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Anchor Me

Anchor Me 2/?

Hello! I am back from my kind-of hiatus due to travelling and just in time to hit another one due to a new job. But I have the second part of this story for you and, for those reading Prairie Lullaby, hopefully there will be an update to that one soon. I was very humbled by all of you who voted for that story in the CS fanfic awards, thank you all so much!

This has been betaed by the lovely @kliomuse, but I have fiddled with it after that, so feel free to blame me for all mistakes.

The wonderful art for this story is by @ugly-duckling-ouat and can be found here .

Finding yourself competing in a house renovation reality show when you can’t even tell a tell a false ceiling from a real one is a pretty dumb thing to do, and doing it with a guy you barely know is probably even worse. But that’s where Emma has ended up and, despite the fact she prides herself on avoiding doing dumb things at all cost, she’s going to get it done, get her money and get out before anything too disastrous happens.

Killian Jones is coming off a string of disasters that has cost him his career and left him with an injury there’s no hiding now. All he wants is a little distraction, and the woman who wants him to play make-believe for some ridiculous TV show looks like she’ll fulfil that need perfectly. He’s just not sure he can be what she wants, and he’s even less sure if he should try.

And now they’re here, in Storybrooke, Maine, competing for a house they don’t really want in a competition they don’t really understand. Understanding each other is another matter altogether, and if they can do that, then maybe they’ll both find what they’ve been looking for all along.

Rating: T for this part (M for later ones).

Available on FFnet and AO3.

Part one is here.

The title comes from the song of the same name by The Muttonbirds.

Emma woke up, not to the sound of the alarm that she'd carefully set the night before, but to someone pushing her shoulder and whispering her name. Adrenaline flooded through her, ready to fight off whoever the hell it was.

Her eyes flew open, but only just after she'd thrown her hands out in defence, and she could see that it was Killian leaning over her and that she now had her hands pressed to his bare chest and just...no. Emma snatched her hands back quickly and Killian wisely backed away from the bed; a move that Emma agreed with in theory, but found herself a little annoyed at.

She didn't really understand why he'd been dumb enough to wake her up, anyway. Hadn't they agreed he was going to stay on his own side of the room?

"Whoa, Swan. It's all right."

"Why'd you wake me up?" Emma asked, not proud of the slight whine in her voice, but unable to stop it all the same. It seemed really early...how early was it? She picked up her phone off the nightstand. Five-thirty. In the morning. No wonder she was annoyed and confused. No one functioned at this hour of the morning.

Killian looked a little sheepish. "Well, I was awake and I was thinking that, perhaps, we don't want to be the last ones to arrive like yesterday, so I thought I'd tell you that the shower was free now."

"Oh. Right, yes. That's...that's not a bad idea." Emma sat up and tried to get her brain up and processing what was going on. "So...you think if we're ready before the other teams it'll psych them out or something?"

Killian shrugged, which was really, really, distracting when he wasn't wearing a shirt and it took a moment for Emma to realise that she was just staring at him. She tried to think of what would be appropriate to say under the circumstances, but her mind was drawing a blank.

It seemed, though, that he mistook her silence for something more accusatory. "I just thought that in the absence of binders stuffed with fabric swatches or, um, magazines...tactics might be our best bet. Normally works in the water."

"Yeah. No. Right. You're right. I should get up." Emma threw back the covers and swung her legs out of bed, feeling the chill of bare floorboards under her feet. For a moment she reconsidered the whole thing and almost lay down again instead, but she pushed on and managed to be upright and standing after only a moment's hesitation.

"There better still be hot water," she grumbled, shuffling her way towards the bright wedge of light coming from the half-open bathroom door.

"I can assure you I was most restrained," Killian said, turning his back to her as she passed which meant that she got a whiff of something pleasant. Something that wasn't his usual cologne.

Emma stopped in her tracks. "Did you use my shower gel?"

Killian turned back around to face her. "I...uh. Well it was there so I assumed…"

Emma had spent a while the previous night arranging all her toiletries. Alone in the room and with nothing else to distract her, carefully placing her shower gel and her shampoo on the edge of the bathtub had seemed as good a way as any to pass the time. But now, as tempting as it was to ask Killian to bend down so she could sniff his head to check for evidence of shampoo-theft, she refrained.

Still. It seemed like he'd been taking liberties.

But before she could explain that to him, he launched into his defence. "You know, love, it's probably not a bad thing if we smell the same. Sells the whole couple angle, don't you think?"

"I guess," Emma said, noncommittally. It didn't seem like a great defence, but she wasn't awake enough to argue further and so she simply continued on with the process of getting ready. She'd been under the, thankfully hot, water for a good five minutes before she realised that it was highly unlikely anyone was actually going to sniff them. That would just be weird.

Emma wondered what other liberties Killian might be prepared to take in the name of looking like a couple. She'd have to be vigilant, she decided, or the next thing he'd be eating half her food, or borrowing her car and using up all the gas, or sharing her bed or…

Well that was definitely not going to happen.

By the time Emma had finished her shower, Killian was fully dressed and sitting on his neatly made bed looking at his phone. Emma felt flustered, caught out with still-wet hair and only in a robe until she grabbed something clean from her bag and she hurried back to the bathroom.

When she emerged again Killian was pacing the room and her bed was made, the pyjamas she'd hastily thrown on there were tidied away somewhere and, unless she was mistaken, her phone was now sitting straighter on the nightstand and her shoes were lined up next to the bed. That was weird. And slightly creepy. And maybe he'd meant to be helpful but right then, feeling on the back foot as she was, Emma wasn't really able to appreciate it.

"Don't touch my stuff, OK?" Emma said, her words sounding like the kind of snarl a dog makes when anyone looks in the direction of its favourite bone.

"Are you still going on about the shower gel?"

"No, because now you've been pawing my pyjamas. So don't, all right?"

Killian sighed. "Fine, love. Whatever you say. Let's get on with this, shall we?" He gestured to the door and Emma led the way through it and down the horrible green corridor to the stairs to the diner where, Emma very much hoped, there would be copious amounts of coffee available.

But the place was deserted, and they had no choice but to sit at the counter and wait until someone appeared from the back and noticed they were there. The waitress looked a bit startled at their presence, but recovered enough to place menus in front of them, and, thankfully, pour large cups of coffee as well.

A couple of sips later Emma was feeling not only more awake but also a good deal more ashamed of her earlier comments. But Killian had remained silent beside her since they'd sat down, only asking the confused waitress whether there was any chance they had something called brown sauce lying around, and she didn't really know how to broach the subject. So she stuck with placing an order for waffles and remaining as silent as the man sitting next to her.

God, they really were acting like a married couple now, weren't they?

The waitress, who was wearing a huge red badge with the words Hi, my name is Hester, printed on it as well as an assortment of other badges which proclaimed her to be in training and announced that they should ask her about the avocados, mostly watched them warily, refilling Emma's coffee cup and nodding obediently when Killian insisted that he wanted his bacon extra crispy and that he'd accept ketchup, but really it was a poor substitute.

The almost-silence was only broken by the sound of someone else clattering down the stairs at the back of the diner. Emma turned in time to see Ruby push the door open and march into the diner as though she owned it. Which, Emma realised, was a distinct possibility given her relationship to the place's owner.

"Oh, hey guys!" Ruby called out, coming straight over to where Killian and Emma were sitting. "You're up early!"

Emma watched as Killian turned to face Ruby. "Always best to be up bright and early on a competition day," he said cheerfully. "Makes the morning more relaxed."

Emma could tell that Killian was lying through his teeth. He'd been the opposite of relaxed all morning; the compulsive tidying, the pacing, the way he'd been drumming his fingers so hard on the counter that she'd nearly considered removing a few from his right hand as well. He was wound up tighter than a two-dollar watch.

If Ruby thought the same, then she didn't show it. "Oh, sure. I guess we've got a busy day ahead, huh? Wonder what they'll have in store for us? Some of the other seasons they were really rough on the contestants on the first day, sending them off on wild goose chases. Real test of a relationship, I'd imagine, being dumped in a strange place and suddenly having to find your way around it."

She paused long enough to smile and wave at the morose Hester and for the reality of her words to sink in for Emma. Ruby was the local girl; Ruby had the advantage. Plus, she had an actual functioning relationship with the other person on her team. Emma felt like she and Killian were the team made up of the kids no one else wanted to pick. It didn't feel great at all.

"I don't know," Killian said, quietly. "I think I've always liked being the outsider."

There was a moment of silence that bordered on awkward, as Killian and Ruby eyed each other and Emma wondered whether she'd have to intervene, but in the end Ruby broke out into one of her over-sized smiles and looked as though they were all sharing some great joke. "I guess we'll have to wait and see what they give us to do, won't we?" she said, leaning over a little as she laughed. And then she took a deep sniff.

"Hey! You guys smell great by the way."

"Uh, we do?" Emma asked.

"Sure! Whatever that stuff is, it's not the bars of soap Granny usually provides. And it's cute you smell the same." Ruby paused, and then narrowed her eyes a little, looking like she was considering something.

