It should be clear that Emma did not, by any means, regret her ruination. She did not miss the person she had been before that night; the eager, naive girl, brought up always to behave a certain way, to speak softly, to do as she was bidden, to be what she was told.
Emma no longer believed in allowing people to tell her who she could be.
But Killian Jones is not concerned with who she was–he’s interested in who she is.
And he might be the only one smart enough to uncover the truth.
chapter one | chapter two | chapter three | chapter four | chapter five | chapter six | chapter seven | chapter eight | chapter nine | chapter ten | chapter eleven
The deep brown ringlets of her hairpiece glinted with hints of auburn in the candlelight. Lip paint outlined a mouth designed to give pleasure. Kohl made her green eyes shine, glittering jewels on black velvet. Cheeks like tiny apples blushed on skin as pale as snow. Her hips swayed as she moved—wandered—moving as though she was merely taking her ease, gliding from cloud to cloud; Killian was sure that he was not alone in imagining the other things she could ease on to. A lap. A chair. A bed. A cock. There was no question but that she knew her way around a man’s body. A man could ride this woman—hard, fast, rough—and she would enthusiastically return the favor.
Head to toe in scarlet that draped over her hips and kissed the felt, Amelia stood on one of the card tables and indicted to one and all that it was past time to settle. As easily as she conjured up fantasies in the base organs of every man present with such inclinations, she conveyed that it was she and she alone in command of the room, claiming ownership with every step that made the fabric shimmer, her cleavage swell—not that any of them noticed. The show had begun, and they were merely her audience.
Her marks.
Understanding began to dawn on Killian.
This brilliant, beautiful woman.
All of these years, he’d been waiting for Gold to come at him. To report his fabricated crimes. To send him to prison. To string him up. To ruin his daughter. He’d spent all of these years putting together influence and money, a willing accomplice to all of Swan’s games in the hopes that it would somehow balance the scales.
She was born and raised in Norway. He was an Anglo-Saxon warrior. Betrayed by his king, he was taken captive and brought across the sea. But he proved himself and escaped his shackles, making a name for himself as he led raids against his former home. She knows about betrayal, too; the man she loved absconded and left her to face the consequences of the crime he committed, but she fought and survived.
At first, she didn’t trust the foreigner whose rage rivalled Thor’s, who fought like a berserker and made suggestive comments in strangely-accented Old Norse. He was trouble, however charming and fierce he might be. And he, for his part, wanted nothing to do with the fair-haired warrior with fire in her eyes and challenge in the set of her shoulders, as ruthless as she was beautiful; she was a threat to his heart, and he knew it.
But after a few reluctant alliances, a few battles where they fought back to back, a few quiet moments afterwards, a few drinks... well, perhaps this wasn’t the worst partnership after all...
My contribution to @cshistfic - Emma and Killian as Vikings!
Please don’t tweet or repost this. Reblogging is totally fine and welcome, thank you!
where the quiet-colored end of evening smiles - part 4 of 4
“When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand,
Either hand
On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace
Of my face,
Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech
Each on each.”
Thanks for sticking with me, everyone. I love you all.
Part One / Part Two / Part Three
Part Four on AO3
“Keep going, love, you’re doing great,” Ruby says, trying to keep Mary Margaret from breaking the bones in her hand. Sweat is caked on everyone in the room, even with the chill in the air. Outside, the rain pounds against the windows, the worst spring storm any of them have seen in years, wind slamming the branches of the trees against the glass.
“We’re almost there, dear,” Granny says, her voice soft and smooth, and Emma makes the mistake of turning to the older woman sitting at the foot of her friend’s bed. Her hands are coated in a deep red, but she shows no signs of the lightheadedness Emma feels. In the chaos of the room, Granny stays steady, her focus never failing, never distracted by the wind or the weather or the cries of Mary Margaret.
That’ll be me soon enough, Emma says to herself, distracting her mind by going back to her recent conversation with Granny, just three days before.
“It’s not too late, you know,” Granny says, her voice low in the silence of Emma’s bedroom. “I can easily make you a tincture to remove your little problem.”
“No!” Emma’s voice is louder than she expected, the answer coming immediately. Sure, she thought — albeit briefly — about how easy it would be for her to ask Granny for something to solve her “little problem”, but the thought itself made her queasy in a way much different than what she has been feeling of late.
But, as easy as it would make her life right now, she cannot bear the thought of removing the one single reminder she has of those short few weeks she spent in the cabin with Killian, the single reminder she has of the love they shared.
Even if it brings her downfall, even if it means she has to marry as soon as possible to save from scandal, she will not get rid of it, if only to keep her reminder of the man who truly owns her heart.
“One more push, honey, that should be all we need.” Granny’s voice calls her back to the present, back to the pain in her hand from where Mary is squeezing her fingers.
“I want my husband!” she cries, tears streaming down her face, but she does as Granny commands, lifting her back off the bed.
“I know, darling,” Ruby whispers, wiping her forehead with a wet rag to keep the sweat from falling in her eyes.
Mary sighs, falling back against the mattress, and Emma worries that it was not enough, that she will need to push again — but then Granny gasps, and moments later, the small cries of a baby fill the small room.
This is far from the first birth Emma has ever witnessed: cows, horses, pigs, dogs, cats. Birth lingers around every corner on a farm, and she has been around it since she was a little girl. But this — watching her best friend give birth to her baby, a human baby — seems wholly different.
A baby. Mary Margaret has a baby — and she, herself, is going to have a baby.
She wishes the similarity ended there, but standing there, looking down at the baby in her best friend’s arms, hearing her call him David for the first time, she is overwhelmed with the realization that they are both also alone. Sure, they have each other, they have Ruby, the other staff of the house that have become like family; but neither of them have significant others.
Alone.
More than before, she finds herself missing not only Killian, but also David. She leans against the side of Mary Margaret’s bed, her head feeling light as she realizes just how much has changed in the last few months. She thought the biggest change in her life would have been leaving the farm, running away with Killian. But she was wrong. Since returning home, she has lost her brother, lost contact with her love, gained a nephew… and learned that she has mere weeks to marry in order to stay at her childhood home.
David, Junior — DJ, Ruby jokes, but Mary Margaret loves it — is a blessing, of course. A blessing to them all, surrounded by so much hurt and destruction.
DJ, thankfully, remains healthy through his first few days.
Mary Margaret, however, does not.
Moreso than before, she finds herself drowning in her grief, sobbing as she holds her little boy, unable to avoid the memory of her husband and their shared excitement for their baby. Holding him, rocking him to sleep, all seem to unearth these memories, and it seems to Emma that she spends more time crying than not, lamenting her new identities of both widow and mother.
Emma, too, continues to find herself sadder than before. Just as Mary Margaret grieves for her husband, Emma grieves for the life she dreamed of with Killian, now not having heard from him for a month.
Which is how she finds herself here, riding all the way to Philadelphia beside Ruby with a very specific list of herbs from Granny, who has found herself at wit’s end with all the crying happening lately.
Despite the heat of the early May morning, Emma leaves her heavy coat on, afraid to give away her current state, which she feels is growing more obvious with each passing day.
They find the apothecary easily enough, a white, ivy-covered building pressed between two larger brick houses. The cobblestones beneath her feet make her feel off-balance, thankful for Ruby’s presence beside her, their arms linked together, steadying her.
The bells over the door ring softly as Emma pushes it open and it takes her eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness of the shop. The inside of the shop reminds Emma more of a townhome than a store, the open space filled with shelves of herbs and small bottles as well as couches, tables, and books.
“Hello, lovelies,” a voice calls through the doorway, followed immediately by its owner. Her dark skin seems to glow in the soft lamp light of the shop, black hair braided and piled high on her head. Her dress is a brighter shade of green than Emma has ever seen and reminds her of the way grass seems to change color in the breeze. “How can I help y’all today?” Her accent is unlike anything Emma has heard before, and it takes her a moment to decipher what she just said.
Ruby, however, doesn’t miss a beat, pulling the small list Granny gave her from the pocket of her slacks.
“Do you have any of these items?”
The woman takes a moment, her eyes scanning the page — but when she looks up at Emma, she sees they are filled with sadness. “Would you be able to read the list to me, ma’am?” Her cheeks begin to turn a dark red, and Emma realizes a moment too late what she means: she was never taught how to read.
Before Emma can take the paper from the woman’s hand, though, another person comes through the doorway, her footsteps heavy on the wooden floors. “Did I hear the bell ring, Tiana?” she asks, her voice thick with the same accent, but her opposite in every other way. She’s pale, even more so in the light pink dress she wears, her cheeks rouged and eyelids lined with kohl, and her hair a collection of shining blonde ringlets that fall down her back.
“These ladies are searching for a few ingredients, Lottie,” she responds, turning to hand the paper instead to the other woman.
After a moment of reading Granny’s list, the blonde takes off across the shop, grabbing a small basket before climbing a ladder that Emma didn’t even notice.
“We definitely have the Wort!” she calls, hiking up her skirts to climb a few rungs further. “Tiana, can you get them some saffron, it’s the bright yellow one behind the counter.”
Tiana smiles at Emma and Ruby as she moves through the room. “I know what saffron is, Lottie, I use it in my kitchen all the time.”
“I never remember where our knowledge overlaps,” the blonde laughs, carefully coming down the ladder with a large glass jar in the same hand that holds her skirts out of the way. “We should also have the Rhodiola and the ginseng. You ladies are free to take a seat, if you like, it’ll take us a few minutes to gather all of this.”
Emma is thankful for the offer, her feet sore and aching in her riding boots. Though she has definitely felt weighed down by sadness and grief, the strongest side effect of her pregnancy is certainly a lack of energy, even when she sleeps well into the morning. Even the minutest task can drain her — and riding all the way to Philadelphia and walking to the apothecary made her feel more drained than usual.
She nods, taking a seat on the closest couch, and Ruby joins her, grabbing one of the largest books from the table in front of them. It’s well-loved obviously, its spine cracked and embossing worn off the cover, and when Ruby cracks it open on her lap, she finds the pages covered with colorful images of plants, the typed information mostly crossed out and written over with pen, a long, curling script that reminds her of Ruth.
“I could be an apothecary,” Ruby says, focus on the book spread in her lap. “I find all this fascinating.”
Emma breathes out a small chuckle. “You want to do anything that involves moving to the city, Rube.”
And she’s right. For as long as Emma has known Ruby, she has flourished more at parties, in the city, anywhere around people. The opposite of their life on the farm.
“Question for ya, darling,” Lottie asks, approaching them on the couch. “I can give you the lavender in its dried version, but I also have a lovely lavender and chamomile tea blend that I highly recommend.”
Emma shrugs. “I think that would be fine.”
“Can I ask what all this is for?” Tiana asks, scooping a bright yellow powder into a vial on the counter.
“My sister in law recently gave birth to my nephew, but has been, understandably, overcome by the recent loss of my brother, her husband.”
“Melancholy,” the blonde calls from the back room. “I’ve read recent journals calling it depression, as well.”
“This is a… normal thing?”
Lottie laughs, loud and twinkling that seems to fill the room.
“The doctors will tell you otherwise, but yes, it’s actually very common.”
Emma swallows, glancing sidelong at Ruby beside her on the couch. “And what about that melancholy happening… during pregnancy?”
“Yes ma’am, and the suggestions I would make are very similar. If you would like, I could put together another mixture for a healthy pregnancy.”
“I would appreciate that,” she replies, her voice small.
With their goods tucked into the bag slung over Ruby’s shoulder, they step back into the bright light of day, the sun straight above them in the sky.
