfection in the table they were sat at when her voice sounded in her ears before she was even aware she was speaking.

“He was dressed strangely. In a long hooded cloak that was as dirt encrusted as you are. His skin was…”

“Scaled,” he answered for her.

“His hand was already in Graham’s chest when I got there,” she continued on, still focused on the divot in the varnished surface of the table. “I raised my gun, but he… he made it so I couldn’t move. I was trapped in my own body, powerless.” Something warm and wet streaked down her cheek and it took her a moment to register the tears. She shouldn’t be showing weakness in front of a suspect, but Emma couldn’t help it. Whether any of this made sense or not, she believed Killian enough to trust him with her experience and needed to tell someone what had happened. Maybe they were both crazy? “Even when Graham screamed in pain from having his heart removed and put into that… thing’s chest, I…” her voice broke against a sob, and Jones instinctively reached out, his motion was halted by the cuffs, but they couldn’t stop his words.

“Don’t do that to yourself, love,” he admonished in a soft tone of understanding. “I know those final, awful moments want to repeat themselves in your mind, but you don’t have to relive it. Come back to the here and now.”

Emma shook herself and scrubbed her sleeve down her face, taking a moment to collect herself before clearing her throat and facing Jones. “Right. The here and now.”

Emma chewed her lip, grasping for direction. What was she supposed to do now? If this Killian Jones was to be believed (and she really couldn’t believe how willing she was to take him at his word. Though, watching your friend’s heart being torn from his chest was rather compelling evidence), then they were facing forces far beyond herself and the might of the Storybrooke police department.

“So…” Killian drawled, whipping her attention back to him. “You believe my tale?”

Releasing the grip her teeth had on her lip, Emma blew out a breath and admitted,” I don’t know what to believe.” She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. “But I don’t know how to explain what I saw, either, so… I guess I’m willing to take a leap of faith.”

Killian’s shoulders sagged in relief and he gave her a grateful smile. “Thank you, Emma.”

“Deputy Swan,” she corrected, figuring he knew her name from when David had said it before. “Just because I’m willing to take a chance on you, doesn’t mean I can just let you go.” She stood and removed the cuff keys from her pocket, unlocking the ones that had him restrained to the table but keeping the other set firmly clasped around his wrists. “I need to corroborate your story.”

“I understand,” he said, waiting for her gesture to stand.

Cracking open the door, Emma made sure David and August were still occupied before signalling to Jones to follow her out. Her finger was pressed against her lips, indicating he should do so quietly. He did both without question, but when they made it out the backdoor to her awaiting bug parked in the back lot, he hesitated a moment before climbing in after she opened the passenger side door for him.

“What?”

“I, uh…” he began tentatively. “I’m not sure how confident I am in these horseless carriages. The speed with which your fellow officer was able to muster in another similar vessel seemed… rather unnatural for land travel.”

Emma stared dumbfounded for a moment before remembering his confession of being from the eighteenth century. She could only imagine how unsettling it would be to wake up to things like electricity, indoor plumbing, cars, planes, cell phones, and other modern conveniences. Still, the prospect that he was spooked by her vintage yellow bug was rather amusing.

~/~

Killian led Deputy Swan through the rows of headstones, not entirely sure of the accuracy of his direction. Things had been a bit of a blur once he’d managed to extricate himself from his coffin, but he did recall the looming mausoleum that stood at the center of the cemetery, and therefore based their trek on its position relative to where he’d stood once topside.

Frenzy continued to thrum in his veins, its frantic rush keeping him from succumbing to the overwhelming barrage of oddities that kept assaulting him. Vessels capable of traveling over land at speeds he’d only ever experienced at full sail on the waves, architecture and furnishings reflecting designs he found strange and off putting, to say nothing of the fashions he’d seen among officers of the law who did not even dress in proper uniforms that might denote their station or authority. How else was he to know the man captaining the vessel with the blinding pulses of red and blue was a member of the community’s militia?

A militia that not only allowed the inclusion of women, but gave them leave to rise to positions of authority within the ranks. Perhaps, things were not all bad in this foreign landscape? Some of the bravest and cleverest people he’d known during his years of service had been women. Whether they used their positions to act as spies for the Sons of Liberty, or rose up to meet the challenge of labor and hardship in order to keep businesses and farms running while the men were away, Killian had seen women with more mettle than most men possessed in the face of death.

Women like the one currently beside him, with her free flowing blonde hair and tight trousers he had to keep his eyes from wandering over, focusing instead on the illumination of her flameless torch.

It had been clear she’d witness some sort of atrocity when the other men had brought her into the prison. Her face had been a ghastly white and her eyes void of any real comprehension of her surroundings. He was fairly certain she hadn’t even been aware of his presence until he’d spoken, but once their eyes had met he’d felt the connection surge between them. A bond two people shared when they found themselves caught in the same current others could not distinguish from their vantage point within the tide. He’d known immediately what horrors she’d witnessed, and despite the pragmatic nature he somehow inherently knew she typically viewed the world by, she had accepted his tale by virtue of their shared experience in both having faced the Dark One.

Killian’s reflections were paused by Deputy Swan’s arm jutting out in front of him, which also halted his steps.

“Is that it?” she asked in a hushed tone of dread, the glow of her flashlight, as she’d called it, sweeping over a disturbed mound of earth.

“Aye,” he replied, trying to choke back the helpless feelings he’d experienced while trapped below ground, and the anxiety he’d been attempting to hold at bay when the beam rested on his headstone, once again testifying to the passage of time that had occurred whilst his body had been interned.

Deputy Swan crouched down in front of his tombstone, her fingers tracing the engraving of his name and the years that marked his life. “It’s true,” she exhaled. “You actually dug yourself out of your own grave.” She stood and faced him, eyes wide and full of questions. “How?”

“I would rather not relive the experience through its recounting, if it is all the same to--”

“No, I mean. How are you here? Alive? After all this time? What… What do you remember from when you first… woke up?”

Killian thought back to those first few awful moments; the stale air in his lungs, the tight feel of crumbling wood pressing in from all sides, the taste of dirt on his tongue, and his name…

“Someone called my name,” he told her upon remembering. “I heard my name being said in a voice that was not my own, but… how would I have heard such a thing from inside there?” He gestured down to the narrow hole he’d wormed his way through. A shudder rolled through him at the memory, forcing him to take a step back and turn away, his breath catching painfully in his chest.

“Hey,” she said, soothingly while placing a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay. Just breathe.” Once he’d taken a few steadying breaths, she inquired, “Did you see anyone once you were… out?”

Killian’s head whipped towards the mausoleum up the hill. “There were children,” he recounted. “Three or four? Boys, I think. I chased after them, but lost them when I reached the strange road over yonder.”

Something in her expression told him she was not surprised to hear that revelation.

“You know who they were?”

“I’m pretty sure I know who one of them was, yeah,” she muttered, leaving his side to trudge up the slope towards the crypt.

“Who?”

“My son,” she called out over her shoulder.

Killian blanched then followed. “Your son?” He hadn’t noticed a wedding band, or was that a practice that had gone out of fashion? “Does he typically frequent cemeteries at night?”

Hands braced on her hips, she looked up at the etching above the door and Killian’s gaze followed. There was something familiar about the name displayed there - CASSIDY - but he couldn’t quite remember the significance.

“This is his father’s family’s mausoleum,” she informed him. “He comes here sometimes to feel close to his dad.”

The doors creaked, the hinges binding from lack of use as she entered with Killian fast on her heels. “My condolences,” he offered on a reverent breath.

An undignified snort echoed of the stones. “He isn’t dead,” she stated with a hard edge. “At least, I don’t think he is. We haven’t seen or heard from him since he took off a few years ago.”

“He abandoned you?” Killian’s tone was equally hard, long buried emotions infusing themselves within the question.

“It’s not like that,” she said in the man’s defense. “Neal and I were never married. We were practically kids ourselves when Henry came along unexpectedly, and he…”

Her words trailed off and a tint of pink settled over her cheeks, as if she’d realized how scandalous the tale must sound to him. It was, but he’d garnered enough about this strange time he now found himself in to know social mores had changed, and besides… it wasn’t as if he didn’t have scandalous skeletons of his own.

Clearing her throat, she said, “Neal used to bring Henry here to tell him all about his family history. Colonel Cassidy, who the mausoleum was built for, was a hero in the battle of… um,” she wet her lips and gave him a hesitant look, “the battle you died in.”

Recognition sparked into remembrance. “Aye. I remember Col. Cassidy. Good man. If recollection serves, he was from Boston. He did not return home after the war?”

“No, he, um…” Her brows scrunched as she pulled the information from the recesses of her mind. “He met a local woman. A pregnant widow. Her husband died in the battle and they married before the baby was born.” The circle of light swung over to the wall at their left and landed on a worn plaque. “That’s her.”