"You know, I think I got the last of the hot water this morning, which Mulan is none too pleased about...but I think I know where it all went, don't I?" She pointed a finger at Emma who was about to vehemently deny using more than her fair share and pin it all on Killian getting up at the crack of dawn, when Ruby suddenly laughed.

"Well, that was a work-around for the bed situation I guess. Very creative!" With that she laughed again, and then walked away just as Hester placed a plate of waffles in front of Emma.

Knowing that she couldn't put it off any longer, Emma turned to the side to catch Killian's eye, expecting him to be triumphant about the whole smelling like each other thing. Only he still looked a little morose and she remembered her harsh words from earlier.

This was why she didn't do relationships. Not real ones, anyway. It was just far too easy for it all to go wrong and they hadn't even been here 24 hours and now Killian hated her and probably didn't want to be here and she could hardly blame him, could she? He should be grinning, and flirting and saying inappropriate things about dropping the soap and now he was just reading the back of a bottle of ketchup and not making eye contact and Emma hated everything about this place.

There were more arrivals at the back of the diner. This time Anna and Kristoff came through the door, Anna wearing what looked like a snowsuit and visibly shivering. Ruby stopped to say something to them and Emma heard a few words that sounded like 'water just wouldn't heat up' and 'I've been in snowstorms that have been more pleasant.'

Emma turned away from the miserable looking faces of her fellow contestants and nudged Killian's shoulder with her own. "I think your plan to get up early and psych out the other contestants worked...just maybe not how you imagined it would."

Killian looked past Emma at the others, but remained silent and, for a moment, Emma thought her attempt to build a bridge hadn't worked at all and that he was hell-bent on ignoring on her. But when he shifted back around in his seat he sighed, loudly, and then finally spoke. "Sorry about the...well, touching your things, love."

"Oh, yeah. That's, uh...all right." There was no way Emma could adequately explain the very real and absolutely gut-wrenching reaction she'd had to realising that Killian had moved her belongings. All those years in and out of group homes in the foster system and she'd learned that it wasn't just about making sure no one stole your stuff, it was just as important to always know where it was. If it wasn't handy, if you couldn't grab it in time, then you'd be leaving without it the next time they moved you on. It would have sounded stupid if she'd tried to explain it, so better to just brush it all under the rug and start again.

"At least we didn't come to blows over it," Killian said, sounding a little more cheerful now.

"Yeah, you just make sure you don't decide to give Ruby any details about anything like...that," Emma replied, waving a hand in front of Killian's face.

"What?" His forehead crinkled in confusion, and then his eyes widened dramatically. "Oh. No, love. I wasn't going to go there, although clearly you did. Can I tell her that?"

"No!"

Killian shrugged. "Fair enough. I've avoided one punch-up this morning, I'd like to avoid this one if I can."

He took a sip of his coffee and watched Emma over the rim of the mug in a way that seemed to be urging her on. She shouldn't take the bait. She absolutely shouldn't…

"If it did come to that, you know I can take you down, right?"

"Of course, Swan. Too bloody right. Take me down any time you like."

"You're impossible."

"But I smell nice, and happily engage in psychological warfare with our competition, so that makes up for it."

Emma wished she could come up with something scathing in response but, she conceded, he was kind of right. Not so much about smelling nice although, Emma had to admit, she did like the way he smelled, whether he'd been stealing her shower gel or not. And, yeah, she hadn't much appreciated the fact he'd woken her up when it was still dark out, but the fact he'd done it because they were part of a team and he wanted to win just as much as she did made her feel like she wasn't a complete lunatic.

The night before she'd been so lonely, sitting in the room by herself, waiting for Henry to text back and tell her how his day had gone and whether the math test had been as bad as he'd thought it might be. Hearing about it from a text just wasn't the same as being there. And then she'd been so worried that Killian was having second thoughts and he'd just leave her there, in a cold bedroom in a strange town.

But he'd come back and he'd given her some hope that they might actually have a shot at this whole goddamn debacle and it had made her feel a little bit better about everything.

Or a lot better, actually. She just wasn't going to confess that to Killian.

"Yeah. You're all right, I guess. For someone who is weirdly obsessed with their sauce being brown, that is."

"Beggars can't be choosers, huh love?"

Emma wasn't certain exactly who that remark was most insulting to; Killian or herself. Maybe she'd been right when she'd felt like they were the team made up of everyone else's leftovers.

"Yep." Emma raised her coffee cup in salute. Perhaps beggars couldn't be choosers but that didn't necessarily rule them out of being winners, did it? "But here's to the beggars having their day."

Killian had slept badly and while he'd like to blame the horrible excuse for a mattress that he'd been forced to sleep on, the culprit was really his own mind which had spent the early hours of the morning concocting various strategies and running through a number of increasingly outlandish situations, including the one where he faked his own death and disappeared from the show and Emma's life, forever.

But dawn had come and he'd had to face up to the fact that there was no getting out of it now and strategy was perhaps the only thing they had going for them. And he'd thought he'd been quite clever, coming up with the idea that they get the jump on the competition, only he'd then gone and cocked it up by tidying Emma's things.

The worst part was that it wasn't even something he'd done all that consciously. Just an old habit, really, trying to keep himself busy so he didn't brood.

He ate the bacon that wasn't at all crispy and tried not to miss the brown sauce that might make it slightly more palatable. Honestly, he could forgive this country for its miserable taste in chocolate but the lack of HP sauce, or even a measly steak sauce alternative, just seemed cruel. Still, at least Emma seemed to be over her grumpiness. Things could only improve from that point.

Things did not improve in the short term. By the time breakfast was completed, all the contestants and the intolerable August Booth had found their way to the diner, many of them complaining about the lack of hot water available. The establishment's owner, who appeared to only answer to the name Granny, arrived just in time to greet the half-hearted complaints with an incredulous look and a lot of muttering about how people needed to be grateful for running water at all.

August rounded everyone up and, just when Killian believed the competition might finally get underway and he could settle his nerves with a good dose of adrenaline, they were simply shuffled down the street to an empty shop, which was serving as the production office for the duration of the filming.

None of this was of much interest to Killian, although he tried to smile politely and occasionally remember to pay attention to the constant list of names and job titles August rattled off. He shouldn't have been surprised by the number of people involved, after all there were usually far more people working on land than there were on the water in every racing syndicate he'd ever been a part of, but it was still a little disconcerting peeking behind the curtain as it were. Who knew that a stupid reality show took this much effort to produce?

They were briefly introduced to the show's host, who took less interest in the contestants than Killian had managed to muster for 'runner number three' or whoever August had just dragged over to present to them. Killian vaguely recognised Arthur Avalon from some daytime telly back in the UK...something about guessing the value of your neighbour's loft conversion, perhaps? Designed, no doubt, to appeal to old age pensioners and students and no one with half a brain.

But somehow the wanker had ended up here and now they were all going to be subjected to his smarmy banter on a regular basis. Lovely.

Still, as overwhelming as all of this information was for Killian, he was more worried about the effect it was having on Emma who, once again, had gone stiff and silent at his side. It had already been a less than auspicious start to the morning, to the whole competition in fact, and he was desperate for a way to get back in her good graces. While they were stuck in this interminable lecture he was never going to get one.

Next up they were frog-marched to where several marquees were set up in a carpark somewhere behind all the shops. Like the offices, these were a hive of activity, although Killian couldn't have told you exactly what any of the people there were actually doing, other than running about with coffee cups.

"All right, take five everyone!" August announced, clapping his hands in front of him like he'd been left in charge of a primary school class. "Craft services is over there!" He pointed to a table which seemed to be the source of all the coffee cups he'd seen in people's hands and, before Killian could suggest that he and Emma take August up on his offer, she was striding towards it purposefully, leaving Killian to trail along in her wake.

The contestants all lined up at the table, breaking into couples and taking in the display of food in front of them.

"Look at all this food!" Anna...it was Anna, wasn't it?...exclaimed, clapping her hands together. "Do you think we're really allowed to just have as much as we want?" she asked her fiancé, but he didn't reply and simply looked like he might be wondering how much he could fit in his pockets for later.

On the other side Ruby seemed to be having a quiet conversation with Mulan. "So where do you think they've brought all this in from? Because Granny could have done with the business. I thought the point was to help out the local economy."

Killian turned to Emma, who was now clutching a takeaway coffee cup in both hands, her shoulders hunched forward and her eyes on the ground. He felt oddly exposed, despite the crowds of people hurrying about around them. The other teams...couples, whatever it was you wanted to call them, they'd escaped into their little bubbles of togetherness, buoyed up by shared histories and in-jokes and all the things that built the bond that he and Emma just didn't have.

They probably never would, but it didn't stop Killian feeling a sharp pang of longing all the same, which just made him feel frustrated and even more alone. The whole point of this bloody stupid show was to make him forget his troubles, forget what he'd lost, and just keep him too busy to wallow in his own misery. But so far all he'd managed to achieve was a lot of standing around and a fraught relationship with a woman who may, or may not, stab him in the eye if he dared to bump her hairbrush off the bathroom sink.

