temporarystatus

a place for all my writings, musings, fanfics, and drabbles || prompts welcome || ao3: temporarystatus

[snowbellewells]

CS Fic Rec Monday: "Once Upon a Mamma Mia" by: @statustemporary

This OuaT MC is such a fun read!! I know it's been around for a while now, but I hadn't ever had a chance to check it out until this summer. This follows the basic idea of the movie/musical Mamma Mia, but with Henry as the child wanting to find his father, and Emma in the role of his mother - who loves her son dearly, but just wants to keep the past in the past. I've said this before, but I am always onboard with Graham being included - and here he is in this one: alive and well and one of the possible dads.

I don't want to spoil the fun twists and turns, but I love how all of our beloved OuaT characters have been worked into this. Henry and Grace are a delight as they try to solve the puzzle once he invites all his possible dads for his fifth grade graduation. If you've never read it, check it out for yourself!

Also @statustemporary, I tried to make you some cover art - Hope you'll like it!

"Once Upon a Mamma Mia" by: @statustemporary

[statustemporary]

Okay, first off — WHAAAAAT. You are too kind and sweet in recommending my story. I’m so happy to hear you enjoyed this!! This is my first completed multi-chapter fic ever and it mixed my two loves, Mamma Mia and OUAT. Discord had such a big part in keeping me motivated and getting me to finish this. Thank you for your kind words 🥹🥹

Secondly — THIS COVER ART!? It’s literally so perfect. I’m obsessed. This is fantastic. AHHHHH THANK YOU FOR DOING THAT!!!!

I’m literally just here like 🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹 at everything. Thank you ily you’re amazing

[statustemporary]

free fallin' - Chapter 2

STORY SUMMARY: On a dark and stormy Halloween night 27 years ago, five people stepped onto an elevator. They never stepped off.

Now 28, Emma Swan and her son Henry work together to discover what caused her parents and the other inhabitants to suddenly disappear.

//rewrite of previous work, expanded to a multi-chapter.

RATING: Teen+

WORD COUNT: 3,564

TAGS: Captain Swan, Tower of Terror AU, CSSNS 2022, Graphic Depictions Of Terrifying Sights in Chapter 1, no beta we die like killian jones,

AO3

AUTHOR'S NOTE: ha ha... oops. it's been two years since i updated this. life's crazy and my passion for ouat has faded but i'm determined to finish all my posts WIPs and maybe get my WIP folder on my laptop emptied onto here. i'm trying.

this has changed drastically from the film, mainly because i messed things up in the first chapter but oh well lol. similar premise but obviously things are a free-for-all now in my story. wish me luck trying to finish this lol.

not really sure how i'm feeling about this chapter so i'm sorry in advance if it doesn't live up to expectations! here's to the next one eventually!

enjoy!

***

Uncle James lives in a swanky townhouse just a few blocks from the heart of Storybrooke. The front windows of the place have a magnificent view of the hills in the distance while the back windows peered out at the Hollywood Tower Hotel like a taunt.

Emma hated growing up there.

The entire place felt too modern and unlived. Uncle James refused to have any sentimentality in his living space. No art projects on the fridge, no souvenirs from trips, and definitely no family photos. The farthest he went with décor was a floating shelf of ratty books in Latin. She wondered if what happened that Halloween night 27 years ago haunted him and that’s why he refused any reminder of his twin. Did the mirror play just as cruel of a joke?

Oddly enough, she did stumble upon a picture of her mother in his bedside drawer when she was eight. Mary Margaret looked stunning, her degree placard from Harvard held tightly in her hand with a bouquet of flowers cradled in her opposite elbow. Her graduation gown was flowing in the wind and her smile was positively radiant.

Uncle James caught her looking at the photo and he ripped it from her grasp. She never saw it again.

Not much about the townhouse has changed over the years, including the man residing inside of it. Uncle James remains aloof and standoffish to the point Emma wouldn’t be surprised if he forgot he had a niece at all.

His car, a sleek black sports convertible, is parked out front and it feels promising, even if she dreads the upcoming conversation. It takes a great effort to place one foot in front of the other as she approaches the entrance, her feet feeling as heavy as lead. The sickening weight in her heels is the only thing to prevent her from running back to her car after pressing the doorbell.

Uncle James looks surprised and disappointed to see her on his doorstep. His shoulders visibly drop and his mouth ticks down in a frown. “Emma?”

She flashes a quick smile at him.

“Uncle James, hi. How are you?”

He cuts straight to the point, narrowing the opening of the door so that only a sliver of his body is visible. “What are you doing here?”

The sigh that leaves her lips makes him close the door another inch. “Can we talk inside?”

“Actually Emma, I’m about to leave for – ”

He’s wearing pajamas. And a bathrobe. She swallows down the anger that’s brewing, the almost two decades of resentment towards his willful absence, and steels her shoulders. “I need to talk to you about my parents.” That catches his attention.

Paranoia, or maybe it’s PTSD, seems to take over her uncle as he pales and ushers her inside his townhome, head ducking out the door and swiveling around before he slams it shut and locks it. He brings her to the kitchen and offers her some alcohol as he makes his own drink. She remembers being thirteen and him offering her some of his rum and coke when he realized they had no orange juice in the fridge. The drink disgusted her and he got angry when she spit it in the sink. They never ran out of orange juice after that.

“So…” he begins. His hands are tense where they’re splayed on the kitchen island’s marble countertop. There’s a wild gleam in his eyes that unsettles Emma but she doesn’t know where to place it. She knows reporters, both professional and amateur, have hunted her down and pressured her for a statement, an interview, anything. Had they done the same to her uncle? “What were you saying about your parents?”

“Do you remember that night?” she asks. Uncle James sighs and drops his head.

“I could never forget it.” Defeat thickens his voice as his shoulders grow rigid. He shudders and takes a deep breath before looking up at her. “What about it?”

Emma shifts in her seat. “Can you tell me about it? From your perspective?” He looks ready to deny her so she pulls out the card up her sleeve. “It’s for Henry. He’s doing a project in school.”

“Ah,” he murmurs. A shadow crosses over his face as he collects his thoughts. “There’s not much to say from what I saw, really. I arrived early because my polo club cancelled our game. I saw Mayor Mills, exchanged a few words about the party at the Tip Top Club. I was on the stairs with some fancy drink from the patio bar when I saw your parents head into the elevator. David and I hadn’t talked in a few months but Mary Margaret invited me to the party.” Emma feels herself soften as her uncle smiles absently as he remembers her parents. “Obviously she didn’t tell him I was coming and he was glaring at me. He still hadn’t moved on from our fight. I raised my glass to them, a peace offering. Then the elevator doors closed and that was it… That was the last time I saw them.”

“Did you see anything else that night?” she asks, leaning her elbows atop the island. “Anything strange or… unusual?”

He shakes his head as he looks down at his drink. Silence follows for a beat and then another and Emma’s afraid she’s lost her uncle to his memories of the past. “The lights went out not long after I saw them get on the elevator.” She nods. “Honestly, I thought people were crazy when they said all of them were cursed. I mean, magic?!” He huffs out a laugh of disbelief. A pause and then his face darkens. “If there’s any inkling to that notion, I’d wager on Regina.”

Huh. Emma’s brows pinch together as she mulls that sentence over in her head. The sudden drop of formality with the former mayor was odd. For all the time she lived with Uncle James, he never mentioned Regina before today, much less by name. He never mentioned any of the others either but the way he spoke now hinted at a history. A nasty one at that.

Her mouth opens to ask another question but Uncle James shakes his head and downs the remainder of his drink in one go. “I think it’s time you left, Emma. It was nice seeing you.”

He disappears around the corner to his bedroom at the back of the townhouse before Emma has a chance to say any departing words. Resigned, she gently places her cup in the dishwasher and sees herself out.

***

The late morning air hangs heavy around the hotel. Emma stands outside on the sidewalk, head tilted back as she takes in the massive structure. In reality, she never thought she’d come here, let alone twice in as many days. She checks her watch to confirm she has a few hours before Henry gets out of school. The last thing she wants is for him to be back here.

“Uh…” a voice sounds to her left and Emma turns just in time to see her son stop short, eyes widen, and his body swivel back the way he came.

“Henry!” she calls out in frustration. She watches his small body freeze and tense up as she comes upon him.

He grins small but innocently up at her. “Ha ha… Hi, Mom.”

“What are you doing here?! You’re supposed to be in school today!”

“Well about that…” he laughs nervously. She says his name in warning and he winces, opening his mouth ready to spew an inventive explanation when they hear a creaking behind them.

The metal gate to the hotel opens slowly and the chain-link keeping it closed snakes down to the ground in an exhausted heap. She blinks rapidly at the scene before her, her mouth dropping open in shock. That… shouldn’t happen.

Maybe the chains were just rusted and finally gave way, she tried to reason with herself. Maybe LJ forgot to lock back up after everything yesterday.

So lost in her thoughts, Emma didn’t realize Henry had moved away until she saw his small figure squeezing through the open fence and running up the hill to the hotel. “Henry!” she yells out. Running is her thing – running away from emotions, commitment, the whole shebang. Apparently, her son inherited that from her, just literally.

The bottles of holy water in the pocket of her leather jacket are justled by her running up the driveway. Sage in her bag bumps against her hip. Her gun rests heavily in her holster.

Emma’s eyes scan the landscape furiously.

“Henry!” she calls out. She evens her breathing and rests one hand on her hip where her firearm rests in case some crazy person is behind all this and has Henry.

“Hurry up, Mom!”

Emma turns the last bend of the driveway and lets out a deep sigh. Henry stands in front of the entrance to the hotel bouncing on the balls of his feet. He impatiently waves her over, eyeing the locked front doors.

“You know,” she starts, “I think I should bring you to Granny’s right now. Let her watch over you and see if you try to skip school again.”

Henry whines, head thrown back in exasperation. “But Moooooom! These are your parents!”

“Henry, come on. You can’t really believe that.” Emma bends down in front of him and takes hold of his arms, her thumbs rubbing soothing circles even as her heart bleeds. “My parents disappeared so long ago… This can’t be them.”

“But it is!”

“Henry…”

“What about yesterday?! You believed it was their ghosts when they scared us out of here!”

“Ghosts don’t exist, Henry. How do you explain that, huh? Magic?” She deflates as her son mumbles to himself and looks to the ground. Softening her tone, she continues, “It would be really cool if magic was real but it’s not. Those are probably just projections some twisted loser made to scare people. Okay?”

“Are you calling us Jem and the Holograms?”

They jump at the sudden appearance of a third voice, their heads turning to see Killian Jones leaning halfway through the closed front door.

Emma’s breath stutters while Henry starts, “What the –”

“Tsk, tsk,” Killian taunts. “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?”

She panics. Her hand flies to her bag and she pulls out the holy water, uncapping the bottle and surging the water towards the door.

It seemingly goes through his body, the blessed water streaming down the front door, but he jerks at the sensation.

Then Killian starts to groan, writhing in pain. The half of his body positioned through the door begins to curl in on itself as gurgling from his throat becomes audible. Emma stares – watching and waiting for smoke to sizzle from his frame or for him to disappear but nothing happens.

Until the gurgling changes sound and it becomes clear it’s transitioned into laughter.

Killian raises his head, smirking in glee. “Holy water? Really? I know I’m devilishly handsome but you didn’t really think that’d work.”

The photos never did his smirk justice, she realizes. And all she wants to do is smack it right off his face. With a growl, she stands up straight and marches right through Killian to the front door, pulling the spare key LJ gave her from her pocket.

“Chills, darling,” Killian whispers in her ear. The air shifts around her. Despite the absence of any breath ghosting over her skin, she can feel the way a smirk dances across his lips and the whole thing makes her angrier.

Click. The key sits just perfectly in the lock and the door swings open. She strides inside, Henry following excitedly behind her.

Her back straight as a rod, she places her hands on her hips and stares down the… beings in the hotel lobby.

“Not the friendliest lady, huh?” Killian drawls from behind her.

Henry takes immediate offense. “Hey, that’s my mom!”

“Apologies, lad,” Killian tosses carelessly over his shoulder as he heads towards the bar.

“Enough!” Emma calls out roughly. She narrows her gaze, her voice dropping an octave. “Who the hell is behind this?”

Regina sighs, sitting regally on a cobweb infested armchair in the center of the lobby. She examines her nails with more interest than her voice provides in an answer. “If she weren’t dead, I’d say my sister.”

“Regina!” Mary Margaret quietly admonishes from David’s side near the luggage cart.

“What?” Regina asks, her eyes thinning to slits and lips turning downward. “You’ve met the witch. A house should’ve fell on her sooner.”

“She was really a witch?!” Henry asks, practically bouncing in place from excitement.

Regina scoffs. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she actually was.”

“Magic isn’t real,” Emma grits out. She moves just slightly in front of Henry, eyes flicking between the Jones brothers and Regina. “Now explain who is putting on this sick joke because they’ve got a nice harassment charge waiting for when I bring them down to the sheriff’s office. It’d be a pity to add evading arrest to that as well.”

“Well,” states Liam from where he’s reviewing a check-in book. “Once you find out, let us know. I’d like to have a chat with the lad as well.”

“Seriously,” she continues. She puts her hands on her hips to further assert her authority and presses hard enough that she’s sure the skin under her jeans is colorless. “This isn’t funny. Tell me.”

Killian tsks. The sound is quickly growing to be her most hated. “As pretty as you are to look at, lass, I think the peace and quiet was better. I’d have told you if I knew.”

David scoffs, crossing his arms. “Leave the girl alone, Jones. You’re nothing but a drunk – she wouldn’t waste the time with you anyway.”

There’s a shout of indignation from the other side of the room and then the entire lobby erupts into chaos. The Jones brothers jump to the other’s defense as David tosses insults back and forth. Regina adds her own one-liners to the disappointment of Mary Margaret. Their own disagreement drags David into it as well, and he manages to fight off both Regina and the Jones brothers as if a skilled swordsman against multiple enemies.

Words no longer decipherable, Emma subtly steps to the side, one eye on the group and the other searching, investigating. Caution rolls deep within her and she keeps one hand resting on her holstered firearm. Ghosts aren’t real. There’s no such thing. Holy water didn’t do a damn thing.

Sophisticated projector is what she’s looking for, then. They have to be holograms or AI or something that digitally recreated five tragically unsolved missing people, for the pure enjoyment of scaring others. She bets that there’s some YouTube channel that showcases Hollywood Tower Hotel scares, run by whoever is doing this.

Emma’s gaze scans the walls of the outdated hotel.

It didn’t hit her last time, too busy scared for their lives to really pay attention, but the floral wallpaper pulls from the moldings. The green background has faded and the white flowers accenting it yellowed. Burnt out lamps with golden shades sit atop wooden tables covered in layers of dust.

The sound of something rustling wafts through the air but the group of beings either don’t hear it or don’t care. If she follows the sound, though, she might find the ‘genius’ behind it all. Her eyes narrow on a closed oak door near the hallway to the main floor ballroom.

A once golden sign looks like a beat-up bronze, the fake bright finishing having flaked off over the years. Coat Closet. Likely place for someone to setup their gadgets.

The vinyl flooring crackles under her feet as she moves towards the it.

Her head turns at an echoing pair of footsteps and a quick glance back confirms Henry treads closely behind.

The wooden door swings open with a creak. Emma splays her hand against the rough wallpaper and feels around until she hits the light switch. Flickering yellow light fills the cramped space. Pink wool carpet stained from age and buckling wood paneling buried behind huge swaths of clothing greet them first before the smell of must hits their noses.

Henry shrieks and jumps back at the sight of a large rat scurrying over fraying paper and escaping through the lobby.

Great. Nothing in the closet except a rat and leftover coats from that night…

Emma was only a baby when her parents disappeared on Halloween night at the Hollywood Tower Hotel. Grandma Ruth, overwhelmed in her grief, packed up all of their things and tucked them away in a storage unit out of town. Out of sight didn’t mean out of mind, though, and Emma served as a reminder of her broken heart every day, until she couldn’t handle it anymore and went into an eternal sleep.

By the time Emma was old enough to know and inquire about her parents’ things, Grandma Ruth’s storage unit had been auctioned off due to lack of payments.

Aside from a small box of things brought to her Uncle James’ place alongside her diaper bag, everything her parents owned was gone.

Being at the hotel, at the place where she lost them before she could even know them, Emma wants something to hold of theirs. The only thing she has of her mother’s is a pink cardigan, left at Granny’s apartment during a dinner once. Soft, powdery fragrance once enveloped the fabric but has long since faded. Now the small cardigan hangs on her coat rack as a reminder of what is so far from her grasp.

But maybe… maybe in this place seemingly suspended in time… she could have something.

Her eyes have studied the photographs of the night well enough that, once she looks towards the coats, she immediately recognizes the red scarf.

Tucked around the neck of a shimmering floor-length dark coat, the red scarf sticks out in a sea of navy and black. It calls to her and Emma’s fingers slowly reach out. The coat ticket says 191, the black jacket kept close stating 192 most likely belonging to her father.

The fabric is cool to the touch and though spiders and moths have left their mark elsewhere in the hotel, the state of the coat closet is pristine. Could it hold the smell? The perfume Emma has spent half her life looking for? The only thing that reminds her of her mother’s embrace. Of comfort and security and love.

She pulls both coats off the hanger and holds her mother’s up, her nose nearly to the scarf –

“Hey!” Henry calls from behind her.

Emma turns swiftly, her eyes locking in on the beings crowding their way towards them. Her hand shoots out and grabs Henry’s arm, pulling him swiftly behind her.

“Hey,” Mary Margaret echoes quietly. Her brows furrow together as she takes in the sight before her. “That’s my coat.”

Mary Margaret’s hand reaches towards the coat but Emma jerks it back towards her, feeling oddly protective of the thing. The smell of the scarf hits her nose and she rustles the coats in her arms for a better grip, suddenly feeling vulnerable.

“Hey,” her watery voice sounding loud in the tight closet as the others look at her in wide-eyed shock. “Don’t crowd us in here. I’m – ”

“Emma,” David breaths out, her entire body deflating.

Emma blinks, hesitating for a moment. “David?” she asks. “You… remember?”

Tears flood his eyes as he gives her a soft smile. “Of course.”

A fluttering lightness fills Emma’s chest as he steps forward, smile still on his face.

It’s incredible, she thinks to herself. How her father could just know it was her despite all the time that had passed. Maybe this is his ghost and this is her closure.

Emma nearly drops the coats as her father takes another step…

Until he bends down onto one knee and picks something up from the floor. A polaroid.

“We’ve never been able to get in here,” David whispers, more to himself than to her and Henry. He stares at the polaroid as tears roll down his cheeks and a shaky hand comes up to cover his mouth. Mary Margaret leans in close, her own eyes filling, and she rests her head on his arm.

Acting every part the proud father, David shows the others what the polaroid is. “This is our daughter,” he begins, looking up with a wide, watery grin and turning the polaroid towards her and Henry.

The film is slightly overexposed and a person stands in the background more a blur than a defining figure. In the center stands, with help of the mystery figure, a small Emma barely a year old with a spattering of light hair atop her head and a gummy grin directed right at the camera.

“Her name is – ”

“Emma,” she finishes in a rushed, exhausted breath. Looked over by her own baby photo. Damn.

She clutches the coats tighter to her center and Henry looks up at her, confused. “But – ”

“We’re leaving.” Emma frees one hand to grab Henry’s arm and pulls him through the closet, through the ghastly chill of the projected beings in the hotel, and out the front door.

[statustemporary]

running home to your sweet nothings, chapter 2

STORY SUMMARY: His informality is refreshing; like water in a desert, Emma is parched and desperate for more.

“Take note, Princess, that I take no pleasure in pointing out the susceptibilities of your security or skills. It is my loyalty to you that wants you to remain safe.” There’s an earnestness to his voice and Emma feels her cheeks heat. His breath fans against her face in soft puffs as he speaks and the corner of his mouth lifts in a small smile.

“What have I done to earn such loyalty other than wear a crown?” she asks in an equally quiet voice. She’s breathless as she speaks but she yearns for his unfiltered response.

// or the four gifts of killian jones

RATING: M for Mature Audience (Implied sexual conduct, violence)

WORD COUNT: 9,002 words

TAGS: Alternative Universe, Enchanted Forest AU, Blacksmith!Killian, Violence, Implied Sexual Conduct

AO3

AUTHOR'S NOTE: had over 5k of this chapter sitting on my computer for well over a year. and have had 8k of chapter 3 for even longer than that (but who knows what of that will be kept).

anyway the first part of this chapter and the last part are my favorites, especially the first. the last part has been in my mind since i expanded this story beyond the prompt of gifts from killian lol. so yay for finally writing it! <3

having a lot of trouble staying inspired for ouat, especially over the last few months as i fundamentally disagree with some cast members stances. sorry not sorry for my inability to separate art from the artist. just trying to empty out my WIPs folder on my folder so i can fully move on. current WIPs will be finished. at some point.

anyway (x2) enjoy! sorry its been a year and a half lol

***

two and a half centuries ago.

late summer.

ella.

Her fingertips feel like fire.

Water crashes against the steep cliffs of Segovia and the freezing sea jumps up and nips at her exposed ankles. She pays no attention to the chill that travels her body or the way her sandy blonde hair whips in her face from the harsh winds. Instead, she keeps her eyes closed and hands held out in front of her.

Her magic gets weaker each time she uses it.

Magic had been thought to be extinct for years in Misthaven, the inhabitants losing it centuries back. The fairies retained their magic but even with their resources, could find no reasoning behind the loss for Misthaven’s people. Some of those in Misthaven believed that the Dark One was draining the land and its people of their magic for a dark curse but none had been cast. Others felt the magic was limited and once it was gone, there was no replenishing it.

And then Ella had been born as a product of True Love, and the first glance at pure magic in nearly three centuries. Her magic was respected by most and feared by others. When the Second Ogre War started a year ago, it became an expectation that she’d use her magic to help Misthaven succeed.

So she did. Her mother always told her to have courage and be kind, and what better way to live that to the fullest than doing all she could to protect the other citizens of Misthaven from a hostile takeover by the ogres?

Except… her magic is waning.

Like a wet cloth being hung to dry, she feels herself slowly losing her magic until there is close to none left. It is proving to be a problem on the battlefield as she doesn’t have the energy or the magic anymore to keep Misthaven from sending in soldiers.

Without her magic, she has no way to protect Kit.

She feels a momentary surge of energy flow through her body as her magic weaves through the dirt and pebbles on the cliffside, feels it singing as it circles a collection of ferrum.

There’s not much left, she thinks to herself of both the rocks and her magic.

Her work is hasty and not as clean as she wishes it could be but she knows that time is against her now.

Ella pulls the ferrum rocks from their place in an alcove on the cliff and piles them on a flat area. The sea water is getting rougher and wets her hair, her dress beyond repair from how the elements have thrashed it about. She quiets her mind and focuses on her Kit, letting her magic flow through her for one of the last times.

Black hair with a curl to it she loved to run her fingers through. A big heart guarded behind a charming smile. Those piercing blue eyes that could keep her rooted to the spot. He had her heart from the moment they met on horseback and she never looked back.

Her hands are burning as she opens her eyes. The rocks have transformed from separate entities into pieces of armor. Lining the edges of each piece is a design born from their love.

Stags to symbolize their first meeting. Shoes to symbolize how they found one another. A vine to connect to the three symbols together, representing their partnership and bond.

The last of her magic flares under her fingertips and Ella picks up the chest plate, lifting it to her face.

“Please take care of my love,” she whispers, sealing her plea with a soft kiss and a spark.

A feeling of emptiness envelops her in an embrace and she fights to wrap her arms around herself to keep out the cold it brings. She doesn’t have time to wallow in the loss of something so intricate to who she is. To stand there and focus on the ache in her heart or the hollow feeling in her chest is precious time wasted when she could be helping.

Ella takes a deep breath and marches past the longing in her fingertips for something just out of reach and instead gathers the armor she’s crafted. She cannot afford to let her emotions take control at this moment. That can wait for her lonely bedchambers late in the night when no one can hear her cry. For now, she needs to see her Kit off.

*

five and twenty.

early winter.

somewhere in the enchanted forest.

emma.

The flying simians attack on their fifth day.

*

Leaving Misthaven comes with an ease that unsettles Emma. The tension coiling around her shoulders refuses to alleviate as the castle walls become mere specks when she looks behind herself. Her posture remains rigid, her fitted armor, a gift from Killian, digs into her forearms from how restricted she keeps her movements.

Horse riding has never been a favorite activity of Emma’s. Being taught to sit astride a giant beast in the few moments of freedom she had growing up always felt more uncomfortable than liberating. Forever the black sheep of her family, her parents and their friends would guide their horses with ease while her confidence remained shaky.

Years have passed since her first riding lessons and yet unease still sits in the pit of her stomach. However, this time she can’t tell if it’s from the animal being squeezed between her boney knees or the mission she’s assigned herself.

She knows Killian believes her actions to be dumb, reckless, and completely unnecessary, but this is for her people. She has to protect them.

Besides, she will not let him throw himself on a sword just to spare her the slight inconvenience and possible danger. He’s much too important to her for her to let him volunteer himself like he tried. And he should give her more credit – he did teach her how to defend herself after all.

Emma ducks her head when a branch gets in her path and nearly falls off of her horse when she tries to sit up again.

A roaring laugh escapes a knight from behind her and she knows immediately that it belongs to Will Scarlet.

The knights that are with her trot through the forest without a worry as they move through Misthaven’s trees. This is just another day for them, another assignment, another potential battle. They have seen the worst of the worst and it has not scared them away yet.

Her bravado has been a front and she’s sure at least some of the most experienced of the group could read through it. But her people need her and if she must fake the confidence of a seasoned general, then she will do so, no matter how inadequate she feels.

The last and only time she’d gone to battle had been against Regina. The Evil Queen had caught them all off-guard, able to sneak into Misthaven by piggybacking on the magic of a fairy, they learned months after the fact, and Emma was unprepared, her magic unruly and uncontrollable.

“She must have been weak,” Emma tried to reason as Blue stood by her bed, her parents sitting at the foot.

“You have powerful magic, Princess,” Blue explained. “Magic belonging to True Love. Most magic users access their power through intellect. For them, it is a learned skill. You are rare, Princess Emma. You were born with it and you access your magic through your emotions. Emotions have the ability to create incredible magic, especially light magic, the likes of which the realm has never seen before.” She watched the fairy’s eyes slide over to her parents. Never before had she felt like such a fraud.

“The magic I used wasn’t light. I was angry. I wanted her gone,” Emma choked out.

Blue shook her head. “Anger is easy. It is the most natural emotion there is. The magic you used was made from love, Princess Emma. Love is the most powerful magic of all.”

She pulled her blankets tighter around her body, dragged her knees to her chest.

It certainly didn’t feel like love. How can ending someone’s life come from love? How can allowing them to suffer and not feeling remorse for it come from love?

Emma felt empty. She mentally reached towards her magic to feel it straining to return her call. What had always been an overabundance in her life – a threat to herself and those she loved – was barely there.

“What happened to it?” she asked, eyes full of tears and her hand shaking as she held it out of the blanket. “My magic,” she continued, voice cracking. “It – it isn’t all there. What happened to it?”

She missed the looks of sympathies shared between the three adults in the room before they broke the news to her.