Killian’s heart stopped at the sight of the name, all the air rushing from his lungs as he sank to his knees before the marker.

“Killian?” He heard the deputy say behind him. “What is it? Are you..”

With his eyes fixed on the name, the lines of each letter blurring in his tear filled vision, Killian barely registered Swan’s kneeling form beside him.

“Who was she to you?” she asked on little more than a whisper, the trepidation quivering beneath her words betraying the fact she already had an inkling.

“My wife,” Killian answered, a tear slipping past his lashes and catching on the grime that still covered his face.

He reached up and gently ran his fingertips over her name - Milah Jones Cassidy - and swallowed back the myriad of emotions the sight of it brought forth. Despair over the fact he would never see her again; never hear her laugh or see her smile. Guilt that he hadn’t even given her much of a thought since being resurrected until faced with her passing. Relief that she had seemed to find some measure of happiness and stability after losing him and…

Shock.

Utter astonishment as a detail Swan had casually mentioned fully developed in his comprehension. The widow Cassidy had married had been… pregnant?

Before he could internalize that revelation, Swan reached out and covered the hand still resting on Milah’s marker. “I’m so sorry, Killian.”

The solemn reverie of her softened tone was marred by a grating sound that preceded the shifting of plaque beneath their fingers. Each of them pulled their hand away and one side of the marker dropped, exposing a shallow cavern behind it. Killian felt something ripple over his skin and a desperation took hold of him. Without any conscience prompting on his part, his hand shot back into the space, searching every inch of the cavity and finding it as empty as it appeared. Once again, he wrenched his hand back, looking it over with a mixture of confusion and dread as a clawing desire settled itself deep within him.

He wanted, needed, whatever had been kept behind Milah’s marker, and he would do anything necessary to acquire it.

“Swan,” he croaked. “I think it best we find your son. Now.”

~/~

Killian became more agitated the closer they got to their destination. Swan’s mood wasn’t faring much better, with each attempt made to “call” her son resulting in no response from the lad. When they turned the corner that led to a row of houses on a dead end street, something unsettling began to stir within Killian. A sense of anticipation and an impulse of possessive need trembled through his fingertips, and when they exited the vessel Killian stopped short when he swore he’d heard whispered voices, like a siren’s call luring him towards Swan’s abode.

“Do you hear that?” Killian asked, stalling Emma’s action of unlocking her door.

“Hear what?”

Killian shook his head and pushed against the voices. “Nevermind,” he said, making his way up the steps and following Swan through the door.

“Henry!” Swan called out. “Henry, where are you?”

“Mom!” a young voice called out after a door slammed from the upper floor and quick thumps of footfalls made their way to the stairs. “Mom! You’re never going to believe what I--”

The boy had just skipped off the last step when he caught sight of Killian and blanched. “Who are you?”

“Henry, this is Killian,” Swan supplied, approaching her boy as his eyes widened and all color drained from his face.

“K-Killian Jones?” he stammered.

“Aye,” Killian affirmed, taking a step towards the boy, but stopping when the action made the boy skitter back. “How did you know that, lad?”

The boy swallowed heavily then removed the hand Killian realized he’d been hiding behind his back, revealing a scallop-edged blade dagger.

“Where did you get that?” Swan shouted, causing the boy to flinch.

“Um… the cemetery?” he replied sheepishly before his eyes flicked up to Killian who had somehow managed to find himself right in front of the boy without even realizing he’d moved.

A covetous hiss rippled through Killian’s mind, urging him to get the dagger from the boy, but before he could demand the lad hand it over, awareness skittered over his skin. They weren’t alone.

“I’ll take that, if you please,” a familiar voice declared, snapping the trio’s attention back towards the door.

Swan gasped and pushed Henry behind her as Killian used his body to shield them both from the Dark One who was stepping over the threshold.

“That blade does not belong to you, boy. Hand it over, and no harm shall befall you.”

“You’re lying,” Killian accused between grit teeth. “Don’t listen to him, lad.”

“Y-You’re the Dark One,” Henry said in a fear laced tone. “T-This is your dagger?”

By way of answer, Rumple flicked his wrist and a choking sound caused Killian’s heart to cease in his chest. Behind him, Swan’s hands were frantically grasping at her neck, as if trying to pry unseen hands from choking the life out of her.

“The blade for your mother’s life,” the demented demon giggled.

Killian peered at the lad over his shoulder, expecting to see terror and tears. His brows pulled together at the expression on the boy’s face. While he was clearly scared for his mother’s life, he also looked as though he were working out a puzzle in his mind. Killian could see the moment the solution presented itself by the triumphant gleam in his eye and the exhilaration that spread across his face.

“That means it controls you!” the boy exclaimed, holding the dagger out before him. “I command you to go back where you came from, Dark One!”

A swirl of red began to envelop Killian. In his periphery he saw, with a great measure of relief, the invisible hold around Swan’s neck released itself, sending her into a fit of coughs as she dropped to her knees. The reverberating sound suddenly stopped, replaced by silence as he was fully engulfed in the crimson cloud and lifted off his feet. Less than a moment later, Killian found himself flat on his back with a dreadfully familiar taste hitting the back of his throat. Earth, petrichor, wood, death. Reaching out his worst fears were confirmed.

He was back in his coffin.

“Bloody hell,” he cursed. “Not again.”

Part Three

#cs ff #csff #cs fic #cs au #cssns #captain swan #cs sleepy hollow au #killian jones #emma swan #henry mills #rumplestiltskin #some legends are best kept as legends #words by hollye

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searchingwardrobes · 5 years

Text

Start of Time: 1/?

Happy birthday, @teamhook ! You have been a faithful reader of my fics from long before I came over to tumblr, and I appreciate your support so much! As a matter of fact, you were the first one to encourage me to get a tumblr blog. Anyway, I hope you have a marvelous day, my friend.

You told me this Gabrielle Aplin song was one of your favorites that reminded you of CS, so I wanted to incorporate it into a fic. Then, just a few days ago I watched a Hallmark Christmas movie (yes, I’m already watching them, don’t judge) called a Christmas to Remember. It had Elle McKinnon in it, who played young Alice Jones on Once, and the whole thing gave me CS vibes. Then I realized the song really fit the movie’s plot, and this fic was born. Unlike the movie, however, this doesn’t happen at Christmas. I also couldn’t finish it in a one-shot, so here we go, another MC/WIP. It’s worth it for you though, @teamhook. I hope you enjoy it!

Many thanks to the CSRT discord chat for helping me brainstorm parts of this, especially @shireness-says for giving me the idea to make Emma part of a rock band. I was having a very difficult time coming up with a band name that hasn’t been used yet in the fandom, when the name of a band from my college came to mind - Wendy Sews it On. It suddenly hit me what that band name is a reference too, and I was giddy with excitement!

Summary: Killian and his son are driving through a bad snow storm when they find a disoriented woman walking down the road. The question is, how can they help her get home when she has no idea who she is?

Side note: Has anyone else written from the point of view of someone who can’t remember her name? Well it’s hard, ya’ll - lol!

Rating: T

Trigger warning: Alice Jones appears in this fic and both Alice and Henry are both Killian’s adopted children with Milah. Henry isn’t Emma’s. Positive past Millian. No Neal.

Words: about 2,500 in this chapter

Also on Ao3 and part of my Fandom Birthday Playlist

Tagging the usuals::@snowbellewells @kmomof4@jennjenn615 @kday426 @let-it-raines @teamhook@kmomof4 @bethacaciakay @profdanglaisstuff @resident-of-storybrooke @thislassishooked @tiganasummertree@whimsicallyenchantedrose @snidgetsafan @delirious-latenight-laughs @winterbaby89 @distant-rose@shireness-says @xhookswenchx @optomisticgirl @spartanguard @branlovestowrite @welllpthisishappening @stahlop @hollyethecurious

Oh today I’m just a drop of water and I’m running down the mountain side. Come tomorrow I’ll be in the ocean. I’ll be rising with the morning tide.

The road stretched before Emma’s tiny yellow bug, she was sure, for miles upon miles of the thick forests of northern Maine. Yet all she could see out her windshield was about a car’s length in front of her through the thick swirling snow. Her tires kept sliding on the slick roads, and more than once she had trouble keeping the car pointed in the right direction. It didn’t help that she was completely and utterly lost, her GPS losing signal at some point miles back.

Emma cursed rural Maine, cursed the snow, and even cursed Regina for suggesting this week of r&r to begin with. A cabin with all the amenities next to a spa sounded like heaven. Or maybe anything secluded sounded like heaven - a place to get her head on right again, maybe even write a new song.

She just wasn’t sure it would be a love song like Regina and the record label was hoping for. She added Walsh to her list of stuff to curse.

Her headlights, for a brief moment, illuminated a sign up ahead: “Welcome to Storybrooke.” She cursed again as she squinted down at her phone which still mocked her with the little swirling icon and the word “buffering.”