“Are you still alright visiting a few more shops?” Ruby asks, recognizing the exhaustion that always seems to be on Emma’s face anymore.
For a moment, she turns her eyes up to the sun, knowing that the heat will only affect her more… but she very rarely gets the chance to be out anymore, and especially with a baby on the way, does not know when the next chance might be. So, she flashes Ruby a smile. “Sure,” she says, linking her arm through her friend’s once more.
There is something so freeing about the city, something enlightening about the privacy she can find here, surrounded by people, that she cannot find on the farm. She is so used to everyone she passes knowing her, asking about her life and her family, that the silent passing of strangers on the streets is a breath of fresh air in what otherwise is not very fresh at all. The city smells wholly different than her life on the farm, the warmth of the world around her, all crammed so close together, nothing like the openness she is used to back home.
She couldn’t live here, sure; but she enjoys her time here whenever she gets the chance.
The market is unlike anything she has ever experienced, incomparable to the weekly sales held by her local townsfolk. She is used to five or six stands, the small hustle of people moving among them; what she finds in Philadelphia is pandemonium in comparison.
It thrills her.
The spring crops have brought more types of tropical fruits than Emma has ever seen, and she wants to try each of them: the brightly colored mangoes, prickly pineapples, and perfectly round oranges and grapefruit.
“Would you like to try a bite, ma’am?” a young boy asks her, holding out a piece of the flesh of a mango balanced on the edge of a shining knife.
Emma smiles at him, carefully picking up the piece between her fingers. When she places it in her mouth, the sweetness explodes on her tongue, unlike anything she has tasted before. In her excitement, she makes Ruby try a piece, as well, before purchasing three of them and placing them in her bag with the herbs from the apothecary.
“Hopefully Granny can find something to do with these.”
“I’m sure she can.”
“Where else did you need to go?” Emma asks, and the sly grin that spreads across Ruby’s face makes her immediately regret it.
“There’s a dress shop near here that I’ve heard some of the local girls raving about, and we can also pick you up a new dress and corset for you to wear when you’re out trying to find your new husband.”
Right. Emma has, understandably, pushed that thought from the front of her mind, but Ruby is right — though she doubts she should be wearing a corset in her current state.
The shop is in a row of beautiful brick houses, many with flowers growing in window boxes or in the small patch of grass between the house and the road. The sign hangs over the large front window: French Tailor and Dress Shoppe, and in the window hangs a pristinely-made men’s formal suit, complete with both a waistcoat and full-length trousers; beside that hangs a rich green dress adorned with a delicate lace pattern, complete with matching gloves, which hang in front of it.
Just as Ruby places her hand on the knob to open the door, a voice calls from behind them: “Miss Swan!”
They both turn to see none other than Neal Cassidy approaching them on the street, hat held in his hands as he jogs over the cobblestones.
Emma turns to Ruby and rolls her eyes, but tells her to go into the shop without her. Ruby just nods, pushing open the door, and Emma hears the twinkling of the door bells as she turns back in the direction that Neal is approaching her.
“Miss Swan, I thought that was you,” he pants, stopping just in front of her.
She tries her best to smile, but fears it is more like a grimace as she offers him a small curtsey. “Good day, Mister Cassidy.”
“I recently heard about your brother. What sad news, please let me offer my condolences.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“May I ask how your family is doing?”
She thinks about glossing over it, but her anger towards the situation gets the best of her. “Mary is bedridden with grief and leaves only to take care of her newborn son, named after my late brother. Our house is in chaos, taken over by David’s twin, James, who left for the city ten years back and did not return until he got news of David’s death. He has given me six months to find a new proprietor for the farm and marry him, or else our property that has been in the family for three generations is going to auction.”
By the time she is finished, she must take a deep breath, trying her best to steady herself without reaching for the door — or, worse, for Mr. Cassidy.
Neal nods, wringing his hat between his hands. “Yes, I’m afraid I heard about your farm. Word travels fast surrounding a tragedy such as this.”
He stops, obviously expecting a response, but Emma has none. He coughs into the back of his hand, then runs his fingers through his sandy hair. “I have been contemplating riding out to your homestead once more, but I did not know how you would take it. But I want you to know, Miss Swan — Emma, if I may — that the offer I gave your brother still stands. If you will have me, I would be honored to be your husband, especially if it means saving you from losing your family’s farm.”
She can tell he expects her to be thankful, but instead, she just finds herself filled with anger.
“Even in my current state?” she asks, pulling aside her coat to reveal her stomach. She is not sure if he understands what she is saying at first, but watches as his eyes go wide.
He is silent for a moment, eyes traveling from her stomach to her face, but he pinches his lips together and nods. “Yes, but to save your family from scandal, it must be soon. I’ll visit the farm in a week to learn your answer.”
It’s obvious he expects her to say yes, and she has no real reason not to — because he’s right. If she continues to go unwed, it will only bring scandal to her family.
“Thank you,” she says — the only thing she can think to say. “I’ll have an answer within a week.” And with another curtsey, and without another word, she enters the dress shop.
Five days pass, and Emma is lounging in the sitting room when she is startled by a knock on the door. It must be Neal, she thinks, laughing to herself about how confident he is that she is going to accept his proposal two days early.
But when she opens the door, she feels the breath pulled from her lungs, shocked in a way she has never felt before. Because it is not Neal. It’s the very last person she expects to see.
Robin. Bruised, bloodied, clothes torn, arm tucked around another man that Emma recognizes from their camp.
“We didn’t know where else to go,” he says, breath ragged. When he meets her eyes, she can see the pain in them, the losses and hurt, the changes that he has gone through since their last meeting.
Emma doesn’t hesitate another second, moving aside to let them in. Which is when she sees what is behind them: Four other men, carrying a blanket between them — and on that blanket is Killian, the most injured of the group.
“Set him on the floor,” Robin commands, pointing to the carpet in front of the couch.
“Carefully!” Emma adds, eyeing Ruby as she steps around the corner from the kitchen.
“Well, fuck,” she mutters, loud enough only for Emma to hear.
“Robin, tell me what happened,” Emma says, gesturing for them to take a seat wherever they can find one — which they obviously need to do.
“We were bloody ambushed, that’s what happened!” the youngest of them yells, but with one look from Robin, he sighs and crosses his arms over his chest.
“Will’s right, though,” Robin says, turning back to Emma. “We were traveling per orders from our lieutenant and we were ambushed. Of the forty of us there were, we’re all that’s left.”
“What about Liam?”
Robin turns his eyes to the floor, shaking his head. When Emma looks at his hands, she notices they are shaking. “‘Fraid not.”
“Oh, Killian,” she whispers, kneeling beside him on the floor.
The room falls silent, either staring at Killian or trying their hardest not to. Emma pushes his hair off his forehead, staring down at him, and has no reaction to Ruby re-entering the room, this time holding a tray of glasses of water, which she hands out to the men on the couch.
“Can you fetch Granny, please?”
Without another word, Ruby leaves the room.
“Would you like to talk about it?”
He shakes his head, eyes fixed on the glass of water in his still-shaking hands.
“Bloody awful is what it was,” Will comments. He, too, has shaking hands. “We were sent on patrol, were told there was possibly an enemy camp nearby. We weren’t gone most of the morning before we were attacked, right out of the bushes. Some of us were dead before we even knew we were there. Little Jones here took a bayonet to the arm and Jones Senior—”
“Please, Will,” the large man next to him says, setting his hand on his arm. “I think that’s more than enough, really.”
The man next to him hums in response, and the room goes silent. It stays that way, silent enough to her Granny and Ruby climbing the stairs to the kitchen.
“God above,” Granny mutters, hand over her heart, after she rounds the corner. “I hoped Ruby was joking, but I see she was not.”
“Please, Granny,” Emma half-whispers from where she is seated on the floor.
“I take it that would be the man you left us all for?” she asks, her face somewhere between a smirk and a scowl, but she kneels beside Emma on the floor nonetheless.
“Yes,” she breathes, thankful that she did not give away her biggest secret to the strangers in the room. “Can you help him?”
Granny turns her eyes up to Robin, who is still staring into his glass of water. “Can one of you gentlemen tell me about what has happened to him?”
Will recounts the same story as before, adding a few more details: he believes Killian took a bullet to the arm as well as the bayonet, and noted that his head hit a rock as he fell to the ground.
Granny nods through all of this, carefully checking for a heartbeat before feeling his wounds with the tips of her fingers. The whole time she does this, the entire room seems to hold their breath — but when she moves from his heart to the tourniqueted wounds on his arms, the collective breath is let out.
“I’m going to have to amputate, I’m afraid, it’s the only way to save the rest of the arm, but whether he’ll wake or not is something we will just have to wait and see.”
And wait and see is exactly what they do.
They wait for two days, the other men insisting on sleeping in the yard behind the house, the weather nice enough for them to spend most of the time outside. With her new tinctures — or, perhaps, seeing how much Emma needs her assistance — Mary Margaret is spending less time being solitary, leaving her room when DJ is sleeping to be beside Emma.
Emma barely leaves the living room for the whole of those two days, feeling that, somehow, what happened to Killian — to their whole group — was her fault. Logically, it makes no sense: they would have been sent on their patrol whether he spent much of the winter with her or not. Her brain does not agree with logic.
So she stays there, beside him. Holding his hand, watching his chest rise and fall with each breath. Holding his hand but squeezing her eyes shut as Granny and one of the other men amputate his arm, then treating what is left behind. Washing the wounds to keep from infection. Sleeping on the floor beside the couch, ignoring arguments from Mary Margaret, Granny, and her back.
And that is where she is, two nights later, when he wakes.
Dead. There is no other logical explanation. He knows, somehow, that he is dead, that he must be in heaven.
He didn’t think heaven would hurt this much, though.
But heaven is the only explanation he can find as for how Emma is sitting next to him, her hand wrapped tightly around his, both resting on his chest. Until—
“Killian,” she breathes, jumping to her feet, and the pain it sends through his body is unimaginable. Not even hell would be this painful; this can only be the real world, the world they live in, filled with war and grief and loss.
He winces, feeling the movement in every part of his body.
It is only when he squeezes his hands into fists that he realizes one of them is gone.
Hence, the pain.
“Oh, Killian!” she says again, quickly running from the room, unaware of the waves of pain passing through his body. “Everybody!” she calls, her voice echoing off the stone walls of the house. “It’s Killian! He’s awake!”
He wishes he could be as thrilled as she is, wishes he could jump for joy and call out cheerfully to the other people in the house. But he cannot. He barely wants to breathe, each breath bringing him more pain.
“Pardon?” a familiar voice responds, though he cannot see them around the wall between him and what he assumes to be a kitchen. He knows that voice, knows that at any other time he would recognize it without a second thought… but his brain is full of fog, as cloudy as the sky before it opens with a storm, and the name eludes him.
The face, too, he recognizes, but he still cannot place it.
“Jones?” he says, slowly, carefully approaching the couch on which he is laying. “It’s Rob, Jones, how are you feeling?”
“Rob,” he replies, the memories hitting him all at once. Childhood with Robin. Splashing through the creek, sledding down the hill between their houses. Leaving for war together, fighting alongside each other on the battlefield.
Getting ambushed. His arm, his head…
Liam.
“Rob,” he says again, his voice hoarse. “Where’s Liam?”
His friend’s face immediately falls. The excitement that covered it with his waking is replaced with sadness, and Killian knows the answer before Robin even opens his mouth to speak.
“I’m so sorry, Killian,” he says, his voice low as he falls to one knee beside the couch. ‘Liam didn’t — he didn’t survive the attack.”