Next stop on the interminable tour of deathly boredom was the person in charge of the sound, who gave them a run-down on the microphones they'd be fitted with. "So just remember," he warned, "Whenever you're wearing them, we're recording you whether the camera's there or not. We've had some...uh...incidents, you might say, with previous competitors forgetting they had them on. So just be careful, OK?"

"What he means, Swan," Killian whispered, leaning as close as he dared to Emma. "Is that you'll have to watch the dirty talk." Her only response was a small smile, and Killian went back to silently cursing himself for his inability to fix the situation they were in.

So much for the early start. The day dragged on and on as they were forced to listen to more people explaining how everything was supposed to work. And there was the promise of more to come; once the house had been assigned, then there'd be meetings with architects and contractors, mostly off-screen, in order to decide on how the renovations would be carried out.

By lunchtime Killian was starting to wish that he had done a runner the night before, but when they were sent back to the craft services table, which had been miraculously refilled by a tribe of unseen pixies since they were last there, he trudged along with the group and took his place next to Emma, if only because he was determined to keep his promise for her.

He'd said he was in this for the long-haul and if nothing else he was going to be true to his word.

"You know maybe it won't be so bad," Killian mused, picking up, what he hoped was, a vaguely edible crab puff and adding it to the paper plate he'd been handed. "At least there's food."

"I've been in worse places," Emma replied, her own plate piled high now and in danger of spilling its contents back onto the table in front of them. "We just have to keep it together, and remember that Henry is counting on us." She gave him a serious look, but then turned back to the table, picking up a mini quiche and carefully balancing it on top of the pile on her plate.

"Yes...quite," Killian agreed, his voice sounding oddly formal. He didn't even know if Emma was aware of the fact she'd used the word 'us' in that sentence, had no way of telling if it meant anything to her at all or if she was just trying to remind him that he'd committed to this and couldn't back out now.

And he most certainly had no intention of letting on just how much he wished they were an 'us'.

After lunch, things seemed to be getting underway. Or, at least, they were summarily rounded up by August before Emma had quite finished her food, which left Killian worried that she'd choke to death on the last piece of sushi which she shoved whole into her mouth.

But there wasn't any time to contemplate whether or not he'd be able to do the Heimlich manoeuvre on Emma before she punched him in the face because, after a morning that had felt like sleep-walking, the afternoon looked set to be nothing but action.

First, they were herded towards a cordoned off area of Main Street, lined with a few curious bystanders and now occupied by all the various running people that Killian had been introduced to earlier in the day. They were still running around but now in ever more frantic circles and with even larger takeout cups clutched in their hands.

Everyone had mics attached to them. They were like weird rubber necklaces and they immediately made Killian itchy. Then some bloke called Robin, who was, it turned out, the director, explained that the game was about to begin and they were to take their places in front of some sort of makeshift podium. And then they waited, standing in a row like a bunch of school kids hanging around at an assembly while the headmaster hid in his office.

Eventually Arthur appeared, but only to confer with Robin, and then he disappeared again while Robin explained that they'd shoot their official welcome and explanation of the first task, but that they'd possibly have to do something called 'pick-up' shots afterwards.

Killian snuck a glance at Emma, who was frowning in concentration and leaning forward a little, looking as though she was anxious not to miss anything. At some time during the lunch break she'd removed the bulky sweatshirt she'd started the day in and was now just wearing one of those tank-tops people wore to work out in, the kind that clung to the body and showed a lot of skin. He felt like he shouldn't be examining the number of freckles on Emma's shoulder quite so thoroughly, but at the same time couldn't tear his eyes away.

It was only when that wanker Arthur appeared on the podium that he did turn his head, ready for something, anything, to focus on that wasn't Emma. Bloody stupid really; now he needed a distraction from the person who was supposed to have been his distraction in the first place. He felt a little anxious and jittery, like he'd had too many cups of coffee and was now paying the price.

And then Arthur started up and he tried to pay attention.

"Welcome everyone, to this the brand-new season of Our New Home, this time coming to you from the charming town of Storybrooke, Maine. Over the next six weeks you'll spend time with our contestants as they work together with the person they love to make a home for themselves, testing both their skill at renovations and their ability to work as a team. At the end of it one lucky pair will walk away with their dream home, while the others will see if their renovations have done enough to improve the property values and earn them the cash they need for a brighter future."

There was a pause and then Arthur turned to Robin, who was standing behind a TV screen off to the side. "Can we do that again? Sun's really getting to me, and I was squinting through most of it."

Robin sighed, quite audibly. "Can we get some shade over there, please?" he called out, pointing, and there was a flurry of activity behind them.

"OK," Robin said, when it was calm again. "When you're ready, mate."

The next time Arthur paused to debate whether charming was a naff choice of word. After that he forgot the part about working as a team and stopped part-way through. Then he needed some water. Next he asked whether it was odd to use the word renovations twice, and finally, after getting through the whole speech he decided he might try it again but with more emphasis on the word love.

Killian gave up counting and just tried to prepare for the task ahead. At some point, during the period of time between the interview with August and the actual confirmation they were going on the show, he'd watched a few episodes of Our New House. Not that he'd ever confess that to Emma, which perhaps had more to do with the fact he'd been searching for clips on YouTube as a way to distract himself from the text messages she wasn't returning, than any actual embarrassment about wanting to be prepared.

But at least he knew that whatever they were in for probably involved running. He was fine with that. Hopefully there wouldn't be anything that required one of them to be blindfolded. That might be a little trickier, given those tasks were all about communication. Even harder still would be the ones that required the use of two fully-functioning hands to perform some kind of test of manual dexterity. So Killian stood still, stared at the tables laid out in front of them and hoped to God that all he had to do was run hell for leather in whichever direction they pointed him.

Eventually Arthur shut up, if only for long enough for Robin to come over, run them through what the rules of the task were going to be, and then Arthur started up again, explaining everything to them as though they were idiots while a few people with cameras strapped to their shoulders shuffled past them trying to film reactions. It was a little like being in a herd of buffalo while the lions circled, trying to pick out the weakest ones. Killian might have been tempted to make a run for it if he'd had any way of communicating to Emma that they should get the hell out of there, but she was wearing her most serious look of concentration and wasn't paying any attention to Killian at all.

Which just served to prove his point that the whole blindfold thing would have been a disaster.

Long before the third time Arthur went over the rules of the task, Killian had a fairly good idea of what was required; complete one of the puzzles set out on the table, run to the location shown on said puzzle, find something that would help them locate one of three vehicles, each of which had a map to a house. Whichever house you found was then your team's to renovate. First team to a house got a prize, the usefulness of which depended on how much you believed the hyperbole Arthur was paid to spew forth.

It seemed fairly straightforward, but the wildcard was, of course, Emma. More to the point he couldn't just abandon her as dead weight part way through.

Not that he seriously would, mind. But he liked winning, would hardly have been sailing competitively if he hadn't, and this felt like something he very much needed to win. If only to prove to Emma, and himself, that all those promises he'd made weren't a load of old bollocks.

Of course the most pressing problem was whether or not they could convincingly play couple number three under the watchful eye of someone recording their every move. Robin had explained that each couple would have a camera person and a sound person assigned to capture their race and warned them not to get in the car and drive off without them. "Otherwise you'll all have to start the whole bloody thing again, and the rest of us have lives to get back to."

Immediately after they were mentioned, Killian watched as a bloke with a camera and woman carrying a microphone and a bag over her shoulder stepped out of the shadows and stood near Emma and himself, as other members of the crew did the same to the other teams. It was a little creepy, to be honest.

Then everyone was instructed to move up and stand in front of the table and Arthur began a loud countdown, while Killian wondered how many takes he'd need to get to the part where he actually said 'go!'.

Only this time there was no discussion or re-takes, just everyone scrambling forward to uncover the elusive puzzles, which were really just a bunch of pieces of wood with some kind of photo glued on. Killian let Emma start moving them around, trying to figure out how they fit together, but the picture didn't mean much; it was black and white, most of the detail bleached out by the lack of colour and one grey square probably looked about as different as every other grey square.

Until it didn't, and Killian caught sight of something that looked familiar in the grey lines and blobs. Emma was still frantically moving the pieces around, trying to make sense of it all and, when Killian took a quick glance to the side, so were both of the other couples.

If they wanted an advantage, this might be it. After a quick calculation of the risk versus reward factor, Killian nudged Emma in her side with his elbow. She jumped and turned quickly, the annoyance plain on her face "What?"

Killian looked around quickly, even though he knew it unlikely any of the other teams could hear them. "I know where this is," he hissed.

"What?"

"That." He quickly pointed to the black squiggles currently sitting in the top right corner of the board. "I've seen it."

"So…?" Now Emma looked around. "We just go now?"

Killian nodded, and then quietly started shuffling away from the table. He heard Arthur saying "Looks like the first couple are off!" but was really more concerned with whether or not Emma was following as she'd seemed dubious about the whole decision.