“Come on,” she muttered. She started to type in “Misthaven Resort and Spa” again, glancing from her phone screen to the road and back again. She knew it was dangerous to use her phone while driving, especially in weather like this, but if she didn’t figure out where the hell she was, she might run out of gas and die out here in the snow anyway.

It was a cost benefit analysis, really.

God, she needed to start spending time with people besides Regina and Walsh. She hadn’t even seen her former bandmates since this solo career train had catapulted out of the station.

Anna would have loved that mixed metaphor. It was the kind of line Emma’s red-headed, bubbly, almost little sister would have put into a song. Like the Beatles, every member of Wendy Sewed it On wrote songs for the band. Anna’s were quirky and upbeat, Elsa’s were soaring, epic ballads, Ruby’s were tongue in cheek and driving.

And Emma . . . well, fans said her songs were sad and haunting, but deep. Wendy Sewed it On had their biggest hits with Emma’s songs, even though it was Elsa who belted them out. Being all alone on that stage, laying her soul bare with those lyrics . . .

Emma’s thoughts were cut off and a scream flew out of her mouth as a wolf bounded onto the road in front of her. It was all a blur after that: breaking glass, her continuing screams, pine trees surrounding her on all sides as she plowed off the road and down an embankment of snow.

There’s a ghost upon the moor tonight. Now it’s in our house. When you walked into the room just then it’s like the sun came out.

A severe winter storm warning has been issued for central Aroostook County. Visibility will be extremely low, roads impass-

Killian switched off the radio in his pickup, not wanting to alarm Henry. His windshield wipers were on the highest setting, his lights on bright, and for now, he could still make out the road far enough ahead of them that he was fairly confident they would get home long before the storm reached its peak. Part of him was second guessing bringing a ten year old along on this call, but Henry had been so excited at the prospect of helping deliver the foal at the Nolan farm.

“Dad,” Henry said, picking at the aluminum foil Mary Margaret had used to wrap up a plate of her famous chocolate chip cookies, “why doesn’t Uncle David work with you anymore?”

“Well, he and Mary Margaret had been saving up for years to buy that farm. I always knew horses were his dream, not the animal shelter.” He glanced from the road to grin at his son. “And you’re dying to have one of those cookies, aren’t you?”

Henry’s eyes widened. “How’d you know?”

Killian laughed. “I’ve been a dad for a decade now. I have a sixth sense.”

“So can I have one?”

“No, you have to share with Alice.”

“Aw man,” Henry pouted, but it was short lived. Both of his children were extremely curious and regularly peppered him with questions. “Why couldn’t Uncle David just deliver the foal himself? He knows animals.”

“Because it was breech - that means it was upside down inside the mother horse. David’s not a vet, so he called me.”

Henry arched his brows. “And they pay you in cookies?”

Killian chuckled again. “David and Mary Margaret, yes.”

“They are good cookies,” Henry agreed, taking a big whiff of the plate in his lap. “Maybe Alice wouldn’t mind if we - DAD!”

Killian saw the figure in the road at the same moment his son did, so before the word even left Henry’s lips, Killian was swerving to avoid the person. The roads were wet and slick enough to send his tires sliding, and if Killian didn’t have so much experience driving in such dangerous conditions, they may have ended up in the ditch. When the truck finally came to a stop, he turned first to Henry.

“Are you okay?” Killian asked him, running a hand nervously over the boy.

“Yeah,” Henry gasped, “I’m good.” The boy twisted around in his seat. “What was that?”

That was a good question. It had looked like a person, but who would be out in this weather? Unless they were in trouble. Killian quickly unbuckled his seatbelt.

“Stay here,” he instructed Henry, giving him a steely look lest his overly curious oldest child be tempted to disobey. Thankfully, Henry nodded, his face a mask of intensity.

After Killian exited the vehicle, he could clearly see a woman stumbling around in the middle of the road. He approached her cautiously, fully aware that a man appearing before the woman in the middle of the forest could be frightening to say the least.

“Are you okay?”

She turned then, and he could tell from the blank expression on her face that she was in shock. She had obviously experienced some sort of trauma, and his heart plummeted at the thought. He walked slowly closer. The woman was now turning in a circle, unsteady on her feet as if she might be inebriated. Her gaze was lifted to the tops of the trees, as if she were trying to make sense of her surroundings. When he was close enough, Killian reached out tentatively to rest his hand on her upper arm. She was wearing a red leather jacket; not the smartest choice of outerwear for snow like this.

“I’d like to help you,” he said in the same gentle voice he used on injured animals. “What are you doing out here?”

She blinked, as if trying to focus on his face. Her skin was almost alabaster, her hair completely coated in a layer of snow, and he wondered how long she’d been out here in the elements. He shrugged out of his coat and draped it over her shoulders. She looked down at it, almost in confusion. When she did, he noticed the blood matting the top of her head.

“You’re hurt,” he whispered.

“I - am?” she whispered back.

He smiled, relieved to hear her voice finally. “Aye, you have a rather nasty gash on your head there. Were you in an accident?”

“Was I?” her voice sounded thready and far away as she reached a trembling hand up to touch her head. “Ow, that hurts,” she gasped. Yet she kept patting at the wound frantically.

“I’m not surprised, so let’s stop touching it shall we?” he took her slender, ice cold hand in his to still her nervous movements. “What’s your name? Can I call someone for you?”

“I . . . I . . . “ she began to sway as her words turned to incoherent mutterings, then she crumpled against Killian’s chest. He scooped her up in his arms, turning his gaze nervously to the sky as the snow fell in fat, thick flakes. He followed the tail lights back to the truck. He had no choice but to take the mysterious woman home with him before the storm got worse.

**********************************************************

She awoke in a strange bed in a strange room with a strange little girl staring at her. She hurt everywhere, but her head especially throbbed with a sharp, jabbing pain. The sunlight pouring through the window made her wince, and the image of the little girl sitting at the end of the bed went fuzzy.

“This is my room,” the child told her, “but you can use it until you get better.”

She looked around her, evidence of a child everywhere from the dollhouse in the corner to the childish artwork tacked all over the walls. What was she doing here?

“My name is Alice,” the girl continued, bouncing on the bed a bit, making its injured occupant wince. “I’m seven. How old are you?”

“Alice,” another voice gently rebuked from the doorway, “let our patient rest, please.”

“Okay, daddy,” the little girl sighed, but obeyed, skipping out of the room.

A man drew closer to the bed, and her heart thudded wildly in her chest, the urge to flee overwhelming. He lifted both hands, slowing his approach, a gentle look in his eyes. It didn’t help - she didn’t know this man or where she was.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said gently.

“Where am I?”

“You’re in my family’s home,” he explained, “my name is Killian Jones and my son and I found you wandering in the road. We’re in the midst of a bad storm, so I had no choice but to bring you here.”

She had never been so confused in her life, and she let her head fall back on the pillow. A sharp pain caused her to cry out, and she reached up to find a bandage on the top of her head.

“What happened to me?”

“Well,” Killian told her patiently, “you had a gash on your head and some other cuts and bruises. I bandaged you up.”

“You’re a doctor?”

He smiled, and despite the situation, she found it charming. “A vet, but the principles are largely the same. Nevertheless, I’ve called the town doctor and he’ll be coming out once the roads are cleared.”

“The roads?”

“We’re snowed in.”

She moaned. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes, and shame washed over her. She couldn’t let this stranger see her cry.

“Listen,” he said softly, “you were hurt and wandering around. Do you remember what happened?”

She lifted both hands to cover her face. “No, I have no idea where I am or how I got here.”

“Well, how about your name? Let’s start there.”

“My name is -” Suddenly, her chest tightened and she couldn’t breathe. The room was spinning. “Oh my God. I don’t know! I don’t know my name!”

“Shhh, shhh, it’s okay,” Killian soothed, laying a hand tentatively on her shoulder, “you hit your head, so it’s understandable. I’m sure it will all come back to you soon.”

How could he be so damn calm? She didn’t know who she was!

“I . . . I . . . “ she looked down at herself and saw a pajama top covered in pink roses, “I’m in pajamas.”

The man smiled again in that way that made her heart flip like a damn teenager. “And you look good in them, so that’s a win.”

“I hate pink,” she said with a wrinkle of her nose. “And flowery shirts.”

Killian’s eyebrows quirked up. They were quite expressive, she noticed. “Well there you go, you remember that!”

“Wait,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him, “how did I get into pajamas?” Surely she wasn’t wandering the road in her pjs.

His eyes grew large and he lifted both hands in a defensive gesture. “It wasn’t me! My friend Mary Margaret did that. She’s a volunteer down at the hospital.”

“I helped!” Alice called out, popping up from the foot of the bed. “Cause I want to be a nurse. Or an artist. Or a pilot.”