He closes his eyes, squeezes them shut, hoping that when he opens them, maybe this will all be a bad dream.
Of course, that’s not the case. This is his reality, his new reality: yes, he is back with Emma, a shining beacon as she walks back in the room, an older lady close behind. He should be glad that he is back here with her, has overcome the hardship of leaving her — a hardship that he thought was the most difficult thing he has ever experienced.
Liam being gone, he learns very quickly, hurts even more.
The older woman — Granny, Ruby’s aunt, he learns quickly — checks on his wounds, her bedside manner as cold as her fingers, but seems to be content with everything.
“He’s going to need weeks to heal, maybe even more than that. I’ve only worked with one other amputation in my time, but I’m planning on traveling to town in the next few days to do some research.”
“Thank you, Granny,” Emma whispers, offering her a smile as she kneels beside Killian once again, this time holding a glass of water. “I thought you would be thirsty,” she says to him, helping guide the glass to his lips, and he offers her a small smile as she does so.
His eyelids close again as he lets the water cool his throat, just a few small sips — he’s not sure he can handle more than that. When he looks at her again, her cheeks are wet with tears.
“Emma, love,” he says, unable to stop the chuckle that escapes his lips. “What’s wrong?”
She gently nuzzles her face into his shoulder, careful to avoid his injuries as best she can. “Nothing,” she laughs, her tears obvious in her voice. “I’m just — I’m so happy you’re back.”
“Me, too, darling,” he whispers, resting his good hand — his only hand, he reminds himself — against her hair.
All too quickly, it all falls apart.
A knock on the door startles them all. Granny wipes her hands on her apron, then disappears back into the kitchen, and Ruby moves towards the door. None of the rest of them — Emma and Robin, but also Will and Arthur, who followed Granny from the kitchen — didn’t dare move.
They all knew the trouble they were in, even with no surviving superior officer. All of them were fugitives, absent from their posts. Any visitor could be the end of them all, and by the look on Emma’s face, the paleness that has overtaken her in the moments since the knock, Killian can tell she was not expecting a visitor.
“Can I help you?” Ruby asks, opening the door only as much as needed to speak to the visitor.
“I’m here to speak with Miss Swan. She is expecting me.”
“I’m afraid Miss Swan is indisposed at the moment.”
Emma seems relieved by this, the lines on her forehead disappearing as she lets out her breath — but she still has his hand in a death grip.
“What do you mean indisposed?” The man asks. “Is she sick? I must speak with her at once!”
“I’m sorry, sir, but she’s not taking any visitors. I’m afraid you’ll have to come back another day.”
“Oh, fuck no,” he replies, the last thing any of them seem to expect, and pushes his way past Ruby and through the door. “I’m going to be master of this farm one day soon, you have no right to—”
But when his eyes meet Emma’s, he and his words both stop dead in their tracks. A flurry of emotion crosses his face, as if trying to decide which emotion he wants to feel.
By the sharp incline of his eyebrows and the steep lines in his forehead, he chooses anger. “And who are you?” he spits, looking right past Emma to Killian.
He, too, immediately feels anger at the man’s words, wondering why he feels that he can speak with such authority in a place where he has none. “Why does it matter who I am?”
His laugh is nothing but poison, pointing at the woman still kneeling at Killian’s side, whose hand is still wrapped around his. “Miss Swan and I are engaged to be married—”
“I never agreed to that!”
“What choice do you have?”
“Emma, who is this man?”
“Emma?!” he repeats with a laugh. “So, you’re on a first-name basis with an enemy soldier. I knew there was something off about this farm.”
“Please don’t speak to her like that,” Robin says, crossing his arms over his chest. Killian knows that he’s trying to seem intimidating, and it works for a moment — until Little John, a head taller and twice as wide, comes down the hallway behind him.
“You can’t tell me what to do, traitor,” he spits. “Once I take over this farm, you will all be gone, hanged for your crimes against America.”
“I will never marry you,” Emma says, her voice absent of the anger that Killian knows must be flowing through her veins, as it is his.
“What choice do you have? If you refuse to marry me, I’ll tell the whole world of your affair with a British soldier and you’ll be hanged as a traitor, as well. Along with that bastard in your belly.”
At this, finally, Emma stands, failing to notice the shock on Killian’s face — on the faces of everyone in the room. “Please get out of my house and never return.”
Instead of moving towards the door, he takes a step towards her, and then another, until he is standing face to face with her. “This will never be your house. It was David’s, now it’s James’, and one day soon, it will be mine.”
“Leave. Now.”
“And if I don’t?” A sinister smile takes over his features.
She shakes her head. “Get out.”
“Your brother should have taught you better.”
This was, apparently, the wrong thing to say, and before anyone takes the chance to jump to Emma’s aid, she proves herself to all of them.
In one swift movement, she lands a hard punch to the man’s jaw, and he falls to the floor.
“My brother taught me just fine, including how to defend myself from men like you.”
Dear James,
As I am sure you have heard word of already, I have followed through with your demands and found myself a husband. He and his friends, who will also be staying on the farm, are British separatists, and I would appreciate if you could send a letter of support for him, but also let us know when we can travel to you for legal purposes — the sooner the better, as I may be unable to travel soon in my expecting state. Killian will be taking over as the proprietor, and as soon as he is well enough, he will begin learning how to run a farm; thankfully, he has a woman at his side that has done it all before.
We are looking forward to an excellent harvest here this summer and are thankful for the support you offered us following the loss of our dear David. Anytime you would like to leave the city for a calmer space, please know that you are always welcome. Soon, there will be two children on the farm, and I know they would both very much like to know their Uncle James.
The Outlaw Killian Jones (and the legend Emma Swan)
SUMMARY: Emma Swan is a schoolteacher, respectable and respected in the small town of Haven, Wyoming. She does her job and minds her business, but she has a secret. One that brings meaning to her dull life and excitement to her restless soul. One that she knows could end at any moment.
Killian Jones is a man with a powerful enemy and nothing to lose. He’s prepared to sacrifice every bit of that nothing for the sake of his revenge.
Or, at least, he was.
-
I am THRILLED to be here, kicking off the @cshistfic Historical Fics event! I’ve always loved reading romances set in the past and Westerns are a long-time favourite. Given how deeply entrenched the Western genre is in American culture, it’s funny to think about how a) most of it was made up for dime novels and, later, radio and television shows and movies, and b) the actual historical period that we call the Old West only lasted roughly thirty years—from the post-Civil War westward expansion under the Homestead Act to around the turn of the 20th century. This fic is set right around the end of that time—late 1890s to early 1900s—in the waning moments of the open range and the “lawless” frontier and the start of the modern era with its trains and barbed wire and cars and world wars. I’ve tried to capture a bit of that sense of transition in the story, mostly with the way it ends.
Huge thanks to @shireness-says for coming up with and running this event, and to @thisonesatellite for Just Being Her.
Words: 4.9k
Rating: T
Tags: Western AU, historical, outlaw Killian, schoolteacher Emma, all the historical detail, I did so much research for this
on AO3
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The Outlaw Killian Jones (and the legend Emma Swan):
The hour was late, afternoon edging into evening in the town of Haven, Wyoming. ‘Town’ as a designation flattered it, this tiny settlement tucked back against craggy and striated formations of rock and nestled amongst ragged brush, being, as it was, scarcely more than a handful of rough-hewn cabins, a church, a general store, a blacksmith and livery stable, a saloon with its attendant whorehouse, and a school.
The store and the smithy did the town’s most active business; unsurprisingly, seeing as they were the only examples of either within the radius of a good fifty miles. The residents—those who lived within the town’s scant limits—were certainly insufficient in their numbers to support either one, but the owners of those ranches that lay outside the town, they and their ranch hands, their wives, and their daughters, frequented both with pleasing regularity.
The general store doubled, as such establishments generally did, as a post office, in which capacity it served as the sole tenuous link between this stark western land and the fashionable cities of the east. The Sears and Roebuck catalogue and that of Montgomery Ward, both prominently displayed beside the till, were tattered and well-thumbed, and the monthly mail delivery never came without piles of brown-wrapped parcels containing the latest in fashion and technology from the wider world—hints at the wonders promised by the new century.
Very little of this prosperity touched the actual residents of Haven. The lives they lived were hard ones, scratched from unforgiving soil, but they were good folk, honest and hard-working. They lived simply and piously and for the most part happily. They tended their gardens and their livestock, read their Bibles, loved their children, and whenever possible sent those children to school.
The Haven school, a single room with two windows, one on either side, and a disproportionate bell-tower on the roof—both this tower and the bell it contained were gifts from a local rancher, who considered them a better use of his money than blackboards or books—was located well away from the town’s main street. It had no fireplace, only a tiny, smoky, potbellied stove, and in the warmer months no breeze blew through the unglazed windows. The pupils sat on simple benches and copied their lessons onto slates that sold at the general store for rather more than their parents could comfortably afford; lessons their teacher laid out for them on a thickly-whitewashed wall with a piece of charcoal, the dust of which stained her fingers and her clothing, and embedded itself beneath her nails so deeply there were times she felt she’d never be free of it.
This teacher’s name, the one she used, was Miss Emma Swan. A solitary and self-contained woman of about twenty-six, far too pretty for a schoolteacher most said, and if pressed these same would likely agree that teaching was not what folks might refer to as her calling. Though none could deny that she did her best and was kind to the children—a thing not always guaranteed from schoolmarms—she exuded such a restless air, an impatience with the tedium of her job and the pace of life in Haven which she did not trouble to conceal, that it was a subject of great curiosity amongst the residents why she continued to stay there.
“I have my reasons,” she would say, whenever anyone dared to broach the subject, “and those reasons are my own.” There it was and there it would remain as far as Emma was concerned, and as the townsfolk knew her to be a courteous woman but one who never minced her words when riled, they declined to press the issue.
By the time Miss Emma Swan had finished up in the schoolroom on this particular late afternoon, the floor swept and the board cleaned and lessons all prepared for the following day, the sun was already slipping behind the craggy rocks at her back and casting upon the town a peculiar sort of distended twilight—shrouded in shadows beneath a glaring blue sky. As she made her way the short distance between the schoolhouse and her own cabin—or rather, the schoolteacher’s cabin, perhaps the most compelling perk of her job—a brisk breeze ruffled the hem of her skirt and the few flyaway hairs that had escaped her tidy Gibson bun. The night would likely be another chilly one, and Emma wondered absently if she had enough wood left to leave the fire high for an extra hour or two or if she should resign herself now to another cold, dark evening spent alone.
The cabin where she lived, she and sixty years of schoolteachers before her, was small and rough like most in Haven and comprised only two rooms: a small bedroom to the rear and a larger space at the front used equally for sitting, cooking, and dining. In this front room was both a fireplace and stove, the latter surprisingly modern and another gift from a different rancher, to the previous teacher. Near this stove sat a small wooden table and two matching chairs; a soft and generous armchair had pride of place before the fire.
The bedroom was by far Emma’s preferred room. The walls in it were painted, in a pale and soothing blue, and on one of them a charming watercolour of forget-me-nots was hung. There was a white wardrobe with a mirrored door, a washstand and a vanity table, and a large bed with a sturdy iron frame. The curtains on the single window were of dotted swiss that Emma had sewn herself, and in the morning when she opened them she was greeted by the colours of the dawn.
Emma removed her buttoned boots the moment she was through the door; they pinched her toes and she disliked wearing them indoors. She replaced them with a well-worn pair of carpet slippers then headed for the bedroom, there to change out of her school clothes and into the more comfortable, loose wrap dress she preferred at home. When she entered the room she had already undone most of the buttons on her high-collared blouse and so made straight for the wardrobe, without so much as a glance at the bed.