But when he turned around she was right behind him, although right behind her was the bloke with the camera and his offsider with the mic, which kind of ruined the whole stealth thing. And they certainly didn't have time to discuss whether this was the right move or not. Instead Killian started making his way down Main Street re-tracing the path he'd taken the night before, keeping the pace to a slow jog and feeling like the Pied Piper with both Emma and the crew members following him.

It made him appreciate the fact that, in yacht racing, any cameras were far off in the distance and not intrusively pointed at you as you tried to remember whether or not you'd turned left or right the previous night.

"You know where you're going, right?" Emma asked him, and he really could have done without the question right then.

"Yeah, no...I just need to get my bearings."

Emma huffed audibly. "We should have stayed and finished. I bet the others have left now, and we don't even know where we're going."

"No. No, I do know," Killian said, through gritted teeth. He desperately didn't want their first appearance on the show to be an all-out brawl on the street but he felt a great tide of tension, one he'd been trying to push away all through the long and boring hours they'd been shuffled around, ready to burst out of him if he let it.

But he wouldn't. He was stronger than that.

"Well, are you sure? Because nothing around here looks like anything on that picture. And the other teams aren't here."

"Perhaps their pictures were different, love." Right. It was definitely a right...then past the sign for the seafood market and…

"But what if they weren't? What if we've just gone off half-cocked because you wanted to win so badly and now we're going to be last?"

He meant to hold his tongue against all provocation, he really did, but somehow his next words, in all their biting glory, just slipped out. "Look, why don't you try something new, darling. It's called trust."

There was a long moment of silence while Killian and Emma glared at each and both tried to pretend that there wasn't a camera pointed at them, and then Emma backed down. "Fine! Whatever. Let's just go, OK?"

He had a better idea now, anyway, of exactly where he was going and it was just a short run now straight through to their final destination. When the faded letters on the side on the building he'd seen last night came into view, he stopped short and pointed. "There."

"Seriously? You think that's what the picture was of?"

"Aye. It was definitely the cannery. You could see part of the curve of the C in the piece you were moving around."

Emma looked at him dubiously. "But...like...the rest of it was just some old boards. Every other building here is a bunch of crummy old boards. How do you know it's that one?"

"I just do. And now we're here, shall we look?"

"I guess so." Emma sounded less than thrilled with the prospect

Killian led the way into the gloom of the building's interior, hoping that it wasn't in a complete state of disrepair, but the place seemed clean and mostly empty. Which brought up a whole new problem. Now they were actually here, what on earth were they meant to do?

"There!" Emma called out, excitedly, pointing at something in the corner of the space. Closer inspection showed it to be a large card, emblazoned with the show's logo on the front and, when Emma flipped it over, writing on the other side.

Killian read it over Emma's shoulder and was trying to make sense of the thing when he noticed some movement from the cameraperson who was pointing at the card in Emma's hands and miming something about a duck quacking.

Emma was clearly better at interpreting the odd hand-motions though, and gave a small nod before she started to read the card out aloud. "Search in here for the thing that you need, then take it when you set forth. Make your way with great speed, and head due north."

"So...OK," Emma said. "Which way's north?"

"Hang on, love. We're supposed to find something first."

Emma frowned. "But it says which way we should go...so, let's not hang around. You can work out north, right?"

Killian felt a little put on the spot at that. Yes, possibly he could. But he felt like continuing on now would just be asking for trouble.

"It's not the way it works," he explained. "You have to do all the steps...I've seen teams try to skip over a few, but it always comes back to bite them in the arse in the end."

Emma narrowed her eyes. "Wait. When did you see this? Do you watch this show?"

The tone of her accusation suggested that Killian had been doing something shameful and, while he hadn't been prepared to confess to his program of self-directed study, he still didn't think that Emma should be quite so dismissive of the show when they were on camera. He tried to alert her to that fact with a tip of the head towards the ever-circling camera person, but all he got in response was "Huh?"

"Let's just...shall we get on with the search?"

"Yeah. I guess." Emma was still eyeing him suspiciously, so he walked off and started poking around in the corner of the space. For the most part he found only dust and a few impressively sized spider's webs.

"Do we even know what we're looking for?" Emma called out, pulling some crates out from a wall.

"No. But I assume we'll know it when we find it."

"We better," Emma muttered, coughing as a cloud of dust billowed around her.

Killian kept searching, moving a tarpaulin that was piled in a corner and hoping he wasn't disturbing a rat's nest in the process. He moved a few boxes and then found an old stool to stand on so he could check the top of some shelves in case something had been tucked away up there.

But there was nothing. And Emma was getting frustrated now. "I think we should just go," she said. "We know the direction and we don't want everyone else to pass us. What if they're somewhere else and have found their stuff?"

"No. We need to keep searching."

By this time Emma had moved closer to where Killian had been looking, and was standing with her hands on her hips surveying the area. It didn't seem very productive to Killian, who was determined to just keep looking, and he went back to opening the drawers of a very dusty desk.

"Hey, I've checked that!" Emma said, indignantly.

"I know...but we must have missed something."

"Well, maybe I didn't. Maybe it was you." She pushed one of the boxes Killian had looked into earlier with her foot and its contents rattled. "You checked this, right?"

"Of course I did; it's just some cans."

Emma lifted the flaps of the box. "But did you check the cans themselves?"

"Why? You fancy beans on toast right at this moment?"

Emma rolled her eyes. "It is a cannery. It would make sense to put something in one of them."

Killian tried to think of a way to dispute her theory and save his own pride. But, bugger it all to hell, she was probably right.

"All right, then. Let's check the bloody cans." He knelt down next to Emma on the greasy concrete floor and started pulling cans out of the box, shaking each one in turn. None of them were labelled and most of them felt like they were empty.

Emma was doing the same, and for a moment he thought that they might get through all the cans without having found anything, but the he noticed that there was a rattling sound coming from the one he was holding.

"That's it!" Emma said, pointing to the can and nearly knocking it out of his hand in the process. Killian tugged on the ring-pull on the top of the can and peeled back the lid, before tipping it upside down. A compass fell into his palm and he showed it to Emma.

"Seriously? That's it?"

"A moment ago you were quite gleeful about finding it. What happened, love?"

"A moment ago I didn't know it was just an old watch. How's that supposed to help us?"

"Because it's actually a compass."

"Oh."

There was a moment of silence as they both became acutely aware of how close that bloody cameraperson was to them, and were suddenly self-conscious. Killian couldn't imagine that this was exactly making for riveting viewing, but he suspected there was a lot that was going to be cut out in the editing room.

He just hoped they didn't lose any of the important stuff, like the fact he was the one who actually knew it was a compass.

"Shall we give it a test, then?" he said, standing up and holding the compass in his palm.

"Sure, yeah." Emma stood as well. "You know what you're doing with that thing, right?"

Killian didn't even bother answering that question. "That way!" he said, pointing...straight at a wall of the building.

"Maybe we're supposed to do it outside?" Emma suggested, and they trudged out the door and onto the wharf again. Killian was tempted to tell the cameraperson he could just rewind over that last part as they were going to do it again, but he suspected that wasn't how these cameras worked.

"Right. Now...that way!" he said again, once the needle on the compass had stilled and he could lead them in the direction they were supposed to go. Emma had been right, most likely he could have worked it out without the compass, from the fact that the bloody wharf meant most options would lead them into the water if nothing else. But rules were rules, and he didn't want to arrive at the finish line only to be disqualified for not following some point of procedure.

If Killian knew anything, he knew how races worked. That being first was only half the battle, and that without teamwork, the right equipment and a strict adherence to every bloody minor rule they threw at you, you wouldn't even get that far.

He'd perhaps forgotten what it felt like, the heady rush of competition. But now the idea of a victory was in his sight and it made him feel almost as though he was being brought back from...well, not the dead. That was a tad melodramatic. But it was an awakening nonetheless, a rebirth of something he'd been trying to ignore since the accident….

He was broken out of his reverie by the sound of Emma's trainers hitting the wooden slats of the wharf with increased speed. "There! There!" she yelled, even though he could see exactly what she was pointing at. It was hard to miss an enormous, bright red 4-wheel drive parked in between two rundown warehouses.

"There's something on the windscreen!" Emma said, excitedly, and he wondered for a moment if her comments were actually for his benefit or if she felt the need to narrate the proceedings for their unseen audience. He would have liked to stop and ask her, perhaps discuss their strategy on the matter, but time was ticking by.

Emma seemed to feel the same way, as her sentences were now brief to the point of being almost nonsensical. She pulled the paper out from behind the windscreen wiper and simply said "Map...yours," before she hit him in the chest with it.

"Mine?"

"You said...yesterday. You're good with maps...so now's your chance. I'll drive, you navigate. OK?"

"Right, yes." Killian started unfolding the map at the same time as he stepped towards the car door, only Emma appeared at his shoulder before he could climb inside.

"No, I'm driving," she said, in a voice that suggested he'd done something particularly irritating.