“Alice Milah Jones,” her father scolded, “I thought I told you to give our patient some peace and quiet?”

“Sorry, Daddy.”

Killian looked back at her, his brow furrowed with concern. “Is there anything I can do for you in the meantime? Anything I can get you?”

She bit down on her lip, those damn tears threatening to spill over again. “No. I think I just want to go back to sleep.”

He frowned, the pity on his face clear. She hated pity. How did she know that? And that she hated pink? And flowered shirts? But not her own damn name?

“Okay,” he told her softly, patting her foot gently through the down comforter on the bed. He was handsome too, she noted. Dark hair, a strong jaw covered in nicely trimmed scruff, bright blue eyes tinged with a bit of sadness that somehow made them more piercing. Suddenly, taking him in from head to toe and thinking of quirky but sweet little Alice, she was sure that she was in a safe place. How she knew she wasn’t sure, but it settled deep within her and took root.

Killian left, closing the door silently behind him. She slid beneath the warm blankets as her eyes fluttered closed. She dreamed of snow and blue eyes and strong arms but not of who she was or where she came from.

#cs ff #cs modern au #amnesia #snowed in #fandom birthday playlist #start of time #for teamhook #on her birthday

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gwenore · 5 years

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Imp Mansion

So... 30th October 3 years ago I uploaded the first chapter of Beneath the Skin. So this is a story where the imps make their return. I adore the buggers. I also will make this story my November writing project by uploading a chapter each day (short chapters, but chapter none the less). We will see how many days I make it :P

Story synopsis: 1923, Belle French’s car breaks down outside of the small town of Storybrooke. She comes across a strange mansion belonging to an enigmatic man who calls himself Mr. Gold who harbors a dark secret and there are forces which does not wish for Belle to ever leave the dark mansion.

Belle was wandering down the street with the rain beating off the cobblestones. Her car had broken down… and of course it was in the middle of nowhere. Of course it couldn’t have happen in the middle of a town… still she doubted that anyone out here would have much knowledge of cars… farm equipment perhaps, but even then this were a place where the horse and plow were still very much in use.

This really was a place where the world which hadn’t gotten into the modern world yet.

Wasn’t that why she had travelled out here? To get away from it all? … or just escape from the judgmental looks. Seemed like she had a scarlet letter above her head because of what she had done.

But with her coat and dress soaked with the rain and her shoes drenched… she regretted her choice. She really was not dressed for this sort of weather…

Soon she saw a sign which gave her hope, mentioning towards a mansion, Caisteal Dorcha… she did not know what that meant… or if there were even people living there still. Anyway… it might give her some shelter until the rain passed.

But… there were a hope that there was a possibility for someone to live there, and if it was a large mansion they must have a phone right?

Turning onto the gravel path she hurried along up towards the mansion where she swallowed nervously. She could only hope that she would be able to get some help.

It didn’t take long until an absolutely massive mansion came into view. It looked like it was more like a castle than a mansion.

While it looked like it had come into disrepair, what made Belle’s heart fill with hope that she could get some help was the fact that she was able see some light flickering behind the thick glass of the windows.

Already she was absolutely freezing, so in hopes of perhaps getting some warmth in her she hurried along the path until she stood before the great door. Reaching out a hesitant hand she reached over and knocked on the door.

Unsure if she was being heard she reached over and knocked again.

Leaning in and listening she could hear movements on the other side… but it wasn’t the sound of humans moving about… more like… animals? She supposed… though the sound didn’t match with any animals that she was familiar with.

Deciding that she should knock again, her knuckles almost touched the wood door when it slowly creaked open.

Feeling rather nervous she took a uncertain step inside.

“Hello?” she asked, looking for the one who had opened the door, but it seemed to have done so by itself.

“Is anyone there?” she took further steps inside. The mansion was a lot warmer than she had expected, as she had always imagined that a large place such as this and made of stone would have to be cold. That was how the books described them anyway.

Belle almost jumped out of her skin when she heard the door slam shut behind her follow by the sound of the lock snapping shut.

“Oh… no! No… no, no, no! NO!” Belle said with fear in her voice as she ran over and tried to open the door, but it was indeed locked.

“Great…” she sighed to herself scratching the side of her head. Now she had to also explain to whoever lived in this place that she had managed to lock herself inside their house. She could only hope that they wouldn’t arrest her for trespassing or something.

That would have to be a problem for when it came up… after all… she was already locked inside so…

“Also… if they are able to call the police… that means they have a phone… I suppose that is good,” Belle said to herself… trying not to think about if that if they decided to kill her no one would ever find out what happened to her.

“At least it is warm…” she thought, delighting in feeling how the warmth spread through her body.

“Um… hello?” she asked as she looked around. “Hello. My name is Belle French! I do not mean to intrude, but… well I got locked inside!”

She continued to walk further into the mansion, trying to catch a view of the people living there. In such a big mansion there should be people everywhere, shouldn’t there?

Belle swallowed. This place… despite not looking the part… almost seemed abandoned. But still… how come she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched?

Shaking her head she wandered down the hallway.

“Um… hello?” she was starting to doubt that she would find anyone else… what if this was haunted? With the door opening by itself and everything else…

The young woman felt the hairs on her back stand up. No… there wasn’t such a thing as ghosts were there?

Swallowing she continued on.

“At least I can warm up…” she kept speaking to herself, trying desperately to ignore the fact that she was utterly alone.

She found herself in a large living room, glancing around. It had a lot of stuff in it… mostly things that were antiques… and rather valuable.

Did someone leave all this stuff? That wasn’t possible. This place couldn’t be abandoned, she reminded herself when she looked at the myriads of candles placed all around. If this place abandoned they would surely have burned out long ago and it didn’t look like someone had left in a hurry.

Still… she could not shake the feeling that she were being watched… by several eyes digging into her skin.

“Um… is anyone here?”

She glanced around, her fingers playing with the tip of her hair, swallowing nervously.

“What are you doing here?”

Belle almost felt herself jump out of her skin at the sound of the voice. Spinning around she saw a man standing in the door opening.

She hadn’t even heard his steps! Her hand over her chest she attempted to catch her breath.

“I am terribly sorry. My name is Belle French… my car… it broke down not far from this mansion,” Belle spoke quickly to make herself calm down so that she did not seem like an utter lunatic.

“Bad luck…” the man cocked his head towards her.

“Very… but I found this mansion and… I was knocking… and the door opened and… locked behind me,” Belle said with a nervous tone. The man practically rolled his eyes at this.

“Of course they did…” he said in a low tone.

“They?” she asked nervously.

“It,” the man seemed to correct himself. “However… it doesn’t seem like your luck has grown any better sadly.

“Oh…” Belle said with a shiver go down her back. Was she in danger? Was this some madman? Unknown for her she started to back away nervously.

“Yes…” the man made an exaggerating movement with his hand. “No electricity I am afraid. No phone… so I am afraid that I cannot call anyone to come assist you with your car.”

“OH!” Belle exclaimed… well that certainly explained all the candles around… “I am sorry for the intrusion…”

“It is getting late… I should perhaps head out… do you have a map or something to the nearest town?” she asked.

“Yes, I should, I will…” the man’s voice faded out, glancing behind himself.

“Uh… excuse me for a moment,” he excused himself before he walked away. Belle was left standing there and furrowing her brows. She certainly hadn’t heard anything.

“Odd…” she whispered to herself. The man looked to be in his fifties, dressed head to toes in heavy robes which seemed to be out of date in the last centuries. It must have been absolutely sweltering to wear however. Belle was certain that she would be able to wear her summer dress in here and still feel nice and warm.

The man was even wearing gloves.

The wait seemed to be long however, before the man came back.

“Uh… it seems that it might be unwise for you to go out in this weather. If you want… you could stay. It might be better weather in the morning, and… well light. For a woman to walk alone… something could happen. It will also get easier to help with your car,” he hardly met her eyes.

While Belle was very happy at the prospect of not having to go out again and be able to stay in a warm place for the night. But… what had changed his mind.

“Thank you. I really do appreciate your generousness Mr… uh… I do not have your name,” she said, wondering if staying there was a good thing as she knew nothing of this man. However… it certainly wasn’t better freezing to death in this weather… no matter who she could encounter in the middle of the night.

“Gold… you may call me Mr. Gold.”

#imp mansion #rumbelle fic #rumbelle gothic horror #imp!rumple #1920s rumbelle #imps

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justanoutlawfic · 4 years

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A Christmas Connection: A Snowing Ficlet

On the second day of Giftmas, I give..... @loboselinaistrash a brand new Snowing Christmas fic! We were talking about how holiday movies always inspire us to write one shots and such, this one ironically called Once Upon A Christmas Miracle, had Snowing written all over it. The movie was also based on a true story. Anyway, Merry Christmas to my love, my light. The Charming to my Snow. You are my moon and my sky. I love you so much. <3 I hope you enjoy it.