Too much magic. Exhausted it. Body needed to recover. Might not come back.

She wept.

At least now, as she rides towards an unknown foe, she finds comfort in the fact that she’s not unprepared.

The sword Killian made for her bounces against her upper thigh as the horse below her trots down the dirt pathways. Its’ comforting weight at her side keeps the lessons he taught her in her mind. Their sparing sessions have made her almost as good of a swordsman as he is and holding a sword no longer feels awkward. His work has made her feel like the sword is an extension of her hand.

It also, unsurprisingly, feels like home.

Because with every remembrance of their sparing sessions, she recalls the feel of his lips against her mouth and his skin on hers. The way his raised eyebrow and smirk could make her heart race and how his presence made her feel like her magic was sparking back to life.

Her fingertips tingle and Emma glances down and imagines a faint glow surrounding them before the neigh of a horse breaks her reprieve.

Robin rides to her left while Will rides to her right, Lancelot and Little John scouting ahead with Dorothy following up behind. It is an odd group of knights that gathered at the barn to follow her along enemy lines but she trusts their abilities.

Robin, Lancelot, and Dorothy are the veterans of the group. The years of their training together totaling just shy of twice Emma’s age. Little John prefers to stay back, his tall stature a hindrance more often than not, but his abilities with a bow and arrow are lethal. Will is the youngest of the group, energetic like some of the pups on nearby farmlands and eager to prove himself worthy, though there’s an edge to his attitude that gives way to the wisdom learned on the streets he dragged himself from.

His sometimes-skittish behavior reminds her of what Killian must have been like as a boy before he and his brother happened upon Misthaven’s shores.

The trees are quiet for most of their ride. Branches and leaves sway in the wind, a soft rustling filling the silent air. Robin quickly established a system amongst the group – silence in the forest, ears searching for any sign of the enemy, and chatter allowed in the villages they pass. As they continue their journey, the villages become farther and farther between, silence becoming their most often companion.

The green of the forest brings a sense of comfort to Emma. They remind her of the color of her mother’s eyes and if she closes her own hard enough, she can imagine herself back at the castle, debating in the war room about next steps once Emma has news for her.

Her mother sends birds often. She realizes quickly that she must have her own system for ensuring one reaches her every few hours during the first two days. As much as this is her first big journey away from the castle, one her parents tried to talk her out of, this is also their first time being away from her. So she welcomes the birds and sends her own short messages back, confirming her safety and decreeing no news.

Longing burrows in her chest as by the third day, the birds only come twice. When the sun rises on the fourth, her mother’s accompanying note breaks the news she would only be able to send one bird a day.

Loneliness fights to take hold.

“There was once a family in Arendelle who had a tutor staying in their home,” Will starts as they near the outskirts of a village. Their travel companions groan and Emma bites back a smile. Propriety is hard to drop, even for this ragtag group, but Will sheds it fastest and most often. The earlier chastising from Robin fell on deaf ears as, to all of their mortification, Will told the dirtiest joke to ever grace Emma’s ears.

The snorting laugh he earned from his princess seemed to only spur the knight on further, as every village they arrived at brought forth another joke.

It eases her burdens, lessens the stress on her shoulders, and lets her forget the danger ahead, even if just for a moment.

“The tutor came so often that he felt himself at home and even had a turn with the housemaid, the nurse, and the mistress herself.” Emma’s gasp only brings a wolfish grin to Will’s face and she spots from the corner of her eye the death glare that Robin is sending his way. “When the master of the house discovered this, he summoned the young man to his private chamber and said, ‘I find it unmannerly of you, sir, that in taking your please of my entire household, you have made an exception of me.’”

Her roaring laugh echoes in the quiet village and she notices that even Lancelot, propriety in the flesh, cracks a grin.

“Where do you come up with this stuff?” she wonders.

“The gutter, undoubtedly,” Dorothy pipes up.

“I don’t visit you that often,” Will shoots back, his grin widening at the hard stare and white-knuckled grip of his comrade. “I learned meself such a grand knowledge like any growing lad did – eavesdropping at the tavern.”

Robin’s horse trots forward just slightly as the man leans over to catch a proper look at Will. “All of that eavesdropping and not a single manner picked up?”

“You give him too much credit!” Little John calls from the front.

“Oi! Just because I’m ordered not to kill you doesn’t mean I can’t.”

“Get a new line already, Scarlett!”

“Settle down, boys,” Dorothy says. “We’re getting close to the village center.”

Lancelot immediately adds, “Eyes out. Something’s not right.”

She registers the smell a few moments later and recoils in disgust.

Smoke. Wood. Flesh.

The distinct smell of burning flesh haunts her nightmares, lingers in the back of her throat as an aftertaste when her thoughts go astray. A quick succession of deep breaths keeps the urge to retch at bay. Still, she cannot will her horse to move.

“Princess Emma,” Robin calls softly, spotting and turning back to her. He lets the others go before them and she watches as they cover their noses and mouths with a cloth. It would be wise to do the same but her muscles won’t move. “Princess Emma,” Robin tries again. “Are you alright?”

“I – I’m fine,” she insists. He only nods and eyes her for a moment.

“Best cover up. You don’t want to be breathing in things like this.” He hands her a spare cloth and she ties it behind her head, mimicking Robin’s own movements. When she completes it, he gives her a nod and a smile, from what she can tell by his crinkling eyes. He gestures her forward but it takes a minute for her body to listen to her commands.

Their ride towards the nearby village settles a feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach. Images of Regina flash in her head no matter how hard she tries.

She spends the walk reliving Regina’s death. The way her skin melted under her gaze. The lack of guilt for what she’d done.

It terrifies her how clear everything still is for her.

Keeping her mind in the present is the hardest part so Emma tries to listen for any noises from around them.

The village is still a half hour away yet the entire forest is as if all signs of life have disappeared. No birds chirping – not even the ones that her mother has been sending after her to keep in touch. No crickets making music, no bees buzzing, not even the rustling of the tree branches.

Silence has never terrified her as much as this.

Ten minutes from the center of the village and they see another person for the first time. They struggle to walk and burns cover most of their body. Like in a trance, they ignore every offer of help coming from Emma and her companions. She moves to get off her horse when the person throws up, blood decorating the forest floor, before collapsing into the pool of their own fluids. The sight takes her breath away and she has to blink away the tears.

“Stay close,” Lancelot warns as they reach the settlement.

Stragglers stumble their way down the streets of the village. Their clothing disheveled and singed in spots, thatched roofs gone from most of the buildings and some still burn as they enter. It looks as if a storm of wind and fire rolled through and the village has yet to recover.

Something large sails overhead, a bird looking much different than she’d ever seen before. Its cawing sounds are unlike anything she’s heard before and it sends a chill down her spine. Four days on the road and an unsettling feeling returns to the center of her chest. She works hard to calm her panicking heart and instead places her trust in the guards around her.

“Let’s find a place to settle for the night,” Robin says, eyes darting to the sky.

They discuss quickly and quietly where the best place would be and settle on an abandoned stable nearby. A river runs behind it and even that doesn’t make a sound.

The stable doesn’t seem to have been damaged by storms like so many homes have been in the village, meaning something else drove the family away. Her only guess is the nearby enemy encampments, but this feels like something more.

Almost like there’s magic waiting for her across the river but what little there is in her can’t reach far enough to grab it and understand what is happening.

Instead, they pair up and ensure that everyone has someone looking out for them. Emma’s never felt so vulnerable until she had to empty her bladder as Dorothy remained vigilant on all that surrounds them. Someone could come up behind them at any moment and her sword was lying on the ground at her feet, swallowed by her riding trousers.

She quickly finds comfort in pulling her dagger from her boot and holding it in her hand as she goes.

Most of the villagers don’t even spare them a second glance as they move about. There’s a haunted look in their eyes that makes Emma roll her shoulders in an attempt to ease the brewing tension. Odd shapes keep flying between the treetops casting unfamiliar shadows on the ground. The animals never come close enough to identify but Emma still feels their eyes glaring into the back of her head.

The group finishes the necessary tasks quickly before retreating back to the stables come nightfall.

The horses stomp restlessly as they settle in during the late evening. The hair on the back of her neck stands up at their unease and the feeling spreads throughout their group. Wailing – the heart-wrenching, sore throat, dry heaving kind – echoes from different corners of the village and grief hangs heavy in the air.

“We won’t stay for more than a night,” Lancelot says. “One guard at all times. No one leaves this stable tonight. Is that understood?” A round of nods comes from the group and the knight assigns shifts.

“What about me?” Emma asks.

“With all due respect, Princess, I cannot afford to have you on guard. Rest. Your work is tomorrow.”

His decision is hard to swallow but Emma nods anyway. It wouldn’t do good to throw a tantrum among the people whose job is to protect her. She will let it slide for tonight, her stomach twisting in uncomfortably fast motions. But tomorrow she will take part.

It takes a great effort to not stomp and grumble on her way to her sleeping spot but apparently it still isn’t good enough as it gets a laugh from Robin. He lounges against one of the closed stable doors, a picture of ease with his legs stretched in front of him and his ankles crossed.

She halfheartedly glares at the man before she attempts to fluff the hay. It’s certainly a far cry from a palace pillow but it’ll have to do.

“Is everything alright, Princess Emma?” he asks. They are the only two at their end of the stables, the others working over a strategy near the entrance.

“I had hoped for better accommodations,” she answers after a moment, teasing smile on her lips. He grins quick even as her attention drifts to the huddle once again.

“Apologies, Your Highness. Next time we will find the stable with silk sheets and a feathered bed.”

Instead of continuing in a light banter, she keeps her focus on Lancelot. “You know I am capable with a sword,” she says, her tone questioning.

“Of course, Princess,” Robin answers. His lips quirk up as if entertained.

“Then I should be on watch as well. You all need as much rest as possible for us to continue our journey tomorrow.”

“While I have no doubts in your abilities, it is best for you to rest tonight.”

“I am not that tired.”

Almost immediately after the words leave her mouth, she fights back a yawn and fails. Robin grins at the attempt. He watches her for a moment before a somber expression graces his features. “You are not underestimated, please know that,” he starts. “But we have no clue what attacked the village. Your safety is our top priority and it will make all of our lives easier if you accept that as well.”

His words serve as a necessary reminder that everyone with her is risking their own lives for her mission. They are trailing the edges of enemy territory, an enemy that gets more terrifying the more they discover, and are hoping to sneak to the site for materials unnoticed. It’s a monumental task, one with no guarantee of return, and she bites hard on her tongue to repress the urge wanting to say she can do it on her own.

She’s felt like she’s been on her own for so long, trapped in her golden cage dressed as a palace. Forced to be her own friend and entertain herself, teach herself things her parents were too scared of, coping with her situation all alone.

She was on her own against Regina, her parents powerless to stop her. She was alone when she woke up in the infirmary months later and without an idea of what happened.

Always so alone, always so lonely.

Then Killian inserted himself into her life for one night and flipped everything on its head. Immediately they fell into the role of partners with a common task, working together silently, clicking right away. For the first time in her life, loneliness was not her only companion.

The time after he disappeared allowed that numbing loneliness to creep its way back into her life only to be banished once again at his return.

She loves her people and would do anything for them but in truth… He is who she is doing all of this for. He is who she will return home to.

Robin’s face holds a far-off look and Emma’s heart clenches at the familiarity of it.

“Do you have anyone you’d like to write a message to? I can have one of my mother’s birds deliver it…” she offers, hesitant and uncomfortable. As much as they have found a banter within the group over their days of travel, Emma still doesn’t know the knights guarding her on her mission. They are familiar faces, ones she’s seen throughout the palace over the years, but Killian is the natural extrovert, learning about everyone he meets. She barely remembers any of their last names but she’s sure he could recall every story they’ve ever told him.

He'd make a wonderful leader. His courage, strength, bravery, sense of justice… Killian is everything a people should hope their leader to be and yet he still deems himself unworthy for some reason. Despite that, they cannot deny themselves the connection that stretches between them. She closes her eyes and hears his voice in her ear about how they make quite the team. It becomes all she can focus on and she feels a warmth fill her body, the outside world sounding softer, more far away. The sensations stay with her when she opens her eyes again and even when she manages to let a yawn slip.

Robin has a soft look on his face as their eyes meet. “Thank you,” he says. “I’ll scribe something in the morning so you’ll have it ready.”

She nods her head and settles in, back against the bale of hay. The armor, a gift from Killian a few years ago, digs into her arms and waist. She shifts unable to find a comfortable lounging position and stifles another yawn to Robin’s amusement.

“What?” she huffs.

“Nothing, nothing…” he trails off with an amused smile. “You just remind me of my son. Roland.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, he’s also quite stubborn to sleep.” He pauses. “He’s five.”

A roll of her eyes earns another chuckle from his direction but Emma concedes and lays her head down.

Sleep finds her in a light sort of way, dangling on the edge of consciousness and never letting her slip deep enough to dream. It is the sleep of someone on alert.

The creaking of the stable door is quiet for the most part but the sound still dances in Emma’s ears. She awakens, eyes blinking slowly as she tries to adjust to the darkness of the stable. Little John’s tall figure fills the only light coming into the stables from the gap in the door and Emma barely realizes, based on the shift rotation, that it’s the middle of the night.

“Whatsthematter?” Her words slur together as sleep circles the borders of her consciousness. A soft rain patters against the wood roof and she can hear the soft stomps of footsteps in mud.

“Someone’s in trouble,” Little John says in a quiet urgence. He keeps turning his head to look out the door and Emma struggles to sit up with her armor on.

“I’ll help,” she manages to say but before she can get up, Little John is outside, the stable door slamming shut behind him. The sound reverberates around the enclosed structure, immediately waking the other knights. They rush to a standing position and bombard her with questions that she doesn’t have answers to. Her mind runs blank and she only relays the short sentences they exchanged.

Robin picks up his crossbow from beside his sleeping area and slings it over his shoulder.

“You are not going after him,” Lancelot says, stepping into Robin’s path.

“Little John is like a brother to me! I’m not leaving him alone out there!”

“And going out after him, in this weather and in a town as dangerous as this, will weaken all of us.” Lancelot breathes out heavily, glancing at the stoic expression on Dorothy’s face and the crestfallen look on Will’s. “We will search at dawn. We will be able to track his footprints in the mud then. For now, rest.”

Robin stands still in a stare-off with Lancelot. Though neither one moves, their eyes dart around, a silent conversation amongst comrades, until Robin steps back in defeat and practically throws his crossbow to the ground. Will moves forward in a quick motion and brings Robin to a far corner of the stables, whispering quiet reassurances to the older gentleman.

“We’re going to find him, alright?” Will says in a whisper that just barely makes Emma’s ear.

“Come on,” Dorothy says from her other side and Emma jumps. “Get back to sleep.”

“But –”

“No buts. Sleep is the best thing you can do right now. Got it?”

Emma nods, sighing heavily. Her eyes watch the different knights amongst her. The ability to read lips is not one that she possesses but she still tries, to no avail. Her questions go unanswered as they talk to each other and not her, and exhaustion tugs at the back of her mind again.

So she lays her head on a bale of hay and clutches her dagger under the folds of her riding outfit with one ear out for the slightest noise.

The next morning, the group sets out to look for Little John. A search that very quickly becomes useless. Little John’s tracks stop five feet from the stable with no indication of where else he could have gone.

Dorothy growls in frustration. “It doesn’t make any sense. There’s nowhere he could’ve gone. His tracks stop right here. Nothing more.”

Robin mumbles to himself while he alternates his glare between Lancelot and the ground. Emma’s heart feels for the Black knight. Leadership means making the tough decisions and she knows from the look of apprehension on his face that his next plan will not be a popular one.

Expectedly, there is a fight about pausing their search to continue forward with the mission. Lancelot stands his ground though and within a few hours, they’re back on their trek, horses trotting through the forest grounds. Everyone does double duty with their eyes scanning the ground for any clues of Little John’s whereabouts with no success.

Will slows his horse to come beside Emma by the late afternoon. “How are you holding up?” he asks.

Her mind has been elsewhere the entire ride. Killian occupies most of her thoughts, a centering focus that keeps her from losing herself in despair. The way he raises a single eyebrow at her to tease, taunt, and flirt. The feeling of his arms around her waist. How he loves to use the rough skin of his stump to tickle her side. His eyes, bluer than any ocean she’d seen with depths of untold stories he’s yet to share with her.

She focuses on what will happen when she gets home. He’ll no doubt want to reprimand her for kissing a commoner in front of the guards, regardless of the fact the commoner was him, and she’ll try to ignore his pushes to talk.

But then Emma remembers how one of those guards is now missing and her “when she gets home” turns into an “if she gets home”.

If she still had her magic, she could’ve found Little John by now. She could have magicked herself to the cliffs of Segovia and home within a day. No one would have disappeared. Her kingdom wouldn’t be closing in on a nearly six-decade war with more losses than stars in the sky and already stretched incredibly thin. Killian wouldn’t have been inspired to sign up and he’d still have his hand.

Anger races through her blood and she feels her body grow warm, cheeks get hot under her fury. It all leads back to Regina. Living off of revenge against a child who was manipulated when she thought she was helping… the pain of her refusal to see the truth – see that Regina’s mother was to blame and not young Snow – led to more death and destruction than any of them thought possible. The Ogre Wars hadn’t harmed them this deeply. It’s all Regina’s fault.

Her thoughts stop in a sudden beat as Emma gasps, dropping the reins of her horse. Her hands feel hot to the touch, almost like they’re burned. Flexing her fingers does little to ease the pain and she ignores the way her hands start to shake.

She must have been subconsciously wringing the reins too hard to cause such a sensation.

Will rushes to grab the fallen reins. “Princess?” he pushes. “Are you okay?”

She clears her throat and clenches one hand in a fist while the other takes back the leather straps.

Is she okay? Absolutely not. The weight of her mission is starting to bear down on her shoulders. Little John’s disappearance has thrown her off and she already feels herself slipping away from reality. But she won’t tell Will that. Instead, she pivots the conversation and meets his eyes in a firm stare.

“I promise that I will get you all home safe. Got it?”

He hisses in disappointment. “That’s not an answer to my question.”

Emma huffs. “How are you doing?”

“I asked you first.”

“You’re not serious…”

“Deadly,” he deadpans only to wince and Emma’s sure his mind has gone to the same place as hers – Little John.

So she whispers, fiercely and filled with determination, “I promise.”

*

They stop in the middle of the forest in the late afternoon. Tension fills the air with every moment of silence until it becomes suffocating but no one does anything to break it for a long time. Little John’s disappearance weighs heavily on them all but their mission is, as much as Emma hates to say it, more important. If Killian is right and the minerals have been replenished since its last harvest a few hundred years ago, it could save hundreds if not thousands of their people. It could put this senseless war to an end once and for all.

They just needed to survive until then.

Lancelot sets his orders that this will be their camp for the night with two guards on the lookout at all times. The risk of riding in the dark after what happened to Little John has them on edge. They wanted to look their enemy in the eyes as they extinguished the life behind it.

Everyone in their group has killed before. It was a cruel casualty of war. But Emma could never relish in the suffering to come from such a death. Regina’s last minutes play on a constant repeat behind her eyelids and she cannot imagine adding anyone else to that scene.

Hunting occupies half of the group’s late afternoon hours while the other half sets up their tents. It is a tricky endeavor, as Lancelot’s orders are to establish one large makeshift tent for everyone. Safety, he had reassured her earlier.

By the time Will and Dorothy return with a number of small game hanging between each of them, a fire is being stoked in the middle of the tent and sleep schedules have been arranged. Dinner is a quiet affair with a heavy tension hanging over their heads like a storm cloud. An empty space sits between Robin and Will where Little John would have sat.

Their silent meal is broken when Robin clears his throat.

“I would like to still scribe that letter, if it’s alright,” he directs to Emma, his gaze leaving the burning fire only after he has finished speaking.

“Of course,” she answers softly. Swallowing, she looks around the group. “Does anyone else have anything they’d like to write home?” For a moment, she feels as if she’s requesting their departing words to be left for family. For what other reason would they need to write home only days after leaving?

“I reckon I have a few things I need to receive an update on,” Will says. He leans forward on the log beside her and spreads his legs apart so his knee can nudge hers in a gentle show of support. “I have a few bets I need to collect on.”

Dorothy rises to the bait even if her words sound the slightest forced. “I think you mean debts to pay.”

“I beg your pardon,” he huffs. “I am an excellent gambler.”

“Is that why your bets have paid for Ruby’s new wardrobe?” Dorothy smirks and continues, raising her sword in front of her as she examines it in the firelight. “I believe this came from a wager settled last month.”

“Oi! Ruby is a cheat and you know it!”

“I’ll be sure to mention that in my letter to her.”

The group gains volume as their teasing returns slowly. Emma’s eyes dart across the bonfire to Robin and she sends a nod of thanks. Little John’s fate still hangs heavy in the air but for a moment, they have a reprieve.

Before the fire dies down, the group settles near to write their letters.

“Who will you be writing to?” Dorothy asks Emma as she grabs her own parchment.

Lancelot grins and looks up for a moment. “Killian, of course.” Her mouth drops open in surprise at the normally quiet leader speaking up with such a taunting line. Mind focused on her own words, she half listens as Dorothy details what she plans to say to Ruby and how Lancelot is best dictating his letter to Guinevere.

Will smirks as he looks to Emma from the corner of his eye. “I’m writing to my Anastasia,” he says proudly, though his voice is low. Dorothy and Lancelot handed her their letters before taking the first watch and Will doesn’t want to disturb Robin’s heavy concentration. “I’m going to marry her when I get back.”

“You’re engaged?!”

“Oi! Don’t sound so surprised! I’m quite the catch, ya know.” Will’s grin only widens.

“Not surprised, just offended I was not invited to the wedding.”

“Well,” her companion drags out. He scratches behind his ear in a nervous tick, a movement that has her heart yearning for Killian. “We’re not engaged yet. I still have to ask her.” He clears his throat and straightens his back. “But I will, the moment we return. Well, after I ask her father.”

Emma smiles softly as she watches Will’s lovesick expression. “You truly love her,” she says, more to herself than to him. Still, Will gives her a small smile and a nod.

She feels a rush of warmth in her stomach as she listens to Will’s words of love for Anastasia, her mind wandering to Killian once again. She misses him terribly and wishes he could be beside her but she knows the best place for him is back home, preparing for their return.

Well, some of their returns.

When the scratch of Will’s quill comes to an end, Emma chances a glance at Robin before asking quietly. “Little John… did he have anyone back home?”

A sharp inhale. “Little John kept personal things to himself, mostly,” Will says regretfully. His gaze casts a burden across the fire. “I’m not the best person to ask.”

Robin keeps to himself as he starts, scratches out, and then restarts his letter to Roland. Emma wonders how close they were to the missing knight. Did they grow up together? Are their families close? Emma bids goodnight to Will before she stands from her log and walks around the fire to Robin.

“Are you telling him to be asleep by sunset?” she asks with a small lift of her lips.

Robin huffs, glancing up briefly. “If only that were enough to get him to bed on time.”

“You should tell him it is by orders of the princess.” The grin their share is fleeting but it offers a momentary reprieve from the day’s events.

“You may sit if you’d like, Princess Emma.”

Sitting presents a challenge each time she attempts it due to the soreness of her muscles. Horse riding and trekking like they have been is far from her usual activities. She leans awkwardly to the side before nearly tipping over completely as her bottom situates itself on the log. Her eyes gaze into the dwindling flames before her while Robin scrawls his name and folds the letter.

He holds the parchment out to her with a sad smile. “Little John was married once,” he says. Her fingers gingerly take the letter from his and she feels the weight of his words, her shoulders dropping beneath it. “She was a beautiful woman. Long dark hair and a smile that spelled trouble. She bewitched him from the first moment.” Robin laughs. “They had a son as well.”

Her companion’s smile drops and at that, so does Emma’s stomach. For she sees the turn of events before her eyes in the pause Robin takes. She sees the grief coloring his face and the regret that fills his eyes.

“Little John was helping me save my wife Marian when his village was attacked. He returned to an empty home.” Robin turns his gaze towards the fire and she witnesses the way his frame shrinks in on itself. “He lost his family while helping me save mine. Never once did he blame me. By all accounts, he should have. Instead, he stayed at my side and helped me raise Roland after I lost Marian.”

His breath shudders as he shakes his shoulders, a quiet sniffle as tears become harder to keep at bay. “We are the only family he has left, Princess Emma. And I will find him.”

His eyes meet hers in steely determination and Emma nearly promises him the same as she did Will. But the darkness of the night is creeping in on her fear and she worries this will be a promise she cannot keep. So she nods and sits and thinks. For the first time in a long time, she prays to any gods that are listening, to the same gods that saved Killian and brought him to her life.

*

“Three and twenty and not a suitor to show for it,” Emma mimics in a low-pitched voice. She crawls across the bed wearing only Killian’s discarded shirt and plops to a sit beside him.

Killian barely looks up from where he scribbles in his notebook, his back against the headboard and his head tilted low. “Who had said this again?”

“Grumpy.”

She crosses her arms in a huff as Killian doesn’t even attempt to hide his amusement. “Perhaps you do not have any suitors because they do not wish to sit through your terrible impersonations.”

Her next attempt at his own accent makes her tongue feel too big for her mouth and her words to be more garbled than coherent. His laughter has her fighting a smile and she only contains so much self-restraint so instead she leans over and hides her smile with his mouth.

Their lips barely separate when she whispers conspiratorially, “Or perhaps they found out the princess has been kidnapped by a pirate captain who spends his free time ravishing her in his cabin.”

“Arggg,” Killian attempts with a curled lip and narrowed eyes. He lifts his left hand and crooks his finger to look like a hook and Emma giggles wildly.

Being with him makes her feel lighter. He makes her happy.

Emma watches the port every day now that the Jewel and her captain have found a home at these docks. She attends the meetings he has with her parents to give updates on the sea front and they exchange nods as their departing promises. A sturdy rope ladder, a commission by Killian from another port, is frequently pulled from beneath her bed and draped outside her window. Apparently her string of sheets caused him too much worry. She merely rolled her eyes at the admission.

His cabin is warm and welcoming. Blankets litter not only his bed but also the window seat on the back wall facing the ocean. Pillows from their land and far away shores pile on every surface. Some map or another is typically spread across his table while the books on any available flat surface change every few weeks.

The sun streams in as a comforting orange glow each evening and wakes her with the palest yellow light in the early morns. The weight of his arm over her stomach acts as a comforting shield from her fears, both past and present.

White wooden walls of cabin feel more like home than the gray stone of the castle.

Or perhaps it is just simply him.

The reminders of his presence are spread throughout his cabin where they are absent in her lonely bed in the tower. His smell lingers on his pillows and clothes while her room suffocates her in gifted perfumes. The small, lumpy captain’s bed adheres to the curves of her body when she drowns in her large, feathered mattress.

Stresses of their ongoing war melt away when she hides under his bedcovers and has his grin to marvel at. There’s warmth in her chest and a spark at her fingertips when they’re together and she swears sometimes that being with him, loving him, is magic.

They share another kiss, brief but soft and all-consuming, before Killian sighs.

“You’re set to meet with your father at half past,” he says regretfully.

She rolls her eyes with a groan and slides off the bed. “Perhaps I do not actually have to go.”