"Yes, I know."

"Then why are you trying to get in the driver's side?"

"Oh, bloody buggering bollocks!" Killian started moving to the other side of the car, wondering how all this was going to look on TV. He caught the eye of the cameraperson who appeared to be sniggering quietly to himself, which was just bloody marvellous. "It's not my fault, you know, that you have to be different in this country and you can't just drive on the left like normal people."

He climbed in the car beside Emma and heard the back door open and close as the camera and sound people joined them.

"Maybe it's you guys that are the odd ones and we're actually correct?"

Killian decided to ignore that remark in favour of actually giving Emma directions. Reading the map wasn't a particularly difficult task; there was a red line drawn to show which streets they had to take but, given that Storybrooke wasn't the largest town, they could have taken several wrong turns and still not have encountered too many problems, as most of the town was laid out in a grid pattern, and everything seemed to lead either down to the docks or to Main Street.

In some ways Killian wished his task was a little more taxing than just saying 'make the next right' over and over again, while Emma took the corners a little too fast for comfort and the cameraperson kept shoving the bloody camera between the seats. There just wasn't anything tactical involved in what they were doing, and no way of knowing where the other teams were. He missed being able to look across the course and see the sails of the other yachts. This was like sailing blindfolded, and possibly in circles, and he didn't like it one bit.

Until, that was, they drove towards the point on the map where the red felt-tipped line he'd been following abruptly stopped and he could see the huge melee of other vehicles and people, some of whom had cameras like the one currently stuck into his shoulder.

"There?" Emma asked, as she stubbornly refused to brake and nearly sent one of the interminable camera people flying through the air.

"That looks like it," Killian said, eyeing the house whose once-white picket fence was festooned with red balloons.

Emma stopped the car abruptly, and was out of it and running before Killian had even had a chance to undo his seatbelt completely. Scrambling to catch up with her, they saw Arthur standing up ahead beaming at them and it almost made Killian want to run in the other direction.

When he'd said he was in this for the long haul he hadn't really thought about the possibility of dealing with that smiling plonker on a daily basis. There were limits.

But Emma had no such reservations, and she surged ahead of him, which possibly wasn't a great look for their team, but certainly spoke volumes about her own desire to win. She reached the little mat in front of Arthur first, joined after a moment by Killian, who realised he was still clutching the bloody map but didn't have anywhere to now shove it. He considered just tossing it to one side, but the camera people were circling now, like predators, and he didn't fancy being caught littering the footpath.

So instead he stood awkwardly, really not sure what to do with his hands, while Emma bounced a little on the balls of her feet next to him.

"Emma and Killian," Arthur intoned, like he was delivering a sermon from on high. "I'm proud to say that you, our newest Red Team have won this challenge and located your new home before either of the other teams. Because of that you'll receive an extra prize pack to help you get started. In the meantime, here is the key to your new home." Arthur held out a key with a great deal of flourish, and presented it to Emma.

It was unexpectedly good news and Killian felt a sudden burst of elation. It felt good to have actually won after the long hours of waiting around for the bloody event to start. Without thinking he turned to Emma and wrapped his arms around her.

It was only after he'd done it, that Killian realised the awkwardness of what he'd done. Emma went from smiling and bouncing on her toes to stiff as a board. He immediately dropped his arms and stepped back.

A part of his brain told him that his actions weren't that different to the celebrations on board the boats when he'd been racing. The Italians on the team had been a demonstrative lot and there'd been the odd pat on the back or even a hug on occasion when they'd had to fight down the final leg in order to cross first.

But it wasn't really the same at all. Because this wasn't a yacht, and this was Emma.

Arthur, who had dropped the benevolent priest act, called out "Was that all right?"

Killian turned to where the director, that Robin bloke, was standing. "Yeah, not bad. Can you guys just try that again...but with a bit more, you know?"

"What?" Emma asked quickly.

"A bit more celebrating...because you won. So feel free to kiss or...Killian, you might want to pick Emma up, or something? Just a suggestion. It's a big moment, and the audience want to share it with you."

Killian nodded, feeling a little stunned by being quite so thoroughly choreographed. It was one thing when he was grabbing Emma of his own volition, this was just horribly awkward and he could see from the way she was bracing herself that she wasn't exactly thrilled by the whole thing, either.

"Do I have to do my bit again, or did I nail it?" Arthur called out.

"Good enough, mate. And we'll have to get over to the other houses in a moment. I just want a bit more Emma and Killian and then we'll move on."

Robin gave them a nod. "All right. When you're ready, let's see some celebrations!"

Put on the spot Killian froze completely. How on earth could there be a bit more Emma and Killian when there wasn't any bloody Emma-and-Killian to begin with? They'd spent all morning barely talking to each other and now, simply because they'd read a map correctly, they were suddenly supposed to be the epitome of the happy couple.

The moment had passed, and Killian wasn't sure he felt like celebrating any longer. At least not for anyone else's benefit.

But while he was debating the ethics of being nothing more than a puppet to whatever omniscient being ruled over reality programming, Emma had other ideas. Robin waved his hands in a 'go-on' motion, and she suddenly pounced, there was no other way to describe it. One minute Killian was standing there, still with the bloody map in his hand, wondering whether he would risk hugging Emma again and the next she had grabbed his shirt and hauled him towards her, her mouth crashing against his.

It took him a moment to sort out all the competing sensations and thoughts and really focus on what was happening. Because Emma was kissing him, and her mouth was soft against his, her body tantalisingly close, but not close enough. Killian could smell her shampoo - although maybe that was because he had used it himself. Still, it was all a little intoxicating either way, and when Emma dropped her hands and stepped back he was certain he stood there, blinking like a moon-faced teenage boy and not really even caring that the cameras were still filming his blank stare.

"Was that OK?" Emma called to Robin, and Killian came back to reality with a crash. All for show, wasn't it? He was just here to be a part of Emma's story, after all.

"Perfect," Robin called back, giving her a thumbs up as he got up out of the deckchair he'd been sitting in. "You really sold that one. Everyone loves a winner, though. Well done you guys...and I'll leave so you can do some filming around the house, yeah?"

Half of the crew who'd been standing around in the street started to gather up their equipment and shuffle off, presumably to one or both of the other teams.

Emma turned to him, still looking happy. "Well, that was quite something, huh?" she asked, digging him in the side with her elbow.

"Yep. Sure was, love." He got the feeling they were talking about completely different things.

Even for Emma, who had experienced more than her fair share of overwhelming and confusing days in her lifetime, this was a day she wouldn't forget in a hurry. The time they'd spent being introduced to the huge number of people who ran the show had reminded Emma of every time she'd entered a group home, the other kids watching her suspiciously while she tried desperately to remember a new set of names and faces and hope she didn't accidentally offend a Josh by calling him John instead.

And, although logically she knew that she couldn't possibly be expected to remember the names of every production assistant involved in the whole show, it felt like she should try. It felt like something the people with binders of decorating ideas would do, and, despite the fact it had been years since she'd had to start over in a new home with new people, Emma couldn't quite shake that desperate need to prove herself.

It made her unable to really pay much attention to Killian, and that just made her feel all the worse. She'd wanted them to be a team and yet, here she was, so anxious to impress all the random strangers that she couldn't help but be a bad teammate.

And she'd doubted Killian all the way through the task, almost as much as she'd been doubting herself. They were the team that didn't deserve to win.

Somehow, though, they had. They'd actually won and whether it was because Emma had insisted on checking each can or because Killian had recognised a tiny image on a jigsaw puzzle didn't matter anymore. Because they were a team.

Or, at least, Emma felt that they were for the brief moments they'd stood in front of that Arthur guy while he'd announced them the winners of the challenge, a little like he was knighting them or something, the way he'd intoned the words 'Emma and Killian' as he said it.

Still, she would take the win because, although her reason for entering the show might not be strictly to win the whole thing, Emma loved winning. It happened all too rarely in her life but when it did, it made for the best moments, all hers and which nobody, not even other foster-kids with post-nasal drips and a weird collection of rocks they were jealously guarding under their bunk bed mattresses, not even those kids could make her feel bad about herself if she was a winner.

Which was all great, until she'd gone and kissed Killian and felt less like a winner and more like a big fat liar who had no business being here all over again. That guy Robin, the one who was calling all the shots had told her to jump and she hadn't even bothered to ask how high, she'd just dived straight in, as eager to please as she ever had been.

God she was a mess. And she was tired, and a little emotional, and embarrassed because Killian had managed to look positively horrified after she'd kissed him, standing there with a crumpled map in his hand.

The worst part was that now everyone else was ignoring them. They'd put on the required show and now most of the crew were on to the next couple, leaving Emma and Killian standing there, eyeing each other warily.

"So," Killian ventured. "This is our dream home, huh?"

"Yeah...looks a little like a nightmare to be honest," Emma replied. The place had something that looked like a turret for God's sake, and was practically falling down.