Also on AO3

It was one of those posts David expected from his mom. Ruth shared every cancer patient that needed donations, any dog that needed a home (she probably would’ve taken in every one of the latter if she had the space). Normally David just put a heart and shared himself, but there was something about this post that stood out to him.

30-year-old 4th grade teacher had recently been diagnosed with liver failure. She needed a transplant as soon as possible, but she had very little living family. All her friends had been screened, but there were no matches.

Mary Margaret volunteers at the hospital. She does so much for the children in her classroom. We want to do everything we can for her. If you think you might be a match, please make our Christmas and get yourself screened.

From the looks of it, Mary Margaret was healthy otherwise. She was a very active woman, just like the post would suggest. Her smile warmed David’s heart, especially the pictures she posted of herself and her friends.

He shared the post to start off with, then went on with his day. When he got to the police station he worked for, he heard Rogers and Weaver discussing the woman as well.

“She’s right here in Storybrooke too.”

David looked up from his files. “She is? I must have missed that in the post.”

Rogers nodded. “She’s best friends with the mayor’s daughter. I think that’s one of the reasons it’s gone so viral. Regina Mills is doing anything to get her a new liver. If it was legal, I think she’d go rip one out herself.”

At lunch, David got a notification on his phone. The anniversary of his father’s death was coming up. David had never been close to Robert. He treated him and his brother terribly. Still, it was a hard time of year for their mother. She didn’t love the man Robert had become, rather who he had once been. David always tried to remember to take her to dinner on the anniversary to lift her spirits.

He remembered spending a lot of time in the hospital around Christmas. James and himself were only 5-years-old, but it was hard, even for them. Robert seemed to get even more miserable towards the end. Ruth had gotten tested to donate, but wasn’t one. Despite going on the list, there wasn’t much the doctors could do. Robert was gone December 1st. Their lives got a bit worse after that. The farm they lived on failed even more until Ruth got the nerve to sell it. She managed to find a job with the help of her brother, Albert, but he made sure she and the boys always remembered why they weren’t in poverty anymore. It took years for them to finally escape his grasp, and it was only after David and James made something of their lives.

David found himself re-reading the post that night over his Chinese food. Mary Margaret was a single woman, no kids to speak of. Yet, she was still very beloved. Her loss would impact the community, especially her best friend who was campaigning for all of this. Dedicated teachers were hard to come by, he couldn’t let one slip away. Not if he could help it.

The next morning, David called the hospital, “Hi, I’ve seen the posts about Mary Margaret Blanchard. I don’t know which department I need to speak to in order to set up an appointment.”

*x*

Mary Margaret didn’t know that finding out she had a deadly disease would show just how loved she was. In high school, she barely had any friends. She was popular because she was Leopold and Eva’s daughter, but it didn’t mean she had long lasting friendships. Regina Mills was the only exception. They stayed close, even through college. It was Regina who was there for her both when Eva died, then Leopold. Sure, she’d gain other friends over the years, but it was Regina that she treasured the most. She and her husband were pretty much the only family she had these days.

Yet, when she found out that she had stage four liver failure, everyone stepped up. Ruby Lucas set up a meal plan so she never had to worry about food. Aurora Dreamer offered to drive her to the hospital whenever she needed. Ariel dropped by with romantic comedies for the two to watch. It was a bit overwhelming. All of these people were tested and none were a match.

She didn’t even know that Regina had made the post until she got the Facebook notification. A part of her was embarrassed. She didn’t want everyone feeling sorry for her or obligated. But as Robin pointed out, now wasn’t the time for her to get proud. If she wanted a chance, she needed to open the idea that a stranger would be donating a portion of their liver.

Mary Margaret tried to have hope, just as she did through all the other hard things in her life. This was the girl that had finished her finals within days of finding out that her father had passed. She was tough, she cheered people up when they needed it. Still, she couldn’t help but hear the voice in the back of her head…

What if it doesn’t work? What if you don’t make it?

Mary Margaret had never feared her own immortality until it was staring her in the face. She had only been able to do a fraction of what she had planned for her life. Sure, she had become a teacher. She had also traveled to various parts of the world on her trust fund from Eva. However, she had yet to find true love. A few hits and misses, but never the true homerun. As she cared for everyone else’s children, she had never been blessed with any of her own.

She tried to come to terms with that never happening and yet, it haunted her. The Blanchard legacy would end with her. That was a lot to put on a person.

Her phone rang when she sat alone in her loft one rainy Saturday afternoon. Regina and Robin had tried to convince her to move in with them after her diagnosis, but they had their own family to worry about. She didn’t want to scare Henry and Roland if anything happened to her. As a compromise, the large group that had rallied around her would check in on her throughout the day.

Storybrooke General was sprawled across her screen. She slid the arrow across and held it to her ear.

“Hello?”

“Mary Margaret,” Dr. Whale’s always optimistic voice boomed through the phone. “Good news.”

You made a mistake. I don’t have this liver disease. I’m not going to die. “What is it?”

“We’ve found you a match.”

Mary Margaret tightened her grip on her phone. “Excuse me?”

“We’ve had quite a few people respond to the post that Regina put up. I didn’t tell you in case it didn’t pan out. Most didn’t. However, one person, is a match and he’s agreed to give you a portion of his liver.”

Mary Margaret’s heart pounded heavily in her chest. This sounded too good to be true.

“Who is it?” She asked.

“David Nolan.”

David Nolan. David Nolan. She didn’t know a David Nolan. “I don’t think I know him.”

“He responded to the post as well, but he’s right here in Storybrooke. I can’t tell you the last time I’ve had this happen to someone, Mary Margaret. You are a very lucky woman.”

Lucky.

Mary Margaret swallowed, still not entirely believing it. “If he’s a match, then…”

“Then we can do the procedure soon. I’m thinking within the next week, if I can get an opening.”

Tears clouded up in Mary Margaret’s eyes. “I could have a new liver within a week?”

“Yes.”

“And the odds…of all of this…”

“89% of people who have a liver transplant live after the first year. 75% after five years. You’ll have to be monitored constantly, but this is a good thing, Mary Margaret. I promise you.”

Mary Margaret tried to steady her breathing. It wasn’t long ago she was told that her odds of living were so much lower. This news was truly life changing.

“The man…what did you say his name was?”

*x*

Mary Margaret stood at the front of Granny’s Diner a few days later. Ruby Lucas gave her a wave from behind the counter and Mary Margaret quickly returned it, before going back to look for David. He had given Dr. Whale permission for her to reach out to him. Mary Margaret couldn’t get the man off her mind. A quick glance at his Facebook profile didn’t end the curiosity. He was her age, divorced and a cop. This would take him out of work for at least six weeks, not even counting the week he’d spend in the hospital.

Why do all of this for a stranger?

“Mary Margaret?”

She looked up and instantly recognized him from his pictures. From his dark blonde hair to baby blue eyes. A tiny, yet equally intoxicating smile formed across his lips.

“David?”

“Yes. I got us a table.” He lead her over and the two sat down. “Thank you for meeting with me.”

“No, no, I should say thank you.” Mary Margaret had to will herself not to cry. “I just…you have no idea what you’re doing.”

“I mean, I think I do,” he said with a wink.

Mary Margaret let out a small laugh. “I guess so.” She dabbed at her eyes. “Do you have any questions about the surgery? I mean, you know you’ll be out of work for six weeks?”

“I never take vacation time. My boss always hounds me to use it.”

“Still…for this. I mean, you don’t even know me.”

David was quiet for a moment. He ran his finger over the rim of his water glass. “Let’s just say, I’ve been in the shoes of your friends and family.”

Mary Margaret frowned. “You knew someone else with liver failure?”

David nodded. “My father. He was a horrific drunk, could never stop putting it away.”

“I hope you know that’s not why I’m in my situation…”

“Oh, trust me, I do.” The small smile returned. “It’s just, back then, there wasn’t a way to do this. As horrible as my father was, I always wished I could save him in some way. I know I never can, but I try to give back when I can. That includes making sure no one ever goes through what my family ever did.”

Any attempts for Mary Margaret not to cry, were gone. She allowed the tears to stream down her cheeks, as she leaned forward and squeezed the hands of this still-very much stranger.

“Like I said,” she whispered. “I can never thank you enough.”

David shook his head. “I don’t need you to. I just want to help you get a second chance.”

She let out a shaky deep breath. What were the odds that out of every person that could have seen the post, David had?

*x*

Regina Mills didn’t cry. At least, that’s what she told everyone. Mary Margaret and Robin had seen her cry several times over the years. Mary Margaret watched her best friend raise a champagne glass, with tears in her eyes.

“To the man saving my best friend’s life,” she announced

David’s cheeks turned pink, sipping his water. Both he and Mary Margaret were off alcohol until the surgery. “Thank you, Regina.”