“Perhaps you should like my head on a stake then?”

The urge to roll her eyes again at his dramatics is strong but she refrains. “My father has no interest in executing his right-hand man.”

“That’s simply because he does not know,” Killian starts. He rises to his knees and inches closer to the side of the bed where she stands. Her shirt half unbuttoned, his fingers finish the job as he presses light kisses trailing from her chest to her stomach. “That my meetings with the princess are of a more personal matter.”

The scruff of his facial hair slides against a particularly ticklish spot on her ribs and she squirms away with a giggle, nearly tripping over her sword and dagger as they clang together in a soft sound.

“I do enjoy these meetings,” she grins wickedly. “I learn so much.”

A shriek leaves her throat as Killian clambers out of bed to grab her but Emma evades his pursuit. She quickly gathers her pile of clothes and weaponry. Another soft ding fills the room.

Laughing, she says, “I really must go.” Sorting her clothes is easy enough, even with the soft dings coming from the pile. She quickly dresses. Hands cover her own as she attaches her sword to her belt, her brow furrowing as sounds continue to emanate from where it’s sheathed.

That’s never happened before.

Lips press against her neck and Emma leans back against Killian, closing her eyes briefly before another sound of metal on metal disrupts the peace of the cabin. Her eyes fly open.

*

Emma awakes with a gasp in the middle of the night as a swordfight takes place around her.

Fire long gone, the moon serves as the only lighting in the clearing. The metal of her knights’ swords glitter dangerously under the stars and Emma only barely catches glimpses of what they are fighting.

Simians, it seems. Simians that can jump and… hover overhead and away from swipes of a sword.

Flying simians.

She scrambles from her place of rest against a log and reaches for the sword at her side. At full height, she holds her weapon in front of her and examines the scene.

The simians are large beasts. Ugly and with teeth sharp enough to kill, their wings flap overhead, dragging dirt and ash from their resting site into their faces. Their claws swish through the air in severe strikes, attempting to harm or disarm, she cannot tell. She assumes both. For the moment, their group seems to be holding their own.

A screech comes from behind her and Emma ducks just in time for a simian to fly towards her head. She pops up in a flash and her sword strikes true at her attacker, a wing sliced clean off. The simian cries in anger as it tries to control its flight before falling to the ground. From there, it makes its way towards her on its paws and bares its teeth threateningly. Her sword arches through the air only for another simian to come from above and reach for her sword with its claws.

“Get out of the way!” Dorothy yells and blocks the flying simian from Emma’s side. The grounded simian sees the moment of opportunity, hunches back on its legs, and pounces right at Emma.

Instinct takes over and before Emma even realizes it, her sword is in front of her and the simian impales itself.

Her eyes widen in horror. Regina’s skin melting off her face haunted Emma’s dream. The way her dark eyes turned completely black as life left them. The gurgling as blood overflowed her insides and leaked from the corners of her lips.

Emma feels like she is back in the tower as the simian garbles over blood, its wailing fading moment by moment. Red stains its teeth and its wing flaps haphazardly behind it before it stills. She stares for a moment at unseeing eyes before the simian’s head drops forward and its wing slackens.

Nausea threatens to take over her senses and guilt churns low in her gut but a humanly grunt from behind her snaps her back into action. She quickly but gently lowers her sword and shakes the simian off of the blade. She doesn’t even wait for the thump of its body hitting the ground before Emma turns to help.

The world stops momentarily as she realizes she may be too late.

The simian Dorothy directed away from her now easily evades the knight’s strong sword strokes, flying above her before making quick strikes at her head and back. Dorothy yells, one hand reaching for her head as a simian darts back with a wad of her hair in its mouth, skin from her scalp hanging from one end. She isn’t fast enough to defend herself as the simian barely takes a moment before darting back down again, claws poised and sinking quickly into her back, knocking her forward in the same breath its mouth comes down on her neck.

Lancelot struggles against two simians, his armor dented and breaking off of his body with each attack. His sword makes a wide arch in the air, too wide to correct before the simians come down on him, biting each of his arms as their claws dig into his thighs. He throws his head back as he yells, knees buckling under the pain.

Robin clutches his side, blood seeping into his shirt as he swings his sword with his non-dominant hand. It’s awkward and lacking strength and the simian he’s been fighting takes the chance to strike again.

She sees it the moment before she can move and her stomach turns when she realizes she’s not fast enough. Her throat catches in her throat as the simian’s jaw bears down on his shoulder and Robin cries out in agony.

“Get her out of here!” Lancelot manages through gritted teeth.

The world moves in slow motion as her head turns towards him before she feels her arm jerked in a different direction. A loud rush pulses through her ears and black dots her vision. She immediately resists the force on her body and pulls her arm back towards her.

“Move, damn it!” It takes a moment but the pained voice yelling at her voice belongs to Will. She stares at the blood dripping down his temple as he pulls her shocked body away from the scene as quickly and discretely as possible.

A single simian attempts to follow but is thwarted by Will’s swordsmanship. He moves like around the woods like he walks on air, the ease in which he maneuvers reminds of her Killian’s lithe form. The simian dodges strikes and Emma watches helplessly, her sword barely held by her fingertips as she presses her back against a nearby tree. She wishes the simian would be like the one she defeated at camp. She wishes that it would become too confident and turn into a target easy to disarm. If Killian were here, he wouldn’t need her wishing.

Will’s feet dance across the leaves of the forest floor as he eyes the simian. One moment, two moments, then he makes a decisive slice. Will makes quick work of one of its wings before impaling it, exactly as she’d done at camp.

He stares at the simian for a brief moment, eyebrows furrowed in thought, before he turns towards Emma and grabs her bicep to pull her along. “Let’s go.”

“But,” she starts, head turning back towards camp where more simians fly under the moonlight. It’s hard to see anything else in the darkness. “But what about them? We can’t just leave them.”

“You are the priority, Princess,” Will says, high on alert. “You were their priority. Getting you away, safely, will mean they’ve done their job well.”

“I won’t let them die for me,” she protests even as her feet follow his.

Will jerks them to a stop, his eyes red and narrowed in anger. “And what good would their death do if you get yourself killed as well?”

“They might not be dead.”

“We all will be if you return.” Grief blankets her body in a cold embrace and her mouth drops open though no words come out. Will sighs, eyes looking around for danger, before stepping closer. “Don’t let them die in vain. Let’s go.”

Emma follows at his side numbly and, she realizes with a shiver, death follows her.

[statustemporary]

take my hand, take a breath

SUMMARY: Viscount Bridgerton was stubborn, frustrating, got in his own way more often than not, and there was a melancholy about his person most times when she saw him, but she gave him more leeway than she did nearly all of the rest of the Ton.

Except when conversing with her charge before an introduction, a conversation that is decidedly not their first.

//

Or Lady Danbury notices Kate has given them the slip during the Conservatory Ball and she finds her charge having a conversation with the viscount in the garden.

RATING: General Audiences

WORD COUNT: 1,760 words

TAGS: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Conservatory Ball AU, First Dance, no beta we die like edmund bridgerton

AO3

AUTHOR’S NOTE: ahhh not only is this the most i've written since like october??? but this is also my first work for bridgerton. kanthony brainrot has never left me so time to put it to paper. anyway this was inspired by one of my 87 different fanfic prompts i've been posting to tumblr (on @myficprompts) in hopes others will write it but i got impatient on this one and figured i'd just do it myself. (would love to see someone take on the original prompt though! please!!!!! thanks!!!)

***

Despite the way they have butted heads since their introduction, Lady Danbury had a begrudging respect for Miss Sharma. Her obstinance in the face of harsh truths was admirable to a degree. Frustrating, to be certain. Ill-mannered, to some extent. Yet the firm set of her shoulders, straight back, and words infused with a note of smugness proved she would be a formidable gatekeeper for her sister’s suitors.

If only the miss would not write herself off so young. Old maid by the Ton’s standards, unfortunately, but by her own, she had a full life still ahead of her.

Miss Sharma may have rejected her suggestion of a match but the curious way in which she admired Viscount Anthony Bridgerton also proved that the walls fortified around her young heart were not impenetrable.

Which meant that Miss Sharma’s disappearance in the midst of her sister’s first dance raised alarm.

As much as she had written herself off, she was still under Lady Danbury’s protection. Personal declarations of not being on the marriage mart did not make her unsusceptible to being compromised or other scandal. A thought that she would have hoped Miss Sharma to consider before wandering off but as Lady Danbury learned earlier, there was still much for her to learn about the Ton.

The dowager parted ways from a nervous Lady Mary with nothing more than a quip about watching her thirst before she moved about the room. The music covered the sound of her cane clacking against the wood floor and gave Lady Danbury the ability to slink along the walls of the conservatory.

Her stop at the set of windows near the entrance door proved most fruitful. She heard the faint sounds of gentlemen departing for the smoking room and, just before she continued her search, she spied her own charge stepping into close proximity to the viscount.

In view of the ballroom and still a respectable distance to not cause scandal, Lady Danbury did not appreciate the familiar nature in which the two conversed, especially as they had not been introduced. Huffing, she made her way to the entry garden.

“…as deficient as your horsemanship. I shall bid you goodnight.”

Lady Danbury came around the hedge at the same moment as Miss Sharma, their bodies nearly colliding.

“Miss Sharma,” she drawled, resting both hands on the head of her cane. She scrutinized the young woman, her eyes traveling to the flustered man who gaped at them like a fish out of water. “Viscount Bridgerton. How curious to find you both out here. Together.”

“My apologies, Lady Danbury – ” Viscount Bridgerton attempted to speak before Miss Sharma cut in suddenly, louder.

“I simply needed air. I did not realize I had to alert you of my need for a break.” She smiled, thin-lipped and with a hint of frustration – at the viscount, at her, at the situation – before bowing her head to Lady Danbury.

“Yes, well, seeing as you are under my protection,” Lady Danbury said, a warning glance to Viscount Bridgerton as he looked equal parts fearful and thrilled at the information, “I fear I did not stress the seriousness of some of the Ton’s etiquette specificities. It is of the utmost importance that they are understood, to lessen any troubles of your sister making a good match. Understood?”

Miss Sharma bit her tongue, her eyes darting to the side to the silent viscount behind her. “Of course, Lady Danbury,” she forced out.

“Lady Danbury, if I may – ”

Her eyes narrowed as she focused on the boy she’d known since he was in leading strings. A boy no longer if the title of Rake he’d worn without care for years meant anything. She always had a soft spot for the Bridgerton family. Her own connection aside, to find a love match such as the one between Edmund and Violet, a love match that proved fruitful until the eighth viscount’s death, was a rarity in the Ton. The strength of the family bonded by that love match showed in the closeness of the children and the genuine love and affection they showered upon each other. Even when she’d watch the children squabble and fight, it was never with the nasty cold demeanor of the rest of the Ton.

Then to watch as Anthony took on the role of viscount, father, and provider before heading to university had softened her more. Lady Danbury admired the way he took care of his family and how he not only kept them afloat following his father’s death but ensured that they thrived. He was stubborn, frustrating, got in his own way more often than not, and there was a melancholy about his person most times when she saw him, but she gave him more leeway than she did nearly all of the rest of the Ton.

Except when conversing with her charge before an introduction, a conversation that is decidedly not their first. She did, after all, recall Miss Sharma’s slip of the tongue on the edge of the dance floor.

“You have done quite enough, Viscount Bridgerton.”

Her glare silenced the viscount as his mouth thinned and his brows furrowed in displeasure.

“Lady Danbury, I must go see to my sister – ”

“Your sister is being looked after by your mother, Miss Sharma. Perhaps you should let those of us seasoned within the Ton take over from here.”

Miss Sharma pressed her lips together for a moment before she responded. “With all due respect, as I mentioned earlier, I was the one to prepare my sister for her debut and I really should be helping to vet the quality of her dance partners…”

The young woman’s words never made it to Lady Danbury’s ears as her eyes were too busy taking in the scene before her. They flickered between Miss Sharma and Viscount Bridgerton with a quick and startling realization.

Cut from the same cloth, they stood before her as the eldest siblings of their families, the caretakers and providers, with strong shoulders upon which the heavy burdens of their families laid. The protectors who cannot see the wood for the trees in regards to the marriage mart.

Equals.

“Hm,” Lady Danbury cut Miss Sharma off. “A dance is a brilliant idea.”

“My lady?” Miss Sharma asked, blinking her eyes in confusion.

“Pardon me?” Viscount Bridgerton asked behind her.

Lady Danbury hit her cane against the ground. Even without the sound of its impact, the two before her stood just a hair taller. She raised her voice as the doors to the ballroom opened. “How wonderful of Viscount Bridgerton to ask for your next dance. Splendid indeed!”

Miss Sharma huffed. “He absolutely did nothing of the sort. He cannot even dance.”

Viscount Bridgerton rolled his eyes. “Now you object to my dancing abilities?”

“I saw how you nearly trampled the young miss on your last dance.”

A smug grin worked its way onto his face as he stepped closer. “So you admit to eavesdropping and watching me now?”

“As I said, it is not eavesdropping if you speak loud enough for the entire party to hear!”

Lady Danbury cleared her throat and raised her eyebrows expectantly at the two in front of her. She swung out her cane, hitting their shins and watching in satisfaction as the two stepped apart though neither were entirely pleased.

“Yes, a dance will be a nice way to tidy this situation up. Afterall,” she said, lowering her voice, “it would not do well for others to know of your conversations and familiarity prior to an introduction. And I will require to know just how familiar you are with each other.”

Miss Sharma laughed off the suggestion. “That will not be necessary, Lady Danbury. I do not host any of the, what was it,” she turned to the viscount for a moment with a saccharine smile before facing Lady Danbury once more. “Ah, yes, impeccable qualities that Viscount Bridgerton is in search of in a wife.”

This time, the huff came from the viscount’s mouth. “That is completely unfair and you know it, Miss Sharma,” he said, a teasing lilt endearing to his voice as he said her name, negating the frustration that colored it prior. He cleared his throat before she could respond and grinned at Lady Danbury much like the cat that ate the canary. “However, you are right, Lady Danbury. A dance is a wonderful idea to mitigate any chance of scandal.”

She watched in amusement as Viscount Bridgerton’s grin widened when he turned to Miss Sharma. He lifted his hand and held it out to her, waiting for a moment.

“Miss Sharma, may I have this dance?”

Despite his proud swagger, the viscount’s request came out soft and like a whisper. His eyes crinkled and his gaze warmed, melting the arrogance that so often moved him forward. For a moment, Lady Danbury felt as if she was witnessing Edmund charming Violet all over again.

Miss Sharma’s breath hitched in the back of her throat at the intimacy that laced his words and she swallowed before quietly answering her agreement. Her hand shook, though Lady Danbury assumed she was the only one to notice, as she lifted it to place in the viscount’s.

Lady Danbury hummed in satisfaction as she allowed the two to enter the ballroom before her, Viscount Bridgerton’s perfect posture only lending to the peacocking he did as he led Miss Sharma to the dance floor. If she knew the viscount as well as she believed to, his peacocking, was less of a matter of besting Miss Sharma at their undisclosed challenge and more at having her on his arm, contrary to what he was currently telling himself. The way their eyes never strayed from one another as they readied themselves only proved her point.

From the corner of her eye, she watched Violet’s jaw drop minutely before their eyes met.

Did he willingly ask…? Her oldest friend seemed to ask. Lady Danbury nodded with a smug smile. The viscount who saw finding a wife more of a duty and chore than a chance for happiness, bewitched by a so-called spinster.

The music started and the two moved in perfect harmony. Their connection was palpable and they enchanted the room as they seemed to float through each step. Only when they began to whisper amongst themselves, a mix of bickering and flirting, did Lady Danbury notice the queen’s arrival at her side.

“What an interesting season this will be,” Queen Charlotte murmured, her smile pleased and mischievous.

“Interesting, indeed.”

[snowbellewells]

Captain Swan Collab Words 23 fic: "Freed to Love"

This event was such a fun idea, and the three of us - @statustemporary @jrob64 and @snowbellewells - had a lot of fun working together and seeing our initial idea come to life. We decided we really wanted some whump and hurt/comfort taking place, and eventually we settled on a Revolutionary War time period AU for our setting. We also used a suggested quote about the persistence of hope, and the idea of being touch starved, both of which played into our idea well.

Thanks so much to the @CSCW23 @Captain Swan Collab Words 23 for the idea to create a story as a group. It really was a new and exciting challenge that made for a new CS adventure.

And a very special thanks to @hookedmom for all the time and care she took as our beta reader for this fic!!

Summary: Though the colonists' fight for freedom from the British brought Killian Jones and Emma Swan together, the dangers of war have also pulled them apart. Can Emma find her beloved spy again, or will she be too late? What other trials and hurdles will they have to cross before they are finally free to live and love as they have dreamed?

Reposting with additional edits and correct AO3 and ff.net links.

Can be read HERE on AO3 or HERE on ff.net, if that is your preference.

"Freed to Love"

by: @statustemporary @jrob64 & @snowbellewells

Early morning dew soaks through Emma’s boots to her stockings. The wetness chafes at the skin of her feet and she holds back a wince with every step she takes. Her eyes remain downcast in the role of a perfectly submissive British nurse ready to abide by the orders of officers and soldiers alike. Her horse arrived late yesterday afternoon to the stern face of Colonel Sitwell, a high-ranking officer of the British military who is well aware that escorting a new nurse to camp is far below his station.

Last night’s rain is making the trip uphill more strenuous than anticipated. Sitwell’s boots kick mud back at her, staining the bottom of her gown, and a part of her wonders if he does it purposely.

Philadelphia.

She started in Fort Ticonderoga in late July, aiding the troops who overtook the abandoned rebel colonists’ camp. The end of August found her in Bennington, caring for the few wounded left behind after their defeat at Rebel hands. September brought her to Brandywine Creek, before her new orders informed her to follow the river to Philadelphia.

She has traveled so far just to end a few days up the river from David and Mary Margaret.

Emma’s heart pounds as they encroach on the troops standing guard outside the British camp. How many more can she bear to approach before she’s unable to handle the heartache?

All of them , she thinks immediately. She’d travel up and down the colonies if she has to, until she finds him. Her hands would service each wound on every British soldier if it brought him back to her. She’d swallow back the bile while they brag about killing her friends, she’d clench her fists as they discussed future strategies while on their sick beds.

She is trained for this. Mary Margaret showed her how to survive, while David taught her how to blend in. And Killian…

Her heart lurches when the familiar accents of British soldiers reach her ears. Emma barely pays any mind to what they’re saying. Instead, she embraces the only reminder she has of Killian, of the way he spent hours teaching her his accent to help her prepare for her role.

Despite the harsh, uncaring intonation, the familiar words that swirl in the air around her easily send Emma’s mind back to a happier early morning, months ago now, but emblazoned on her memory with the warmth and clarity of something from mere moments ago.  

Killian had come to the house to report his findings from a recent scouting mission, and when he finished, she had pulled him into the kitchen to speak privately, blushing hotly as she did so, the heat from the pot-bellied stove keeping the room toasty, though breakfast preparations were over.

Up to that point, they had spoken a few times, and Killian had also been friendly, polite, even playfully attentive with her, but Emma had not gotten the occasion to speak with him as much as she would have wished. Mary Margaret had encouraged her, with her ever-present optimism and her hope to see Emma as happily in love as she was herself; to take this very genuine opportunity to seek him out at once and gain the knowledge she sought.

Seated facing her on the rough hewn wooden bench at the Nolan’s kitchen table, Killian had grinned impishly as she settled beside him and arranged her skirts, clearly knowing what she was about, even though the tops of his ears were a heated pink to match her blushing cheeks. When she dared to look up and make full, uninterrupted eye contact with him, Emma had nearly toppled off her seat onto the floor at the electric impact of his gaze connecting with hers.

She was only saved from making a fool of herself prattling away nervously by Killian speaking. The gently cultured cadence of his words reminded her of her purpose, as he dipped his chin to look up at her rakishly through his dark lashes. 

And so it had begun between them that simply. She asked Killian for instruction in British pronunciation, accent, phrases, anything which might help her to better blend in and avoid detection as a patriot spy amongst the Redcoats. Granted, few paid much heed to what the nurses - or women in general - had to say; for once, her femininity was an advantage in the quest for near-invisibility. Still, she wanted to be ready. If the need to speak arose while she was posted in some hospital or camp, Emma was determined to sound as English as any fine lady in London.

Not only was it all too easy to pull up the hazy-warm and peach-sunrise-gilded memories and lose herself within their comfort, but as time and distance stretched between them and Emma searched fruitlessly once they learned of Killian’s capture, it had been one of the rare bits of joy left her for a momentary escape. She could envision his face so clearly within an instant of closing her eyes. The curious tilt of his head as he waited for her to speak whatever term he had just taught her. The way the tip of his tongue poked tantalizingly from between his parted lips to tease her mind addled with flustered desire. The way his lips moved deliberately, patiently, repeating whatever sound or inflection she attempted to imitate, until they were both satisfied with her repetition - usually left Emma nearly in his thrall before they were finished.

One particular morning as the seconds stretched and melted together between them like butter and honey slathered on a hot, homemade biscuit, making her want to soak up every delicious second she could, she paused hesitantly before bravely clutching his hand in shaking fingers, “And what would you say…”  she asked, clinging as tightly as possible to him while they both were still together and safe. “What would you say,” she tried again after swallowing hard and gathering her courage, “if you were captured and threatened with death?”

Emma had held her breath, waiting anxiously for his response, all the while knowing it would not be one to put her at ease, nor had she truly asked for the sake of gaining some stoic, proper British response for her own use. She knew Killian would never yield to questioning or torture, would not plead for his life or make any sort of fearful compromise, much as she might wish him to, if it meant his life. Emma wasn’t sure what she was hoping to hear, but somehow she needed his answer all the same.

“I’d tell them they might bloody well try to end me,” he had replied stoutly, the blue of his fathomless eyes almost drowning her as he held her gaze determinedly. “But I’m a survivor, Lass, and I will find a way to return to you. You need never doubt that.”

His words had left her breathless then, and now Emma forced herself to release the breath she held in her aching chest as she remembered that promise.

Opening her eyes again brings her back into the muddy, chaotic, and haphazardly organized camp around her, which seems all the more removed from the haven she had recreated in her mind’s eye, because of the loneliness that immediately accosts her and the complete absence of Kilian. Though the speech around her had brought those better days to mind at first hearing, now they seem to highlight just how alone she is, since none of the accented voices belong to him… 

“Miss Swan,” Sitwell growls. Emma shoots her gaze up to meet his and she purposely widens her eyes to bear the image of apologetic innocence. The move infuriates the officer further. His white hair is slicked back with sweat across his broad forehead, the wrinkles there crumpling together as he glares down at her. The lines around his mouth become more pronounced as his face fashions into a sneer and he juts his large nose up at her. “Has cannon fire damaged your hearing or are you fit to perform your duties to the Crown and His soldiers?”

“My apologies, Colonel Sitwell,” Emma says, effortlessly picking up the accent Killian worked so hard to teach her. “It won’t happen again, Sir.” She bows her head to him and clasps her hands together in front of her. Her small bag bounces against her hip and she thinks not of the weapons that have been stored there for months, swaddled between clothes and hidden in pockets.

Sitwell scoffs and strides into camp with the silent expectation that she is to follow. Hurrying behind him, she catalogs all possible routes of escape and makes a note to pay attention to guard rotation over the next couple of days.

The European theater of war plays out drastically different than it does in the colonies, or so David has said. Rules of engagement in Europe allow a modicum of respect for the treatment of prisoners of war, varying with rank. To escape while a prisoner is considered desertion and dishonorable. Except, they’re not in Europe, and British troops refuse to recognize Colonists as an independent entity, tossing all procedure out the window.

Will Scarlett’s return just a week after Killian was taken occupies the free moments in her mind. 

Malnourished, with a number of infected wounds and diseases bringing him knocking on death’s door, Will, a fellow rebel from their town, explained to the women that the British didn’t have the care or the resources to deal with their large numbers of prisoners. He’d been kept in a warehouse packed together with other prisoners, like a school of fish with vermin nibbling at their toes. Feces became their pillows and the dead bodies of their comrades their blankets.

Her friend’s words work as nightmare fuel when she lays her head down to sleep. Visions dance behind her closed lids of the worst possible scenarios.

Will was just an everyday soldier, but Killian – he’d barely been a man when he followed his brother into the Royal Navy at the end of the Seven Years War in the colonies. After his brother’s death due to their King’s nefarious orders, he swore off his homeland and pledged his allegiance to the colonies. She watched as he moved up in rank and provided crucial details and secrets of the British.

If what Will saw is what the British did with a regular soldier, what would they do with a traitor of great importance?

Emma's hope for the future outcome of their struggle against the British and for Killian's safe return to her had flickered like a candle struggling in the wind at the picture Will painted. For several frightening moments when he first told them of his experience, she had feared it extinguishing altogether. Her ability to believe had already been fragile; the odds were against them, after all. But as she cleaned and bandaged her friend's wounds, and allowed him to clutch her trembling hand in his, his bloodied knuckles made the bile rise in her throat once more at the idea that Killian could be bleeding out somewhere and she would never know. She had held on just as tightly, trying to impart to him what she needed for herself. She simply couldn't give up. Killian was a survivor; he would never stop fighting, and neither would she.

Emma attempts to swallow around the lump in her throat as she surveys the camp. The area’s fortification means a quick escape is too risky and more planning will be needed if Killian is here.

If he’s still alive , a dark corner of her mind taunts.

At the start of her search for him, Emma would have fought back tears. The topic proved too sensitive to truly dive into, and she felt the walls Killian worked hard to break down shoot right back up. Now she bats the whispers away without thought.

He is alive. She just knows. And she will find him.

Sitwell brings their brief and stilted tour to an end outside of the hospital tent. He pauses and debates with himself before eying her up and down. With a sigh, he turns away from the hospital tent and points to the other side of camp where a small tent is pitched. The material of it is weathered, with mismatched linens patched over holes. The tent sags and barely looks able to stand up, let alone handle the weight of the cloth.

“Understand this, Miss Swan,” he starts, eyes darting between her and the tent. “No matter what you hear – crying, groaning, screaming – whatever you hear, do not enter that tent. Is that understood?”

Her eyebrows pinch together in confusion and her heart skips a beat. In all of her stays at different British camps, she’s never received such an instruction.

Could it…

She briefly forgets the persona she’s created of Nurse Anna Swan and lets Emma Nolan take over for a moment. “What’s – ”

Sitwell doesn’t let her say anything more.

“Do not enter that tent,” he snarls. “Refrain from disobeying my orders, Miss Swan. Otherwise you may join the traitor on the execution block tomorrow.”

The officer spins on his heel and strides away, agitation dripping from him with every stomp of his boot. Yet she pays him no mind as she gazes at the collapsing tent across the way.

Traitor , her mind replays.

Killian , her heart hopes.

Gulping down a large breath, Emma eyes the soldiers of the camp for a moment to ensure no one caught her stare, before she dashes into the surgical tent. Her mind races and her fingers are sloppy, fumbling one too many bandages.

She found him.

*********

Emma is busy all day nursing the sick and wounded, but keeps an ear out for any mention of the traitor being held for execution. She’s torn between praying it isn’t and hoping it truly is Killian. 