From further down the street she could hear Arthur intoning solemnly "Ruby and Mulan, you are the second team to find your dream home…" followed by him saying, in a completely different voice, "I'm sorry...is it Mu-larn or Mu-lan? Am I getting it right?"

"You guys ready?" their camera person said suddenly, appearing beside Killian.

"For...what?" Emma asked.

They guy rolled his eyes. "To do the walk-through. You look through the house, poke around a bit, I film it. We need to get quite a bit of footage so they can cut it later on."

There didn't seem to be any point in arguing with the guy, so they trudged towards the house where Emma put the key in the lock and pushed open the door gingerly.

Stepping inside she looked around the room they were in which had probably once been quite nice but now was old and tired and possibly had things nesting in the corner if that scuttling was anything to go by.

"Um…" she tried, casting around for some kind of comment to make. She'd been struggling with the camera being on her all afternoon; it turned her into some kind of weird game show host or something, narrating everything that was going on. But this time, she had nothing. It was starting to sink in that she was utterly out of her depth. Why on earth had she ever thought that she could renovate a house?

"It probably has good bones," Killian announced loudly, poking the wood around the window frame. Half his hand promptly disappeared into the soft wood. "Oh, bugger that!"

The camera person started laughing which just made the whole thing worse.

"Sorry. Sorry, guys," he said, lifting the camera off his shoulder. "It's just this bit always gets me...all that going on about a dream home, and then they give you a big pile of crap."

"Yeah…" Killian said, slowly extracting his hand. "It's not that bad, though, is it?"

"You should see the bathroom," the camera guy replied.

Killian pressed his lips together and looked like he didn't dare say anything else. Emma, who was still stuck feeling alternately guilty for having dragged him into this and inadequately prepared for the task, decided to change the subject.

"So...uh, what was your name again?"

The guy smiled, and not just with his mouth. It was like his whole face was smiling. Clearly he was one of the world's naturally smiley people. Emma was pretty sure she tended more to the naturally scowly. Killian...well, the jury was still out on Killian.

"Call me Merlin," the camera person said. "Sorry, I would have introduced myself earlier, but Arthur goes on and on and then you guys were off and running and I barely had a chance to catch my breath. And this is Nimue." He pointed at the woman with the microphone, who simply raised a hand.

Emma couldn't think how to carry on the conversation, and they stood awkwardly for a moment. "Well," Merlin said, eventually. "I'm going to go and crouch in the bathroom so I can get a good shot of your faces when you both see the loo in there."

"Oh, OK."

Merlin was right about the state of the bathroom, it was grimy, with cracked tiles and a bathtub that looked at least 100 years old. Emma looked around in silent horror and Killian seemed to be keeping his hands very much to himself now. She wasn't certain if this was exactly the footage Merlin had been hoping to capture, but it would have to do.

They wandered through all the other rooms in turn. In the kitchen Emma asked Killian if he thought the oven actually worked.

"Once, perhaps. Back when the pilgrims were recently arrived."

The bedrooms upstairs were a little better, although all of them seemed dusty and unused and there were missing closet doors in two of them and one had a collection of old drawers, but not the bureau they must have once belonged to.

It was a little depressing to be honest. After the elation of winning the challenge now they were stuck looking around an abandoned property trying to work out how on earth it could be turned into a habitable space, let alone a dream home.

The final room they went into was the master bedroom. It had the same air of disuse as all the other bedrooms in the house but the thing that made Emma pause was the pile of belongings sitting in the middle of the bare, wood floor. Familiar belongings, her own bag placed at the front, with Killian's behind.

"What...uh? That's our stuff," she said, a little dumbly.

Killian gave her a weird look, which, she supposed, was preferable to the angry look he'd sported after the kiss. "Well we live here now," Killian said. "I mean...if we win the whole thing we will. This is like a kind of...trial period."

"Oh." She wasn't certain if she really wanted to trial living in an abandoned building. It felt a little too like being homeless, which felt a little too familiar.

"It'll be like camping," Killian said. "Look, they've even left us an air-bed."

"Have they?"

"Yes. You'll have to be on your best behaviour though, love. No more throwing yourself at me like you did downstairs. We don't want to burst it on the first night."

Emma gave him a sceptical look, but secretly felt a little better. If he was back to the joking around then he was over being mad about the kiss, right?

"Yeah, you wish buddy."

"Maybe I do?" Killian replied, in a voice that almost sounded as though he was he wasn't kidding around. But then he gave her a wink, or something that approximated one anyway, and she realised she was reading far too much into it.

Of course he was just playing up for the camera beside them. Why would he be any different to her?

"OK, that's great guys." Merlin lifted the camera off his shoulder. "I'll let you two have a proper look around while I wait downstairs for the prize to arrive. Shouldn't be too long. When you hear the knock just come down and open the front door like I'm not there, OK?"

Emma nodded and Killian murmured a yes and then Merlin and Nimue left them standing together in a dusty room with their possessions stacked in front of them.

"Just like old times, I guess," Killian said, and Emma felt herself stiffen immediately because it was, but she didn't think it was that obvious that she'd spent so much of her life drifting around with one bag to her name, sleeping in her car and honestly, during those times, an air-bed would have been a welcome relief.

"I meant," Killian continued, looking at her a little strangely. "That it's not that long ago that I was living out of a suitcase, although the air-bed is a new touch. Probably better than Liam's couch though."

"Probably better than the mattresses at Granny's," Emma added, and Killian laughed along with her, making her feel a little better. It might be awkward, this whole pretending to be a couple thing, but mostly she was glad he was here.

And she was glad they'd won, she'd enjoyed that. And she'd enjoyed kissing him...and, no. That was just a train of thought she shouldn't jump on because she couldn't possibly be attracted to the man she was pretending to be engaged to, the man she was going to have to share an air-bed with.

That was just another worrying thought. There wasn't another stick of furniture in the place so someone was going to end up on the floor.

Killian had started poking around the pile of stuff, pulling out a pump for the air-bed and a couple of sleeping bags, when they heard a loud knock downstairs.

"Right. Looks like we're on again, love. Ready?"

Emma nodded, and then followed Killian down the wide staircase, which at least, seemed to be in reasonably good repair. Near the front door Merlin was already stationed with the camera pointing at them, with Nimue off to the side, and Emma prepared herself for what might be behind the door.

She just hoped it wasn't something that was going to require more kissing reactions.

Killian stood back to let Emma open the door, possibly because he'd guessed it would be Arthur on the other side and he was fed up with the guy already. Emma certainly was, but she plastered on her best 'gosh I'm having so much fun on this show' face, or, at least, what she thought counted for that, and waited to hear what he was going to say.

"Emma and Killian," Arthur began, in that weird way he had of making their names seem like a separate entity. "As winners of our first challenge you've won a fantastic prize pack, all donated by our sponsors. Something that'll make it easier to dress your home when the time comes, and certainly something that will make your first night in your new home a great deal more comfortable. Ready to see what it is?"

Emma nodded, wondering if this guy had ever presented children's TV.

"All right, lads. Bring it in!" Arthur made a big show of standing aside so that several large men in identical overalls could squeeze through the door carrying...wait, was that a bed?

"Really?" Emma asked, but Arthur ignored her, in favour of carrying on with his spiel.

"You have won this beautiful Queen bed, mattress and bedding package worth more than $1500, provided to you by Pea in the Pod Bedding and More, Storybrooke's premier bedding location."

And then, almost without missing a beat, Arthur looked over his shoulder and changing tone, added, "That was all right, yeah? I got it?" Emma was getting whiplash from the way they seemed to keep switching into the show and then back to reality. She wondered if it was always going to be like this.

"You got it, mate," someone, possibly Robin, called out. Emma couldn't currently see much of anything, her view blocked by the pieces of the bed being carried through the door.

Arthur changed back into host mode and turned to face them again. "Well done again, Emma and Killian...or Red Team as you are now. Get some rest as tomorrow brings a whole new set of challenges. Sweet dreams."

With that he gave them a regal nod and disappeared, as the last of the overall wearing people brought in a pile of bedding.

Emma looked over at Merlin, waiting for instructions on what was supposed to happen next. "OK guys, you can relax now, settle in. I'll be back about nine to film the bed."

"You want to film the bed when it's made up?" Killian asked, as there was a timely thud from upstairs as one of the people putting it together dropped something.

"Yeah...but more you guys getting into it."

"Getting into the bed?" Emma asked, slowly, like she was deciphering another language.

"Well, yeah. Nothing risqué or anything." Merlin chuckled a little. "I mean, you can't burst this one or anything but all we really want is a bit of you getting in, saying what a great bonus it was to win it...maybe some stuff about how lucky you are compared to the other teams. I don't know. August said that's what he wants...he thought you guys would give us some good stuff."

Emma wasn't certain whether or not to be offended that August thought that gloating over their winnings was part of their skill set. But she pushed any concerns on that front aside in favour of facing the most pressing problem.

She was supposed to be sleeping in the same bed as Killian.

"Do they really need to put that in the show?" Killian asked.