“Seriously, mate,” Robin said. “You’re a true hero.”

“Okay guys,” Mary Margaret waved her hands. “You both said you weren’t going to embarrass me.”

“We’re your friends. Isn’t that our job?”

“Erm, I wouldn’t think so.”

David chuckled. “Something tells me if my twin was here, he’d be trying to do the same.”

Regina dabbed at her eyes with a napkin. “How does your family feel about all of this?”

“They’re supportive. I’ll be staying with my brother after the surgery.”

Mary Margaret nodded. “Yeah, my doctors convinced me I’d need to be looked after so I agreed to move in here temporarily.”

Regina rolled her eyes. “You make it sound like a death sentence.”

“It’s not. I just don’t want to be a burden.”

“You could never be a burden, Mare.”

David and Mary Margaret stayed at Regina and Robin’s for a bit. As they headed out into the late November air, however, Mary Margaret didn’t feel the least bit tired.

“I think I’ll leave my car here, go for a walk.”

“We have surgery tomorrow,” David reminded her.

Mary Margaret shrugged. “I won’t be able to sleep.”

“Nervous?”

“More like exhilarated.”

David looked at his truck, before looking back at Mary Margaret. “I’ll go with you.”

“Oh, David, you don’t have to…”

“No. I doubt I’ll be able to sleep either.”

Mary Margaret smiled a bit, before heading down the sidewalk with him. They were silent for a bit, both looking at the few houses that already had Christmas decorations up. The lights acted as a North star for them. Without the glow, they wouldn’t be able to have this walk.

“So, the post said you didn’t have a lot of family left,” David spoke up. “I’m assuming your parents passed?”

Mary Margaret nodded. “Lost my mom when I was eighteen to a very bad strain of the flu. My father went a couple of years later, heart attack.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“It was so long ago. I miss them, of course, but time heals.” She looked around at the lights. “It’s harder at the holidays, though.”

David nodded. “My father died on December 1st. It made Christmas rough for a few years.”

“December 1st…our surgery date.”

“The irony was not lost on me.”

Mary Margaret bit her lip. “Someone has to think you’re crazy for doing this.”

“Some ask why I do it often,” he gave her a pointed look.

Mary Margaret chuckled. “I’m sorry. I just…it’s a lot to take in.”

“You’re not alone here, Mare. You deserve this.”

“It’s just hard to think, why me? Out of all the people out there that need a transplant, or something…”

“If you think that way, you’ll go crazy.” They stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and he took hold of her hand. “Like I said, you deserve this, Mary Margaret. Don’t focus on the how or the why…just think about yourself.”

Mary Margaret let out a deep breath. “I’ll try.”

*x*

David laid in the blue gown the next morning, exhausted. He supposed it didn’t matter, he’d be out soon anyway. It was worth it, no matter what. After their walk, he had gone back to Mary Margaret’s to watch a movie. The two spent the whole night talking about their lives. David opened up about his ex, Kathryn. It was rare he spoke about her. Their divorce had been amicable, but it still wasn’t his proudest moment. He said he was glad they split because they weren’t meant to be, but he felt like he failed by not being able to make it work. Mary Margaret had given him a gentle look and told him that, that wasn’t true.

“Some people just take time to find who they’re meant to be with.”

Mary Margaret laid on the gurney next to him, wearing a similar gown. It made her dark pixie cut stand out even more. In the waiting room was her support system, along with his own. Ruth, Rogers and James would sit with Robin, Regina and the rest through the whole surgery. It was weird how their families were blending all of the sudden.

“You don’t just do something like this and never see the person again,” Ruth had told him. “We need to get to know them.”

It was crazy how certain people entered their lives.

Mary Margaret looked over at David. “Last chance to run.”

“Not in a million years.”

“Have I thanked you enough yet?”

“If you do it again, I will run.”

Mary Margaret giggled. “Point taken.”

The team of doctors entered the room. Whale instructed for David to be taken first.

Mary Margaret reached over and squeezed his hand. “Good luck,” she whispered.

“I’ll make sure to get the best parts for you,” he replied with a wink.

David was wheeled away, though he kept craning his neck to get another view at the woman he was doing it all for. She looked nervous and he wished he could hold her hand through it all.

*x*

Mary Margaret had to spend five agonizing days waiting before she could see David. The first few days, she was in intensive care. Finally, she was able to move to the regular recovery wing of the hospital. Regina and Robin assured her that he was fine. According to his mother and brother, he had come out of surgery with flying colors. Thus far, Mary Margaret was responding well to her new liver as well. As happy as Mary Margaret was, she wanted to see him.

Finally, a nurse agreed to put her in a wheelchair and take her to his room. He was sitting up in bed, flipping through a newspaper that he instantly dropped upon seeing her. Mary Margaret grinned.

“You’re looking great,” he said. “Like you just got a new liver or something.”

Mary Margaret chuckled. “I’m still completely sore and I’m sure my hair is a mess…”

“Nah, but you got that new liver glow.”

“Is there such a thing?”

“I just made it up, so it so is.”

Mary Margaret tilted her head. “And you?”

“I feel like they ripped me open, then sewed me shut.”

“David, I…”

“Seriously, Mare. I’m fine.” He gave her a reassuring smile. “I’m surprised they let you out of bed.”

“It’s amazing what knowing the right nurse will do.”

“Right, you volunteer here. What do I do to get out sooner?”

“Unfortunately, they don’t bend on that.”

They stayed talking for as long as the nurse would allow. Eventually, Mary Margaret was wheeled back to her room. David would leave the hospital before she would, with her spending an extra couple of days. As the recipient, she wouldn’t be able to return to work for a few months. She’d be stuck in bed for six to eight weeks outside appointments. She had a feeling Regina would be making sure it was eight rather than six, just to be on the safe side.

Despite the two being on bedrest in their respective caregiver’s home, David and Mary Margaret texted like crazy. They made fun of James and Regina, while also expressing gratitude for them. David found the cutest kitten pictures to brighten Mary Margaret’s day and she made sure that she always had some puppy ones handy when he seemed to be blue. They complained about their diets, fantasizing about the things they would eat as soon as they were cleared.

I owe you a steak dinner, Mary Margaret texted one morning close to Christmas.

With like, five baked potatoes, David replied.

That’s the hunger talking.

This broth just doesn’t do it like butter, salt and sour cream.

I concur.

Henry and Roland made her a million get well cards. Henry would come and read to her when he got home from school. Roland found the best movies. Robin would get Regina to relax a bit and promised Mary Margaret they would have archery practice as soon as she was well again. That got the pep in her as much as the steak dinner.

After one appointment, she found herself in the giftshop while Regina went to grab a coffee. As she admired the different bits of jewelry, she came across a watch. Flipping the face over, there was a prince’s crown on the back. Mary Margaret stared at it for a few moments, thinking about everything David had done for her over the past few weeks.

She rolled over to the checkout. “Do you offer giftwrap?”

The kind-looking old lady behind the counter nodded. “We do.”

Regina agreed to drop the gift off at James’ apartment on Christmas Eve. Mary Margaret was very surprised when she returned with a gift sloppily wrapped, a shiny red bow on top.

As usual, she found it hard to sleep that night. As the clock struck midnight, she reached over and turned on the light.

Are you up? she texted David.

James got home late from his office Christmas party and woke me, so yeah, he replied.

FaceTime and open each other’s gifts?

Sounds good to me.

Her phone rang twice before David’s face appeared on her screen. His beard was coming in and his hair was messy. She could spot some red flannel pajamas as well.

“Very festive,” she commented. “And I love the mountain man beard.”

David laughed. “I won’t let James shave me.”

“Can’t say I blame you. It’s awkward needing so much help after being independent so long.” She looked down at the present in her lap. “You gave me part of your liver. What more could you possibly give me this Christmas?”

“Open it and figure it out.”

Mary Margaret did as she was told. Lifting the lid off the box, she let out a little bit of a gasp. Inside was the most beautiful glass bird. She lifted it out to admire it closer up.

“David,” she whispered. “How…”

“You mentioned you like birds once or twice. So, I asked James if he could either find one of those or a glass liver. Apparently, the livers were of short supply.”

She placed it onto the nightstand. “It’s perfect. I can’t believe you remembered that.”

“We’ve talked about everything pretty much. I know you now.”

She softly smiled. “I suppose you do.”

“Can I open mine now?”

“Go ahead.”

Mary Margaret watched as he ripped the silver paper off. He tilted his head as he flipped open the box.

“Oh, this is a beautiful watch.”

“Flip over the face.”

David did as he was told. “A crown?”

“You’re my prince charming.” The words came out so easily.

“Mary Margaret…”

“I know you tease me for thanking you so much, but you really are. You came into my life and saved me when I needed it the most.” She shrugged. “To me, that’s the exact definition of a prince charming.”