The mirror on the wardrobe door as it swung open flashed the brief reflection of a face, just as Emma heard the sound of a chair leg scrape against the bare wood floor. She gasped and spun around, eyes wide and one hand pressed against her chest.
There could be no question that the man currently in occupation of her vanity chair, sprawled in it with an air as casual as it was deceptive, was one who had followed quite a different path of life than that afforded to the residents of Haven. His untidy hair and the thick scruff on his jaw might not be especially remarkable out in this still-wild corner of Wyoming, but the narrow cut of his coat and the embroidery on the waistcoat beneath it, the silver chain of his pocket-watch and the ostentatious knot of his tie marked him as a man who knew his way around a gambling table for both good or ill and could likely acquit himself equally well in both scenarios. A man who dealt with the hardships of life by shooting rather than working his way out of them—as the gleaming six-shooter currently pointed straight at Emma would most certainly attest.
Emma forced herself to breathe, slow and steady. Her heart was pounding. The man greeted her with a brusque nod, and cocked the hammer on his revolver.
“Don’t let me interrupt you, love,” he drawled, in an accent that suited this town less even than his clothes or his gun. “By all means, keep going.”
Emma swallowed hard and with trembling fingers undid the remainder of her buttons. Her blouse hung open to reveal the hooks of the corset underneath.
The man gave his gun a menacing wave. “All the way now, there’s a good lass.”
She shrugged off the blouse and let it fall to the floor.
“And the skirt.”
She unhooked her grey wool skirt and released it to pool around her ankles.
His voice rasped. “Take down your hair.”
Emma shivered.
Three pins and two combs held her hair in place. She removed them, dropped them into the pile of clothing at her feet; the bun tumbled down and over her shoulder.
“Shake your head.”
She did, vigorously. The bun unraveled further and strands of silky blonde fell across her face.
He swallowed audibly. “Now the rest.”
Emma hesitated, fingers hovering over the hooks on her corset. She wore nothing beneath it but a combination made of thin cotton lawn.
The man raised his gun and growled, “All of it.”
She tossed her head back, jutted her chin out high in defiance. Her belly churned with a dark thrill of anticipation as she unhooked the corset and flung it away. He chuckled, low and rough. Emma fumbled with the buttons on her combination as he uncocked his gun and set it aside, then undid the belt designed to hold it. His eyes locked with hers as he stood, pale blue and profoundly tired, eyes that had seen far too much.
She finished with the buttons but left the combination on, parted to reveal a thin strip of pale skin. Her heart thundered as he approached, her breaths short and heaving. He swaggered up and stopped in front of her, close enough that she could smell the dust and sweat on him, so close she had to tilt her head again to see his face. His hand slipped beneath her shift to curl around her waist, fingers rough on her soft skin.
“I—” Emma gasped as he pulled her closer, flush against him. His voice was a rumbling growl in her ear.
“You what, love?”
“I was expecting you yesterday!” she snapped, and then she kissed him.
-
“Gold is dead.”
Emma’s head shot up from where it had been resting on the bare and hairy chest of Killian Jones. The most notorious outlaw in three states, or so the Wanted posters would have folks believe. Train robber, bank robber, high-stakes gambler—but only the trains and banks and gambling dens controlled by one particular man. A man in whose side Killian Jones had been an exceptionally troublesome thorn for near to six years. A man whose wife Jones stood accused of murdering. A man who was, it seemed, now dead himself.
Emma stared down at his face, at the sharp definition of his cheekbones and lines of strain around his eyes. Such heavy burdens he’d been carrying for as long as she’d known him, but now, despite the exhaustion writ plain on his face he seemed lighter. Relieved, in some intangible way.
“He is?” she gasped.
“Aye.” Killian nodded, grimly satisfied. “Shot him right through the place where his heart should be. That’s why I was late.”
“Oh, Killian.” It wouldn’t do to feel happy about a murder, even that of a wicked man, but Emma found that she too was grimly satisfied. “You did it.”
“Aye, it’s done. And now I have a price on my head so high I’d turn myself in if I could, and special team of bounty hunters hired by Gold’s son to bring me to him, dead or alive.”
“Oh.” Her fingers flexed on his chest and his tightened where they curled around her hip. “What—what will you do?”
“Leave the country.” He spoke as though the answer were obvious, and Emma supposed it was. “I’ve no choice.”
“Will you go back to England?”
“No. There’s nothing left for me there.” He paused and his hand slid up her back to tangle absently in her hair. “I was thinking South America. Argentina.”
“Argentina?”
“Aye. Land’s selling down there for cheap and I’ve enough saved to buy myself a ranch. I’ve never tried ranching before so it’ll probably be an utter failure, but the idea’s crawled into my head and made itself a nest there, so I think that’s what I’ll do.”
Emma slipped from his arms and out of bed. She could feel his eyes on her as she took her house dress from the wardrobe and wrapped it around herself, as she tied it at her waist with jerky movements.
“You must be hungry,” she said.
“I could eat.”
“Stew?”
“Perfect.”
In the front room Emma piled wood on the embers in her stove and coaxed a fire to life beneath the pot of stew she’d left on the hob. She swept the ashes from the fireplace, arranged the logs and the kindling, then struck a flint to light it. She could hear Killian in the bedroom washing and dressing in the spare clothes she kept on hand for him, and by the time she sensed his presence behind her the larger logs were catching nicely and the hearty aroma of stew had begun to waft in from the stove.
“Shouldn’t be too long before it’s ready,” she told him without turning around. “There’s cornbread too. It’s a few days old, but—”
“Emma.”
“—it should still be good if you dunk it in the stew.”
“Emma, love.” Killian’s voice was soft, full of the tenderness he showed only to her. “Talk to me.”
“About what?”
It wasn’t as though she hadn’t known this day would come, this one or another very like it. She understood the dangers of the life he lived, out on the edges of society, pursued by an influential man with a terrible grudge, and she’d done all she could to make her peace with it. Killian could have died any number of times in the three years of their acquaintance; she had always been aware that every time she bid him farewell might be the last.
And now she knew for certain that it would be. Nothing had changed.
She heard him pull out one of the dining chairs and sit down in it, and though she kept her back to him she he knew he would be leaning his elbow on the table and running a hand over his face. She could picture the gesture in her mind’s eye with perfect clarity, so often had she seen him do it before, and her heart hurt because she knew he only did this when he was deeply troubled.
“Emma, you know—you know why I spent so long trying to kill Gold,” he said roughly.
“For Milah.” Her voice hardly broke on the name. “To avenge her.”
“Yes. That bastard hunted her like an animal, shot her right in front of me then framed me for the crime, and all because she couldn’t bear to spend another moment as his wife. He took her life rather than allow her to live it free from him, because he couldn’t countenance her finding happiness with another man. And I swore to her as she lay dying that I would make him pay for that.”
“Because you love her.”
“I did.” In the silence of the cabin, she could hear the rasp of his scruff against his palm. “I did.”
Emma had been watching the fire, now dancing merrily in the hearth, and it took a beat or two for his words to register. When they did her heart gave a shuddering thump and she spun round to gape at him. “Did?” she repeated.
Killian’s lip quirked and humour flared briefly in his eyes before they became solemn again, and heartrendingly soft. “It’s a funny thing, revenge,” he remarked. “It begins as a simple quest for justice but so easily descends into obsession—almost before a man knows what’s come over him, it’s all he’s got left to live for. That’s how it was for me, for years. Until…”
He trailed off and Emma found she was holding her breath. “Until?” she prompted.
He looked up at her. “Until I met you.”
She inhaled sharply as their eyes met, his own warm and such a brilliant blue, full of an emotion to which she didn’t dare give a name. “I kept after Gold because of my vow to Milah, yes, but also because I had to, because it was him or me. His life or mine. When that bullet pierced his chest and I saw him fall, I realised that it wasn’t about Milah for me anymore and it hadn’t been, not for a long time. I was fighting for my life, my right to have it and to live it in peace. That’s all I want, just peace and a simple life. And you.”
“Me?” gasped Emma, blankly and ungrammatically, as she attempted to grasp what he was saying.
Amusement coloured the tenderness on his face, alongside a hint of exasperation. “Don’t you know, Emma?” he asked with a shake of his head. “Why do you think I kept coming back here?”
She offered a weak smile and an abashed shrug. “My cornbread?” she ventured, and he laughed.
“I don’t know how to tell you this, darling, but your cornbread is dry. Try again.”
Emma elected to ignore this ungentlemanly slur on her culinary skills. “Well… I suppose the town is quite secluded, good for hiding out,” she observed.
“It is that. But that isn’t the reason, love.”
“Isn’t it?”
“You know it isn’t.” Killian stood and moved towards her, slowly as if she were a baby faun he was apt to startle, or possibly a sleeping mountain lion. “It’s you, Emma Swan,” he said softly. “You are what I will always come back for. You are the reason my soul is hale and unconsumed by hatred. Because it wasn’t revenge I was after, in the end. It was the future I wanted with you.”
Tears clogged Emma’s throat and pressed insistently behind her eyes. “Killian,” she choked, “I—”
“Shh.” He closed what small distance remained between them and folded her in an embrace to which she clung tightly, face pressed against his shoulder so the soft flannel of his shirt might absorb her tears. “Emma, I know I have next to nothing to offer you.” Killian stroked her hair soothingly as he spoke. “A tenuous existence in an unfamiliar country, backbreaking work that likely won’t pay off, a struggle for everything we have. I shouldn’t ask this of you. I should have the decency to walk away and let you find happiness with a better man than me.” She could hear tears in his voice now, and when she looked up she saw them glistening in his eyes. “But I won’t,” he continued gruffly. “I can’t, because I am a selfish bastard and I love you. I love you so much, Emma.” His voice broke. “So much. And if you could see your way clear to coming to Argentina with me, I would spend every day I have left on this earth working to make you happy.”
A rush of joy filled Emma Swan then, joy such as she had never known before. Her tears fell freely and unheeded as she tightened her hold on the man she loved and pressed her forehead to his own. In that stance they remained for some considerable time, until Emma became aware that the silence had drawn out far too long and she must speak. There were words he needed to hear from her, crucial words, and yet Miss Emma Swan, despite being quite a competent schoolteacher in all respects including her vocabulary, had always found words failed her when in the grip of strong emotion.
“Did I ever tell you I grew up on a ranch?” she blurted, then shook her head. That wasn’t what she’d wished to say.
Killian’s brow wrinkled. “You’ve mentioned it.”
“My daddy’s place out near Casper,” Emma pressed on. “A thousand acres of cattle, mostly, and some horses.”
“It sounds nice.”
“It was.” She snuffled and shifted until her head was resting on his shoulder and she felt cradled in his arms. This wasn’t the speech she’d planned but now she found herself determined to give it. “I was his only child, his only family after my mama died, and he reared me all my life to take over from him,” she continued. “But then when I was nineteen he got married again, and had a son. And suddenly ranching was ‘no job for a woman,’ or so he said, and I should look into teaching instead. Or better still get married and become some man’s pretty possession. Preferably the son of a neighbouring rancher, ‘for the future of our family’s land and legacy’.” She paused, remembering, and rubbed her cheek against his shirt. “I told him to go fuck himself.”
Killian’s laugh rumbled through the both of them. “That’s my tough lass,” he said, with a pride in his voice that warmed her, and made her desperate.
“But you do know what I’m saying, don’t you Killian?” she persisted. “You hear what I’m telling you?”