Merlin shrugged. "I don't ask stuff like that, I just film what I'm told to. Maybe they'll cut it later on or something, but for now, we're filming bedtime, OK? Just make sure you have some decent pyjamas on. See you at nine!"

He left and Emma and Killian were completely on their own for the first time since that morning. Well, apart from the people upstairs who were currently building the bed the two of them were supposed to be looking forward to sharing.

Emma stared blankly at the closed front door for a moment before slowly removing the microphone from round her neck and placing it on the mantelpiece. Killian put his on the scratched table beside the window.

"So, uh...this is our house, huh?" Killian said, taking one step towards her and then stopping suddenly when he thought better of it.

"I guess, I mean...it's not at all what I expected."

"That's an understatement. For one thing, I was expecting a decent amount of structural integrity. Sticking my bloody fingers through a window sill doesn't seem to bode well. The bed's all very well, but we might be crawling underneath it tonight while the ceiling falls down on our heads."

He sounded a little too pessimistic for Emma's liking, which only made her realise that she was starting to rely on Killian to be the voice of hope in this enterprise. And relying on people was a dangerous game.

"What are you? Chicken Little?" she snapped back.

"No, but I'm a realist love. This is a huge enterprise and we're...I mean...it's going to be...well we hardly knew, did we?" Killian was stumbling over his words now, but Emma thought she could pick up the thread of where he was going with them.

"You think that because we're barely a team we'll fail."

"No. Now I never said that, Emma. But you have to admit, they've suckered us in somewhat and lumbered us with this monstrosity…"

"Like you got lumbered with me?" Emma interjected.

Killian frowned. "That's not what I meant at all. I chose you...this...didn't I?"

Emma shrugged. "There was candy involved."

"Aye. But all the Minstrels in the world wouldn't have convinced me to do this if I didn't want to. That was you, Emma."

Emma studied his face. Killian sounded sincere, his eyes - such a dark blue in this light - were wide and he was just standing there now, waiting for a response. She felt the hot, prick of tears behind her eyes which was simply a ridiculous way to react to being told nice things.

But that was Emma all over. She was wired wrong from head to foot.

"But Emma," he continued, softly. "Now that we're really doing this, then it's all us against them from here on in. We're a team and so...just...no more shutting me out, OK?"

She hadn't realised he'd been that hurt by her behaviour earlier in the day, and she felt ashamed of herself. "Right. Yeah, of course. No I get it, I mean, I don't talk for half the day and then I throw myself at you. I will try and do better from now on. Thanks, uh...thanks for putting up with me so far."

Emma turned on her heel and climbed the stairs, pretending she really wanted to see what the people building the bed were up to. Instead she wandered into one of the empty bedrooms and stared out the window.

The sky darkened and Emma heard the sounds of heavy boots on the stairs as the people who'd brought the bed left. Killian's voice drifted up through the empty house, but she couldn't make out what he was saying, and then she heard his footsteps on the stairs and down the empty hallway towards the room she was hiding in. Outside the door he paused, but he didn't come in, instead continuing on to the master bedroom.

Emma stayed put, even when she heard Killian head back downstairs again. She knew she was being ridiculous, but somehow she'd fallen into an even older habit; once the whole getting to know everyone part was done, once the eager to please Emma had come out and failed again, then this was always her last resort. Find a quiet space and lock herself away, like she was a princess in a tower or something.

Eventually there was another set of footsteps followed by a quiet knock on the door. "Emma?" Killian called and, reluctantly, she went out to face him.

"I just thought...you might like some food?" Killian said, hopefully, and Emma nodded and then followed him back down the stairs. The living room was now lit by two small gas-lamps, which sent pools of warm light over a tarpaulin that had been laid across the dusty, bare floorboards. Sitting on top of the tarpaulin were some takeout bags and a bottle of wine.

Emma looked around suspiciously for Merlin and Nimue. "So, did August set this up?" she asked, wondering how on earth she was going to get through a romantic dinner with someone who was only putting up with her.

"What? No. No, they came and took the order for the food...but I just thought we could have it here. Seems the electricity is a little dodgy...I guess wiring is a thing we'll have to worry about. But I just thought…" Killian stopped speaking and lifted his hand to scratch at his neck.

"What?" Emma asked, sounding far harsher than was probably appropriate.

"Look just come and sit down for a moment, all right?"

Emma sat down, a little gingerly, and Killian poured some of the wine into a plastic cup before passing it to her.

"I just thought," he began again. "That maybe part of the problem is that we've never had a reason to just spend time together."

Emma snorted. "We've plenty of reason to spend all our time together. It's what we signed up for. I'm just sorry I'm such terrible company."

Killian shook his head. "No, it's not that. It's just...every time we've met, or talked in the past it's been about this bloody show. It's never been about us."

"There isn't an us."

"Well, I think that's the problem. We need some kind of...team bonding. It's what we always did on the boats."

"So, what? We're going indoor skydiving or something?"

"I will admit that there were certain team managers who liked to take us on more formal activities, but, for the most part, I felt that there was nothing like a good social outing to really get people on the same page. A few drinks and a good meal...followed perhaps by a few more drinks."

"Sounds like an excuse to drink too much beer and get questionable tattoos," Emma said.

"I'll show you mine, love, if you show me yours?"

"Really?"

Killian sighed, and put his wine down on the floor. "No. Look, I'm sorry. I just thought that if we spent a bit of time being just us, rather than that bloody Emma-and-Killian nonsense Arthur keeps going on about…"

"He's really attached to that, isn't he?"

"Man's a bloody wanker, but that's beside the point. I just thought that we could have our first real dinner together, and take it from there."

"So...this is like a date?" Emma asked.

"This is...let's just say team bonding and leave it like that. Although...if you do find yourself overcome with the romance of it all, you might want to use it as material when August wants us to talk to the camera about how great our first date was."

"Sure. OK." Emma took a deep breath and let it out, hoping to come down from the cloud of stress she'd been riding since she got up that morning. "Now...food."

Killian gave her a smile, and reached into the takeout bag and pulled everything out. "Those are yours, of course," he said, passing over the onion rings.

"Why...what made you think I'd want these instead of fries?" There was a grilled cheese, too, which was just odd. Killian couldn't read minds, could he?

"I just remembered what you put down."

"What?"

"When we had to fill out those interminable forms...you know, favourite meal, favourite vacation spot...all of that rubbish."

"You were paying that much attention?" Emma thought really hard but couldn't remember much about Killian's answers to the questions on the form.

"Aye. I guess I was just...I was interested. In the person I was going to be spending all this time with."

"Right, yeah." Emma wished that perhaps she'd paid a little more attention to the stuff Killian had written; she felt like she'd let the team down somehow.

"So, is that your favourite?" she asked, pointing to the lasagne Killian had started eating.

"Good God, no. It's…um. Well you know how they're always trying to come up for uses for old car tires? I suspect this might be one of them. It's nothing like real pasta...that might be more what I'd pick if I had the choice of anything. Some nice spaghetti with seafood...simple, but fresh. Not like...well, this." He gestured to the takeout container with his fork.

"You lived in Italy, right?" Emma thought she remembered that much about Killian.

"Sardinia. But yes, I did. When I was...well, before the accident. When I was still part of the team."

"That sounds amazing. I've never been out of the States. I did make it to the West Coast once...Oregon. But I came back."

"And what was in Oregon, love?"

"Just...nothing. Trouble mostly." Trouble and pain and a whole bunch of other stuff associated with Neal that Emma wasn't feeling ready to spill quite yet, no matter how warm the wine and the grilled cheese was making her feel. "So, if you lived there, can you speak Italian?"

"Not much...just the odd nautical term. And a whole bunch of swear words, of course. But I won't offend your delicate sensibilities with them."

Emma snorted, nearly sending an onion ring straight back out of her mouth, which more than proved her assumption that Killian was talking shit. "I'm hardly the type to be easily offended."

"Even so, my accent is horrible. It was Milah who was the linguist...she could spend a morning in a market anywhere in the world, and end up bargaining like a native before lunchtime. It really was remarkable."

She had known that Killian had been married before, that much she'd noticed on his application. But it was the first time he'd actually mentioned Milah by name and what Emma found the most heart-breaking was not how sad Killian sounded when he mentioned his ex-wife's name, but the pride in his voice as he talked about her accomplishments. Emma wondered if Neal had ever felt that way about her, but the answer was probably no. She doubted that anyone had ever admired her in quite that way.

"Neal was good at talking people into things," she said in the end. "It wasn't really a language thing, but he could just...get you to think his way was the best way, you know? And then you'd just go along with his plan."

"Like going to Oregon?"

"Yeah. Like going to Oregon." It looked like it had turned into a game of 'I'll show you mine..." just not in the way Killian had suggested. This was something far more raw and real and Emma felt like she should be trying to hide from it, but maybe it was the tiredness, or the wine, or just being so far from Henry and the home she'd made with him, but the truth was, Emma didn't want to hide from Killian anymore. Hiding was exhausting.