David blinked a few times and Mary Margaret could swear in the dim light, she could see a tear fall down his face. “This is…I can’t remember the last time I was this for someone…probably never.”

“Well, you are mine, Charming.”

David smiled in spite of his tears. “Merry Christmas, Mary Margaret.”

“Merry Christmas, Charming.”

#snowing #mary margaret blanchard #david nolan #ouat #once upon a time #snowing au #ouat au

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ao3feed-captainswan · 5 years

Text

Storybrooke Haunted Farms

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/31SvLii

by LetItRaines

That is until her assignment changes and she’s made to work on the pirate ship exhibit with Killian Jones, quite possibly the most obnoxious man alive.

Words: 11448, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Once Upon a Time (TV)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: F/M

Characters: Captain Hook | Killian Jones, Emma Swan, Henry Mills (Once Upon a Time), Snow White | Mary Margaret Blanchard, Prince Charming | David Nolan, Red Riding Hood | Ruby

Relationships: Captain Hook | Killian Jones/Emma Swan

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Captain Cobra - Freeform, Halloween, cs halloweek

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/31SvLii

#IFTTT #ao3feed #fanfic #Captain Swan #CS fanfics

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darkcolinodonorgasm · 6 years

Note

Hi! for the winter writing prompts could you 26. "i’m constantly dragging all my friends to your hockey games because i think you’re so much fun to watch and i don’t think you’ll ever notice me" thank you! :)

Oh my god. Oh god this is hilarious. You have no idea xD There’s a bit of backstory for this prompt, namely me actually doing that.

I was 12 and he was 13, played basketball, not hockey, and played the guitar. You know what else? He had black hair and blue eyes. Yep. God, I went to almost every home game with my friends who had crushes on him, too. And once we were two of them and the guy who told us at which hour the game was had gotten it wrong so we went to the indoor sport arena and the team was there, but sat on the bleachers as they waited for the gymnasts to end their lesson before playing.

Unfortunately for me, the meet cute didn’t happen, but eh, I needed to give Emma hers. I hope you enjoy, and thank you so much for this prompt, really, I had fun :D

That’s what I call crazy

Emma Nolandidn’t like hockey. Like, at all. She didn’t despise it, but she didn’t love iteither. She just… accepted its existence and it ended there. Until it didn’t.

You see,Emma Nolan grew up in a farm in the outskirts of the little town of Storybrookeand had two brothers. Said brothers, David and James Nolan, loved hockey, it was, apparently, theonly thing that reminded them of their father, who’d died not long after Emma’sbirth. She could understand that, and respected their passion for the game.What she couldn’t understand, though, was them making fun of her for not likinghockey. Apparently, the twins couldn’t just comprehend that she simply did notlike it, claiming she had because it was “the best sport ever”. Which was richcoming from them, since they wouldn’t play hockey but just watch it.

So Emmaendured her brothers’ jabs, rolling her eyes all too often she was worried they’dget stuck in the back of her head as her mother usually said and ignoring allthe times they tried to drag her to one of the games.

Thiswent on for years, the stubbornbrothers never giving up, just like she never gave in. That is, until Emma didn’tget into high school.

It actuallydidn’t happen until she was in junior year and her brothers in senior year, butit happened anyways. What happened, you ask? Well, Killian Jones did.

KillianJones, senior year student and troublemaker with perfect grades, eyes as blueas the sea after a storm and dark chocolate mousse hair she longed to touch.Ah, and he was the captain of Storybrooke’s hockey team.

She’dseen him for the first time as she made her way to class the first day ofschool. The music classroom’s door was open and he was inside, strumming on an acousticguitar, his knuckles the wrong shade of green and his lower lip recently splitopen.

Beingthe type of girl that wasn’t exactly shy but who didn’t also deal well withemotions she didn’t know, Emma ran away without being seen, the notes of Smells Like Teen Spirit following her, haunting her for an entire week, becauseit somehow found a way to her, whether it was on the radio or one of herbrothers humming it because of coursethey loved Nirvana.

Whathaunted her, though, wasn’t just the song, but also him. Emma knew about him, but had never actually seen him before,if not from far, far away.

Fortunatelyfor her, none of her friends had caught her staring at Killian withheart-shaped eyes, or the fact that she didn’t snap at her brothers’ jokesanymore – and Heaven forbid they discovered the two photos she had secretlysnapped while he was playing his guitar when she’d stayed a bit too long atschool just because she hoped she’d run into him or something. She probably had read too many romanticnovels: meet cutes didn’t exist in real life.

So sheavoided Killian, which was absurd: he didn’t know her, he probably didn’t evenknow she existed.

It waslate September and she was reading Adiscovery of witches when she was abruptly disturbed by her brother Jamesfalling on her from over the couch’s seatback, his head sneaking under her armsand onto her lap, looking up at her with light blue eyes.

«Hey,little sister, wanna join us today? Storybrooke vs. Portland, a big one.»

Whenthinking about it years in the future, Emma would remember how her mind wentcompletely blank and just shut down, which resulted in her almost screaming a “yes”.

SayingJames was astonished would be a euphemism. He jumped up, running towards thestairs, calling out for David. «Dave! Emma is coming with us!»

Even hermother was surprised, but didn’t say anything, just smiling and kissing herchildren on the cheeks on their way out.

With herface as red as a tomato, Emma decided she couldn’t do it, not alone – and herbrothers weren’t exactly what she would call “moral support” – so she calledher friends. Calling Ruby and Mary Margaret, though, meant saying out loud shehad a crush on Killian Jones, and she couldn’t do it with her brothers withinearshot.

SOS: heading to hockey game with Tweedledee andTweedledum. KJ will be there. SOS.

Now,putting two SOS in the same sentence would alarm her friends, but it would do.In fact, they were there in less than ten minutes, neither of them wonderingwho this KJ was – they already knew – and not questioning why Emma needed themthere, leaving the questions to her brothers. Or, well, brother, since Davidwas too occupied looking open-mouthed at Mary Margaret.

Oh. Emma had no idea. Good to know.

«Why areyou here?» James asked them.

Ruby,the only one of the three who wasn’t dealing with anxiety, lifted her chin inchallenge. «After years of you tryingto have her to come to the games with you, you’re asking what we are doing here? Moral support, of course! The girl is goingto be thrown to the wolves, and you won’t be much of help.»

Jamesblushed at her outburst; David would’ve too, but he was too busy trying toremember how to breathe.

No oneasked more stupid questions and they made their way inside.

WatchingKillian Jones playing hockey was as fascinating as watching him playing theguitar. On the ice he was wild, free.Emma couldn’t see much of him from where she was, but her eyes were alwaystrained on him, even if he wasn’t the one with the puck, she just couldn’t takeher eyes off him.

Witheach game she attended, Emma started to understand the rules, and it surprisedher how much of a rooter she became, even going as far as buying herself ascarf of the team and starting to cheer out loud, even coming this close tolosing her voice.

Everytime, Emma would drag her friends with her. Mary Margaret found it cute, butshe also used it as a way to spend time with David, the two of them almostimmediately becoming a couple; Ruby, on the other hand, just rolled her eyesand shook her head, always trying to push Emma to talk to Killian. Emma wouldnever dare, just the thought enough to make her heart beat so fast it wouldjust take flight.

It allcame crashing down on her the last game before Thanksgiving.

You see,Emma had never known the team’s schedule, she just followed her brothers everytime they told her there would be a game they could actually attend. When bothJames and David had decided to drive all the way to Boston the day before tofind the perfect gift for their mother’s birthday and would drive back homeonly later today, leaving Emma all alone before the game since her friendscouldn’t go due to pre-Thanksgiving engagements.

Wonderful, really, really wonderful, she thought gritting her teeth asshe drove her yellow bug towards the ice rink.

When sheentered the parking lot, though, she couldn’t help but frown. There was noother car in sight. Panic started to flow through her as she rushed to thephone, immediately calling David.

«Yes?»

«Thegame is today, isn’t it?»

«Of course it is! This is the game.»

Ah, yes,how could she forgot, the one against the Privateers, their number one enemy.

«Thenwhy is nobody here?»

A momentof silence fell between them.

«Oh, fuck!»

Emma’seyes widened. David rarely cursed. «What?»

«We, ah, might have told you the wrong time?»

«You what?!» Emma screamed through the phone,and if her brother would become deaf after that well, she would only say he hadit coming.

«Sorry! It was a honest mistake, Ems!»

Pinchingthe bridge of her nose, Emma closed her eyes. «Tell me.»

«The game is in four hours.»

No, herbrother would definitely be deaf bythe time he came home. «Four hours?»she yelled through her phone, wanting to punch him or kick is ass or anything, really. «Alright, you knowwhat? Don’t say anything, I don’t want to know. Just hope I won’t freeze todeath out here. And you better buy me something nice. And chocolate. Loads ofchocolate. And you’ll do my chores for a week. Or four.» With that, she endedthe call, throwing her phone into her bag.