“What I hear is that in addition to being beautiful and brilliant and tough as old boots, you also know how to run a ranch. Which would be bloody useful I must admit, as I haven’t got the first faint clue where to start. Is that what you wanted me to understand?”
She nodded in relief. “That’s it.”
He brushed the hair back from her face with fingers gentle as the wing of a butterfly. “And is that... all you have to say?”
She felt caught in his eyes, and like to drown in them. “There may be one more thing.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. It’s that I—I—” Emma drew a steadying breath. “I love you too, Killian, and of course I’ll go to Argentina with you.” A smile broke across his face, that rare and brilliant smile of his that set her heart to soaring and broke the dam that held her words in check. “I’d go anywhere with you,” she declared, laughing as he squeezed her tight. “To the moon. To hell itself, and then back out again.”
“Let’s hope that won’t be necessary.”
He leaned down to her and she swayed up to him and their lips met in a kiss that sang of love and of hope and of a most solemn promise, if something of a dramatic one. He dipped her back and kissed her until she was dizzy and overcome with laughter, and then swung her up again and into a dance.
Emma put her head on his shoulder and leaned into him as they danced to music they alone could hear, all around the cabin with the aroma of stew in the air and hope for the future in their hearts.
-
The disappearance of Miss Emma Swan, schoolteacher and respected resident, shook the town of Haven, Wyoming as nothing had before. Even the escape and subsequent stampede down Main Street of Mr Murchison’s pigs had caused less consternation, since, as the residents all agreed, for that at least there was an explanation. A rusty gate hinge, investigation later revealed, had been the culprit behind the Spectacular Pig Hullabaloo of 1893, whereas Miss Swan had simply vanished, with no explanation given or obvious method of egress. She owned no horse and had not boarded the stage; no one matching her description had been observed at the train station in Casper or anywhere else that a woman alone on foot might reasonably have been expected to turn up. She had taken nothing with her save some clothes and a few books and left nothing behind but a brief letter hastily scrawled on a scrap of paper—her resignation from her position as schoolteacher effective immediately, and a recommendation for her replacement.
Haven residents were thoroughly baffled, and for many months afterwards the Fantastical Vanishing of Miss Emma Swan was the number one topic of conversation amongst them. Theories were dismantled nearly as quickly as they had been constructed, replaced by newer and ever more fanciful speculations, and each resident had his or her own pet notion as to how and why the trick was done. Rarely had they felt so stimulated or enjoyed themselves so thoroughly, however time, as it inevitably does, soon began quite noticeably to pass, and the town’s attention moved on to other happenings. For although new events in such a quiet place may never again be as deliciously sensational as the mystery of the vanished schoolmarm, they do possess the not insignificant advantage of being new.
And thus Emma Swan passed into Haven legend.
Some years later, on the eve of her wedding, Miss Mary Margaret Blanchard—soon to be Mrs David Nolan—sat at the very table where Miss Swan’s letter had been left and composed a letter of her own, to an old friend she’d first met at the State Normal School of Colorado. In her letter Miss Blanchard informed her friend of the imminent blessed day and thanked her for the recommendation that had not only brought Miss Blanchard many years of enjoyable work as schoolteacher to Haven’s children but also led, in that roundabout way life sometimes takes, to her current state of blissful happiness.
This letter travelled by mail coach from the Haven general store—where Miss Blanchard posted it to the care of a P.O. Box in San Francisco—to the main post office in Casper. From there it went via train to Cheyenne, where it was loaded onto the mail car of the Union Pacific Railway and thence made its journey to the west coast. In San Francisco its fortunes underwent a curious change, for it was redirected by a clerk there, in accordance with instructions, and placed back on the Union Pacific, headed this time for Denver. From Denver it voyaged onwards to Kansas City, then Chicago, and finally to New York, where it abandoned train travel forever in favour of a steam ship bound for Buenos Aires.
Upon arrival at port it was placed in the charge of a courier who carried it along with a scant handful of others over the rough roads of the Argentinian coast to Puerto Santa Cruz and then inland, where it finally, many months after its departure, came to rest at a tiny, dusty outpost in southern Patagonia. And it was from this inauspicious locale that the letter was collected, at long last, by its intended recipient—a woman none of the residents of Haven nor indeed the erstwhile Miss Blanchard herself would be likely to recognise as Emma Swan.
The clothes she wore were utilitarian in design and plain in colour, liberally coated in fine brown dust. Her pale hair hung loose and wavy down her back, and her face beneath her wide-brimmed hat was tanned and marked around the eyes with the fine lines characteristic of those who spend a good deal of time squinting into bright sunlight. But these were superficial changes. The woman who collected the well-travelled letter and rode with it back to her ranch, who sat at the table in her kitchen and read it with a wide smile and sincere pleasure at the news from her friend—this woman was happy, as Emma Swan had surely never been. It was a happiness born of deep contentment and the satisfaction of a life lived on one’s own terms. And it was the happiness of a woman who is loved.
Emma was reading the letter a fourth time when the sound of boots on the porch alerted her to Killian’s arrival; she looked up just as he came through the door with a smile on her lips the like of which neither Mrs Nolan nor any other in Haven could ever imagine her smiling.
Killian hung his hat on a hook and met its brilliance with a smile of his own. “What are you thinking about, love, that has you so radiant?” he inquired.
“A letter from Mary Margaret.” Emma indicated the sheet of paper in her hand. “She’s getting married. Is married now, I suppose.”
“To a fellow worthy of her, I hope?”
“A rancher, but not one of the arrogant ones,” Emma replied. “I think he is. Worthy of her, I mean. I think they’ll be happy.”
“That’s good news indeed.”
“It is.” She set the letter aside and went over to him, tucked her head beneath his chin as he enfolded her in his arms. “But that’s not why I’m radiant, as you say.”
“I say it only because it’s true, darling.”
“It’s because I’m happy,” said Emma softly. She nuzzled her nose against his neck; he smelled of sweat and dust and horses. “For Mary Margaret, of course, but also for me. It struck me just now, reading her letter, how happy I am. I’m so happy, Killian.”
His arms around her tightened and she felt him stroke her hair, and when he spoke his voice was gruff. “No regrets then, about abandoning everything you’ve ever known to live out your days on the lam with me?”
“Nope.” Emma pulled back just enough to look up at him, to caress his cheek with her fingertips and press her forehead to his. “No regrets at all.”
-
Historical Note: Emma in this fic is based loosely on a woman named Etta Place. Very little is known about her, but she is thought to have been romantically involved with Harry Longabaugh, a.k.a. the Sundance Kid, and to have accompanied him and Butch Cassidy to South America. However, verifiable details about her are scarce—even her real name is uncertain—and only one photograph of her remains. Some believe she may have been a prostitute but in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid the writer chose to make her a teacher instead, and honestly I have always found that such a compelling tale. A “proper” schoolteacher having a secret affair with an outlaw, then running away with him to another continent? The romance, am I right?
This is my entry for the @cshistfic event but due to a horrible bout of writer’s block, I wasn’t able to complete it by my post date. So here is a teaser of my upcoming story which I’m hoping will be up soon!
Summary:
Mature widower with good home wishes to make acquaintance of a hardworking girl or widow. No children. Object matrimony.
When Emma Swan flees scandal in New York to marry a man she’s never met in Storybrooke, Montana, she doesn’t have any illusions of finding love. But when she’s picked up at the station by Killian Jones, it finds her regardless. Despite sharing his home, his bed, and his heart, she can never truly be his.
Rated M
His
The whistle of the train as it pulls towards the station is what draws Emma from her sleep, her heart leaping in her throat as she jumps. The man across from her stares in concern and asks if she’s alright. Blushing furiously she nods and tries to clear the remnants of sleep from her mind, the images clinging in a thick fog around her.
She’d been dreaming of home. Of New York with its bustling, non-stop cacophony of people and sights and sounds, of her friends she’d left behind with little to no word. She can still picture Mary Margaret's face. ‘You’re getting married? But why? And why not to someone here?’
She’d been dreaming of him. She hates that she still dreams of him, that in her dreams he’s still kind and charming and full of sweet promises and pretty words. That in her dreams she still loves him sometimes.
But she’s far from home now. Through the window of her traincar there’s nothing but endless fields and mountains stretched out before her. She doesn’t know anyone here, and while that was the point of her trip, of the drastic change, a chance to run away, Emma can’t help but be overwhelmed with the reality that she’s in a strange town, friendless and alone, and it’s too late to turn back now.
And as for love - well, she’s promised herself to whomever it is that picks her up at the station. She’ll make her vows and keep his house and be a good wife to him. But love, she doesn’t have any disillusions of that. She lost the naivete of her youth when Neal changed his mind.
Emma reaches into her carpet bag, pulling out the newspaper clipping and the single letter she received from her husband to be. Both have been folded and unfolded so many times that the pages are frail and falling apart at the creases. She reads them again, over and over as the train slows.
Mature widower with good home wishes to make acquaintance of a hardworking girl or widow. No children. Object matrimony.
She runs her fingers over the small newspaper print and then over the neat lines of his handwriting. Mr. Jones seems a good man. He wrote to her of his farm out in the valleys and his shop in town, and of his children who he specified were not in need of raising. He wrote how difficult it’s been to run the household since the passing of his wife and that he needs someone who can cook and clean and isn't afraid to roll up their sleeves and work.
His first and only letter had been accompanied by a proposal of marriage and a train ticket out to Storybrooke, Montana. Emma had jumped on the first train she could with hopes that her letter with the date and time of her arrival reached him before she did.
This is the thought that makes her worry the fingers of her gloves as she makes her way off the train, carpet bag still clutched tightly to her chest. A man calls her attention, snapping her out of her anxious thoughts, an attendant retrieving her chest and handing it to her. She thanks him, searching frantically for a few cents to give him and hurries out onto the platform with everything she owns tucked under her arm.
Casting her gaze around the busy station, she realises she doesn’t know what she’s looking for - or whom she’s looking for. There had been no photograph or portrait enclosed in the advertisement or in the letter. Every man who passes by could be Mr. Jones and she wouldn’t know him from Adam. She tries not to look too expectantly at everyone who catches her gaze, especially when some of those gazes turn interested or suggestive and she hopes they’re not the one she’s waiting for.
But as the platform begins to empty of passengers and carriages ride off without her, her fears change. What if he hasn’t come at all? Or worse yet, what if he saw her and changed his mind? She hadn’t included an image in her response either, and she knows that at twenty-eight, she’s older than most mail-order brides who make the journey out west.
She’s just about given up hope, only herself and a station attendant left, the train having already moved on to its next destination, when she hears a hesitant, accented voice ask, “Miss Swan?”
Turning, she takes in the man standing before her and her breath catches, wondering if this could be her fiance. When she’d read the advertisement, she’d pictured someone older, someone more worn down by a hard life out in the fields and the loss of his wife. But this man is tall and lean, the muscles of his arms and shoulders not hidden beneath his clean shirt and vest. And he’s young, likely not much older than herself, and she can’t help the small flutter of excitement that rolls in her stomach.
“Mr. Jones?” A flush colours her cheeks despite herself as she takes in his dark hair and bright blue eyes, struck by how handsome he is. She hadn’t expected him to be handsome. She wants to shake herself. What he looks like shouldn’t matter.
He smiles, nodding, and it does something unfairly beautiful to his already attractive face. “I’m sorry I’m late,” he tells her. “The widow Lucas’ cart lost a wheel on the road. I wouldn’t have been so delayed but it took me ages to convince her to accept my help.” She frowns at him and he gives a small laugh. “You’d understand if you met her,” he promises. Emma returns his grin despite herself.