After that they ate mostly in silence, just making the occasional comments about the quality of the food, well, Killian did anyway. Emma was enjoying what she was eating and the wine was good, too, and the company...that was even better. Especially when Killian put aside his lasagne and started to tell her about the time he ate a pig they cooked in the ground at some kind of Maori village in New Zealand. He was a good storyteller, easy to listen to, and Emma found herself growing pleasantly drowsy.

But then there was a loud knock at the door and Emma was startled back from drowsy relaxation to full-alert mode.

Killian didn't seem to be quite so surprised. "I suppose that'll be Merlin...and hopefully not Arthur," he said, clambering to his feet and opening the door.

Emma sat up on her knees and started picking up the remains of their dinner while Killian ushered Merlin and the sound woman with the odd name into the room with them.

"Sorry to interrupt your romantic moment," Merlin said.

"Uh...no. It was just dinner," Emma assured him. And it had been. Just a team building exercise that involved food and wine and, yeah, nothing special.

"Right, so, did August explain the premise?"

Killian nodded. "He called in earlier...but, uh, Emma was resting so we probably need to get her up to speed." His eyes briefly met Emma's, but he looked away before she could do anything to say that she was grateful for him covering for her.

"Well, it's quite simple," Merlin said. "You guys go and get into your pjs, and then I'll film you climbing into bed and saying a bit about how comfy it is, how you're glad you won it. Just like we talked about before. OK?"

"Yep, sounds good," Emma said, in a voice that sounded weirdly happy about the whole thing.

Killian told her that she should go and get ready first, so she trudged up the stairs to the main bedroom to retrieve her things. It was the first time she'd seen the assembled bed and it did look inviting after her ridiculously long day; it was dark wood, with piles of creamy bedlinen and it was all she could do not to just lie down face-first and fall asleep there and then.

But she gathered up suitable pyjamas, hoping that the tank top wasn't going to be too revealing and wondering if she should leave her sports bra on for the filming, and her cosmetics bag, and headed back down the stairs to the less-than-appealing bathroom.

Although it looked, marginally, better now. There were some cleaning supplies in a bucket in the corner and evidence that the surfaces had been wiped clean of the build-up of grime. That explained what Killian had been doing while Emma was hiding in the spare bedroom. It just reminded her, however, that she hadn't exactly been pulling her weight.

When she was ready for bed, she climbed back up the stairs to where Killian was waiting in the bedroom. "My turn?"

"Yeah...and, uh, thanks for the cleaning job."

"I just didn't want anyone picking up anything nasty. It's going to be all hands on deck from now on, looking at the state of this place."

"Well, thanks for taking it on. For the team."

"Anytime, Emma."

Killian left to go to the bathroom and Emma stowed her things and then went in search of Merlin. In the living room she discovered he was deep in conversation with his sound person and there was something about the way he was whispering in her ear, one hand on the small of her back, and she was laughing at whatever he was saying.

Shit. They were so obviously together, and how were they not going to see straight through Emma and Killian who were struggling to be a team, let alone a couple.

"Hi...uh, sorry," Emma said, to get their attention. "We're just about ready, if you guys want to start...you know, filming us." She frowned. This was weird and intrusive.

Shaking her head, Emma walked up the stairs again and waited in the bedroom for everyone to join her. The room was a lot more crowded when it contained herself, Killian, Merlin, the sound woman and an enormous bed.

"All right," Merlin said. "The room's pretty small, so I don't think we need to mic you again...that sound right Nimue?"

Nim-way. Of course, that was her name.

She held an enormous microphone over the bed as Killian and Emma stood on either side watching each other warily. For a split second Emma felt like she was making some kind of porno.

"And...we're rolling." Merlin nodded to let them know they could start talking, but Emma didn't have any idea of what to say or do.

Once again, Killian stepped in. "Well, love. Shall we hop in and enjoy the spoils of war?"

"It was hardly a war." Emma watched as Killian pulled back the covers and climbed in and then, gingerly, Emma did the same.

"Better than an air-bed?" she asked him.

"Definitely." Killian bounced a couple of times. "I think this will suit us just fine, love." He did that silly attempt at a wink again and Emma laughed.

"Don't get any ideas, OK?"

Emma wondered if that would be enough to satisfy the crew, but Merlin didn't switch off the camera and seemed to be waiting for them to do something else.

But she couldn't think of what. This wasn't a porno, and there were limits to how much she was prepared to do for her shot at winning some money anyway. It was bad enough she'd thrown herself at Killian after they won the challenge, she didn't need to be filmed cuddling in bed with him.

And she really didn't need Henry to see that. Oh God, she'd completely forgotten that Henry was going to see this and he was going to get all sorts of ideas and what was he even going to think about his mother after all this was over and Killian disappeared from their lives?

She could feel the panic rising in her chest and watched as Killian's brows furrowed in concern. "All right, Swan?" he asked her, so quietly she wasn't even certain if that enormous microphone hovering above them would pick it up.

"I...yeah," she replied unconvincingly, and then, in a motion so quick that she didn't even have time to react, Killian reached over and kind of scooped her towards him and she found herself tucked into his side, which was utterly unexpected and, surprisingly, kind of comforting.

And then he kissed the top of her head and Emma felt some of the tension leaving her. Sure, they were doing this for the cameras, sure it was all pretend and it would be over soon, but he liked her, didn't he? And they weren't really doing any harm to anyone.

It was nice, for about another thirty seconds, and then Emma had a stray thought that perhaps all of this, the intimacy that Killian had managed to conjure straight out of thin air wasn't anything to do with Emma at all but was just an echo of the feelings he had for his ex-wife. If he was only pretending, anyway, what did it matter if he was pretending that she was Milah?

It did matter, though. It mattered to Emma and she fought the urge to squirm out of his arms.

"That's great, guys," Merlin said in the end. "Thanks for letting us do that. We'll head off now and see you both in the morning."

As Merlin and Nimue left, Emma separated herself a little from Killian, but couldn't quite bring herself to completely leave the bed. Although her head knew it was all just a performance, there was no denying that there was a part of her, a big part of her, which was willing to have sex with Killian there and then. She was attracted to him, certainly, and being this close to him, feeling the heat of his body through his t-shirt and smelling the clean, warm scent of his skin made her heart beat faster and an ache start low in her belly.

And she was grateful for everything he'd done for her. Gratitude wasn't the worst reason she'd ever had sex with someone.

But it would have been stupid, and risked everything they'd worked for. They were meant to be a team, and teammates didn't just fuck each other because they were lonely and scared and wanted to just feel, for a little while at least, like they meant something to someone.

"So," Killian said in the end, as he straightened up and the gap between them grew wider. "I might go and set up that air bed in the other room, then."

"Oh...are you sure? I mean, you can have this if you like."

"Perhaps we'll take turns, love. That seems fairest."

"If you're certain?"

"I am. You earned it today, Emma. You were…" he paused, and seemed to be searching for the right words, his eyes drifting over her face as though they might actually be written there. "You were amazing. I'm really glad I'm on your team."

"Team. Yeah...yeah. Well, I guess the team needs its sleep...so, uh. Goodnight then."

Killian swung his legs out of bed. "Goodnight, Emma." He swept up the air-bed, pump and one sleeping bag from the pile in the corner of the room, and left.

Emma sat for a moment, feeling a little bereft, but then her phone beeped with a text from Henry asking about her first day and she spent a while composing a text telling him just how well the day had gone. She left out the part about the bed, though, pretending the reason was because she didn't want to give all the secrets of the show away.

But the real problem was that although she'd won today, she felt a little like she'd lost, too. She had a new teammate, but she had a niggling feeling that perhaps, in another life, if they weren't doing this stupid show, if she hadn't been so greedy, then maybe...maybe...Killian could have been something else to her. Something more.

She couldn't change things now, though. She'd made her bed and now she was lying in it, all alone while Killian occupied an airbed in another part of the house.

In the end it was tiredness that made her mind quiet down, and she managed to fall asleep.

Killian knew two things; one, that the bed they had won really was surprisingly comfortable and, two, that getting out of that bed and leaving Emma Swan in it was the hardest thing he'd ever done.

He was so fucked, and not just because he was sleeping on an airbed in a draughty bedroom. No, he was fucked because the woman in the other room, the woman who'd felt so wonderful when he'd held her in his arms, was the woman who'd spent half the evening hiding from him because she couldn't even stand to be his presence.

He should have stayed at Liam's. He should have never listened to Tink. Fact was, there were a million things he shouldn't have done, starting with agreeing to get into that bed with Emma in the first place.

He'd promised her that they'd be a team, when what he really wanted...desired...was something else. He was just as full of piss and wind as that bloody wanker Arthur because the version of Emma and Killian he'd been spouting off about was just as far from the truth as the version the show kept trying to push on them.

Killian didn't want to be just teammates. He didn't want to be cast aside when the show was over, just as he'd been banished to the airbed when the filming was over. Didn't want to watch Emma turn her back on him again.

It was going to be a bloody long six weeks. And he couldn't wait for it all to be over.

Thanks for reading! And a very happy Waitangi Day to you all :D

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