She didn’tdare going back home, though it would’ve been the smartest choice, but she feltashamed, and she didn’t want to ask her mother’s question about her recentpassion for hockey. Until now, Ruth hadn’t said anything, but probably because Emmawas finally nurturing a passion that didn’t mean always staying at home orbeing so closed-off.

Herfirst hope was finding the ice rink open. It wasn’t. Of course it wasn’t. Emma waited and waited in the cold, notwanting to go somewhere in Storybrooke in fear of being questioned about thegame. Even though she’d attended many, Storybrooke Pirates were still a littletown’s team and those who attended were either family or friends – or, in Davidand James’ case, people who really loved hockey, but there weren’t many of them– and she’d never bonded with anyone, always staying there on her seat,cheering when they scored and booing when the other teams did.

Fortunatelyfor her, Emma always had a book with her wherever she went. Wrapped up in her woollenscarf, in the cold of her bug, she sat and fell into another imaginary world.

The maincouple was just about to finally kiss when a light tapping against her windowmade her jump so high she hit her head against the roof. «Fuck,» Emmaexclaimed, her hand flying to the spot where she’d hit her head.

Lookingout of the window, Emma’s heart did something she didn’t think was supposed tohappen. Her furious eyes were met with startled blue ones, eyes belonging tothe same boy she’d been pining after for months, the one she’d come watchinghis hockey games for. Fuck indeed.

Bloodimmediately rushed to her face as she closed her book and opened the car door.

«I’msorry, love, I hadn’t figured you were so engrossed in your book.»

Fuck me he’s got an accent. Her mind didn’t focus on the factthat he’d called her “love”. Nope. «’S alright, I guess,» she muttered,grateful that she was still holding onto the door because she couldn’t feel herknees anymore.

Killianoffered her a smile and if she’d not been almost freezing herself over, Emmawould’ve melted onto the concrete. «You’re here for the game?»

It wassuch a stupid question, yet she found herself nodding. «Yeah. I know I’mearly.» It was such a stupid observation to make, but apparently herbrain-mouth filter had melted away at Killian’s smile.

Surprisinglyenough, Killian blushed too, the tips of his ears as red as strawberries. Theywere adorable. «Aye, I get what you mean, I’m early myself. But I have the keys…if you want to come inside?» His blush deepened at those words as he lifted hishand, said keys dangling from his index finger. «I-I mean, it would be muchwarmer than your bug. And we could get some hot chocolate. It’s not Granny’s,but it’s good. Or tea. Or coffee, if you’d rather.»

Was he…No, he wasn’t asking her out, that was ridiculous. He probably just had pity ofher. At that thought, Emma was about to tell him no, but a cold breeze sent hershivers down her body and her teeth even began to clatter.

«T-thatwould be awesome,» she replied, careful not to bit off her own tongue.

«Followme, then.»

Thefirst thing Killian did when they entered was turning on the lights and theheat before heading straight to the cafeteria.

Emmadidn’t know exactly what to do, she’d never been alone at a game, and now shewas alone with him and he was aboutto prepare her something hot to drink.

«I’mafraid I’m not a barista, I don’t know how to make fancy drinks,» Killianexcused himself. He still had his bag slung over his shoulder.

Emmashook her head. «Don’t worry, just a hot chocolate is fine. Please.»

With awide smile and a wink that had Emma’s stomach make somersaults, he prepared twopaper cups full of hot chocolate in no time. When he asked her if she wantedwhipped cream on top, she nodded her head yes, unable of saying anything.

Theywere sat at one of the round tables, steaming hot chocolates in front of themand an awkward silence filling the air.

«It’sunnerving, you know?» he asked her, his blush never disappearing, «you know myname but I don’t know yours.»

Emmawanted to slap herself. Her brain must be seriously damaged to forget even asimple task such introducing oneself. «I’m sorry, I should’ve done it in theparking lot. I’m Emma. Emma Nolan.» She even stuck out her hand out of habit. God.

Nexttime she went to Whale, she must have her heart checked, because the way itstarted to beat when Killian Jones not only touched her as he took her hand inhis but even brought it to his freaking lips was decidedly not healthy at all.

«It’s apleasure, Emma.»

Sheshould speak to Graham too. You know, to prohibit Killian to say her name outloud. It was simply illegal. Could she die because of his voice? She probablycould. This was murder. Or attempted murder, whatever.

«May Iask you why you were here so early?»

And thenhe would go and ruin the murder. Amazing.«My brothers. They fucked up. I’ll make them pay.»

That…wasn’t exactly what she wanted to say, but now the words were out of her mouthand she couldn’t take them back. Nor she wanted to the moment Killian Jonesthrew his head back and laughed. God, even his laugh was a menace for hersanity. What was sanity anyway?

«I’msorry,» he apologized still laughing, «I shouldn’t laugh of your misadventures,which I’m not, by the way. I just loved how you said you’ll make them pay.»

Was shestill alive? It seemed so, but she wasn’t sure of anything anymore. «My choresfor four weeks and lots of chocolatefrom Boston.»

Killianwhistled, smiling at her. «Oh, you devil. Don’t worry, I won’t tell them I letyou in.» And then he winked and Emma was on her way to Heaven.

Theychatted for a bit about older brothers and she discovered he had an older one,too, Liam, who did his best to attend every game when he wasn’t working.

Alas,their time alone came to an end when Killian’s teammates entered the rink. Heintroduced her to them, though she already knew their names by now. It felt…nice, the way they talked to her and made her feel part of something. She everfelt like this only with Ruby and Mary Margaret and her brothers, never withsomeone she’d just known.

«C’mon,Jones, coach will want us to be in perfect shape today, so kiss your girlfriendgoodbye and come get ready to kick the Priv’s asses.»

The teamleft them in the cafeteria to blush as bright as Rudolph’s red nose. Killianopened and closed his mouth as if to say something. «I-I’m sorry, I’ll go tellthem you’re not my girlfriend and…»

«I likeyou,» Emma blurted out, her eyes squeezed shut. Remember the already gonebrain-mouth filter? These are the consequences people will face when ithappens. «It’s the reason why I came to the games. I hate hockey. Well, no, notanymore, not quite? But I came to see you and after the first time I couldn’tstop. I even dragged my friends with me and they offered me moral support, andalso tried to push me to talk to you but I never did.» Her lungs were on fireand her eyes still closed, the fear of rejection burning her from the inside.Emma wanted to cry and run away from there. Hopefully, she would manage itbackwards, she’d made a fool of herself already.

Silencestretched for minutes, hours, ages, she probably died standing, until she felta warm hand close around hers. «I quite fancy you from time to time, especiallywhen you’re yelling at me.»

That madeher open her eyes. Killian was close, way closer than he’d been earlier, hisbright eyes boring into hers. «You knew who I was.»

With hisfree hand he scratched behind his ear. «Aye, well, it’s difficult to miss you,»Killian admitted, his face aflame, too. A whistle interrupted their moment,making them jump. «Bloody hell, I have to go. I, uh, I’d love to take you out,sometimes? On a date, I mean. If you want.»

Emmawondered if her mother would mind bringing her to check on her eyes too becausethey widened so much it hurt. «Forreal?»

Killiannodded, a goofy smile on his lips. Another whistle and his name barked out infury surprised them. «The first goal is for you,» he told her as he steppedbackwards, turning around only when he was outside the cafeteria.

Stillunable to process what had just happened, Emma ran in the direction he went. «Don’tthink I’m taking my eyes off you for a second!» she yelled, the corners of herlisp curling up in a smile.

Heturned around, still jogging backwards. «I would despair if you did!»

At theend of the game, after almost losing her voice again, Emma ran towards the onlyspot where there wasn’t any barrier and pulled Killian into a searing kiss,earning catcalls and whistles from everyone – save for her brothers, who woreidentical (pun intended) shocked expressions on their faces.

«Ithought our first kiss would be more… romantic,» he told her, no bothered atall by her action, certainly not caring about her hands still gripping the frontof his jersey.

Emmalaughed, blushing gracefully. «Sorry, I just wanted an epic moment. Adrenaline,or whatever. You can have romantic on our first date, though.»

Killianquirked his eyebrows, making her laugh, embarrassed. Who knew a good game andthe absence of that famous filter would turn her into someone so impulsive? Shecertainly didn’t regret it, not even if it was her first kiss ever and hadhappened in front of an audience.

Buryingher face in his neck, Emma smiled broadly. She might not have loved hockey, butenduring it for the guy that turned into her boyfriend and then years laterinto her husband? It was totally worth it.

Send me a prompt, I’ll try to grant your wishes ;)

#cs fanfic #cs fanfiction #cs au #captain swan #captain swan fanfic #inbox #emma swan #killian jones #karenfrommisthaven #my fic

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