“I hope you haven’t been waiting too long,” he adds, gesturing vaguely with his left arm and that’s when Emma notices the metal where his hand should be. She hadn’t seen it at first, the iron hook on the end of the wood and metal brace his sleeve has been altered to fit around. A wave of sadness washes over her wondering what could have happened to him. He doesn't look old enough to have been in the war. “Is everything alright?” he asks and when Emma looks back to his face he’s frowning at her in concern.
She shakes her head, realizing she’s been staring. “Yes, sorry. You’re just… not who I expected,” she admits.
The man reaches to scratch behind his ear nervously. “Ah, yes, well -” he begins awkwardly and she speaks quickly, worried she’s offended him, that he thinks she cares about his missing hand.
“I only meant… you’re younger than you sounded in your letter.”
He frowns at her again and then his eyes go wide with something - realization or understanding, but most notably, embarrassment. “Oh, I’m sorry Miss, you have the wrong idea. I’m -” he hesitates, scratching his ear again as it turns pink. “I’m not your fiance.”
“You’re not Mr. Jones?” Emma asks, trying to ignore the rush of disappointment that follows his words.
“Aye, I am. Killian Jones.” He clears his throat. “The man you’ve come to marry, Brennan Jones, is my father.”
Killian Jones had been in love with Emma Nolan for as long as he could remember, since the day he began his employment in the Nolan estate as a boy. With the knowledge that Emma had fallen in love with him in return, he had become determined to make a name for himself. When the British joined the Second World War, Killian enlisted in the Navy, promising to return to Emma and give her the life she deserved.
Rated M (barely)
15,009 words
Read on Ao3
Hello! I'm excited to share this piece, posted for the @cshistfic event. The idea for this fic came when I found some letters from my grandpa to the woman he loved, who would become my grandma, while he was deployed in WWII. I use some elements of his letters very briefly in the story. I was so excited to get the excuse (and push) to actually write it when this event was announced! The story mainly features angst with the promise of a happy ending, so get ready for that.
Disclaimer: I did really try to make this as historically accurate as I could, but I'm sure some parts of this are not, so be nice. Also, a trigger warning for a very brief description of drowning as well as a severe injury (It's Killian Jones, so...). As always, if you'd like some more information before you read, feel free to message me!
Finally, a humongous thank you to @donteattheappleshook, who somehow beta read this monster in one night, and also to @the-darkdragonfly, because they both let me ramble about this until the plot made sense.
Read my other works here!
Get added to my tag list here!
~~~~
The west wing of the Nolan family’s Bath estate always smelled of freshly baked bread. A loaf was baked daily, the oven firing up no matter the temperature inside or out. The kitchen staff produced bread tirelessly, sourdough or even a baguette always fragranting the estate and making the residents hungry. Each member of the Nolan family tended to visit the kitchen each morning, seeking an extra slice of the kitchen’s specialty, despite breakfast nearly being ready. And while each member of the Nolan family went seeking a treat, there never seemed to be enough by simple coincidence. However, there always seemed to be an extra serving made just for the eldest Nolan.
Leopold always became jealous, his annoyance clear as he pouted whenever his sister’s special helping of bread was given to her. Mary Margaret Nolan often blushed and grinned when she observed the single, small loaf being pulled from the hot oven by the young baker. David Nolan, the owner of the estate, seemed aloof to the happenstance surrounding his daughter and his baker, caring not to consider the scandal of a man in his employ falling in love with his eldest daughter.
The problem was never whether Killian loved Emma or Emma loved Killian. The problem wasn’t even whether Emma's family liked Killian enough to let him marry her, or even whether Killian or Emma could ever build up the nerve to tell her parents of their illicit affair. The problem was always the doubt that Killian had in himself and in his ability to provide for a wife of such high social standings. Emma would say that her parents would support them, that it made them lucky, but Killian saw it more as a curse. David Nolan never came out and stated that his estate’s baker was not good enough to be with his daughter, but Killian always felt it.
After all, what kind of life could a simple baker give to a woman who deserved the world?
It wasn’t as if Killian or Emma ever told her parents that they tended to sneak off together, or that they spent many a night in the family’s grassy meadow in one another’s arms, or that they hoped to spend the rest of their lives together. It also wasn’t as if they were very discreet about it, either. However, Killian could never move past his feelings of certain and impending failure.
And so, one warm night on the first of September, he told her his plan. He explained to her the assumption that the Prime Minister would declare war against Germany if they refused to remove their troops from Poland, and if that should occur, he would join the Navy and fight for his country without a need for conscription. Not only had he drawn such a conclusion because he was dedicated to his country, but also because, as a Navy veteran, he would have much more of a name for himself than he would as a baker. As a Navy veteran, he would prove himself worthy of her. To her, and to her family, but mostly to himself.
“Killian, you can’t,” she had told him that night, pulling him closer to her in the tall grass so that almost no space came between them. “I can’t lose you.”
“Who says you will?” he had asked with a soft smile. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
She sighed heavily, letting herself fall so that her back landed on the soft ground. The field felt warm from the long day in the sun, but not warmer than the glow of her cheeks. Her white dress, the one he had said that he liked with the small red flowers decorating it’s soft fabric, clung to her curves as it was held down by gravity, and he found her utterly irresistible. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Aye, it’s dangerous, but it’s also necessary. If they should declare war, they’ll need every able-bodied man.”
“But you’re needed here,” she argued stubbornly. “My father and grandfather avoided conscription in The Great War because of their work; can’t you do just the same?”
Killian chuckled as he lay by her side, his hand just barely touching hers in a scandalous and forbidden ghost of a movement. “My love, your grandfather was a veterinarian, as is your father. I’m merely a baker; my work is not important in the eyes of war.”
“It’s important to me,” she whispered, her small voice barely audible to him over the sounds of the crickets singing across the field.
“I want to marry you.”
“I want that, too. I also want you alive. ”
“I’m twenty-four,” he continued brashly, struggling to ignore her sentiment as he attempted to help her to see his point-of-view. “You’re just twenty-one. Should I… should I die, you’ll be able to find someone who can give you the life you deserve.”
The speed with which she sat up must have been dizzying, her form suddenly blocking his view of the sunset over the small pond before them. “Don’t you dare say anything like that again, Killian Jones. You will not die.”
He couldn’t help but to grin at her, the smile soft and adoring as he gazed into her eyes which matched the green grass they lay upon. “You've always been rather stubborn, my love.”
“And this instance is no different.” He nodded at her in agreement, his hand begging his mind to let it reach for hers, although he held back, desiring not to be caught in such a compromising position. “And I don’t suppose my stubbornness will convince you to stay?”
“I’m not sure your stubbornness will be a match for all of Parliament, my love. And besides… this is sure to be the best thing for us.”
The two were silent for a while after that. There were no words exchanged between them; only the sounds of their breathing and the songs of the crickets disturbed the silence as they lay together. Their hands touched easily and naturally, sparks seeming to fly, Killian finally taking Emma’s without a second thought and without the worry of being caught. They were almost caught years prior, when Emma was just eighteen and Killian almost twenty-two, the two of them having fallen in love easily and quickly when she had returned from college and started visiting him in the kitchens.
He had worked for her family for most of his life, his mother leaving him in the care and employ of the Nolan estate upon her passing. He and his mother had begun their work for the Nolan family just after his brother had passed from Smallpox, when Killian was only eight years of age. He knew Emma when he was just a boy, often laughing as she barged her way through the kitchen and earning a whack upside his head from his mother and then by Granny when his mum had gone. He knew that he loved her when they were just children, because he was in such pain following the death of his older brother, but she was somehow capable of making him smile. It wasn’t until she came home from college that she started to love him back.
She had told him first, that she loved him. She informed him that there wasn’t a day she was gone during which she did not have thoughts of him. He had vowed that night, to himself, alone in his drafty bed chamber, that he would become a man of worth for her. That he would become the kind of man who could care for her the way she deserved. He vowed that, aside from loving her, he would give her a life that would honor her perfection and her kindness and her beauty.
So, when he had heard of the impending war and the opportunity to fight for his country, he suddenly knew just what he had to do. He had considered joining the service before, but now, the choice was simple.
“I want to marry you,” she had finally whispered again into the darkening night, the sun having set and the stars peeking through the clouds. “I don’t want you to go away because I want to be with you.”
“You will,” he promised her softly. “I’ll not be gone too long, my love. Surely the Germans will retreat, and I’ll be home to you before you notice my absence.”
“That’s impossible,” she insisted to him firmly. “I’ve never not noticed your absence.”
He couldn’t respond, because it hurt too much to think of words that would do her justice. “I love you,” he chose.
“I love you, too,” she vowed. “I’ll wait for you. I’ll write you every day. I’ll think of you always, until you’re back in my arms and I can make you my husband.”
“I believe I’m to make you my wife,” he had chuckled, and she shrugged in response, sitting up until she could see him clearly and then leaning down to press her lips to his in a stolen, scandalous kiss. “There’s not a day that will go by in which I won’t think of you,” he promised her against her mouth.
“Good,” she’d whispered. “Hurry back then, soldier.”
~~~~
He was gone from her three days later, Chamberlain declaring war swiftly as the Germans refused to remove themselves from their occupation in Poland. He couldn’t write to her for weeks. She wrote to him each day, although she usually saved her letters in her diary so that she could send them on a weekly basis, careful not to be too suspicious by sending so much in the post.
Every morning, she had awoken to nothingness. The smell of freshly baked bread seemed all wrong coming from Granny alone. There was no joyful humming coming from the kitchen, no Killian insisting that it never came from him. There were no soft, gentle kisses to her forehead at each fleeting and hidden opportunity. No one lifted her up onto the counter top to steal kisses and touches and soft laughs and smiles.
With nothing to do but wait and worry, Emma began to help her father with the animals. He was recruited again as a veterinarian for the military horses, just as he and his father had been during The Great War, and she saw a joy in him that she hadn't seen in years. Tending to the horses and dogs brought about a sense of happiness and helpfulness that she finally began to understand must have been necessary for Killian. She saw that he couldn't have forgiven himself if he had elected to stay, not that he had a choice, and she found herself almost glad that she let him go.
(Not that she had a choice either.)
But months after he had gone, fall turning to winter, winter turning to spring, spring turning to early summer, she found herself going nearly mad with impatience. She had hardly heard from him, only a few short letters describing the cold and the rain and the uselessness of all this fighting , and all she wanted was to have him in her arms again. Nothing could quell the irrevocable need to be with him again.
The last letter she received broke her when she read it again, weeks after the disastrous events of which he had taken part against his will. His descriptions of how warm his foxhole was and how he expected to be paid soon seemed casual enough at the time, but when she got the nerve to reread it after he had been declared missing in action, she nearly chose to burn it. His asking how Leo was faring after falling off his horse; his concern that he never learns to be careful , reminded her of how caring he was despite his sarcasm, and of how she may never know such kindness again. His gratefulness at her letters, his joyful explanation that they were coming in quite regularly despite her willfully putting off sending them, sent her down a dark path from which she could not escape.
When she reread the last line of his last letter, in which he described missing her more than the heat of the sun missed the warm grass upon which they liked to lie together, she had shattered.
~~~~
He was drowning.
The water in his lungs burned. It was salty and hot and cold all at once. It was in his chest and in his throat and in his stomach. It began to sink him. It sent him near the bottom of the Channel, the chilling water cooling down his blood and calming him somehow despite the adrenaline burning through his veins. He could see nothing but blackness. He felt unreal, inhuman, dead. He felt dead . He wasn’t, not in that moment, but he may as well have been.