As the sun sets and the day transitions into early evening, she becomes more on edge, anxious to see inside the prisoner’s tent. When she is finally finished for the day, she collapses onto a wooden bench outside the hospital tent. 

One of her fellow nurses - Belle, if Emma’s memory serves her correctly - pauses in front of her, gesturing toward a small building nearby. “They’ve a meal prepared for us inside, Anna,” she says. 

Emma hesitates. Should she take the time to eat when Killian could be in that wretched tent, tied up and living out his final hours? Grudgingly, she knows she has to keep up her strength in order to help her beloved escape. 

Rising from the bench and forcing a smile onto her face, she thanks Belle and falls into step with her. They enter the rustic building and find seats at a large, wooden table, where bowls of thin vegetable stew, a few strips of salted meat, and chunks of dark bread are set in front of them. The food’s aroma reminds Emma’s stomach that it hasn’t been filled since breakfast that morning, right after she entered the camp and signed on as a nurse. 

Knowing they will need food for the journey back home, she surreptitiously slips the jerky and half of the bread into the secret deep pockets of her skirt, cleverly designed by Mary Margaret, where they join the boiled eggs she saved from breakfast.

She is just dipping her last bit of bread into the broth at the bottom of her bowl, when the gruff voice coming from a junior officer makes her ears perk up. 

“Well, someone has to take him his tray, and it shan’t be me. I can barely tolerate the thought of a traitor in our midst, let alone feed the bastard!” 

Hurriedly stuffing the bite of bread into her mouth, Emma rises from her seat and approaches the man, her brain scrambling to formulate what to say. “Excuse me, sir,” she says, stepping into the man’s line of sight. “Is there someone who needs tending?”

The officer turns to her, appraising her with his eyes. “Who are you?” he snaps. 

“Anna Swan, sir. I’ve been working as a nurse.” She doesn’t add that she’s been there for less than a day. 

“Are you finished with your work for the day, Miss Swan?” 

“Yes, sir. I was just having my evening meal when I happened to overhear you say that someone needed a tray of food delivered to him.” She hopes he won’t detect the nervous quaver in her voice. “I would be willing to do that, sir.” 

“The man of whom I was speaking is a prisoner - a traitor and a threat to our beloved king and country,” he spits. “Why would you want to aid someone of such ill repute? Someone who is scheduled to be executed on the ‘morrow, I might add, as soon as our commanding officer arrives.”

Emma chooses her words carefully. “I am a nurse, sir, and as such, I have sworn to give aid to anyone in need, regardless of their allegiance.”

Time seems to pass at a snail’s pace as he considers her offer. She knows she is probably out of line for offering and could be facing punishment herself, but she simply cannot forgo the possibility of seeing Killian.

At last the soldier snaps his fingers and shouts over his shoulder, “Bring the food for the prisoner!” 

Emma prays her trembling legs continue to hold her upright. Once the tray, containing nothing but a small piece of bread, cup of watery broth, and a strip of jerky, is placed in her hands, the junior officer escorts her out the door. They trudge through the camp without speaking, until they come within sight of the ragged tent, guarded by two soldiers. 

“The prisoner is in there. Tell the guards Sergeant Gold gave you permission to enter the tent. The traitor is restrained and will pose no physical threat to you.” 

“Excuse me, sir, but if he is tied down, how is he able to feed himself?” 

“I was only instructed to supply him with food. Whether or not he is able to eat it is none of my concern.” After barking out those words, the officer turns on his heel and stomps away. 

Emma squares her shoulders and takes a deep breath, before trekking across the clearing to the tent. The guards drop the butts of their sidearms to the ground, crossing them in front of the opening to the tent as they shout in unison, “Halt!” 

“S-Sergeant Gold sent me to d-deliver this food to the prisoner,” Emma stutters. 

The two men eye each other, then one gives a slight nod and they return their muskets to their shoulders. “You may enter,” she is told. 

Emma ducks her head and pushes through the canvas opening. Once inside, she drops to her knees, her eyes trying to adjust to the dark interior. When they do, she wishes they hadn’t, because what she sees turns her stomach and breaks her heart. 

The man is sitting on the ground against the support pole in the middle of the tent, his legs extended in front of him with thick rope knotted around his bare ankles. His arms are behind him, and she assumes they are tied as well. He is stripped except for his tattered breeches and she can see bloody stripes across his emaciated body. His head hangs down, dark, matted hair obscuring his face, but Emma knows this man is her beloved Killian. 

Quickly, she sets the tray of food off to the side and crawls to kneel beside him. She notices crusts of bread littering the circumference around him and rage burns through her as she realizes that, even though food has been delivered to him, he has been unable to eat much, if any, of it. 

She nearly gags as the stench coming from his unwashed body fills her nostrils. Apparently, he hasn’t been taken outside to relieve himself and reeks of the smell of urine. “Oh, Killian!” she gasps. “What have they done to you?” 

His head jerks up. “Emma?” he croaks weakly. “Is…is that you, Love?” 

Her fingers brush his hair away from his face, a sob catching in her throat. His left eye is swollen completely shut, his lip is split open, and dried blood obscures most of his handsome face. 

“Yes, my love, it’s me,” she whispers. “I’ve come to get you out of here.” 

“You…shouldn’t…be here. I…I told you…not to come after me.” 

“I never listen,” she tries to joke. 

“You’re…impossible,” he sighs. 

“And you love me for it.” 

A hint of a smile quirks one corner of his mouth. “Aye, that I do.” 

“How long has it been since you have eaten?” she asks, turning to slide the tray containing the paltry meal closer. 

He grimaces. “I…I don’t know.” 

Emma holds the cup of broth to his cracked lips, tipping it until it dribbles into his mouth. His eyes close as he swallows, a moan escaping him as if he was enjoying a fine steak dinner. She pulls the cup away when half of the liquid is gone, tears pooling in her eyes as she watches him chase after it. 

Setting it aside, she picks up the chunk of bread and tears off a small piece. As she feeds it to him, she whispers, “We have to figure out how to get you out of here.” 

He finishes chewing and swallows. “Don’t risk your life for me, Love.” 

“Without you, I don’t have a life, Killian.” 

She offers him another bit of bread, but he shakes his head. “I wish…I could hold you right now.” 

Moving carefully so she won’t cause him any more unnecessary pain, she wraps her arms around his neck, scratching her fingers through his long, unkempt hair. His body shakes with a sob. “I…I’ve dreamed of having you in my arms, Emma. I have been starved for your touch.”  

She is loath to release him, just as desperate to feel his body against hers, so she murmurs into his ear, “I feared you were dead, and am relieved I have found you, but I heard them say that they…they plan to e-execute you tomorrow.” 

“Aye, so I have been told,” he confirms with a sigh. “I am surprised they have not done it already.” 

“They are waiting for the commanding officer to arrive so he can give the order. I am hoping the rain last night will delay him, but we cannot count on that. We have to get you out tonight.” 

Her heart aches as he lays his head on her shoulder, mumbling, “I do not think there is any hope of that happening, Love.” 

“If Mary Margaret has taught me anything, it is that there is always hope,” she says firmly. 

They are both startled and jerk apart when one of the guards shouts, “How long does it take to deliver a tray of food, Miss?” 

“I have to go,” Emma whispers, reluctantly pulling away from Killian, “but I will be back. Do not doubt that. I love you, Killian.” 

“I love you, too, Emma. Please be careful.” 

She nods absently while her eyes sweep around the perimeter of the tent, cataloging  weaknesses in the canvas. Before leaving, she feeds him the rest of the bread and broth, pockets the jerky, then kisses him tenderly, careful of his split lip. 

Just before exiting through the flap, she turns and gives him what she intends to be a hopeful smile. She is encouraged when he attempts to return it.  

The brisk night air of the impending autumn season greets Emma as she exits the tent. Bumps rise on her skin and a shudder runs down her spine during her short walk to the nurses’ tent. Lifting the flap, she finds their sleeping quarters still empty, Belle’s voice wafting through the air from the direction of the campfire. She’s only met the other nurses at their camp in passing at the change of their shifts, but worry creeps up her spine that one of them might walk in.

Her small bag sits on the ground at the foot of her bed, the gray and brown staining a far cry from its original white. A quiet thump fills the tent when she tosses it onto her bed linens, a soft clanging heard just a moment later.

If Killian was with her, he’d chide her for the careless way she shoves her hands between her clothes and blindly feels for her few weapons. There are three knives haphazardly sandwiched between layers of skirts, but pulling them only dampens her spirits. Her fingers grip their leather bound handles and her arm saws furiously at her blanket to no avail. If the blades can’t even rip the thin linen, they’ll be useless for Killian’s ropes.

Her heart starts racing as she fights to keep panic from clawing at her.

Emma paces the short length of the tent, hands on her hips as her mind offers solutions.

The knots are too tight and complicated for her to unravel, and Killian is in no shape to walk her through it. Which brings her back to cutting him free. The thought of stealing something from one of the many British soldiers around camp crosses her mind. She could sneak into one of their tents once they’ve fallen asleep, but she runs the risk of discovery. There’s no helping Killian if she’s delivered the same fate as him.

Belle’s laughter rings loudly in the slowly quieting camp, and Emma’s eyes widen in realization.

Her steps across the camp are soft and she keeps to the shadows of firelight. She moves slowly, eyes constantly roaming the area, her guard on high alert. The lanterns burn low in the tent where she spent most of the day, creating a glowing beacon on the edge of camp. The tent flaps gently move in the breeze, and Emma hears the voices of Zelena and Fiona, as they gather bandages to wash at the basin near the campfire.

The chill of the night starts to prickle at her skin, and her breath becomes visible in small wisps of white clouds before her eyes. She waits, shivering, for their footsteps to move away before she enters the back of the tent.

John Darling, a soldier not yet twenty, groans quietly six cots away from where she ducks in. His eyes remain closed as he calls for someone who is not there, and his blood is visible through the mountain of bandages she applied before the end of her shift. Her heart lurches as he continues to call for people she’s never met and with whom she doubts he’ll be reunited.

Emma swallows back the image that comes to mind of Killian sitting alone in his tent doing the exact same, as he receives food scraps he can’t eat and unable to move to relieve himself. Instead, she tiptoes over to the table that holds the equipment they’ve been using throughout the day. The amputation saw sits on the edge, blood staining the blade. She used one once, back in August after the British faced intense losses. The man said his name was Arthur; he had dark hair and blue eyes that made her heart yearn for Killian. She refused to look at him as she amputated his mangled left hand, but that didn’t stop the nightmares from replacing his face with Killian’s.

Her fingers move deftly past that to the scalpel. Blood stains that blade as well, but it is smaller and more easily concealed. It’ll be sharp enough to cut the ropes and easy to maneuver around his wrists without risk of injury.

Zelena and Fiona’s voices drift into the tent, and Emma glances up in alarm. In a quick move, she snatches the scalpel and rushes out before she can be detected.

Once outside the tent, a thought strikes her, and she seeks out the area where she knows discarded clothing of the deceased have been tossed. There are several jackets and shirts, but breeches are more difficult to come by. She digs through the putrid pile until she is lucky enough to procure two pair, bloodied and full of holes, but still usable. She tugs one pair on under her skirt, then stuffs the other pair, along with two shirts, into her blouse, and buttons it back up. Knowing they may face raw weather, she also picks out two uniform coats, rolling them up and clutching them tightly to her chest.

Moving as stealthily as she can with the extra bulk, she begins picking her way across the camp. Frustration sits heavy in her belly because she wants to hurry straight to where her love is suffering, but she can’t take the risk of being caught. 

Along the way, she catches snippets of soldiers’ conversations and can’t help comparing them to those of the soldiers in the camps of her fellow countrymen. They may be on opposite sides of this conflict, but the same topics occupy their minds - deep longing for their families, hot, home cooked meals and their homes. They’re not very different, after all; yet, they’re killing each other by the hundreds, in battle after battle. 

At last, she comes within sight of the shabby tent, still being guarded by two soldiers. Quickly stepping behind a large tree, she surveys the immediate area and decides on a route which appears to be safe. 

She is just about to step out when she hears a shout coming from behind her. 

“Halt! Thief!” 

Her blood freezes in her veins as her breath stutters in her lungs. Cautiously turning her head, she sees Colonel Sitwell striding across the clearing, approaching a young soldier who looks to be no older than a teenager. He is cowering in front of the officer, his hands clasped behind his back, holding what appears to be a loaf of bread. 

As Sitwell begins questioning the boy about where he is going and what he is doing, Emma turns her eyes to the guards in front of the tent and realizes their attention is drawn to the confrontation, giving her a golden opportunity. 

Crouching down to make herself as small as possible, she scurries to the back of the tent. A thin sliver of moonlight is all that illuminates the heavy canvas and she gives herself a few precious seconds to allow her eyes to adjust. Once she is able to make out a seam, she pulls out the scalpel and, starting a foot above the ground, slices through the thick threads. 

As soon as the seam separates, she drops to the ground, removes the pilfered clothes and pushes them through the opening, then she shimmies herself through. She gets up to her hands and knees, her eyes immediately trained upon the man still sitting in the same position in which she left him.

The dew has already settled on the grass in the darkening night, and Emma shivers as she stands just inside the tent - the leather boots she’s worn all this time are thin enough with gaps in the soles that some of the moisture has soaked through - making her teeth chatter along with the trembles of fear. The heat of the day has long since fled, and Emma feels the clammy chill down to her bones - aching for nothing so much as someplace safe and warm for herself and Killian. That desire drives her forward, despite the uncertainty that plagues her and the fear that she will fail him. She has to grit her teeth at the sight of Killian just feet from her, in a shelter full of rips and holes allowing wind and rain to blow right through, while his clothes are torn and threadbare - not even dry. They have barely deigned to feed him, and so of course he has not been granted any sort of blanket for the cold, autumn nights. She feels as though she is freezing; she cannot fathom the torment he has been going through. It’s a wonder he has not already succumbed to the elements and his countrymen’s gross mistreatment. She means to be certain he does not suffer even more with torture at their cruel hands.

She hates each hesitation as she sneaks across the dirt and grass at her feet; anxious to bolt and flee the danger like a startled rabbit. It is only Killian, so close again at last, who manages to stay her and keep her tiptoeing forward, making sure the way remains clear. All must still be distracted by Sitwell’s angry interrogation and the hapless young soldier he had accosted, to be checking in on their weak and battered prisoner, for she hears no further calls of alarm, no pounding feet bearing down, and she breathes out in relief.

Her eyes begin to water almost immediately - the stench unbearable in such close quarters - and her emotions nearly overcome her at Killian’s being forced to remain in his own filth; a man proud and fastidious of his manner and appearance, determined to present himself in his best light whenever possible. The wounds she had seen on him previously must be festering and growing infected. She cringes against the pain and shame she knows he must feel, in spite of it being no fault of his own.

Finally at his side, Emma drops to her knees and reaches out to clutch his shoulder, shaking gently and hissing urgent whispers of his name.  When he fails to respond immediately, it strikes her all over again just how serious his condition is, and she wastes not another second before beginning to saw at his bonds with her stolen blade. To her dismay, Killian’s dark head lolls lifelessly, chin against his chest, until in her haste, she accidentally nicks the tender skin at his wrist.

With a startled grunt, he jerks an inch or so away weakly, and finally turns to face her, his unswollen eye fluttering uncertainly before managing to focus blearily and murmuring “Emma?” in question, as if he does not quite trust his own vision. “Why are you back here, Lass? If they catch you…” he sucks in a quick breath, whether from the effort it takes him to speak, or from jarring some injury she cannot see, Emma’s isn’t sure, but she aches for him all the same. He struggles on breathlessly, “You have to leave me here and get out. I am not worth – ”

“Hush!” she scolds sharply, giving the single word as much volume and strength as she dares. Her eyes spear his, staring him down with a look that allows no argument. She has managed to break through the ropes holding his arms behind him and around the central tentpost, and Killian nearly slumps over on his side at the sudden release of tension, but she steadies him, then cups his scruffy, nearly-bearded chin in her hand, willing him to accept her words as fact. “You are worth it. I won’t hear another word,” she whispers.

For a moment, unbidden and breaking across his face like the sun from behind the clouds of a storm, a smile upturns his cracked lips, and he chuckles just barely in spite of his condition, then merely sighs, acquiescing to her words largely out of sheer fatigue, but indeed loving her for them.

Releasing his chin, Emma gives a curt little bob of her head and reaches to the pile of shabby, but at least dry, clothing she had managed to scavenge. She had dropped it hastily to the side in her hurry to reach him and make sure he was still alive. Holding out a shirt, she gives Killian a hopeful look, tremulous smile aiming to inject inspiration into both of them for this perilous escape they are about to attempt.

She watches him try to work the feeling back into his hands and arms after their being bound behind him for so long. His limbs move awkwardly, even as he reaches forward to take the shirt she offers.

Killian’s eyes roam her face with entirely too much awe for her comfort, drinking her in hungrily and as though she has done something noteworthy rather than merely rooting through a pile of discarded uniforms and cutting through tent canvas to crawl back to his side. He simply nods to her in agreement.

His silence unnerves Emma; she is used to a lilting flow of eloquent words from Killian - so much so that she has often wondered if he talks for his own entertainment as much as he does to charm her. Whatever the case, his gently cultured, warm, and soothing voice had been one of the things she missed most desperately about him while they were parted, and she cannot help but worry now, as the quiet persists, just how little strength her beloved has left.

When he fumbles to get his hands into the sleeves, a strangled sound and arrested movement at his effort to raise his arms and slip the shirt on over his head attests to just how much pain he is in. Emma soothes him regretfully, reaching out to ease his arms down to his sides and guide his limbs gingerly into the garment, swiftly securing the fastenings as well.

“I’m so sorry, Killian,” she whispers, hating that it had taken so long to find him, that he had ever been hurt at all, and that she has to press him now when he cannot move without causing further anguish. But he is already shaking his head at her, forgiving what she cannot help without a moment’s hesitation. 

He is panting once he finally gets the shirt on, and the sheen of sweat glistening on his face concerns Emma more than she wants to admit. How is he ever going to flee as quickly as they need to, over rough terrain, if just this has taxed him so badly? And, even if they get away, how how sick is he and how badly is he hurt? Will they be able to help him recover? 

Emma bites her lip against another swell of emotion at just how large the shirt appears on Killian’s emaciated frame. His collarbone protrudes sharply where the neck of the shirt hangs low, to a degree that Emma knows it would not have done when last she saw him.

Hesitantly she tries to help him stand, not wanting to insult or demean him - a man of lesser strength might not have clung to life as long as he has - but she genuinely fears he may not be able to support his own weight, and she isn’t sure what she will do otherwise.

Killian grunts, clenching his teeth and lurching forward to plant his hands on the hard-packed dirt and push himself upwards, then leaning against the tent post, he does indeed manage to leverage himself to his own two feet. It isn’t without obvious discomfort and struggle, and he lists worryingly to one side, though Emma isn’t certain if he is favoring broken ribs or trying to appease the stretching of the whip weals on his back.

She has already seen more of his body bared to her eyes than ever before - more than is entirely proper. It is far from the interlude she would never admit to having envisioned when they would finally explore each other’s bodies one day. All the same, she will not let that keep her from any small modicum of comfort she can offer him, not after all he has already withstood. Blushing hotly, but ready to press on, Emma is about to hold out the stolen pants in offering, when with a low moan, Killian crumples back to his knees weakly, barely catching himself by leaning once more against the post which had held him captive.

Heedlessly, Emma tosses the breeches away in alarm. They will have to worry about comfort and his taking further chill later. He cannot stand much more of this, and she has to get him out. His eyes rise to hers looking so pained and ashamed that Emma wants nothing more than to wrap his trembling frame in her arms, hold him close to her, and comfort and soothe him until he is well again. That he would feel embarrassment in front of her for something he cannot help, weakness forced on him through malnourishment and abuse, breaks her heart anew. She can hardly stand to push him further, but there is nothing for it.

She only shakes her head when he attempts to speak. “We’ll manage,” she asserts with a false bravado. There is no other option. She won’t even allow herself to consider it.

He nods again, some of the resolute steel she knows and loves at last returning to his gaze. She places her hands under his arms, and with them both heaving and straining, Killian gains his feet once more. This time Emma doesn’t let go, keeping one arm around his waist as he uses her as a crutch, sliding her shoulder under his arm so he can brace against her. 

Quickly grabbing the pack she has carried with her from camp to camp, she leads forward, and together they take the first few shuffling steps toward the hole she has made in the back of the tent. She can tell he is lightheaded, hurting, struggling even to breathe properly, but now that Killian is up, his survival instinct - or at least his concern for her survival - has him painstakingly putting one foot in front of the other.

It is only as they near her makeshift exit that Emma realizes in horror that the distracting commotion which had been going on outside has calmed, and that she is still dressed exactly as anyone else in the camp would have seen her earlier. Quickly she cautions Killian just to lean against her for a moment, seeing his discarded tricorn hat in the corner of the tent, she grabs it, stuffs her brightly identifying hair up under it, then unbuttons the waist of her skirt and flings the long, heavy material away. It is far from a brilliant disguise, but that would only cover her absence for so long, anyway. Once Killian’s escape is discovered, the new nurse who had asked to bring food to him, then disappeared the same day she arrived, is going to be the most likely suspect. Her shaking hands quickly transfer the food she managed to grab from her skirt pockets to her stolen breeches, and she stands to let Killian lean on her again. She doesn’t have time to worry over any other items left behind at the moment; they just need to make haste as soon as possible.

As she adjusts her grip on Killian, Emma realizes once more just how poorly he must feel. Unlike his usual self, he has not a playful comment or even a salacious wink for her, despite the fact that she has seen him shirtless, helped him dress, and shed her skirts in front of him. She sends up a silent prayer that they can make it to the surrounding woods before they are discovered. She knows he cannot run full tilt - he can barely stand - so they must manage some sort of a head start. 

Dipping her head to peer just barely through the roughly torn flap of tent in which she created an exit, Emma sees that although things have grown much calmer since she snuck in - Sitwell must have carted off the poor younger soldier he caught stealing - the other staring eyes throughout the camp have returned to their previous concerns and conversations. Though it still feels much too risky, far too exposed, the time will not get any better for them to escape.

As a last minute thought, Emma changes her mind, throws on one of the jackets, grabs the breeches she’d tossed aside, realizing she’ll eventually have to get Killian into enough clothing that he doesn’t freeze. Then, half-supporting and half-tugging him, Emma ducks her head to slip out of the prisoner’s tent through the hole she made, making sure Killian follows without stumbling or getting caught on the ragged edge.

Killian bites his lip against the agony that each step and merely standing upright clearly causes him in an effort to ease her nerves and steel himself for flight. He nods, visibly marshaling every last bit of strength he possesses to push forward as they step onto the dew-wet grass. Holding her gaze for one brief, but weighted moment, he then bows his head to watch each wobbly step he struggles to take. Gritting his teeth, the wounds that burn and pull each time his feet strike the ground try to steal his breath, but he forces himself to move on, matching Emma pace for pace.

She doesn’t dare speak, but she urges him along in her head, silently cheering with each foot they progress across the trampled field and closer to the treeline, nearer to the relative cover and safety of the woods nearby. Heart pounding in her ears, frantic and alert for the first sign they have been found out, Emma forces herself to lead without looking back, to focus on the shadows and brush of the forest as they draw blessedly nearer. Twenty-five feet…fifteen feet…ten…just a few more feet…

They have only just gained the edge of the woods when a shout of alarm goes up. Bellows of “The prisoner has escaped!” and “Search the area!” ring out, along with the sound of feet pounding and general mayhem as the camp mobilizes from the drowsy comradery of evening by the fire to the dogged pursuit of a fugitive. Emma’s breath catches in her chest with fear, and she risks one frantic look thrown over her shoulder as they dodge beneath low-hanging branches and plunge into the darker foliage that surrounds them just in time. 

She sees torches - far too many to evade it seems, as panic momentarily takes hold - fanning out from the camp in all directions; some moving closer to them than she can bear already.

This time it is Killian who brings her back to the present, to the immediate steps before them. “You can do this, Emma. Bloody brilliant you are,” he pants. “Lead on, we’ve almost made it.”

Grateful for his steadying belief, though she knows he is half-delirious with pain and fever and is no more certain of their escape than she is, it is the jolt Emma needs to shake her panic and bring her back to her task. Turning once more, she steps forward again, only to snag her foot on an uprooted twig, making her stumble forward off-balance, bringing Killian with her.

The ground seemingly dissolves beneath their feet, falling away to nothingness and sending them plunging downward into the dark. It happens so suddenly that Emma has rolled and pitched against the hard, sloped ground several times before she can cry out, thankfully. A wounded grunt is all she hears from Killian before hitting the bottom of an incline hard enough to knock the air from both of their lungs as she lands on top of him with a sickening thud. 

Scrambling off of his body, Emma tries to squint in the dark to find his face in front of her, stomach turning at the thought of having hurt him further. “Killian?” she whispers, not daring to speak any louder. He doesn’t respond, but before she can try anything else, she hears yelling and footsteps drawing nearer, crunching through twigs and fallen leaves. Wrestling a dirt-stained, ragged gray blanket from the pack that is miraculously still on her shoulder, Emma flings it desperately over them both, hoping it will blend into the night and the overgrown vegetation at the bottom of this steep dropoff. There is nothing else to do, with their enemies nearly atop them. She holds herself motionless, her hand over Killian’s chest, feeling for the barest rise and fall, praying the Redcoats will pass by and fail to see them.

Each agonizing second seems to stretch on for an hour as she waits, but slowly, painstakingly, the tramp of threatening forces move on, circle back, and judging by the calls she overhears, return to the main camp to regroup. They will be back on her and Killian’s trail by first light, but it is a miraculous reprieve in that moment, and she lurches upright to see if he has regained awareness to carry on.

“Killian?” she pleads once more, clutching at his shirt and gently trying to shake him awake. “Killian, please! You have to answer me!”

At last his eyes flutter open, though focus in them is far from clear. “Emma…?” he mumbles blearily, the words hazy in a loose-lipped mush. “What happened?”

“I tripped on a root of some sort, and we tumbled down a ravine. I- I’m sorry, I didn't see it until it was too late.”

He reaches out unsteadily and cups her cheek as if to brush her apology and fear away, despite the ever-weakening tremble of his limbs.

She presses on doggedly. “The blanket has hidden us from your jailers for the moment,” she adds, “but we better get as far as we can before daybreak. They will be after us again, no doubt.”

Doubt and an embarrassed uncertainty flicker in Killian’s eyes, but he does not speak, only pushes himself into a sitting position through sheer force of will. “You may have to help me up,” he finally relents, no longer meeting her eyes, but Emma is so relieved and glad that he is awake and willing to try, that she somehow musters the strength and adrenaline to help him lever himself back to his feet.

Rather than attempting to scale the hill they had tumbled down, they follow a small trickle of water running along at their feet, which becomes a stream after a mile or so. Pausing briefly to see that Killian gets a drink and has a crust of bread she stuffed into her pocket, Emma wrestles the ruined pants Killian wore off his legs, hurrying to dip a less dirty part of them into the stream and wash his skin the best she can, knowing that despite the cold, it must be done since he’d been forced to wear them so long. She doesn’t dare look him in the face as her fingers skim his bare skin, and she still looks off to the side determinedly as she helps him wrestle the change of breeches she had stolen over his jutting hipbones, urges him back to his feet and fastens the breeches securely. She shoves the other pair in her bag for the moment, to avoid leaving evidence behind. They just need to focus on getting out of here. Anything else they could work through, once they were safe.

By the time the first pale rays of sunrise start to color the sky, Emma hopes they have covered enough distance to avoid detection. They are heading for David and Mary Margaret’s quiet, out-of-the-way farm, but they will not make it today, not before Brits catch up to them.

Luckily they find a small cave, and Emma presses them as far into the dank, winding depth of it as they can possibly get. Sitting at last, she urges Killian to rest, his head in her lap, her hands smoothing through his matted, sweat-soaked hair. Watching over him, fretful and sleepless, she tries to gauge how long it has been and listens for any sign of discovery. When she finally sneaks out, she discovers they have made it until dark again and they can press on. 

She counts each ragged breath that rattles through Killian’s shockingly light frame, and thanks the Lord above he hasn’t been taken from her yet. They are still together, and will fight on.

*****

They have been traveling for two days when Emma again hears the low babbling of a brook. Killian struggles during their journey, relying heavily on her to help him move. His weakened state only worsens with the small amount of food she can scavenge and no canteen to provide him hydration. Blood seeps through his pilfered clothes to stain her own when she supports his weight on their walk. She thanks the heavens he’s only awake during the night hours so he doesn’t see it, all the while cursing herself for not being able to do more for him.

But the sound of fresh water is enough to give her a sprinkling of hope.

Emma practically drags Killian in the direction of the noise, eyes frantically scanning the tree line for an enemy to surprise them. If worse came to worst, she’d drop Killian to the ground and batten her defenses, grabbing the blunt blade from her boot. She’d fight the entire British army if she had to, just to help him.

Thankfully the only other inhabitants of the woods are the animals that scurry across their feet.

Killian’s eyes blink rapidly as he fights to stay awake. She knows that they’ll have to stop for a full night tomorrow or the next day. He needs to regain his strength, and, aside from a few hours rest the night before, Emma hasn’t slept a full night since before arriving at camp. Adrenaline has kept her going thus far, but even she knows it’s not sustainable.

“We’re almost there,” she whispers to him, Killian’s head lolling against hers as he grunts a reply.

Twigs scratch at their ankles, and the cool night air wraps around their shoulders in a deep embrace. Moonlight offers their only source of light, and Emma desperately clings to the moon beams that shine down between the treetops.

Relief floods her body as they break through a particularly profuse thicket and the creek flows just a few paces from their spot. Rocks litter either side of the stream, one large enough to lean Killian against. She drops to her knees once he is situated. Dew seeps into her clothes, a wet patch gathering quickly where she kneels. The cool sensation is nothing compared to the water.

Emma dunks her hands into the water in a quick fashion, hissing when the brisk liquid stings her fingers. She quickly pulls her hands back and looks to Killian. “You need to drink,” she murmurs, not expecting an answer that he has no strength to give. Taking a deep breath, she sinks her hands into the water, up to her wrists and cups them together, gathering water that she hastily carries over to him, tipping her hands onto his lips. Water slips between her fingers as she tries to give him some, droplets slide down the sides of his face. He gasps as he gulps down the meager offering.

She repeats the process until she suspects his stomach is getting upset. Her fingers tear the hem of her borrowed clothes and rip a few bands of cloth. The moon highlights the blood cresting on his skin from the open wounds along his body, the dirt collecting on his person.

“I need to clean you,” she whispers as her hand cradles his cheek. Killian opens his eyes to meet hers, and she sees the corner of his mouth lifting under his unruly facial hair.

“You’ve done enough, love,” he says just as quietly. “Give me a moment and I can wash myself.”

“The water’s cold,” she argues.

“Suppose I’ll need a distraction then.”

Hydrated and more awake than he’d been when they arrived at the creek, Emma helps Killian shed his shirt and aids him in kneeling at the creek’s waterbed.

Killian stares at the water, and Emma notices a faraway look taking over his face. The look is one she’s become familiar with working on other soldiers. Memories – nightmares really – that haunt even their waking hours. Her hand reaches over to cover his shaking fist crushing a band of cloth. She swallows as he suddenly swivels his head to her, blinking a few times before he offers her a wobbly smile.

“Do you remember when you caught fish?” she asks. Her tone is light and her smile is encouraging. The undercurrent of teasing that usually accompanies the story is barely tangible.

Killian breathes out a small laugh. “You would never let me forget.”

A nod is shared between them and her voice offers a distraction as he dips the cloth, hissing as it touches his raw skin.

The sun was barely rising over the horizon, when a specialized knock echoed throughout the quiet Nolan house. David and Mary Margaret were undoubtedly already awake with the livestock kept on the property, but Emma had hoped for a few more hours of rest. Her feet ached and her fingers felt numb, her first week spent treating wounded Colonists draining every ounce of her energy. She won’t be shipped out to a British camp for another few months; her secret coding needed to be finely tuned and her stitchwork would give her away as an inadequate nurse.

She winced as her fingers worked to knot the belt of her robe. Sleep still scratched at the edges of her consciousness, but her racing heart beat it back vigorously.

Emma opened the door in a rush, breath caught in her throat from anticipation. She sighed heartily when she realized it was merely Killian standing on the porch. A woven basket hung off of one arm, and he clutched a bouquet of wildflowers in the opposite hand.

“Morning, lass,” he greeted with a wide grin.

She squinted as the early sun rays overwhelmed her sight. “To what do I owe this honor?” The door squeaked momentarily as she leaned against it, her heart racing for an entirely new reason. A smile threatened to emerge as she struggled to keep a disinterested face in the presence of such a magnificent man.

The sun shone on him like he was a gift from above, just for her. Golden rays of light gleamed on his dark hair to create a halo and his grin was certified to make any lady swoon. His eyes crinkled in delight as he gazed down at her, and she swallowed hard as she awaited his answer.

“I remember you mentioning over the summer how much you missed cod,” he said as he maneuvered his way inside the house. The basket is placed gently on the kitchen table while the flowers remain in his tight grasp.

“I don’t think that’s enough of a remarkable statement to explain your appearance this morning. Nearly everyone in town misses the cod.”

Killian grinned, something quick and hidden as he ducked his head out of her sight. Her statement was true, no matter the humor he found in it. The increasing warships offshore had chased the fish further out into the ocean. The wider landscape made it difficult to catch a quantifiable amount of cod to justify the trip, not counting the dangers that came with being in the same waters as opposing military forces.

“Well,” he started, “it does offer an explanation for my appearance.”

“Oh?”

Wildflowers were suddenly thrust in her direction, and she blinked for a few moments before it finally registered. Killian’s arm was extended to her and nerves crept up his tense shoulders. “Firstly, these are for you.” His tongue poked out of his mouth to wet his lips, her attention dramatically pulled from the flowers by the movement. The sight was always a distraction when they practiced her accent, but now it felt like it had intent. An intent to tease her, to bring her to a different focus.

Belatedly, she took the bouquet from Killian. “Thank you,” she said softly, taking a moment to smell the flowers. No one had ever brought her flowers before. Most girls she grew up with were married off with children of their own by now, but she found herself too different from them to warrant the attention of a gentleman in town. Until Killian.

“And this is for you as well.” Killian proudly walked over to the basket and pulled back the linen covering its contents. “Freshly caught cod.”

Emma stepped closer and peered into the basket. A gasp left her mouth before she covered it to prevent her laughter from becoming noticeable.

“What?” he asked.

“You have never been fishing here before, have you?”

“No… Why?”

She failed to keep the laughter from her voice as she spoke. “These fish aren’t cod.”

A slew of expletives was voiced under his breath as he moved to her side. His hand reached for the basket to examine the fish closer. “Are you positive?”

She huffed. “I may not be a fisherman, but I do know my food.” Her eyes examined the fish, wrapped and salted to preserve it for the days long trip back, as a smile threatened to appear on her lips. “These are summer flounder, which are still edible and mild tasting. I appreciate your efforts.”

The amusement left her body as she watched Killian’s face fall and his demeanor depress. His hand toyed with the edge of the basket as his jaw ticked from how tightly he clenched it. She called his name only to receive a shake of his head in return. He dropped his weight onto one of the kitchen chairs and sagged into the seat.

“I wanted it to be perfect,” he murmured to himself. Emma followed his lead and sat beside him. The urge to reach out and grab his hand between her own brewed deep in her stomach.

“Wanted what?”

“Apologies, love,” Killian said. He offered his best self-deprecating smile for a brief second before he returned his stare to the table. “I had hoped to present this as my official request to court you, but alas, I’ve made a fool of myself, instead.”

Her throat dried at his words and the butterflies in her stomach fluttered. He wanted to court her? The mere thought left her practically speechless. Killian had wanted to present her with her favorite meal – cod – and picked flowers for her by himself.  He traveled in dangerous waters just to impress her.

She hummed, bringing the flowers to her nose. The fresh aroma made her head spin in the most delightful way, and she sent Killian a shy smile. “It seems to me like you’ve been doing a splendid job, so far.” He grinned back at her for a moment before it fell at the sight of the summer flounder. “You really went out to sea to catch these fish? For me?”

There was no teasing inflection to her words, a heavy weight instead accompanied them. Their eyes met over the table, and she watched Killian’s throat bob as he swallowed hard. He matched her seriousness and kept their eyes connected; his single word answer said a million things to her.

“Aye.”

Emma placed the bouquet gently on the table between them and refused to let her eyes trail away from his. She leaned forward as he watched in anticipation, breath hitched in his throat.

Their lips met, and Emma finally tasted freedom.

*********

“Just…a little further…Killian,” Emma gasps, her arm tightening around his waist. Her eyes are trained on the small house shining in the moonlight in front of them, but they also continue to dart around for any sign of being followed.They’ve been careful to travel only at night, seeking out dense woods where they could hide and rest during the daylight hours. 

It’s taken them nearly a week to reach Mary Margaret and David’s farm, their progress hampered by the constant surveillance of their surroundings for fear of being captured, and by Killian’s injuries. Emma has tried to treat his wounds along the way, cursing herself for not grabbing any medical supplies when she pilfered the scalpel and clothing. He was also weak from lack of food, since the small amount of food she smuggled and berries she was able to find were not doing much to build his strength. 

But now, the end of their arduous journey is finally within sight. Emma tries to quicken their pace, but Killian’s groan of pain reminds her that he’s already going as fast as he can. He hasn’t once complained, but she knows every step has been agony for him. 

“I’m sorry, Killian. Please forgive me for my impatience.” 

“You…you’ve been anything…but impatient, Love,” he rasps. “I should be…apologizing for…causing you all this trouble.” 

“Hush, now,” she admonishes. “You are worth everything to me. I would go to the ends of the earth to find you and bring you home.” 

“It almost feels like…that’s how far we’ve come,” he says with a dry chuckle. 

She laughs in response, her heart lifting a little over his attempt at humor. They continue their laborious trek over the uneven ground until finally, they are standing on the small wooden stoop at the back of the house. 

“I hope someone is awake,” Emma whispers. Raising her hand, she raps on the door three times, pauses a few seconds, knocks twice, then twice more in rapid succession. 

The wait seems interminable until they hear a familiar voice saying, “Identify yourself.” 

Emma almost cries at the sound of her brother’s voice. “Em-” Her voice is suddenly not working, so she clears her throat and tries again. “Emma Nolan.” 

There’s a pause. “What happened when I was twelve that you always thought was your fault?” 

Without hesitation, she replies, “You fell out of a tree and broke your left arm trying to rescue my kitten, Patches.” 

She smiles at Killian as they hear the sound of a key turning. Before she can react any further, the door swings open and she’s pulled into a crushing hug. 

“Where have you been?” David’s voice rumbles under her cheek where it’s pressed against his chest. 

“Let us in and I’ll tell you.” 

“Us?” he questions, pulling away to look behind her. 

“I found him,” she says simply, reaching to take Killian’s hand. Even in the dim light coming from the fireplace in the kitchen, she can see David’s eyes brighten. He steps out of the way so the two travelers can enter. 

After closing the door behind them, he turns around and the happiness in his eyes instantly turns to dismay when he takes in the condition of the other man. Before he can say anything, Mary Margaret’s voice can be heard from their bedroom doorway, asking, “Who was it, David?” 

“See for yourself,” he answers, grabbing a match to light a kerosene lamp on the kitchen table. 

She emerges, tying the belt of a thin, cotton robe. “Emma! We’ve been…” Her eyes move to the figure leaning on her sister-in-law. “Oh, Killian! Look at you!” Pulling out a chair, she helps Emma gingerly lower the injured man into it. 

“I’m alright,” he says, but can’t stop the groan from escaping his lips when he’s fully seated. 

Mary Margaret immediately begins assessing the injuries to his face. “David, please bring the basket of supplies. Emma, get a wash basin of water and a cloth.” 

They both scurry to do as told, coming back to find Mary Margaret has already started working on the shirt fasteners. “Have the two of you had anything to eat?” she asks.

“Just whatever we could scavenge from the woods,” Emma answers, placing the basin on the table and tossing the cloth into the cool water. “I ran out of the food I was able to steal from camp.” 

Mary Margaret finishes with the fastenings and pushes the shirt aside, gasping when she sees how much weight Killian has lost. “I’ll, um, I’ll let you clean him up while I heat some chicken stew.” Emma can see tears shining in her eyes when she turns away. 

After setting the medical supplies on the table, David moves to the fireplace to remove the kettle. He pours some hot water into the basin, replaces the kettle, and returns to help Emma peel the shirt off of Killian. When he sees the wounds from a whip across his back and chest, his mouth tightens into a straight line, his eyes hardening with anger. 

Emma speaks as she squeezes out the cloth and begins tenderly wiping her beloved’s face. “When I found him, they were holding him prisoner, planning to execute him the next day, as soon as their commanding officer arrived.”

She continues relating the conditions in which he was held, as she moves on to begin sponging his neck and chest. Mary Margaret and David share grim looks as they listen, appalled at the way their friend was treated. 

“He was actually much worse than this, but we came across a clear creek and he was able to wash himself off a bit, even though the water was pretty chilly,” Emma says. 

“David,” Mary Margaret says, turning quickly to her husband. “Can you please begin filling the tub with water? I’m sure soaking in a hot bath would feel good, wouldn’t it, Killian?” 

The man looks up at her with bleary eyes. “Aye, it would.” 

“Take the tub into our bedroom, David. We can move into one of the rooms upstairs and Killian can have our room so he won’t have to climb the stairs.”

David sets to work getting the metal tub moved and filled with water, while Mary Margaret dishes up bowls of reheated stew for Emma and Killian. His hands are shaking as he spoons the food into his mouth, slopping some into his unkempt beard. “Sorry,” he apologizes. 

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Mary Margaret says, as Emma dabs the spill away with the cloth. “Just don’t eat too fast. Your stomach is going to have to get used to having adequate food in it again.” He nods in understanding, giving her another look of gratitude when she sets a plate containing several slices of bread between him and Emma. 

They’re just finishing their meal when David rejoins them in the kitchen, announcing that the bath is ready. He offers to help the other man bathe, and it’s a testament to how weary and weak Killian is that he accepts. 

Once the men leave the room, the women have a whispered conversation. “Do you think there’s any chance they’ll find him here?” asks Mary Margaret. 

“I really don’t think so. We were very careful and diligent about not leaving any evidence behind. You and David taught us well.” 

“How did you find him?”

“I kept moving from camp to camp, working as a nurse. If I didn’t find him in one place, I would move on.”

“You were very fortunate to find him when you did. If you arrived even one day later…” 

“I don’t even want to think about that,” Emma shudders. “I came so close to losing him.”

Mary Margaret reaches over and pats her hand. “But you did not. That is the important thing.” 

“Now we need to help him recover, and I fear it is going to take a long time. He is very weak. There were times when I was afraid he would not have enough strength to make it here.” 

“I suppose you will not want to be far from him tonight,” Mary Margaret observed. At Emma’s confirmation, she added, “We can set up a cot for you just outside the bedroom so you will be able to hear him, should he need you.”

By the time the two of them retrieve the cot from the attic and take it downstairs, David is exiting the bedroom with a concerned look on his face. “A couple of his wounds appear to be infected, but I can’t be sure until we see them in the daylight. I cleaned them the best I could and bandaged them. I know you wanted to tend to him tonight, but he is utterly exhausted, so I already helped him to bed.” 

“That is probably for the best,” Mary Margaret says. “I think we all need to get some sleep. Emma is going to sleep on the cot so she can be there for him if he needs her.” 

“Do you want me to fill the tub with clean water so you can take a bath, too?” David asks Emma. 

“No, I will just take a sponge bath using the water in the basin. I’m so tired, I would probably fall asleep in the tub.” 

Husband and wife empty the water from the tub and carry it out, then set up the cot in the kitchen and cover it with bed linens, while Emma washes up and changes out of the filthy, stolen set of clothes into a soft, flannel nightgown. Releasing her hair from the tight bun, she brushes the snarls and tangles out of her long blonde tresses, then, after bidding her brother and sister-in-law goodnight, goes into the bedroom. 

Sitting on the edge of the bed, she observes her love by the dim light of the kerosene lamp on the nightstand. His face is relaxed in sleep, but she can still see the cuts and bruises marring it. Tenderly, she reaches over and brushes some strands of still damp hair away from his brow. Leaning down, she brushes kisses to his cheeks and lips. “You are safe now, my love,” she whispers. “No one is ever going to take you from me again.” 

After watching him sleep for a few more minutes, she moves out to the cot, climbs between the soft, clean sheets, and falls into the first deep sleep she’s had since she said goodbye to Killian months ago. 

*********

Emma is awakened in the middle of the night when Killian begins groaning loudly and thrashing around in the bed. She throws back the blanket and rushes into the bedroom, distressed when her hand touches his forehead and feels the heat radiating from it. 

Quickly, she goes back into the kitchen and pumps more water into the basin, adding a couple of washcloths to it before carrying it into the bedroom. Nudging the extinguished lantern aside, she makes room for the basin on the nightstand. 

She wrings out the first cloth, folds it, and lays it across Killian’s forehead, then repeats the process to lay one on his chest. He begins mumbling, but she doesn’t think he’s quite awake. Leaning down, she speaks into his ear, “What do you need, my love?” 

He runs his tongue over his dry, cracked lips, murmuring, “Thirsty.” 

Returning to the kitchen, she fills a glass with water and brings it back. She slides her arm behind his back to help raise him up, tears coming to her eyes once again when she feels the sharpness of his shoulder blades through his nightshirt. 

He gulps the water thirstily and thanks her, before she lowers him back to the mattress and kisses his feverish brow. After returning the glass to the kitchen, she refreshes the washcloths with cool water, then sits down on the wooden chair beside the bed, turning to face him. She sleeps fitfully the rest of the night, reapplying the cloths and checking his temperature a few more times.

Once the morning light begins filtering in through the thin curtains, Emma dresses hurriedly and goes into the kitchen to find Mary Margaret already preparing dough to make bread. She looks up at Emma with a smile that fades when she sees the worried look on her face. 

“What’s wrong?” Mary Margaret asks, pulling her hands out of the dough and wiping them on a towel. 

“Killian has had a fever all night. I’m afraid he does have an infection.” 

“Is he awake?” 

“Not yet. I know we need to examine him more thoroughly, but he needs his rest, too. Do you think I should wake him?” 

Mary Margaret ponders for a moment. “Let him sleep a while longer. David has gone out to ride the perimeter of the property. When he gets back, we will find out what he thinks we should do.” 

Emma pinches off a small piece of dough and pops it into her mouth. “Is he making sure we weren’t followed?” 

“He knows you were careful, he just doesn’t want to take any chances,” Mary Margaret explains, beginning to shape the dough into small loaves. 

Upon hearing a sound from the bedroom, Emma turns and hurries in there. She finds Killian sitting on the side of the bed with his feet on the floor, his head hanging down and his hands gripping the edge of the mattress. 

She steps in front of him, cupping his face in her hands and gently lifting it. “Good morning, my love. How are you feeling?” 

He manages a weak smile. “Much better, being here with you, Love,” he says, his voice rough with sleep and fever.

Combing her fingers through his hair, she asks, “Do you want some breakfast?” 

“Aye, that sounds good.” 

Emma discreetly runs the back of her hand over his forehead, troubled to still find it overly warm. “Do you need help getting dressed?” 

“Trying to peek at me naked, are you?” he jokes weakly. 

Despite her concern, she still blushes and can’t help but smile. He has always had a knack for making her laugh, and she’s pleased to see he hasn’t lost his sense of humor. “I’m just trying to be helpful.” 

He turns his face to press a kiss into her palm. “You are helpful, and also very beautiful. My beautiful saviour.” 

Her heart swells at his words and all she can think to say is, “I love you.” 

“And I, you.” 

She dips her head and brushes a kiss to his cheek. Leaning her forehead against his, she sighs. “I cannot believe I actually found you and we made it back home. There were times when I thought I…” The emotion makes her breath catch in her throat. “...I would never see you again.” 

“You can’t get rid of me that easily, Emma. You should know by now that I’m a survivor.” 

“The order of execution did give me pause.” 

“Point taken.” 

She soaks in a little more time of being able to touch him, before declaring, “I’ll go upstairs and get some clothes for you.”

“Thank you, Love.” 

Giving him one more kiss, she exits the room. David is stomping his feet off on the mat inside the kitchen door. “Is everything secure?” she asks. 

“As far as I can tell,” he answers. “How is Killian this morning?” 

“He is carrying a fever, but it does not seem to be as bad as it was in the middle of the night. I’m going to get clothes for him. Could you please go in and check on him?” 

“Of course,” David agrees, already heading toward the bedroom. 

Emma goes to the cedar chest, where Mary Margaret keeps extra clothes for anyone in their spy network who is in need of them. Kneeling down before the chest, she takes the opportunity to send up a prayer of gratitude and also a plea for healing. Killian may be putting on a brave front, but she knows him. He’s weak and in pain; far from the strong, robust man he was months ago, before he went undercover behind enemy lines. 

Gathering the shirt and knickers into her arms, she descends the creaking stairs, finding Mary Margaret removing the bread from the oven. “Is David still in with Killian?” Emma asks. 

“Yes. He came out to get some clean water, whiskey and towels. He said Killian has wounds showing signs of infection and he has heard that pouring alcohol on them helps.” 

Emma grimaces. “That sounds like it would be painful.” 

“Not as painful as amputation, should the infection get worse,” Mary Margaret notes quietly. 

Emma’s face pales as she thinks about the possibility. The wound around his left wrist, caused by the ropes with which he was tied, is especially concerning; the flesh around it red and angry, while the wound itself appears to be festering. 

“David said Killian is relaying information to him about the enemy’s position and strategies. Even being held for execution, he was gathering vital information. That man of yours is a model of bravery, Emma.” 

Now her chest swells with pride, but the moment is interrupted by a hoarse curse coming from the bedroom. “Bloody hell, David! That bloody hurts!” 

The two women share a concerned, and slightly amused, look. “At least he has a little fire in his voice,” Emma comments. 

Her sister-in-law nods in agreement before asking, “Should I prepare a tray of food for him?” 

“I’m sure Killian will insist on joining us out here. He won’t want you making a fuss over him.” 

“He deserves to be fussed over, after all he’s gone through.” 

“I agree, but you know he won’t see it that way.” 

Emma approaches the bedroom door and taps on it lightly. At David’s permission to enter, she pushes it open and peeks in. “I have some clean clothes.”

“Bring them in, I just finished treating his wounds,” David says, tying off a bandage around Killian’s wrist. 

Emma’s eyes scan over her love’s form as he sits slumped on the side of the bed. He looks up and manages to give her a small smile. “Thank you, Love.” 

She deposits the clothes on the bed beside him and catches David’s eye, communicating silently with him to ask about Killian’s condition. The grim set of his mouth and slight shoulder shrug tells her he shares her concern about the other man. 

Emma picks up the shirt, unfolds it, and carefully pulls it over Killian’s head. David helps guide his arms into the sleeves, Emma ties it, and a lump forms in her throat when she sees how loosely it hangs on him. Mere months ago, he would have easily filled it out with his muscular physique. The stolen shirt was also baggy on him, but she tried to reason that the man to whom it belonged must have been much bigger than Killian. Now, there’s no denying that he has indeed lost a substantial amount of weight during his captivity, and her hatred toward the soldiers of his former homeland intensifies. 

She holds out the remaining clothes to David. “Please help him put these on while I go help Mary Margaret get breakfast on the table,” she says, knowing her voice sounds gruff from the raw emotion she’s feeling. 

Turning on her heel, she exits the room. 

*********

The next two days for Killian are a series of ups and downs. He continues to run a fever, sometimes mumbling deliriously because of it. His stomach repels the food he eats ravenously, the vomiting causing his already dangerously weak body to weaken even further. Heedless of the custom dictating unmarried couples not sleep together in the same room, they move the cot into the bedroom so Emma can get to Killian more quickly when he needs her aid. 

There are far too many moments when she wonders if they escaped and made the dangerous trek back home, only for him to die anyway. 

Yet, in the mornings, after a good night’s rest, he’s fairly alert and his endearing personality comes shining through. They’re relieved to see his wounds responding to their careful treatment, the fiery looking skin around them returning to normal as the infection ebbs away. 

On the third morning after their return, Emma is awakened by Mary Margaret rushing into the bedroom, shaking Emma’s shoulder as she whispers urgently, “Get up! David just found signs of someone being on the property, and we need to get the two of you down to the root cellar!” 

“Enemy soldiers?” Emma asks, throwing off the covers, her heart in her throat. 

“He does not know, but he also does not want to take any chances. He and Leroy have gone out again to see if they can find anything else, and he wants me to get the two of you into the cellar.”

Emma pulls her robe on and ties the belt, then slides her stocking feet into her shoes. Mary Margaret is trying to rouse Killian, but it’s proving to be a difficult task. “Gather as many quilts and blankets as you can and go down to the cellar to try to make up a bed for him on the floor,” she instructs Emma, her voice still a whisper but full of tense anxiety.

Emma hurries to do as she’s told, emptying the linen closet under the stairs. It takes two trips down the steep, rickety steps to get everything to the dank root cellar. The pungent smell of earth and unwashed vegetables fills her nose as she tosses the thick quilts on the ground in the corner under the stairs, quickly straightening them the best she can and dragging sacks of grain over to use as pillows, before dashing back upstairs. 

Mary Margaret has managed to get Killian standing and into a pair of breeches. She’s just tugging a heavy, knitted sweater over his head, his arms sliding sluggishly into the sleeves, when Emma re-enters the room. She grabs his boots from under the bed and works to get them on his feet. 

When he’s dressed, the two women half drag him to the opening in the kitchen floor between the fireplace and the stairway, which leads to the cellar. Emma moves down the steps backwards so she can help guide Killian with her hands on his hips, while Mary Margaret is behind him, supporting him under his arms. As they struggle to keep him moving, they both give him quiet encouragement, praying they can get him out of sight in time. 

It seems to take an eternity until he finally sets foot on the packed dirt floor. As they maneuver him behind the stairs and lower him to the pile of quilts, Mary Margaret whispers, “There is a lantern and matches on the shelf, but only light it if absolutely necessary because it might show between the floorboards. As soon as I get back upstairs, I will get a basket of food together and bring it down to you. Oh, and there’s a chamber pot under the table.”