The man pulled him from the sea, his sopping uniform weighing him down and making things difficult. The ocean was drenched into every part of him, chilling him from the inside out and making him nearly unrecognizable. The frigid water paled Killian’s skin, giving him a bluish tint that made the man wonder whether his efforts were futile. The loss of blood and oxygen that the young soldier endured likely furthered the near-death-like state in which Killian hung.
“Comment t’appelles-tu?” the man had asked, although Killian would maintain that he heard only gibberish. The words burned into Killian’s ears just like the salty water had. The man noted the slight twitch to the soldier’s closed eyes and must have felt hopeful, giving Killian a shake. “Réveille-toi! Dis-moi ton nom!”
Killian could not respond, having found himself merely floating along a plane somewhere between life and death. He had found that everything had pained him, each movement causing a sting and burn and a dizziness which he had never felt before and would never feel again. Finally, after just a moment of clarity during which he stared up as his rescuer, a blurred figure who blocked out the harsh white sun, he had allowed himself to succumb to sleep once more.
~~~~
Emma Nolan was determined not to get married.
It was nearly August by the time her parents had begun to insist that she hear Neal Cassidy’s attempts to court her, entirely certain that the two would make a handsome pair. Mister Cassidy would prove himself entirely able to provide for the eldest Nolan, his wealth surviving through the start of the war. He was lucky, as some might have said, having been found ineligible for conscription because of the importance of his work in finance.
Neal Cassidy was a caring, wholesome man, Emma had found. He had soft eyes and kind features that made her feel a sense of safety that she was not expecting when they met. He had money, inherited from his father who broke his back as a foreman in the coal mines, but aside from that, Emma’s father was certain that he would care for her well. David Nolan worried endlessly for his daughter, always fearing her unhappiness, and it was all he could do to find her a suitable husband.
Mister Nolan was never blind to his eldest child’s pain. It became clear to him when she had returned from college years ago that she had harbored feelings for the young baker who took residence in his kitchen. Killian Jones was always respectful and kind to the Nolan family, his gratitude for their care of him clear in the passion of his work. Not only that, but he was a talented baker, one who could win anyone’s heart with his plaited brioche.
It was no wonder that his daughter fell for Killian Jones.
And while David Nolan knew of their love for one another, though he was sure they thought they were hiding it, he could not do anything about the fact that the man his daughter loved died fighting for his country. He could not change the fact that she needed to think of herself and of her well-being. He did not enjoy thinking only of her financial prospects, although it became a necessity as he aged.
The look upon his daughter’s face as she prepared for her wedding to a man she did not love burned through his heart and set a fire of pain and anger through his veins. Her loss, though it was one of which she would not discuss, especially with her father, was so palpable that it spread through the room, each member of her family watching solemnly as she stepped out from behind the curtain in the small boutique in a modest white gown.
“I can’t,” she had finally whispered as she stared deeply at herself in the reflection of the mirror. She had admitted openly that her fiancé was kind to her, a gentle soul who seemed devoted to her happiness, and yet she was painfully unhappy.
“Emma,” her mother said, hurrying towards her and placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Of course you can.”
“No,” she cried, a soft sob escaping her throat as she slowly placed a hand over her mouth, still staring painfully at the reflection of herself she did not care to recognize. “I promised.”
“Promised who?” her mother had asked. “Promised what?”
And so David stood firmly from his chair and walked towards his daughter, wishing to provide for her the comfort that he had been able to when she was just a girl. Now, as an adult with all of the maturity and life-experience of someone much older than she truly is, he had realized that there was very little that he could do to soothe the ache of her broken heart.
Killian Jones, the man who went off to war and took with him the heart of David Nolan’s only daughter, was pronounced missing in action, presumed dead, following the evacuation of Dunkirk beach. The chaos that came with removing hundreds of thousands of shivering soldiers meant that it was impossible to keep track of who went where, but Killian Jones was nowhere to be found.
And with him being missing, so was his lover’s heart and happiness.
“Emma,” David had said once he reached her, “I’m sorry.”
She had broken then, collapsing into her father’s arms and wrinkling the white satin fabric which she wished desperately to rip off of herself. Emma had always been close to her mother, the bond between a woman and her first child strong and hearty, but she would be considered her father’s little girl for the entirety of her life. At his understanding, she shattered once more, needing to be held together by the only other man in her life who had ever shown her the type of love that she so strongly deserved.
“I can’t,” she had sobbed again into her father’s shoulder, her grip upon his sport jacket violent and desperate. “I promised him I would wait.”
“I know,” David had consoled, although this was only a fact which he had come across through luck and assumption. He had never gained confirmation of his daughter’s affair with the estate’s baker, but they were shoddy at hiding the love they had for one another. “I know, I’m so sorry.”
“He could come back,” she begged desperately as she had pulled from him, her eyes shimmering sadly through her tears. “He might…”
“A lot of ships were hit with U-boats as they tried to cross the Channel,” David had tried, although it was clear in an instant that he had chosen his words incorrectly as he watched her face fall once more.
“He’s strong,” she cried. “He can survive anything; look at what he’s survived so far!”
“Of course,” her father had agreed, though he was unable to make himself change her wording to past tense. “But Emma… it’s been months now.”
“He’s missing ,” she had insisted, with her voice more firm and her face more angry. “Missing doesn’t mean dead!”
“Honey,” her mother had interrupted, “this is about Killian?”
David watched painfully as his daughter’s face fell upon hearing his name, one that he is certain she hadn’t heard since he left nearly a year prior. “Yes,” she had whispered in return, her face turning downcast as she pulled away from her mother.
“We understand,” David had told her. “We know this is hard for you, and that you made a promise to him. But now you need to consider yourself and your best interests. Mister Cassidy can give you a good life.”
“So can Killian,” she had said in a voice so small and weak and broken that David could feel his own heart shattering once more. Without awaiting a response from either of her parents, Emma had stepped down from the low podium, the one that had placed her on display in a gown she wished not to wear, and hurried out of the room.
~~~~
Killian had grown to enjoy the manual work that kept his mind and body busy. As his wounds healed, he would say that tending to the animals on Nemo’s farm helped his thoughts to heal as well. He would watch as the chickens hopped along the rolling fields, following him as he set out to feed the cows, and the sight set his heart ablaze with joy.
Of course, one might argue that such a reaction was because of the way his Emma loved to follow him along each morning to fetch the eggs from the chicken coops, taken by the brazen birds.
It had taken him several weeks of recovery before he was conscious enough to recall the woman to whom he had given his heart. All he could ever see was a glow of golden tresses in his dreams, a figure gently healing him with compassion and love that he could feel through his state of oblivion.
When he had finally awoken, drifting out of his sleep, he felt sadness at the thought of no longer seeing his healer, his guardian angel, until he realized that who he was seeing was Emma. Then, the sadness turned to impossible anguish at the realization that he could never be with her again.
He had struggled when he had finally woken up; it had seemed as though too many thoughts had begun to swirl around within his mind. First came the knowledge that the son of the man who had saved him and cared for him shared a name with his late brother. Liam was kind to him from the start, often changing his bandages and bringing him water when he was asked, although the pain that came from being in his presence began to become unbearable to Killian after so much loss.
Then, there was his hand, or lack thereof. It had felt more like a dream when he had finally woken up, the realization that part of the reason he had slept for so long was because of the trauma of losing an appendage. He had lost far too much blood and oxygen as he had floated away listlessly in the water, Nemo had told him. It was nearly impossible for him to even be alive, Nemo claimed. But he had known that a part of him refused to let himself die as he sank, because he had to get back to Emma.
Once he had awoken, he learned that it would never be possible.
“You’re doing well, my boy,” Nemo had called one afternoon as the sun began to set, the gleaming of the golden sun reminding him painfully of her.
“Thank you,” he had mumbled in return, the bucket heavy on the crook of his elbow as he used his remaining hand to scatter the grain.
“Something interesting in the paper this morning,” he had told Killian, holding up the heavily folded stack as an offer before leaning his body weight against the fence that enclosed the chickens. “Or, at least, thought provoking.”
“What’s that?”
“The engagement announcements had caught my eye.”
Killian had taken the paper from the man who cared for him, the man who nursed him back to health, and when he cast his gaze upon the announcement that was surely fueling Nemo’s thoughts, he cursed him. Killian cursed Nemo for rescuing him, for bringing him back to life, because it meant that he had to live with the image of her with another man burned into his soul for the rest of his days. It meant that, each time he closed his eyes, he would be cursed with her face standing beside the man who would give her the life she’s always deserved. The life Killian had so desperately wanted to give her, although it had become far too late for that.
“That's… I’m glad she’s happy.”
“ Happy? ” Nemo had spit, casting a look of utter disgust and disrespect in the direction of his friend. The man had grown fond of Killian during his lengthy recovery, and watching him heal from such a horrid injury, watching him come back to life after sinking aimlessly for what seemed like days, had given Nemo an undying respect for him. “Are you a fool?” he had asked, seemingly able to look past his reverence for the lad.
“Yes.”
“Look at her face,” Nemo demanded. “That is the face of someone who would rather be anywhere but by this man’s side!”
“The Cassidy’s come from money. He’s a good man; she’ll be well taken care of.”
“My boy,” Nemo had breathed, standing from his perch and shaking his head in disbelief as he approached Killian, who continued to mindlessly scatter grain across the ground as he was chased by the relentless birds. “You must have knocked something loose in that head of yours before I pulled you from the sea.”
Shoving a fowl from jumping upon his leg, Killian asked, “What are you on about?”
“She is miserable.”
Nemo had taken the paper from Killian then, tossing it over the fence of the enclosure so that it landed heavily in the ground. At the loss of her, Killian dropped his bucket, letting the handle of it painfully slide over his still battered skin, and hurried towards the small gate to the coop, crouching as he reached for the article again before tearing the page out. He struggled with the large sheet of parchment, pressing it to his bent knee with his blunted arm and ripping it carefully so that he could remove her face from beside the man who could never be him. While he recognized that he could never marry her, Killian could at least have a small, mud-covered reminder of the woman he loved.
“She… she’ll have a good life,” he had choked, finding it impossible to stand and face the man behind him.
“You were brave on the battlefield, my boy, and in the evacuation. You were the bravest man I’ve ever met while Liam and I mended you. But you are being an utter coward.”
“ What ?”
“This is the woman you love, and you’re letting her go. You’re here, Killian; you’re alive. Why wouldn't you want to give her the choice to be with you?”
Killian stood then, his hand carding through his hair, covered in dirt and sweat from his day in the fields. He’d enjoyed his work on Nemo’s farm, assisting where he could with the animals but always seeming to prefer the chicken coops. The cows were gentle, the lambs enjoyable to be around, but the chickens reminded him of his Emma. And, despite his affinity for the animals, the truth was simple; Killian was incapable of helping in any other way with only one hand.
“I can’t,” he had finally admitted, his hand clenching into a fist at his side, his jaw tight enough to twitch slightly beneath his skin. “I’m not… I can’t.”
Nemo had watched as his young friend sat back upon the soft grass, bending his knees against his chest and gripping the front of his hair with his single hand. The boy’s other arm, the blunted and badly scarred one, raised as well, but stopped short when it didn’t reach his face. With great empathy, and also with a struggle to fully comprehend what the lad had been through, Nemo sat by his side, struggling to get to the ground with his damaged knee and placing a consoling hand upon Killian’s back. “My boy,” he had started, “you are still you.”