“How long do you think we will have to stay down here?” Emma questions. 

“I do not know, but it’s better to be prepared in case it ends up being a while. Please remember to stay as quiet as possible,” she reminds them needlessly. After squeezing Emma’s hand, she turns and bustles up the stairs, dropping the door down behind her. 

Emma and Killian are left in complete darkness, and she fights to tamp down the panic tightening her chest. Her eyes work to adjust, beginning to make out the shapes of objects around her with help from the tiny slivers of light sneaking through the floorboards overhead.

She turns her attention to the man lying on the pile of quilts, head resting against a burlap bag of grain. He’s still feverish, and she fears the dampness of the cellar is going to exacerbate his condition. Her hands grope for the pile of blankets she had dropped carelessly to the floor. 

As she unfolds one blanket after another and lays them over him, she listens for any sounds coming from above. Everything is muted, but all she can hear are shuffling footsteps she’s sure are Mary Margaret’s. 

Soon, the room is flooded with light again when the trap door is lifted. Emma rises and hurries to the bottom of the steps to take the basket of food and pitcher of water from her sister-in-law’s hands.

“I think I heard David and Leroy’s horses returning to the barn,” Mary Margaret tells her. “Hopefully they have some good news and you will not have to stay down here very long.” 

Before Emma can answer, Mary Margaret returns to the kitchen, leaving them in darkness once again. Emma cautiously picks her way back across the floor, setting the food and water down when she senses she’s back at Killian’s side, then sits down herself. 

“Killian,” she whispers into his ear, “you need to drink some water. Can you sit up?” 

He pushes himself up, groaning with the effort. Since she doesn’t have a cup to pour the water into, she holds the rim of the pitcher to his lips, slowly tipping it up until he’s swallowing the liquid. She gives him several sips before he pulls back and taps her arm to signify he’s had enough. 

“Do you want something to eat?” she asks, but he’s already dropped back down to the makeshift bed. 

“Not…right…now,” he forces out through chattering teeth.  

“Are you cold?” 

“A…bit.” 

She already used all of the blankets to cover him, so she does the only thing left she can think to do to help him get warm. Peeling back the blankets, she stretches her body out alongside his and pulls the covers up over both of them, then wraps her arms around his thin frame and buries her face into the crook of his neck, breathing warmth against his skin. 

Soon she can tell he has fallen asleep, but she remains awake and alert. All is quiet upstairs, but just as she’s dozing off, she hears muffled pounding on the back door. Her eyes pop open and her breath catches in her throat. 

Murmuring voices reach her ears and she strains to listen, but can’t make out anything that’s being said. Heavy boots thud across the floor, and Emma holds her breath, praying whoever is up there doesn’t discover the trap door beneath the innocuous-looking braided rug. 

The voices increase in volume and she can catch a word here and there. “...nobody…sister…left yesterday…” she hears David saying. 

Another deep voice, obviously a man’s, responds, “...proof…evidence…escaped…” And then the word that makes her heart stop “...traitor.” 

She hears doors slamming and wonders if Mary Margaret had time to hide the cot before their unwanted visitors arrived. She has to believe she did, since her sister-in-law has plenty of experience with hiding evidence. Their spy ring has been active since the beginning of the rebellion, and they’ve had a few close calls, but they haven’t lost anyone yet. 

Killian shifts in his sleep, letting out a soft moan, and Emma swiftly covers his mouth with her hand. Chances of anyone upstairs hearing him are almost nil, but she doesn’t want to tempt fate. 

Disconcerting noises continue for what seems like an indeterminable amount of time, until at last, the door slams and silence settles again. Emma strains to hear anything, but there is absolutely no sound at all. She should feel relieved, but she’s worried for her brother and his wife. What if they’ve been taken by the soldiers? If they have, will they become prisoners of the British army? Unbidden tears fill her eyes at the thought, and she forces herself not to think along those lines.

It is several minutes before she realizes she still has her hand over Killian’s mouth. She removes it and strokes his cheek, allowing herself to enjoy the prickling of his beard against her palm. 

She has no idea how much time passes until she hears the sounds of someone entering the house and her entire body tenses. If the soldiers have come back to search again and find the hidden cellar door, she and Killian are helpless and will without a doubt be captured…or killed. 

Her heart is pounding so loudly she’s afraid she’ll give them away, when she hears light tapping on the floor above them. Three knocks, followed by two and then two more in quick succession. She wants to hope, but what if it’s a trick? 

Then she hears Mary Margaret’s voice through the floorboards. “It’s me, Emma. They’re still on the property, so stay put.” 

They stay hidden in the cellar the rest of that day. Emma is eventually able to get Killian to eat and walk in small circles around the crates of vegetables, but most of their time is spent lying on the nest of quilts. In between fitful spurts of sleep, they have whispered conversations and cuddle together. Emma understands the danger they’re in, but she has to admit she doesn’t mind the time spent in Killian’s arms. 

Later in the evening, Mary Margaret brings down more food and water and tells them that David is pretty sure the soldiers are long gone, but as a precaution, recommends they stay in the cellar overnight since they could be waiting to see if there’s any movement from the house after dark. After her sister-in-law goes back upstairs, Emma lets tears of exhaustion and relief pour down her face as she buries it in Killian’s chest. 

*********

David and Leroy thoroughly inspect the property early the next morning to ensure the soldiers have moved on. Once they return to the house and give the all clear, the two men help Killian back up the steps. While Mary Margaret and Emma collect the blankets and begin making breakfast, David fills the metal bathtub and assists Killian into it. Being in the cellar all that time is surely detrimental to his recovery, and they want to drive the chill and dampness from his body with a long soak in hot water. 

Mary Margaret fills Emma in on the men who searched the house and barn as they fry eggs and slices of ham. “It seems they sent men more interested in finding something of value to steal, rather than finding the two of you, because they were looking in places where it would be impossible to hide - inside cupboards, behind the stove, in dresser drawers. If the situation hadn’t been so nerve wracking, I would have laughed at their blatant disregard for their mission.”

Emma manages a small smile, knowing if the British would have sent doggedly determined men like Colonel Sitwell and Sergeant Gold, she and Killian would surely have been discovered.

“It was our good fortune that they were more preoccupied with burglary, though,” Mary Margaret continues. “I do not think they realized that a house can have a cellar beneath it. As many times as they tramped across the kitchen floor, they did not notice the hollow sound of it.” 

“The search seemed to take an eternity and I do not think I breathed the entire time,” Emma states. 

“I was holding my breath, too. That is the closest call we have ever had.”

They are plating the food when David comes out of the bedroom, carrying a bucket of the bathwater. “Killian wants to join us in the kitchen for breakfast,” he informs them, before emptying the bucket outside. 

“He is feeling up to it?” Emma asks, a hint of worry in her voice. 

“He says he’s tired of being a bother to everyone. And yes,” he adds quickly when he sees Emma getting ready to object, “I assured him that is not true, but you know he is stubborn.” 

“Yes,” Emma agrees, “but his stubbornness is what kept him alive.” 

David nods with a grin and disappears into the bedroom again. Emma and Mary Margaret share a smile and finish putting the food on the table, eager for the four of them to be eating together again, just as they had so many other times.

On the eve before Killian left to infiltrate enemy lines, he shared a hearty meal with Mary Margaret, David and Emma. 

“We double checked the route Killian will take to try to find the British encampment,” David said between bites of his hash. “He should be able to follow the river almost the entire way.” 

Emma blinked rapidly to keep the tears from falling. She had seen many spies off on missions, and had been sent herself, but this time was different. This time, it was the man she loved who was putting himself in danger. 

She felt his knee bump against hers under the table and knew he was well aware of her thoughts. He always seemed to be able to read her like an open book. Swallowing hard, she turned to look at him, valiantly forcing a smile onto her face. He returned it with one of his own, though it didn’t quite reach his beautiful, blue eyes. 

They finished their dinner, speaking of mundane topics to skirt around the issue that was weighing heavy on all of their minds. Afterwards, Mary Margaret waved away Emma’s offer to help clean the kitchen, and Emma knew it was because her sister-in-law understood her desire to have some time alone with Killian. 

The two of them walked outside, enjoying the evening’s cool respite after the heat of the mid-June day. 

“You plan to leave at daybreak?” Emma questioned, already knowing the answer. 

“Aye. The sooner I depart, the sooner I will be able to come back to you.” He took her hand and brought it to his lips. “There’s not a day will go by I won’t think of you.” 

“Good,” she replied with a slight smile. 

They continued walking until they were on the back side of the barn, out of sight of the house. Killian turned and took both of Emma’s hands. “I will miss you, Love.” 

“Promise me you will be careful and will come back to me.” 

“I will try my best, but you know as well as I that what we do is dangerous. Extremely important, but dangerous.”

She nodded solemnly, casting her eyes down to the ground. After several moments, she looked back up at him. “If we do not receive any communication from you for more than a month, I will come looking for you.” 

“Emma…” 

“You know you would do the same for me,” she interrupted, before he could object.

“Of course I would, but we do not know exactly where I will be.” 

“It does not matter. Wherever it is, I will find you.” Wrapping her arms around him, she pressed her cheek, damp with tears, to his chest. “I will always find you.” 

Returning her embrace, he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I love you, Emma.” 

“I love you, too.” Turning her face up to his, she added, “We probably will not have any time to ourselves tomorrow morning, so I want to give you something now.” 

His brows rose in question. “What is it, Love?” 

“This,” she said, then pushed up onto her toes to press her lips to his. It was a tenderly sweet kiss, expressing all the love, fear and longing they shared, and neither wanted it to end. When it finally did, she pulled him close again. “Take that with you to remember that I am here, waiting for you.” 

The next morning after a quick breakfast, Killian mounted his horse, pressed his fingers to his lips and waved goodbye to her. She wouldn’t see him again for more than three long, agonizing months.

*********

Two mornings later, Emma opens her eyes and immediately rolls over to face Killian. His eyes are also open, and she can see that they appear clear, bright, rested and fever-free. 

She wastes no time throwing back the covers and getting off of the cot to go to his bedside. “Good morning, my love. You look like you feel better.” 

Pushing himself up onto his elbow, he gives her a lopsided grin. “I do feel like I have re-entered the land of the living.” 

Emma sits on the side of the bed, brushing his shaggy hair out of his eyes while releasing a sigh of relief. “I was beginning to wonder when you would decide to stop making us coddle you,” she teases, her heart lighter than it has been for as long as she can remember.

“Do you mean to tell me that by recovering, I will be giving up my chance to be coddled?” he asks, flopping back down onto his pillow. “Perhaps I haven’t thoroughly thought this through.” 

She leans over and boldly presses a kiss to his lips. “I believe there are better ways for me to pay attention to you, than by nursing you back to health,” she says, only pulling away far enough to look into his beloved cerulean eyes. 

“Do tell,” he grins, reaching up to twist a lock of her hair around his finger. 

A knock on the door interrupts their private moment, and Emma sighs for an entirely different reason. Killian finds her hand and brings it to his lips. “Best answer that, Love.” 

She nods in resignation, rising from his bed and grabbing her robe from the nail beside the door. Once she has cinched the belt around herself, she opens the door to find Mary Margaret on the other side. 

“How is the patient this morning?” 

“Much improved,” Killian answers for himself. 

Mary Margaret steps into the room to see for herself. “Oh Killian, you do look better!” 

“Back to my devilishly handsome self?” he cheeks. “After all, the bloody Brits pretty much knocked the handsome out of me.” 

“No army is that powerful,” Emma assures him, earning her a warm, loving smile. 

She knows he still has a long recovery ahead, but it relieves her to see that he finally appears to have turned the corner. 

*********

It takes several months for Killian to completely regain his strength and health. He stays with David and Mary Margaret during his recovery, so he and Emma are able to spend every day together while their relationship continues to deepen and flourish. 

One day, when Killian is almost fully recovered, he asks Emma to take a walk with him after the evening meal. She can tell that something is on his mind, and when she questions him about it, he turns to face her, gently clasping both of her hands. Then he slowly lowers himself to one knee and Emma gasps, realizing what he intends to do. 

Looking up into her beautiful face, he says, “Emma, I know that we face an uncertain future, but there is one thing I want you to be certain of - that I always, always want to be by your side. So…Emma Nolan, will you marry me?” 

“Oh, Killian,” she begins, tears already escaping her eyes and trickling down her cheeks, “you know how much I love you, but are you sure this is the right time? We still do not know when or how this conflict is going to end.”

“That is exactly why I think we should get married. I do not want to waste any of the time I could have as your husband, because we have no guarantee how many years we may have together. I love you, Emma, and I don’t want to wait any longer to marry you, but if you do not want…”

“No, Killian,” Emma interrupts firmly. “I am not saying I do not want to marry you, because I do, with every fiber of my being. I just do not know if we should take the time to plan a wedding, when there is still so much work to do for the cause.” 

“I understand how important our work is, but you are more important to me.”

Emma sinks to her knees and frames his face with her hands, scratching her nails lovingly through his beard. “And you to me, my love. You are right - we should not let what is happening around us dictate our lives. So yes, Killian, I will marry you and be the proudest and happiest woman alive.”

Killian huffs out a relieved breath and flashes her a dimpled grin, before dipping his head to claim her lips in a celebratory kiss. No one knew what the future held, but the newly engaged couple was sure that whatever it was, they would face it together. 

*********

The conflict, which becomes known as the Revolutionary War, will drag on for another six years. The spy ring organized and aided by David and Mary Margaret will operate until the end, providing important intel to the Continental army. After their close call, Emma and Killian won’t risk going behind enemy lines again, but continue to work tirelessly for the cause nonetheless. 

One evening, nearly a year after Killian’s capture, their daring escape, and his lengthy recuperation, he and Emma sit on the rickety wooden steps leading up to the back entry to David and Mary Margaret’s home. They watch the sun set with golden spangled light on the field and trees of this land for which they are fighting, and for which he nearly died, fingers twined together and Emma’s head lying on Killian’s shoulder. They are in the process of working with David to save the money to purchase a few acres next to he and Mary Margaret’s property, where they will build a home of their own, when the fighting is over, and hopefully the colonies are left to self-govern.

Emma sighs, in as near a state of perfect contentment as she can remember feeling in some time. There were many dark moments in the last months, and even years, and she knows better than to think the future will be perfect or easy. But the hope that feeds her, bolstered by the strength of their love, is a source of joy that she trusts will endure through any challenge. She might once have thought hope and true love fanciful notions from fairy tales rather than the stuff of real life. 

It’s true that people often speak of hope as if it’s this delicate, ephemeral thing made of whisper and spider’s web. She knows better though, after what they have been through. Hope is not fragile or fleeting. Hope has dirt on her face, blood on her knuckles, the grit of the cobblestones in her hair, and just spat out a tooth as she rises for another go. But that’s the beauty of it; hope will always get up and start again.

Killian’s arm around her lends the warmth of any blanket as he draws her closer to his side, murmuring his love for her into the skin at her temple before placing a chaste kiss there as well. The fight may not yet be over, but that time will come. They will see the battle through and celebrate that day - a happy beginning - together.

*********

Tagging a few who might enjoy: @searchingwardrobes @kmomof4 @jennjenn615 @whimsicallyenchantedrose @laschatzi @apiratewhopines @anmylica @stahlop @bdevereaux @xsajx @bluewildcatfanatic @gingerchangeling @gingerpolyglot @spartanguard @therooksshiningknight @optomisticgirl @tiganasummertree @teamhook @revanmeetra87 @booksteaandtoomuchtv @kazoosandfannypacks @xarandomdreamx @motherkatereloyshipper @winterbaby89 @justanother-unluckysoul @the-darkdragonfly @donteattheappleshook @elizabeethan @darkcolinodonorgasm @hollyethecurious @artistic-writer @killian-whump @cocohook38 @wefoundloveunderthelight @drowned-dreamer

[statustemporary]

a work of art

SUMMARY: The swipes are precise. Hundreds litter her canvas with red streaks standing out against their pale background. Some are superficial while others gouge unsalvageable marks. Drips are unavoidable, Emma concedes, but the origin of these are the source of irritation.

Her job is not done. She has to work with these flaws to craft something he will be proud of. He is the experienced one, after all.

//

Emma and Killian are low-key serial killers but if you ask them, they're artists in love.

RATING: Mature

WORD COUNT: 1,686 words

TAGS: Modern AU, Serial Killers AU, Graphic Descriptions, Blood & Gore, Implied/Referenced Torture, Anti-Neal Cassidy, no magic, Dark Emma, Dark Killian, Toxic Relationship

AO3

AUTHOR’S NOTE: got this idea from a whumptober prompt that was like "did i do good?" with a mentor/trainee and i misread the rest of the prompt and ended up turning it into a torture trainee wanting to please their mentor. and here we are. lol started out with dark ones but turned them into just serial killers.

this was a way for me to get into the head of someone twisted/evil. promise i'm mentally sane and emotionally okay, this was a writing exercise of sorts. pls dont worry hahaha

Please heed the warnings.

***

“I always have to clean up your messes,” she mutters to herself angrily, eyes glaring down at the red liquid on the floor. The deep color shines vibrantly in the candlelight as it pools together and grows larger as the seconds tick by. She snarls at the sound of labored breathing from the center of the room and slowly trails her eyes up to examine her work.

The swipes are precise. Hundreds litter her canvas with red streaks standing out against their pale background. Some are superficial while others gouge unsalvageable marks. Drips are unavoidable, Emma concedes, but the origin of these are the source of irritation.

Her job is not done. She has to work with these flaws to craft something he will be proud of. He is the experienced one, after all.

Anger fuels her as she moves, her arm sweeping this direction and that. The movements are practiced and learned though she’s used different tools in the past. For the first time, he lets her take the lead and she cannot disappoint him. Especially after all the work he went through to procure such a magnificent canvas. A gift for her.

Weak protests fight to reach her ears but her focus drowns them out, thriving on each new mark she adds, each swipe and each gut-wrenching twist expressing the hurt and the anger she’s held onto for so many years.

When she steps back, it is with a grin.

Neal’s body rests sprawled across a stone table in the center of the room. His lays bare but it goes unnoticed as he shows more blood than skin. His labored breathing is replaced by silence, brown eyes turning an empty black.

Blood drips down to the small puddle at her feet. It grows larger with each tick of the hall clock and she frowns as it pools around her new heeled boot.

Of fucking course. Neal can never let her have anything.

The room smells rancid, blood and sweat permeating the air. Darkness blankets the room like it does her soul, only scarcely lit by a few candles hanging on the walls. Moonlight struggles to shine through the cracks in the concrete to no avail. Emma prefers the darkness now. She thrives in it.

Wailing echoes fill the quiet.

The metal of her dagger is warm in her grip and she shakes her head at the blood that covers the blade. At least that’ll be easier to clean than her leather boot.

She sets to work washing her tools, leaving the rest of the room as it is. She wants him to see how long she kept Neal alive to suffer. How he was aware of every single way she tarnished his body until the very end. The way his nails scratched at the stone so hard until they fell off revealing bloody nailbeds. That even in death, his eyes remained open from his terror.

He still got off easy, in her opinion.

There’s a noise, the muffled sound of a door closing and Emma’s head pops up in delight.

Killian grins wide when he sees her emerge from the basement, sleeves rolled to her elbows and hair pulled back in tight bun. They come together in a messy kiss that’s more tongues and teeth than lips.

She loves the way he loves her with abandon. Every time their mouths meet, he practically devours her and she gives as good as she gets. Fingers wrap around the hair at the base of his neck and she pulls while his hook traces lightly on her skin enough to draw blood but not do any serious harm. It sends chills down her spine every time.

His hands are greedy and he makes an attempt to lift her shirt but she steps out of his arms instead.

“Swan?” he asks, voice gruff and hair mused. He glares at her even if there’s no heat to it and Emma smiles back, nearly giggles.

“I want you to show you something.”

Her hand reaches towards him and he leaves her hanging for a moment. They both love the push and pull of their relationship. To tetter on the edge of a decision builds anticipation. Rejection is just a split-second away but so is acceptance. Not knowing which one will be chosen sends their hearts racing. It’s an effect of their upbringing, she knows. She did take a psychology class in community college after all.

It only makes sense, really. His abusive childhood with a drunk father and a brother dead too young and her untethered young life moving from foster home to foster home without any roots or support. Pain has been something out of their control for so long. Something always inflicted onto them unwillingly. But meeting each other in the back of their Psych 101 class all those years ago gave them a mutual understanding.

Pain can be something they command.

Killian had fallen first. They both tried, for the first year or two, to be better than what they came from. They wanted to have the picturesque life so many promised was to come but they struggled. Depression and temptation waited around every corner and they felt themselves falling into a pit they couldn’t climb out of.

And then Graham kissed her.

Killian and she had been on a break at the time. He was spiraling and Emma was trying to stay on track. Their tempers rose and, for the first time in her life, she walked out on someone else. Graham had been kind, sweet, and unassuming. He worked as a campus security guard and was helping her find her shitty car when he kissed her. Killian had been leaving his class and had a full view of the moment it happened. Emma pushing Graham away only did so much to soothe the anger in his soul.

Then Graham showed up dead a week later in the woods by campus, bruises on his head, marks around his throat, and his chest clawed open with no heart taking up its specified space.

She’d been mad when she realized what Killian did. She threatened to go to the police, even. And then she saw the crazed look in Killian’s eyes, the way he pleaded for her to understand.

“Emma,” he begged. “He crossed a line. You don’t understand. You’re mine. He thought he could have what’s mine.”

Through his tears, she saw the love, the possession. It warmed her to her toes. The unwanted foster kid – wanted by him. She swore she fell in love even more that day.

Emma would lay in bed with him at night and asked how he did it. She requested details, wanted to know every step he took. He would hold her close, his fingers leaving permanent marks on her hips, and she floated as he shared exactly what he did to ensure she stayed his.

It was another two years before he struck again, her by his side this time. Arthur was full of himself, an asshole to anyone who didn’t make more money than him, and dead set on evicting the entirety of their apartment building so he could sell the property to a developer. No one shed any tears at the announcement of his death.

Nearly ten years had gone by and yet this is the most exciting one for Emma. Neal was her white whale, so they say. He’d taken advantage of her sixteen years of life when he’d been nearing thirty and split the moment she found out she was pregnant. Took all her cash and the food she bought the day beforehand for their motel stay. She was left alone as she let go of the child she so desperately wanted to have. Even after he left her, she was still cleaning up his messes.

But now she stands in the kitchen she shares with Killian and raises her eyebrows as she bites her lip in wait. Will he take it or ignore it? Her heart races. Her breath hitches just a moment before he takes her offered hand and she contemplates bypassing her art project to ride him in the kitchen instead.

Bringing him to the basement, she waits in the doorway as Killian steps over the threshold. His eyes scan the room in a slow, calculating fashion. Leaning over Neal’s body, he hums as he takes in her work. Fingers trace her cuts, one dipping into the gaping hole in his side. There’s little left of his genitalia, the ferocious way it was obliterated earning a cocked eyebrow from Killian before he looks over to her with a grin. She blushes at the pride in his eyes.

The squelch from stepping in blood draws his attention to the floor. He dips his hand in the liquid and lifts his fingers to his face. The puddle grew from when she was in there a few minutes ago and Killian takes a good moment to examine it.

“Did I do good?” she asks, hands in her back pockets. Eagerness is undeniable in her voice.

Killian stands suddenly and marches towards her. He grips her hips – the cold metal of his hook sending a chill down her spine as Neal’s blood from his fingers smear across her skin – and pulls her in for a filthy kiss. Their bodies are flush but it’s not enough and the way his tongue strokes against her own has her frantically clawing at his pants.

Wailing echoes in the silence again and they pull apart only slightly dismayed.

The crying brings a spark to Killian’s eyes and Emma is torn between where each of their thoughts are going, both outcomes bound to bring her pleasure.

Killian presses another firm kiss to her lips before he tilts his head towards the other end of the basement where their special project waits for their return. His own white whale he somehow conquered and takes pride in making submit to him.

She knows the question before he asks so she merely grins wide at him as he speaks.

“Shall we go skin a crocodile?”

[statustemporary]

and we'll put on a show

SUMMARY: “I get everyone else doesn’t want to go back, I get it. It’s nice being together and having the comfortable mattress and soft pillows and literal palace. But, actually, no, you know what unsettles me the most about being here?” she rants one day while she paces her bed chambers. Hook casually lays on the chaise lounge under the window, spearing grapes with his hook before sliding them off with his mouth, a sight that becomes more and more dangerous the more she sees it. His shirt is unbuttoned to a staggering degree and his chest hair is more of a distraction than she ever thought such a thing could be.

“Ogres? Flying monkeys? Genies?” Hook offers without any real thought.

|| Emma didn't mean to alter Pan's curse. She just wanted to keep her family together. The Enchanted Forest is interesting and all, but it would've been great if her alterations kept them together in Storybrooke where there's hot showers and a McDonalds just past the town line.

RATING: Teen

WORD COUNT: 6,572 words

TAGS: Captain Swan, Fluff, Humor

AO3

AUTHOR'S NOTE: this was going to be a quick, fun, ridiculous kind of one-shot and here we are 6k+ later. also, apparently i have 187 different writing styles so i call this one "no backstory necessary".

sorry not sorry for what you're about to read.

heh :)

***

When Pan’s curse was coming and Emma tapped into her deep well of highly untrained, incredibly powerful, and equally chaotic magic, she didn’t know what to expect. All that had been on her mind was staying together – her, Henry, her parents, Regina, Neal, Hook… She didn’t care how it happened or where they were, all she focused on was not being left alone again.

Wish magic, Mother Superior had told her when the smoke dissipated and they were all in the Enchanted Forest. Wish magic is already powerful but paired with your magic, and the wish magic in your heart, it is something I’ve never seen before.

The prospect was daunting. As if being the Savior wasn’t enough, every time she turned around, she had more power than before and even less of a mind on how to use it.

It would’ve been nice if her magic worked well enough to keep them in Storybrooke with hot showers and cars and food already meal prepped. Instead she’s back to chomping on chimera when she’d kill for a bear claw or some Pringles.

“I get everyone else doesn’t want to go back, I get it. It’s nice being together and having the comfortable mattress and soft pillows and literal palace. But, actually, no, you know what unsettles me the most about being here?” she rants one day while she paces her bed chambers. Hook casually lays on the chaise lounge under the window, spearing grapes with his hook before sliding them off with his mouth, a sight that becomes more and more dangerous the more she sees it. His shirt is unbuttoned to a staggering degree and his chest hair is more of a distraction than she ever thought such a thing could be.

“Ogres? Flying monkeys? Genies?” Hook offers without any real thought.

“Wait. Genies are real too?!”

“Is there anything about this realm that doesn’t surprise you, Swan?”

Emma groans and stomps over to her bed, falling back onto it and letting her legs dangle off the side. Her trousers ride up her backside in the most uncomfortable way but she’s too focused on her frustration to bother fixing it. The clothes in the Enchanted Forest are surprisingly soft and durable with even more flexibility than she’s used to. But she misses jeans and sometimes she wants to wear a nice heel that makes her ass look great and gives her an extra two inches of height. The ball gowns are definitely not her thing, at least not the first fifteen dresses that resembled more puff balls than evening wear. The red dress that her mother pulled out for her though – that is an exception.

“Ugh, what really pisses me off is I’ll never know if the last Game of Thrones book ever gets finished and I’ll never know if Derek dies and I won’t get to watch the new Star Wars trilogy with Henry.”

Hook sits up, eyebrows raised high. “Who is Derek?”

Emma groans again and covers her face with her hands. “I can’t even complain to you because you don’t know.”

“It would be helpful if you explained it to me, love.”

His words are soft and gentle and the verbal equivalent of him offering a hand to stand up. It makes her shiver in a way that reminds her of when she was in middle school and Zackary Theed kissed her behind the bleachers when they should’ve been running the mile. The excitement of something so innocent and sweet.

Leaning up on her elbows, she catches the quick glance of Hook’s eyes on the sliver of stomach her shirt exposes with her movements. When his eyes meet hers a moment later, he smirks but holds back the usual heat, giving her his undivided attention.

The dynamic between herself and Hook has been… interesting, to say the least. Especially with the entirety of Storybrooke’s impromptu return to the Enchanted Forest. Her parents, as much as she loves them – because she is accepting that she’s starting to love them – are overwhelming. They’re trying to be comforting and supportive but they’re so excited to finally live this life with her that they’ve always imagined. They’ve talked of balls and suitors and learning to rule when all Emma wants is a nap and some alcohol.

Henry is taking everything in stride, happier than he’s ever been in all the time she’s known him. Not only does he have both moms in the same palace but he also has his dad, a whole stable of horses to choose from, and archery and sword fighting lessons are part of his curriculum now. All in all, it’s every kid’s fantasy come to life and he hasn’t thought once about Storybrooke.

Emma wishes she could say the same but she didn’t grow up here. This isn’t who she is and finding a happy medium to settle at gets more and more exhausting by the day.

She spent her first week in the castle putting her feelers out and trying to gauge the reaction to the town’s sudden relocation. While some townspeople missed the conveniences of Storybrooke, many of them were happy to be home.

Hook kept himself sparce during that first week. Not only did he want to give Emma time with her family and to begin to acclimate but he also needed to find his ship. She wasn’t sure if he’d come back once he got it. His confession in the Echo Caves and their exchange at the town line laid heavy on her mind and played in circles when she tried to sleep the first few nights. He had been honest from the start and never pushed her to reciprocate his feelings. Feelings which, though he might not believe it, are there.

But the pirate spent centuries on the sea and she doesn’t know, when it comes down to the sea or her, who the more satisfying temptress is.

It was during Hook’s absence that stretched from one week to three that Emma accepted her feelings for him ran deeper than pure attraction. She’d find herself in meetings with the council, looking around for his face only to not find it. A comment would slip just under her breath and his resulting chuckle was nowhere to be found. Loneliness crept over her shoulders like a rolling fog.

Everyone else here had… someone. And once again, Emma did not. Henry bounced around between all his parents and was doted on endlessly by everyone, and her parents divided their time with her and their many duties. Even the friends she made in Storybrooke didn’t feel like they were still hers as they fell back into the roles of councilors and advisors for the crown.

Then Hook came back after three weeks with his ship in the harbor and a bottle of spiced rum from a far-off land for them to share in secret and she felt the loneliness ebb away bit by bit. Rum wasn’t the only thing he returned with. No, he had bundles of fabrics and clothes from the far reaches of the realm and trinkets like seashells for her and Henry to use to replace their cell phones.

He promised her at the town line with a curse coming for them that a day wouldn’t go by that he didn’t think of her. The curse never came but the promise stayed true, his acquisitions showed.

Even now, as they lounge in her bed chambers in the high tower of the castle, his attention remains solely on her. The thought makes her cheeks warm and his gaze, when she meets it, churns a longing low in her stomach.

“Derek is from a television show called Grey’s Anatomy and it’s been rumored he might die this season but I’ve been so far behind that I don’t even know if he did and now I never will!” she groans. The lid has been lifted and now she can’t stop even as she watches Killian’s eyebrows rise higher and higher. “The new Star Wars movie coming out this year was supposed to be a special thing for me and Henry to do together and now we can’t even do that! We used to watch Brooklyn 99 and Law & Order: SVU and reruns of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air together because those were our things but now we don’t have a thing! How do I compete with sword fighting and horses and freaking Robin Hood?!”

“You can always bring the lad to the beanstalk.”

She bites back the urge to say the beanstalk is theirs and instead shakes her head. “I want something we can do where one of the potential risks isn’t plummeting to our deaths.”

Killian smirks and stabs another grape. “I did prevent your fall, love.”

Not quite, she thinks to herself before the thought immediately overwhelms her and she feels her walls reinforcing themselves. She likes Killian, like-likes him and all that grade school crush stuff. But she doesn’t love the guy. Their friendship is still on new ground having only become allies in Neverland. And that kiss…

That kiss is as indescribable now as it was then and her hand twitches in an ache to touch her lips at the memory.

Attraction and chemistry burning red hot is what exists between them. But love? No way.

Emma sits up as straight as the walls she’s reassembled around her heart. “You also hit me in the head with your hook.”

“You survived, didn’t you?”

I might not.

“The point is, while this move to the Enchanted Forest is great and all, we all get to be a…” she struggles to find the right word. Family should be easy to say but she’s still struggling on that front. Mary Margaret and David still don’t quite understand but they’re trying. She’s just not there yet. Emma swallows. “A unit. But this wasn’t my life and I just miss some of that stuff from the real world.”

Killian pauses in his grape escapade and eyes her carefully. “The world is just as real here as it was in your realm.”

Emma sighs and rubs her eyes with the heels of her hands. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Would you have stayed?” he asks after a moment of silence. “If you had the choice between Storybrooke and the Enchanted Forest – would you have stayed in Storybrooke?”

“What does it matter?” she says. “I didn’t have a choice.”

His tone edges on sad but he tries to keep it neutral, interested. “Humor an old pirate.”

“I don’t know, okay? There’s a lot that answer depends on.”

Hook eyes her. “What does it depend on?”

“A lot of things!” she fights back. He presses the question again and Emma erupts from her spot on the bed, angry that he won’t let this go, and starts to pace. “Things like where Henry would be, where my parents would be, where you –”

She cuts herself off fast, eyes wide and heart pounding through her chest. Hook stands slowly from his spot on the chaise and licks his lips in anticipation.

“Emma –”

“Mom!”

Henry comes barreling in the open door of her bedroom like a force of nature. Hair windswept and toothy grin on his face, Emma’s always glad to see her son so joyful but especially now when his appearance offers her an escape. “Hey, kid. What’s got you so happy?” She smiles softly at him while ignoring the holes Hook burns into the side of her head.

“I want to show you what Grandma taught me during archery today. It’s so cool, you have no idea.” It’s easy to agree to her son’s request and she moves to follow him out the door when he stops and turns to her companion. “Hook, do you want to check it out too? I bet you probably haven’t seen this in the last 300 years.”

The pirate in question must read the panic on Emma’s face and smiles sadly at Henry, coming close enough to drop his hand on the kid’s shoulder. “Unfortunately I have some business to attend to but if you don’t mind, I’d like to watch another day.”

“Aye, aye, capt’n!” Henry grins, salute and all, before he tugs Emma’s hand out the door. “Come on, we’re losing daylight and you won’t be able to see it in the dark!”

She feels the ghost of Hook’s fingers brushing her arm but she doesn’t look back.

*

Emma skillfully avoids Hook for just over two weeks. In all honesty, he might even be avoiding her with how little she’s seen him around the palace. Then again, she’s thrown herself wholeheartedly into learning her parents’ duties for the kingdom.

But then his ship is gone from the harbor and David has suddenly taken up Mary Margaret’s pastime of sending birds with notes so all evidence points to him leaving. Not that she blames him, no, after all, everyone leaves her eventually. Their relationship is confusing enough for her, she can only imagine he’s gotten fed up with her walls stacking themselves higher with every step forward.

Still, she thought his words before the curse would’ve lasted a little longer than this.

Loneliness sneaks up on her quick but this time she welcomes it with open arms. She has no right to Hook’s heart, not when she keeps pushing him away and hurting him. No sane man would stick around for more of that torture. No sane man has that kind of patience.

Then again, he did stay alive for over 300 years to exact vengeance on his enemy.

Nevertheless, the chaise in her bedchambers stays empty and all she has to rely on is the memories of his mouth fitting perfectly against hers in Neverland and how his breath puffed against her cheek and the absolute fuckstruck expression on his face as he was ready to dive in for more before she put a stop to it. His innuendos and never-ending confidence in her abilities echo inside her mind in the silence of her room and his presence haunts the halls as she leaves enough space to her left for where he would’ve walked.

The first time she lays eyes on him after she ran out of her room is nearly four weeks later and she only catches a glimpse of him from afar.

His ship isn’t in the harbor, that much she knows. Her bedchambers have the perfect set of windows to overlook the water and she’d lie if anyone asked but her morning routine has consisted of checking each ship docked below.

That doesn’t have to mean much, she rationalizes. His ship could be out in the water and he took a dingy to shore so he could make an easy getaway. Afterall, he did leave on the Jolly Roger four weeks ago without a single farewell to her.

Whatever the reason for his probable short stint back in Misthaven, David greets him far from spying eyes and listening ears. Even the roll of her wrist and warmth of magic bubbling in her palm does nothing to reveal the secret conversation between the two men as they travel far from the castle.

They don’t return for hours, which piques her interest. One thing she’s learnt about David, especially since coming to the Enchanted Forest, is that dinner is a requirement for all. To miss dinner means you better be sick or dying. So for the man of the hour to miss the meal completely and for Mary Margaret to not raise a single eyebrow at his absence has her mind whirling.

Emma corners David later that night when he sneaks to the kitchens for a midnight snack. Her nerves have been unsettled all evening and she falls back into her typical stakeout habits which includes eating terrible food while lying in wait for her prey. Of course it’s the Enchanted Forest though and junk food consists of a few sweets and maybe bread.

God, she misses McDonalds.

David jumps in fright when he spots her at the prep island in the main kitchen. He smiles tiredly a few moments later, steals some bread, swipes her butter knife, and closes his eyes contently as he eats.

“Are the ogres angry? Are they going to start another war?” she finally blurts out when the wait gets too long and the silence eats at her center. “Did you send Hook to prepare the troops?”

Silence answers her at first. David looks at her in confusion before a deep understanding settles so serenely on his face that Emma’s instinct is to run. Instead, she swallows it down and focuses on the part of her being nagged by Hook’s abrupt absence and silent return recently.

Shaking his head in amusement, David says, “Everything is peaceful here. You don’t have to worry about that.”

“So where did you send Killian?”

“Killian?” David replies, eyebrows raised but his amusement not flagging in the slightest. He looks like he wants to talk, or maybe just tease her about her slip-up, but Emma rolls her eyes in return and speaks before he gets a chance.

“So where did you send Hook?”

“I didn’t send him anywhere.”

She presses, barely able to keep the frustration out of her voice. “Then where did he go?”

The air in the kitchen shifts. There’s a prickling starting on the back of Emma’s neck and her senses go on alert as David gives her his full and undivided attention.

“Since when have you started caring where Killian goes in his free time?”

She fumbles. Her mouth refuses to function and her brain can barely think of a coherent response. “I – I don’t.”

“Mhmm…”

David’s stare bores holes into the side of her head as she darts her gaze elsewhere. She feels like she just got caught lying by her father which… she guesses is accurate on all accounts. Even if the admission is only to herself, her stomach clenches uncomfortably and her throat dries.

When did she start to see Killian – Hook – as someone to care about? Was it when he turned his ship around and brought them to the one place he swore he’d never return to just to help her save her kid? Was it their kiss, hot and heavy under the humid jungle leaves, a magnetic connection that called to each other so strongly it took a herculean effort for her to walk away?

Or maybe it was when they were at the town line and he told her he’d think of her every day and, when her magic decided to do its own thing, he stuck by her side. He never asked for more than what she was willing to give, every day learning more and more about her limits, her likes and dislikes. Instead, they found refuge in one another. For as much time as he spent around royals, first under their command then stealing from their stores, he felt as uncomfortable as she did within the palace walls and the pomp and circumstance surrounding it all.

He suddenly became one of the most important people in her life without her even realizing it and the thought takes her breath away.

David gives her a soft smile before stepping up to her frozen frame, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, and pulling her close to press a firm kiss to the top of her head. She allows him without a fight, subconsciously leaning into his warmth and fatherly comfort, closing her eyes briefly. His whispers act as a soothing balm to her broken soul. So many breaks, so much pain. Yet his presence begins to fill the cracks.

“It’ll be fine, Emma. Just talk to him.”

She listens to his words, soaking in her father at her side. For once, it’s not overwhelming or uncomfortable. It almost starts to feel like coming home.

*

Of course, because she’s Emma, she doesn’t actually make an effort to talk to Killian the next day. Or the day after that. The conversation that’ll ensue requires courage she’s struggling to find.

Instead, she watches from windows and around corners as he is friendly with Henry and Neal, strikes up long conversations with Granny and Ruby, and even shares in a secret joke with Leroy, clapping the dwarf on his back as they chuckle and grin at each other.

Everyone but her.

He doesn’t even attempt to look for her, doesn’t make an effort to come by her side even after their eyes connect across the courtyard. He merely turns back to his conversation with Marco while Emma pulls Henry closer to her side and continues their walk along the palace grounds.

She refuses to say that jealousy kicks her in the ass to actually do something but when she sees him four days later with that stupidly attractive smirk on his face being directed at Tinkerbelle before Regina joins their secret meeting, she’s had enough. Since he’s clearly too cowardly to approach her, she’ll pull up her big girl panties and do it herself.

It’s not as if she didn’t already know that she’s been running from her own feelings the entire time. Reality only sets in, however, that she’s just as cowardly when she’s strolling down one of the palace hallways and stops short at the sight of him at the other end.

He looks good.

The black leather duster shines from the sunlight streaming through the palace’s stained-glass windows. His dark hair gleams and looks softer than it felt between her fingers in Neverland. Glowing skin, straight back, confident set of his shoulders. The pirate looks like a model at ease in the middle of a clothing commercial, all carefree and beautiful. She bets that if he grins, big and wide and all his pearly whites showing, a fucking sparkle will appear with a quiet DING! to accompany it like a fucking toothpaste ad.

Un-fucking-fair.

Air leaves her lungs at the sight of him and that causes her a delay in retreating. Too substantial a delay, it seems, as Hook chooses that moment to turn on his Emma Radar and look straight at her. His face lights up and he calls out her last name, looking as if the heavens are personally highlighting him with a pitch perfect song.

Seriously?!

She turns on her heel and makes a hasty retreat. She is so not ready for this conversation. If she can even keep it together enough to not pull on that stupid vest – a deep red color that looks to be made of velvet and probably soft to the touch – to drag the pirate into a nearby closet to kiss or kill him. The jury is still out on that decision.

“Swan!” he calls again, rushing to reach her. The cool metal of his hook encircles her elbow and turns her his way. “I’ve been looking all over for you!” he exclaims, relief in his voice and clear in the way his forehead relaxes.

“Really?” She snorts so unladylike she’s sure both Mary Margaret and Regina would be annoyed if they heard. “Because it seems like you’ve been avoiding me since you came back from who knows where.”

“I –” he starts before sighing. “Not exactly.”

Hmph. So he was avoiding her. The truth tugs at her chest in such a painful way that Emma only barely resists the urge to rub at the area over her silk shirt.

“Whatever, Hook.” Anger wraps around his moniker like a hot iron. He can hear it, the slight drop of his head and the glow fading from his features when it’s said, but he doesn’t allow her to run like she so desperately tries. “What?!” she hisses.

“Just come with me, love. I promise, you can be angry and hate me again after but… just let me show you something.”

Hook has only ever looked so earnest once before and her mouth drops open at seeing the sight again. Blue eyes plead with her as his eyebrows raise in encouragement. Emma feels herself nodding before she realizes what she’s doing and suddenly he’s ushering her down the hallway and towards the wide garden space behind the castle.

“I – I don’t hate you,” she says when the silence gets too much for her. Even when they fought on opposite sides and he annoyed her to hell, she never hated him. The thought he could believe such a thing unsettles her to the core. “Just because I’m upset with you doesn’t mean I hate you.”

“Your anger is well deserved. My apologies, love.” He shakes his head, pulling them to a stop before they enter the gardens. Ocean blue eyes stare into her meadow green and her breath hitches as he comes closer. The torches that line the hallway dim as her focus zeroes in on Hook. It’s been a struggle in the past keeping her eyes off of his mouth whenever he deemed personal space to be a nonentity. But this time his gaze keeps her locked in and she doesn’t even dare to blink. “Consider this part of my apology,” he whispers. “Your heart’s desire, Swan. That’s all I want.”

He steps away before she even comprehends the enormity of his statement and pulls her into the gardens.

The wide expanse of grass is freshly trimmed, the smell filling her nostrils and reminding her of summers at foster homes wishing for a family to laze around a backyard with. The flowers and plants that border the gardens are in full bloom offering an array of colors. Red roses, yellow shrubbery, pink Middlemist flowers. She’s been in the gardens a number of times since their latest return to the Enchanted Forest but now the colors seem brighter and more vibrant.

Hook gently presses his namesake to the middle of her back. Emma’s gaze shifts forward at the touch and she chokes out a gasp.

Down the center of the gardens sits a newly built wooden stage. Wide and made of a dark mahogany that sheens under the sunlight, it takes up nearly the entire width of the flat grassy area. Deep red curtains are pulled across the front of it, hiding whatever stands on the stage. They rustle slightly from movement behind it and Emma lets out a soft giggle at the sound of Hook cursing under his breath beside her.

Six rows of chairs divided down the middle face the stage and she recognizes many of the occupants to be folks working within the castle, or the Misthaven townspeople she used to see in passing around Storybrooke. They all greet her with a smile and nod as Emma is guided to a chair in the first row with a nearly center view of the stage.

“What is going on?” she asks Hook as he stands beside her seat. Her head turns on a swivel looking for a hint of what kind of performance they’re about to see.

“Patience is a virtue, love.”

“Seriously?!” she nearly whines, earning a chuckle in response. She huffs, eyeing him with a small upward tilt of her lips before she looks away.

Chatter is quiet behind her but there’s an excitement thrumming in the air. Voices whisper from the stage but they’re too soft for her to listen for any familiar inflections. Instead, she examines the corners of the stage and the gaps in the curtain that appear every few moments.

Her eyes are still soaking in everything around her when Hook drops his duster on the chair beside hers and grins mischievously at her. “Back in a moment.” He winks at her, slow and smooth and so unlike his terrible attempt when they climbed the beanstalk. She bites her lip to keep the grin from exploding on her face.

Hook stands on the wings of the stage with her father as they whisper in a tight huddle. The two of them duck behind the curtain for a moment before Hook exits and strolls back to her side, taking the seat he reserved for himself. Before Emma can fire off her questions, David emerges from between the curtains.

She watches in awe at how her father captures the attention of the crowd, how he spreads his thanks to Marco and Pinocchio for the stage and scenery, to Jaq, Gus, and Blue for the costuming. He leads into enthusiastic applause with each announcement and she finds herself just as enthralled as the rest of the crowd.

“Finally,” David says and Hook tenses beside her. “You all may know him as Captain Hook but I know him as a friend. None of this would be possible without him.” Her father looks at Emma for a long moment before he looks to Hook and she looks on in confusion as tears build in his gaze. “Killian Jones,” he says through heavy emotion and her companion shifts uncomfortably beside her. “I thank you.”

David steps aside and the curtains pull away to show the stage. It looks like a replica of Storybrooke General Hospital but a large banner hung centerstage says Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital. The entire set reminds her of Grey’s Anatomy.

And that’s when it hits her. David’s words finally sink in and Emma turns to Hook – Killian – in shock. He avoids her eyes, raising his hook to gently scratch behind his ear as he looks up at the stage from a lowered gaze.

Leroy stomps on stage talking about an urgent medical case and Granny joins him a few moments later. The two of them bicker back and forth in a way that borders on flirty, their voices sounding far away and drifting into her ear, leaving Emma confused for all of a few moments before it’s revealed that they play Derek and Meredith respectively. She probably would’ve laughed at the casting – she never would’ve pegged Leroy for McDreamy but he’s honestly incredible on stage – but her focus is set on the man beside her who organized a fucking theatre troupe so she wouldn’t be left wondering about one of her favorite shows.

“Don’t make all my hard work go to waste, love,” he mumbles, cheeks red as he glances at her before quickly averting his gaze again. He nudges at her thigh with his hook and nods towards the stage. Emma doesn’t even realize her mouth is still hanging open until she tries to swallow and finds her throat dry.

With little else to do, she turns her attention to the stage and is immediately wrapped up in the story they’re telling. It’s clear that someone within the troupe is a hardcore Grey’s Anatomy fan and was clearly all caught up on the show while she fell behind due to Neverland. The mannerisms, the dramatics, the dialogue – all of it makes her feel like she’s actually watching it.

The forty-five-minute performance goes by in a flash and she’s amongst the loudest cheers when the troupe takes their bows. Her grin is wide and it’s nearly impossible to take her attention away from the stage.

Until Killian sticks his fingers in his mouth to give a loud whistle and Emma can look at nothing but him.

The ruthless pirate who has continually proved her wrong. The scoundrel who came back to help her get Henry even if it meant returning to Neverland. The lost soul who promised to think of her every day they were apart, even if that meant forever. The man who listened to her frivolous whining and delivered her all she had wanted for and more.

Killian tries to stay behind to speak with the troupe about some matter or another but Emma grabs him by the hook and pulls him to an alcove in the garden hidden by prying eyes.

“Swan, what’s – ”

She backs herself into the alcove, pulls on his vest, and crashes her lips against his, effectively stopping his sentence. Emma feels his sharp intake of breath before he sighs into the kiss, hand coming up to cradle her head against the stone of the palace. Their mouths move over each other slowly, stroking the heat in their stomachs to a blazing inferno.

When Emma pulls away, they breathe heavily in each other’s space, swaying closer together as their eyes remain shut.

“Thank you,” she whispers, biting on her swollen lip when she finally opens her eyes. His are still shut, a small smirk playing at the corner of his mouth.

“I quite like the way we show gratitude.” He cracks an eye open and grins, her own smile widening to match his.

*

Suddenly they’re courting.

Instead of Netflix & Chill, they have Storybrooke Storytellers & Garden Make-outs. A date night at the movies is equivalent to sitting in the garden as her family reenacts the original Star Wars trilogy, her parents as Han and Leia, Henry proudly swinging a lightsaber as Luke, and Neal fittingly as Darth Vader.

Killian whispers tidbits in her ear during each performance, like how Leroy and Granny fought over who was correct regarding one of their Grey’s Anatomy performances, Leroy winning at the end. “He’s got the bloody show memorized, love. Knows the whole thing front and back. Absolutely obsessed.”

Or how Henry assigned everyone’s roles for Star Wars and how it was unanimously decided that Whale would be the dead victim for their recent rendition of Law & Order: SVU, or even how Killian’s curious about the romantic comedies that Belle has brought to his attention. “The lad wants to do everyone’s fairytales as well,” he says, grin pressed against the back of her neck one afternoon. She laughs at the ridiculous image her son’s aspirations create for her, her soul feeling lighter with every moment.

It’s a little bit of the home she created in Storybrooke, right here in the Enchanted Forest. For a girl who’s searched for that all her life, it makes Emma’s heart race ahead of every performance they watch. No one has ever done something like that for her before and she tells him as much through tears one evening as they look at the stars from her balcony. He holds her close, murmuring sweet nothings into her hair and Emma realizes she wants to give him everything.

“Let’s go to the Jolly,” she says. Her head rests on his chest from their stargazing and she feels him tense under her. Eyebrows pinched together in uncertainty, she tilts her head up to look at him. “If that’s okay with you?”

He shifts uncomfortably, not at all in the way she wants him to be, and her confusion mounts. “There’s no need to go to the Jolly,” he answers with a tight grin.

She rolls her eyes, sitting up from her spot and steadies her focus on him. She says point blank, “I am not having sex with you under the same roof as my parents.” Killian sputters and Emma enjoys rendering him speechless for all of two seconds before doubt creeps in. “Do you not want to?”

At her hesitancy, he surges up to capture her mouth in a kiss that takes her breath away and leaves her dizzy. “There’s nothing more I would like to do right now than take you as you are, wherever you desire.” A growl comes from low in her throat as she threads her fingers in his hair and nips at his bottom lip. She whispers again for him to take her to the Jolly Roger only for Killian to halt everything and pull away with a grimace.

“Killian, what’s going on with you?”

Her pirate ducks his head low to his chest before he gathers the courage to meet her gaze.

“The Jolly Roger is no longer in my possession,” he confesses. A low swoop in her stomach causes her to fumble forward in her haste to press against his side. There’s pain in his eyes, the telltale sign of loss and grief that she knows so well. But it’s small and non-consuming, like a detail of life he just lives with now.

“Did someone destroy her?” she asks after a moment, her touch cautious and her gaze searching. Killian shakes his head.

“No, I – I traded her away.”

Her body is suddenly made of concrete, refusing to move despite her mind screaming at her legs to stop Killian’s restless motions. “Wh-what? Why would you do that?!”

Killian smiles softly then. The pain is miniscule but present even as his gaze softens and he reaches his hand out to cup her cheek. “Your heart’s desire, love. That’s all I want.”

*

Despite the late hour, the moon shines high in the sky and lights their way. Her fingers clutch tightly to his metal appendage, the weight of his admission weighing heavily on her, and she stumbles after him as he leads her to the old farm fields.

The area was abandoned before the Dark Curse, her father told her one time. It suffered from barren soil after years of overuse and needed time to recover. More time than thirty years’ worth offered and yet, as Killian leads them through a gate, the fields are sprawling with greenery. Vines trail along the ground and large leaves the size of their heads sprout so intensely that it’s difficult to see the soil beneath.

“What is all this?” she asks in wonder.

Killian grins and reaches down to pull up the end of one vine, a sparkling, translucent item hanging from it. “Look familiar, love?”

A magic bean glimmers under the moonlight, ripe for the taking. It is just one of what could probably be hundreds if not thousands of beans growing on the vast vines before them.

Amazed, she asks, “How is this even possible?”

She loves this man. Before he even starts to explain everything that’s been happening – taking his ship after their conversation in her bedchambers to trade it with Blackbeard for a magic bean, organizing the troupe to give her what she was missing while they waited for the beans to grow and mature, crafting a way to make the near impossible travel between realms into something as easy as tossing a coin into a fountain – she knows deep in her soul that she loves him.

All consuming, heart racing, fingers thrumming, glowing kind of love.

“Perhaps you can finally show me that Red Lobster you rave about?” he offers cheekily.

Emma huffs out a watery laugh, words abandoning her as she looks around. When her eyes lock on his, she swears he outshines the stars.

“You gave up your ship for me?” she asks quietly, hoping to convey everything she can’t verbalize in the way her hand reaches for his and grips it tight.

You gave up your home for me?

“Aye,” he says, just as simple but just as deeply meaningful, squeezing her hand in return.

You are my home now, Swan.

They come together slowly but the passion igniting between them is stronger than it’s ever been before. Her heart is bursting with so much joy that she could cry and it takes her all to keep the tears at bay, wishing to sink into the kiss forever. Her smile, however, is another story and so is his, as they grin against each other’s mouths more than they kiss.

She loves him and he loves her.

Theirs is the kind of love they write movies and shows about.

Theirs is the kind of love they write fairytales about.

[sotangledupinit]

running home to your sweet nothings

PROMPT: Enchanted Forest AU

SUMMARY: His informality is refreshing; like water in a desert, Emma is parched and desperate for more. “Take note, Princess, that I take no pleasure in pointing out the susceptibilities of your security or skills. It is my loyalty to you that wants you to remain safe.” There’s an earnestness to his voice and Emma feels her cheeks heat. His breath fans against her face in soft puffs as he speaks and the corner of his mouth lifts in a small smile. “What have I done to earn such loyalty other than wear a crown?” she asks in an equally quiet voice. She’s breathless as she speaks but she yearns for his unfiltered response. // or the four gifts of killian jones

RATING: Mature on AO3, Teen on Tumblr.

WORD COUNT: Over 16k words. (16,932 on AO3)

AO3

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Please note that the tumblr version of this story as seen below has been edited to be a T rating. If you want the M version, please click the AO3 link above.

Chapter 1 of 2

*

six and ten. spring.

The castle walls suffocate her. They act as a constant reminder that despite her position — Princess Emma Margaret Nolan of Misthaven — she is trapped. Guards follow her every move; every breath she takes, each time she blinks, and even the side of the mouth she chews her food on are all reported back to her parents. Her clothes are picked out for her, her day is scheduled to the second, and she isn’t allowed to venture outside of their grounds.

She understood, albeit begrudgingly, when she was a child. Regina had been a massive threat for most of her life. Fireballs scorched castle hallways for years, the Evil Queen’s magic able to break through the protection barriers only momentarily every once in a while. Out of an abundance of caution, Emma was confined to a singular wing of the castle grounds, limiting her already strained freedom. Worry lined her parents’ faces whenever she saw them, and a great relief escaped their lungs whenever they saw her alive and breathing before them. They told her of Regina’s threats, of her power, of her determination and thirst for revenge.

So she understood the fear that took hold of their hearts for so many years.

But she’s sixteen now and Regina’s been dead for four months already. She needs freedom. She needs to spread her wings like her mother’s birds and explore their kingdom beyond the castle walls. Meet their people, understand their lives. Instead, her requests to her parents are met with firm denials as they say that the land is still unsettled and they haven’t determined all of Regina’s followers yet. They fear one of them might make a martyr of Regina and start an uprising of their own. And so she goes back to her days cataloged to the minute and her guards counting the steps she takes on one foot versus the other.

Five months post-Regina, Emma sees an opportunity.

The Duke of Atlantica is visiting and Emma, having been excused for the evening, finds herself in her room with minimal security outside and a lone guard sweeping the perimeter under her window every twelve minutes. She guesses everyone else is too busy protecting her parents and the Duke.

She puts on her riding trousers, a loose top, and a scarf around her hair and face. A glance outside tells her the drop from her windowsill to the courtyard below is a bit higher than she anticipated and her magic is still too unsteady to be guaranteed to work if she needed it to stop her fall. Instead she grabs bedsheets, dressing gowns, and a curtain and knots them together sloppily, tossing the bundle over the sill to billow in the breeze below. She tugs hard on her contraption and once satisfied, descends.

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[sotangledupinit]

A Green Christmas - 12 Days of Promptmas

Day 1 Prompt/notes of the prompt: 

Santa / Elves / Costume

SUMMARY: It should be illegal for someone to look so good in an elf costume. Emma’s almost certain there’s a law somewhere that says so. And if there’s not, she needs to find another reason to arrest Killian Jones so he can get his green tights-clad butt out of her eyeline.

RATING: Teen

WORD COUNT: 4,102 words

TAGS: Captain Swan, Christmas, Holiday fluff

AO3

AUTHOR’S NOTE: well well well, here we are. hahaha at the beginning of November I decided to do 12 Days of Promptmas and then I started all the prompts and then my muse disappeared until like three days ago. anyway I wrote notes on the prompts and forgot to write most of the actual prompts down so… oops. Prompt: Santa / Elves / Costumes

^^ or something like that, oops.

Day 1 of 12 for 12 Days of Promptmas!

*

David stands in the bullpen in front of her and Jones, grin wide on his face. A bright red Santa suit hangs on the door to his office, the accompanying hat sitting on top of his head. Facing them he holds up a bright green bag.

“Come on, I need elves.”

Emma snorts, rolling her eyes and shoving her hands into her back pockets. “Yeah, not going to happen. Mary Margaret already confirmed that I can be the photographer.”

Jones shifts his body, resting his hip against the side of his desk. He uncrosses his arms, eyebrow raised as he frowns, and points at the elf costume in David’s hand. “No way in bloody hell am I wearing that.” He swivels his head to face her. “Why do you get to be the photographer?”

“Because you assigned me to take all the mugshots,” she responds with a smirk. “I’ve got practice.”

A huff leaves his mouth as he turns back to David. Emma grins as she watches her father shake the garment bag at Jones, making a show of slowly unzipping it to reveal the elf-themed monstrosity inside. Her fellow deputy stares at the clothes with a look of utter contempt. His nose scrunches up in disgust and clenching his fists just isn’t cutting it as he resumes crossing his arms tightly against his chest. “Absolutely not, mate.”

“Come on, Killian,” David begins. The smell of coffee finally hits her nose and Emma glances down to see a freshly brewed cup on her desk. Her father must have gotten it for her while she gassed up the cars before their meeting this morning. Grin playing on her face, she grasps the cup in her hand and lifts it to her lips, hiding her smirk as she awaits David’s infamous guilt trips, and ignores the glance Jones sends her way.

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[sotangledupinit]

CS Halloweek: i (almost) dropped your hand while dancing

i (almost) dropped your hand while dancing  - @cshalloweek Day 6

Day 6 Prompts (October 30th)

Dance / grey

masquerade | honour | “you’re trembling” | enraged

SUMMARY: Maybe she wouldn’t find him to be that bad if he didn’t constantly show up wherever their latest job was. It’s hard enough to smuggle treasure out of castle without him and his crew interfering to take it for themselves. Rival Thieves AU

RATING: Explicit

WORD COUNT: 4,353 words

TAGS: Captain Swan, CS Halloweek, Masquerade, Thieves, Rivals, Smut

AO3

AUTHOR’S NOTE: don’t look, it’s just me posting my halloweek prompt right before the end of the day… as seems to be the usual. oops. enjoy. :)

***

The mask adorning her face itches. Gray feathers flare out an inch from the top corners of her eye mask and tickle at her temples when a breeze flutters against it. Her silver corset top glitters when it catches the light from the flames. The skirt of her gown is comprised of feathers that match her mask and flow down to the tops of her toes, a slit up one side allowing her to flash a peek of skin up to her thigh.

It offers the perfect distraction, older men doing their most to garner a dance with her while their wives glare and hold on tight to their husbands. Vixen seems to be the word thrown around tonight as they all wonder who she came to such a glamorous party with but she didn’t care. As long as their attention is on her and nothing else, they could say what they want. She’ll even throw in an extra sashay so the slit flashes a little more skin, enjoying the way some jaws drop.

The slit in her gown also allows easy access to her knife holster, hidden just under the feathered fabric gracing her upper thigh.

Lips painted a dark red, her small smile makes her demure and unassuming. She acts as though her dress hasn’t brought half the guests in attendance to a tizzy. Instead, she uses it as a cover to duck her head and scan the crowd from under her eyelashes.

“Looking for me, love?”

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[sotangledupinit]

CS Halloweek: i see red

i see red - @cshalloweek Day 5

Day 5 Prompts (October 29th):

Monsters / red

under a spell | mystery | “I’m not going anywhere” | bloodcurdling

SUMMARY: When Regina Mills shows up murdered during a camping weekend, everyone is a suspect. A loose modern AU of ’Grand Central Murder’.

RATING: M for language, violence.

WORD COUNT: 6,388 words

TAGS: Captain Swan, Halloween, CS Halloweek 2021, Murder Mystery AU, Modern AU, Major Character Death, no beta we die like killian jones

AO3

AUTHOR’S NOTE: I finally wrote my murder mystery AU! I got a little stuck at the end but I hope it’s still enjoyable and kept you guessing! The only question is… do we really know who the killer is? I forgot to post this earlier but hey, it’s still the 29th on the west coast so it counts?

***

The pecking of a woodpecker in the tree next to her tent is what Emma registers first. She blinks slowly at the fabric of her tent, eyebrows furrowing. A quick glance at her phone confirms her suspicion that she’s awoken before her alarm. The question is why.

She rolls over, sleeping bag sliding under her body as she moves, and looks to her son. “Hey Hen –”

The space beside her is empty. Sitting up, she looks around the tent and sees his shoes and jacket gone. Chatter from the fire begins to filter through the small gap in the tent that her son didn’t zipper up all the way and she sighs. So much for those few extra minutes.

She pulls the sleeping bag back, a chill coming over her from the cool October air. Buddling up, she slowly emerges from the tent and meets Killian’s eye across the fire. She blushes, darts her gaze away, only to stand up in alarm at the sound of a scream.

A blood curdling scream.

Twigs and leaves crunch under her feet as she darts across the campground in time to see Mother Superior emerging from a tent, blood all over her arms and white stockings and another scream ripping itself free from her throat. Her mouth moves, more in babbles than any coherent words, and Emma swears that if the nun wasn’t on the verge of tears, she’d look like she was laughing.

“Mother Superior,” Emma says, hands up in a placating gesture. She hears the footfalls of the other campers coming up behind her and is partially glad to see her son part of the bunch, even if it just means he’s not wandering the woods alone. “What is going on?”

Mother Superior shakes as she approaches Emma, eyes casting around the crowd behind her and lowering her voice. “It’s Regina…” she whispers. “She’s dead.”

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[sotangledupinit]

CS Halloweek: cause we’re free - free fallin’

cause we’re free - free fallin’ - @cshalloweek​ Day 4

Day 4 Prompts (October 28th)

Magic / purple

Crystals | darkness | “I thought I’d lost you” | spellbound

SUMMARY: On Halloween night 27 years ago, five people stepped into a regular elevator. Except that night ended anything but normally. Now 28, Emma Swan and her son Henry work together to discover what caused her parents to suddenly disappear.

RATING: T

WORD COUNT: 5760 words

TAGS: Tower of Terror AU, CS Halloweek 2021

AO3

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Back in the 90s, Disney made a cinematic masterpiece and called it Tower of Terror. This is a loose AU of that film.

I love the flashback of this the most! I originally planned to do a whole story of this but my mind has no capacity for anything further. While I do have a full story planned out, I’m not sure if I’ll ever actually expand it before this one chapter. I am leaving the possibility open but since I don’t imagine it happening (at least any time soon) I’m marking this complete.

***

“Are you absolutely certain you’re okay with this?” David asks one more time. He stands besides Mary Margaret, each of them slowly shrugging their coats on as their eyes stare off at their daughter.

“Yeah, we can always bring Emma with us so you can enjoy the party too!” Mary Margaret agrees, hands reaching out towards her baby girl.

Granny Lucas shakes her head, adjusting the baby on her hip. A single woman since her early twenties, Granny’s exteriors are rough and stern. She’s had to put up with more malarky than is right but it molded her to be fierce and stand her ground. Once she glares in their direction, David and Mary Margaret know they’ve lost their fight. “Absolutely not,” she says. “When was the last time the two of you had a date night? Emma’s just turned one – you two need some time alone. As a couple.”

David sighs, buttoning up his coat. “I have my pager on me. Beep me and I’ll call right away.” He takes Mary Margaret’s red scarf from their coat rack and wraps it around his wife’s neck.

“And I’ll have my cell phone in my purse. I also left the numbers for the hotel and the party on the refrigerator.” She rushes over to Granny and presses a featherlight kiss to her daughter’s forehead, smiling softly. “I love you, Emma.”

She feels David approach behind her and he places one hand on her back and the other cradle’s Emma’s head. “We really don’t mind bringing –”

“Go.” Granny’s exasperation pours through her voice. Her feet bring her to the front door of the apartment the couple lives in. Opening it brings in the chilly October air that hung in the hallway of the building. “I have Emma handled. I did raise three children and a granddaughter all by myself. Emma’s a breeze.” The couple looks at each other, still hesitant as they stand in their threshold. “Regina’s going to be mad if you’re late to her party.”

They kiss their daughter goodbye once more, giving themselves the extra second to cherish the moment, and then thank Granny before leaving.

*

Regina sighs as she stands at the reception desk of the lobby. The man behind the counter – Liam, his nametag says – is on the phone with the hotel’s house band. The one she booked months in advance for the Halloween party didn’t find it worth their effort to show up. Taking a sip of her champagne, red lipstick leaves a mark on her glass and she figures she can get a refill once she gets back upstairs, barring no further problems.

Full moons brought out the crazies, and, she surmised, bad luck.

A light drizzle painted the street just beyond the hotel’s front doors, lights from the Hollywood Hills in the distance looking brighter.

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[sotangledupinit]

CS Halloweek 2021: don’t forget to feed your plants

don’t forget to feed your plants - @cshalloweek​​ Day 3

Day 3 Prompts (October 27th):

Poison / green

cauldron | bad cook | “your words are poison” | cursed

SUMMARY: “Love, I may not be as well versed in magic as you and Regina but that potion is poison,” he says, his nose scrunching up in disgust.

“Your words are poison,” she says under her breath. Pushing off of the counter, she joins him at the table, her eyes peering at the contents she’s mixed together. A putrid smell greets her nose and she pulls back sharply. “Maybe…” she begins, gently pushing Killian back with a hand on his shoulder, “we shouldn’t stand so close though.”

RATING: G

WORD COUNT: 995 words

TAGS: Captain Swan, Halloween, CS Halloweek 2021, Humor, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Canon Compliant, Post-Canon

no beta we die like killian jones

AO3

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Yay! I didn’t think I’d find a prompt for every day of CS Halloweek 2021 but I have so here I am! Go last minute inspiration!

***

“Is it supposed to look that green?”

Emma looks up from the spell book to see Killian leaning over a cauldron. She bites her lip, fiddling with the pages. “…Yes?” The word leaves her mouth in a rush and she hurriedly looks back down at the book.

“Swan,” Killian begins, hesitantly. His gaze narrows as he makes his way over to her but she keeps her head down, only sneaking glances from the corner of her eye. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

“Of course I do,” she huffs. Ingredients line the counters, Emma’s brand-new cauldron standing in the middle of the kitchen table. Powers, like anything else in life, are limited in their capabilities. Even the Savior needs to know how to make the simplest of potions.

Killian noses the back of her neck as she leans over the recipe page and she suppresses a shiver when his hook gently pushes her hair over one shoulder. “At least you still smell delicious…”

Closing her eyes, Emma loses herself in her husband’s embrace for a moment longer, smile stretching across her face, and she sighs. “Thanks for spending your day off with me.” She turns in his arms to face him, winding her arms around his neck. “I’ll make sure to make it worth your while later.” Rogue grin on his lips, Killian leans in, Emma following. Their lips just barely brush when a popping sound comes from the table.

The potion bubbles, a loud gurgling following. Emma drops her arms from Killian’s neck and he slowly approaches it, eyebrow raised, and glancing her way. “Are you sure you don’t want to do this under Regina’s supervision?”

“Are you kidding me? And give her another thing to hold over my head that she’s better at? I’ve got this handled, Killian.” Resting back against the counter, she crosses her arms and watches as he leans over the cauldron the slightest bit to look inside.

“Love, I may not be as well versed in magic as you and Regina but that potion is poison,” he says, his nose scrunching up in disgust.

“Your words are poison,” she says under her breath. Pushing off of the counter, she joins him at the table, her eyes peering at the contents she’s mixed together. A putrid smell greets her nose and she pulls back sharply. “Maybe…” she begins, gently pushing Killian back with a hand on his shoulder, “we shouldn’t stand so close though.”

Killian faces her completely and his expression is unamused.

“I know what I’m doing!” she insists, though she winces as the potion bubbles again and she looks at him apologetically.

His eyes dart back over to the boiling cauldron and he tilts his head as it continues to boil. “What were you trying to do?”

“It’s supposed to be a harmless fertilizer potion for the garden…”

“That looks anything but harmless.”

Emma shrugs, grabbing the wooden stirrer and churning it through the sludge of the potion. “Maybe this is just how all the ingredients interact with each other until they mix.”

Shaking his head, he rests his hook on the small of her back. “Love…” Killian begins. Emma turns her head his way and is met with both eyebrows raised. She sighs and nods. “Right. Let me go call Regina,” he says, pressing a kiss to her temple and departing the kitchen.

The potion warbles and Emma peers into the vat at the sickly green color. Her nose crinkles, lips turn downward, and eyebrows furrow. “I don’t know what I did wrong with you,” she says to herself.

A whoosh of magic happens to her left and she inwardly groans at the disproving glare Regina shoots her while Henry wonders over to the cauldron.

“Cool!” her son exclaims, his voice cracking and his cheeks turning red. “I heard Mom on the phone with Killian and I wanted to see.” The longer he looks into the cauldron, the more confused he looks. He turns to Emma, eyebrow raised much like her husband always does, and asks, “What is it?”

“That,” Regina begins in disgust. Pushing up the sleeves of her suit jacket, she readies her hands. “Is a disaster waiting to happen. Apparently your mother was trying to create her own Audrey II.”

“If she’s successful, we can just feed the dwarves to it. Start with the one that’s always yelling down Main Street,” Killian says. Emma rolls her eyes but she’s unable to hide her amusement from her husband while her son nods his head proudly at his stepfather for understanding the modern reference.

Then, Henry glances between all of his parents and looks at them expectantly. “Well, can we at least try it out?”

Regina’s denial is sharp while Emma’s carries a lazy, humorous note to it. She spots Killian wink at her kid from the corner of her eye and reminds herself to make sure they don’t get into anything.

Magic swirls around the cauldron as Regina works to dilute the potion and she feels the tingle of it against her skin. In no time, the cauldron is merely full of water tinted green and the only sign that anything had gone wrong was the smell permeating the air. “Next time, Miss Swan, just ask me. It’ll save you the embarrassment.”

Emma’s mouth drops open as Regina smirks and flicks her hands up, disappearing in a cloud of purple smoke. She spots Henry by the stairs, hiding his snickers with his hand, and Killian smirking beside him.

“That’s it. Next time, our little Audrey III eats you both first.”

That night, Emma makes sure the cauldron is clean and there’s no remnants of the potion to be found anywhere. As a precaution, because she knows exactly the kind of troublemakers she lives with, she puts a magic lock on the shed outside and on the door to the basement. The last thing they need is to harbor an evil mutant plant under their house.

[thepirateandhisson]

CS Halloweek: close your eyes, take a breath, and you’re home

close your eyes, take a breath, and you’re home - @cshalloweek​ Day 2

Day 2 Prompts (October 26th):

Threats / black

clanking chains | prank | “we have to be quiet” | carved

SUMMARY: All Henry wanted to do was go to the Underworld, find his father, and bring him back to Storybrooke. Except things don’t go to plan and now he’s got a dead pirate helping him find a way home.

S2 Canon Divergence AU where Hook died in New York after stabbing Rumpelstiltskin.

RATING: T for language, violence.

WORD COUNT: 25,262 words

TAGS: Captain Cobra, Captain Swan, Halloween, CS Halloweek 2021, Underworld AU, Canon Divergence AU, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, no beta we die like killian jones

AO3

AUTHOR’S NOTE: hahahah this was originally supposed to be a cute captain cobra fic of like 3000 with a dash of captain swan but here we are

***

For being hell, the underworld, purgatory, or whatever his family wants to call it, the place is cold.

A red tint covers as far as the eye can see. And what he sees is a hopeless version of Storybrooke. Underbrooke, he jokes to himself. Where he grew so used to seeing Moe’s roses in the flowerbeds outside of his shop, instead dried up dirt from knocked over planters are in the doorway of an abandoned shop. The clock in the tower above the library lays dismantled in the middle of main street and there’s smoke coming from just about everywhere. Granny’s sign is broken, hanging six feet from the ground by a few frayed electrical wires. It reminds him of a story he heard once where a sword hung above a throne.

“Ooohhh…” a voice breathes out in glee. He jumps away and turns to face the person who snuck up on him, eyes wide.

A woman with wild blonde hair and glossed over eyes grins at him. Teeth shaped like fangs peer out from under her lip, twinkling at him even in the red haze, and he shivers. The thick wool coat he wears helps minutely to keep out Underbrooke’s cold but did nothing to stop the chill from the woman.

“You just smell delicious,” she says, practically giggling as she speaks. She inches forward, head stretched ahead of her body, and sniffs again even as he tries to move away. “And you’re alive!” This time there is no mistaking that he is in danger the longer he’s around the woman.

Despite her lack of eyesight, her sense of smell is keenly aware of his movements as she follows him as he tries to maneuver around her, her body turning to follow his every action.

“It’s been so long since I’ve had someone alive!” She licks her lips, mouth still open in a wide grin, and he pictures a napkin around her neck and fork and knife in her hands. “And what’s your name, dear?”

He swallows. The woman has him trapped. His back is against the broken fence of the diner – Granny is meticulous about how her dining institution looks and would be offended to know this is the state its in – and her arms are extended on either side. There’s no telling what her capabilities are. She’s already proven a stellar sense of smell, and he can’t afford to attribute that just to heightened senses from her loss of sight. For all he knows, she may be a werewolf.

“Henry,” he answers. His mind is thinking too fast to even care that his voice cracked. It’s been happening more and more over recent weeks and while he gets embarrassed if he’s around friends like Grace or his moms, he has grown used to it.

“Henry,” she repeats, her voice extending every letter of his name like it’s its own word. He almost mistakes her for a snake with the way she sticks her tongue between her teeth and bites. It’s then that he realizes he’s either going to actually die in Underbrooke or he can make a go for it.

He finally manages to get away from the broken fence around the diner, his backup snagging only slightly with a quick ripping sound barely heard over the woman’s cries and makes his way into the street. “Breathe into this for me, at least!” he hears her call behind him. Instead of looking back, he rushes forward.

*

The underworld is an odd place, he decides. The souls here have jobs and duties and go about their days like they lived in Storybrooke, not caring that the clocktower remains in the middle of the street or that everything seems to be smoking and no one actually needs to be doing anything that they’re doing. There’s a line for the singular telephone booth in town and everyone who walks up to it seems to be leaving messages or crying or just adding to the hopelessness of Underbrooke in general.

He takes a hurried glance at the people in line not wanting to stay around longer than he has too. Hopelessness, he quickly learns, is contagious in Underbrooke and hope is his ticket home. The usual places are devoid of anyone he knows, both a blessing and a curse. He’s lost more than a few good people over the years and while a part of him would love to see them again, he thinks it’s better they’re not here.

Well. He hopes one person is here.

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[thepirateandhisson]

CS Halloweek: as sweet as candy

as sweet as candy - @cshalloweek​ Day 1

Day 1 Prompts (October 25th):

Treats / orange

pumpkin spice | witch in the woods | “get off me” | fiery

SUMMARY: The last thing Emma expects when she opens the door is a mini-me.

Trick-or-treaters of the building have knocked on their apartment door throughout the day, a range of Spider-Man’s, Batman’s, princesses, and a minion or two have all come asking for candy. Her Spotify playlist for the day is on repeat for the fourth time and it always brings an extra bounce to the kid’s steps. But to open the door and see a little blonde girl, curly hair straightened and wearing a red leather jacket that’s so small it’s adorable, Emma isn’t sure how to react.

RATING: T for language

WORD COUNT: 5,604 words

TAGS: Captain Swan, Halloween, CS Halloweek 2021, Costumes, Kids, Fluff

AO3

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This was supposed to be a quick and short like drabble of a piece. And here we are. Also age wise, Alice is 6, Henry 11/12.

Keep reading

[thepirateandhisson]

Once Upon A Mamma Mia Masterpost

Once upon a time, I half-jokingly made this post about an idea for a Captain Swan/Mamma Mia AU. And then I proceeded to write the first chapter hours later and it spiraled from there.

Anyway, this is a masterpost for links to each chapter of the fic, as I have finally completed it! This is my first ever completed multi-chapter story and I’m really proud of that fact. It was my first true venture into writing again after years away from it so I really enjoyed getting to work my creative muscles in this way after a lengthy absence.

If you’ve read this story, I hope you enjoyed it! If you haven’t, I hope you may give it a go one day! Once Upon A Mamma Mia

Chapter One: Honey, Honey (AO3)

It makes sense that, after finding Emma, Henry would start to have questions about his dad. If only they were easy to answer…

With Emma’s silence on the matter, Henry takes things into his own hands and invites the three men from her past to his birthday party, determined to figure out which one is his father.

Chapter Two: Knowing Me, Knowing You - Part One (AO3)

A glimpse of three strangers in Storybrooke causes Emma to begin a trip down memory lane…

Chapter Three: Knowing Me, Knowing You - Part Two (AO3)

Nothing terrified Emma Swan more than the knowledge that if she took down the walls that so tightly guarded herself, she would willingly hand her heart over to Killian Jones.

Chapter Four: The Name of the Game (AO3)

With his potential fathers showing up in Storybrooke, Henry needs to figure out a way to identify which one is his real dad.

Chapter Five: Does Your Mother Know? (AO3)

Emma still isn’t sure why her past has decided to visit her now, and all at the same time, but she’s determined to get to the bottom of it. Meanwhile, Henry’s determined to get to know his potential fathers.

Chapter Six: I Have A Dream (AO3)

Emma reunites with an old friend, Henry finally meets everyone in Operation Papa Bear, and chaos bubbles under the surface.

Chapter Seven: SOS (AO3)

Emma has to deal with the aftermath of Henry’s stunt in Granny’s, even if it means promising another meeting with the three ghosts of her past. But first, she needed to ground this kid.

Chapter Eight: Mamma Mia - Part One (AO3)

Much like Emma, Henry doesn’t listen. No one else seems to want to find out but he needs to know who his father is.

OUTTAKE: the best things in life, the very best things, happen unexpectedly (AO3)

It’s been ten years since they spent the night together on Halloween. But now he’s back in her life and, despite the mess that’s going on with Henry having three possible fathers, she can’t stay away from him. Killian Jones was not a man that a woman could easily forget. [Rated M]

Chapter Nine: Mamma Mia - Part Two (AO3)

Dealing with Neal in the midst of a bar fight as Tiffany’s ‘I Think We’re Alone Now’ blasted through the speakers is not how Killian thought this day would go.

Chapter Ten: The Winner Takes It All (AO3)

Killian is making Emma feel better after Neal’s antics but the guilt is weighing heavily in his gut. He has to tell her, even if it means losing her.

Chapter Eleven: Waterloo (AO3)

Oh yeah, Henry needs to get ready and Neal needs to be dealt with, but Emma can definitely do all of that before the graduation ceremony later that morning.

Chapter Twelve: Slipping Through My Fingers (AO3)

Henry was going to find out the results of the paternity test no matter what. He just hopes he likes what it reveals.

Chapter Thirteen: Thank You For The Music (AO3)

All adults want to do is talk and maybe all Henry wants to do is wish he never started this.