Killian’s voice was rough, seeming to scratch through his throat as he had asked, “What are you talking about?”
“This woman… she loves you, isn’t that right?” Killian only sighed heavily in response, giving Nemo a single, tense nod. “I can’t imagine she would stop simply because you’ve been injured.”
“I haven’t been injured ,” Killian had spit back in response, his body appearing rigid in response to the words of his friend. “I’ve been… I’m ruined . What happened has destroyed me.”
“And you’ve done well to heal. My son, many men who were at the beaches are likely feeling just as you are. Many lost their lives. You’ve lost your hand, and you’ve been healing physically. It’s time to allow yourself to heal in here .” Nemo had reached his own hand up from the ground beside Killian and placed a finger upon his temple, tapping lightly before he had pulled away. “Many soldiers experience shellshock like you have, many of them far worse.”
“I know that,” he responded quietly, letting his head drop forward, his chin to his chest.
Nemo sat quietly beside Killian for a few moments more, allowing him to breathe in his surroundings and take solace in the fresh air provided by the long grass and the sea spray coming off of the cliffs to their right. He had been soft on Killian for the last few months, letting him heal as slowly as he needed to, but when he had admitted that he left behind a woman he loved, Nemo began to feel impatient.
He had been close to other soldiers, veterans who were hurt one way or another by the violence of war, and Killian was proving himself strong in the way that he had quickly gotten back on his feet. It was just over a month before he had gotten out of bed, three weeks in which he had slept off the ocean-induced coma. He had described fleeting, dream-like memories of his ship sinking, the very ship meant to take him and his fellow soldiers to safety. They had thought they were home free, enjoying bread and jam and tea below deck and counting themselves lucky. The U-boat struck the hull violently, knocking their ship on it’s side and sinking it almost instantly. Killian had described the scene playing before him so quickly that he had hoped it was a nightmare. He had hoped that he was still on that blasted beach, the thick foam spraying him and chilling him to the bone. He had wished to still be in France, dodging air raids from above and enemy fire from behind. Being in the water, a sudden, numbing pain taking over his mind, was worse torture than he’d ever felt.
It was when Elsa had gone to check on him that it seemed his memories had returned, young Liam told his father. She had checked his wound when she came for her eggs, and said that he was doing well. Killian told Liam later that night that, when he saw the glowing golden hair shining in the setting sun, he remembered everything. The sea had taken his hand, nearly took his life, but the sunlight gave his memories back and he was suddenly all-consumed with thoughts of his Emma.
He described her in great detail, speaking more than they had ever heard him. He spoke of loving her from the moment they had met as children. He spoke of her kindness, her softness, her stubbornness. He told them that he enlisted in the Navy so that when he returned he would be seen by her father as an honorable man worthy of taking his daughter's hand. When he told them this, it seemed to strike something within him, and he began to quiet. They hadn’t heard him speak so much since that day.
Now, as Nemo sat beside the young man, the man who had been through so much loss and so much pain, it made sense to him. Killian saw himself as incomplete, as broken. How could he return to the woman he loved, the one he had vowed to return to with the promise of a better life, with a missing part of himself? How could he provide for her?
Of course, Killian had also made the foolish mistake of proving himself worthy in his diligent work around his farm, so Nemo was easily able to see past the boy’s self doubt.
“Well, I feel sorry for her,” he had said to Killian frankly, staring ahead at the billowing clouds that met the field before them.
“Aye, I know. Why do you think I'm still here?”
“To have lost you, to think that she’s lost you permanently, when in reality, you’re here, moping about on my farm and perfectly capable of giving her exactly what you’d promised. It’s selfish, really.”
Killian never did lose that bit of rigidity, and it seemed to Nemo like he had stiffened even more at his side. He didn’t respond, at least not with words, simply choosing to shake his head and sigh heavily. Nemo had almost thought that perhaps the boy was giving in, accepting the truth in his words, ready to make the decision to go back to the woman he loved, but the boy simply stood, struggling to get to his feet with only the ability to hold the fence behind him with one hand for support.
“I’m not being selfish,” he had stated with finality. “I told her I would give her the life she deserves, and she deserves a man who can provide for her everything she could ever desire. That man isn’t me; it never has been.”
~~~~
Faran Nemo, retired Naval Captain, was a knowledgeable man. He saw himself as perceptive, wise, and empathetic to the feelings of his friends and the people he cared about. Killian had quickly become someone he cared about, from the moment he saw him floating in the bottomless Channel and noted the slight twitch to his remaining fingers. He saw life in the boy’s eyes, fleeting from the moment he had noticed it, but it was there. He felt himself being drawn to the lad, a need to save him and protect him overwhelming, much like the way he had felt when he first found his son, Liam.
When Killian had finally come to, when he began to speak of a woman he loved, one to whom he had vowed to return, Nemo knew without a shadow of a doubt that he would make that happen.
And so, when he had woken one morning and found his chickens fed, but Killian’s quarters emptied, packed up and tidied as if no one had ever lived there, he knew. When he found Killian gone, having left in the night with a small thank you letter left upon his pillow the only indication that he had ever been there, he knew that Emma Nolan would have her soldier back in her arms by the week’s end.
~~~~
The Nolan estate had been quiet since mid June, when the news about the evacuation and the Prime Minister’s speech became public. Emma had waited and waited for news of Killian, waited for weeks for his letter stating that he had survived and that he was coming home to her, but it never came. Eventually, his employer was informed of his presumed death, of his being missing, and Emma had become inconsolable. The Nolan estate had been quiet since that day.
It became difficult to speak in her presence, any words a reminder of the voice she was seeking. When Granny began to settle more permanently in the role that belonged to Killian, Emma became angry. It was the first time that Leopold Nolan saw any sort of emotion from his sister since the family’s baker had left. Emma had spent all of her days waiting for Killian’s return, and when it became evident that he would not, she appeared to fall apart.
Neal Cassidy could see easily that his fiance was painfully unhappy. He had never truly seen her smile, only witnessing a plastered-on fake grin from time to time. He had never heard her laugh, not even a falsified one. He had heard her cry many times, mostly when she thought she was being discreet. She would sometimes escape during dinner and hide herself away in a coat closet, closing the door upon herself and letting out sob after painful sob in what she thought was solitude. Neal never meant to listen in on her private moments, but it was difficult not to hear her when he had gone looking for her.
It was not as if he was dying to marry Miss Nolan himself, although he was not dreading it, either. Truthfully, he had simply made a vow to her and her family, and despite her obvious unhappiness, she had never appeared to be against the union. He knew that she had love for another man, but that man was gone, and the honorable thing for Neal to do was to follow through with a wedding to a woman who needed the support of a husband. He saw himself as a man who had the ability to provide for a young lady in need, and it was his goal to make her feel at least some semblance of joy, however he could.
But he could never comfort her, could never get close enough to even try. He knew that her heart belonged to another, and even with the news of his assumed death, it was apparent that she would not be moving on from the love she had for this other man. Neal couldn’t even find it in himself to be jealous, feeling for the young woman whose life seemed to have ended before it could begin. The sadness she felt seemed like it would follow her for the remainder of her days. It became clear very quickly that Neal would never be able to quell the anguish of his future bride. The only thing that could possibly hope to soothe her broken heart seemed to be impossible, as one could not simply return from the dead.
But then, just when Neal thought all was lost for the woman he was to wed, the man had returned. He was seen walking up the drive to the Cassidy estate one evening, his boots scratching against the stones as he trudged, his head bowed and his pack heavy on his back. Neal’s butler had informed him of the intrusion, but when he looked out his front door, it became impossibly clear to him just who this man was. His uniform gave him away.
Neal had sat across from Killian in the drawing room, handing him a dram of whiskey, which the man seemed to choke down. “Not a whiskey man?”
“I’m more drawn to rum, myself. But thank you either way for the offer.”
“I see. I’ll have Miss West look for some, then.”
“Mister Cassidy,” Killian had started, seemingly unsure of how to go on. He had cleared his throat, taking a long yet quick drag from his tumbler of whiskey-- making a sour face and coughing slightly-- before he spoke again. “Thank you for your hospitality.”
Neal had cleared his throat as well, nodding as he took an easier sip from his own glass. “This one is meant to have notes of stone fruit and chocolate, but all I taste is that alcohol. I was never very good at tasting the notes.”
“Aye,” Killian had agreed, although he was certain he had no idea what Mister Cassidy was talking about. “I’ve never been good at tasting my alcohol, myself.”
After a moment of silence had passed between them, Miss West informing Mister Cassidy that they had no rum available, Neal had finally decided to speak. “I suppose you’re here to talk about Emma.”
Mister Jones appeared unable to respond, simply staring down at his glass, his eyes clouded with emotion and distress. Neal Cassidy had always seen himself as fairly sensitive to the feelings of those around him, which was why it was so simple to see the misery in his fiance’s eyes. And as he looked across the room at Killian Jones, he saw a matching demeanor to that of Emma Nolan’s.
“I am,” Killian had finally admitted, his voice rough as it slipped out of his throat. “I realize that this is not a very honorable thing for me to do, to simply show up here uninvited, but--”
“She thinks you dead,” Neal had informed him, though he was certain the soldier already knew this.
“Yes.”
“She’s been in great pain at her loss, Mister Jones. I can assure you I've never seen her smile, at least not genuinely.”
“She has a lovely smile.” Neal had watched as the corner of Killian’s mouth had twitched as if considering the memory of the sight of Emma Nolan’s grin, and in that moment, it had become clear to him what needed to be done.
Emma was in love with this man. The woman he was meant to marry, the young maiden meant to become Missus Cassidy, was in love with someone else. And as Neal stared across the space separating himself from the other man, he knew with certainty that Mister Jones loved her, too. He had vowed to himself when he proposed to take her hand that he would do anything that he could to make her happy, and he saw that he had that opportunity as Mister Jones sat adjacent to him in his drawing room.
“You love her?”
Neal had watched as the emotion began to play across the face of the man adjacent to him, pain and anguish and loss mixing with love and desire and longing in a way that made him feel completely inadequate as Emma’s betrothed. “Emma Nolan is… I could never love anything or anyone the way that I love her. I can’t describe to you the way it felt to be apart from her for the last year. My cowardice is unforgivable, because your insinuation that she has not smiled is criminal. To be the one responsible for such pain… I don’t deserve this woman, and yet I long for her. I find that I need her like I need air, as selfish as that sounds.”
Neal nodded, taking another sip and leaning back. He found himself beginning to understand, the nature of their relationship private and elusive but sensical nonetheless. Emma was essentially unavailable to the young baker, her status higher than his and making it difficult for the two of them to build a life together. But they were in love, that much was obvious enough to anyone paying attention. Neal was never privy to Emma’s past when they’d met, but it was clear that she had suffered a great loss. He had assumed it had been a former lover, perhaps a husband, but her parents had informed him that she had never been married. As time had passed, it became more and more obvious, and as he watched the young, maimed veteran walk up his drive, each and every piece of the puzzle fell together.
“She loves you,” Neal had said, and as he said it, he had watched Killian’s shoulders sag in relief. “But… the evacuation was months ago. Where have you been?”
Perhaps he had no right to ask such a thing, but Emma was still technically Neal’s fiance, for the moment, and frankly, he was curious.
“I’ve… I've been cowardly. I was shown the error of my ways a few days ago. I lost my hand in the evacuation and I thought myself incapable of leading the life Emma so deserves.”
“You’re a veteran,” Neal had stated simply, “injured while serving your country. What is there not to respect in a man who loses a part of himself while protecting the citizens of our great nation?” It was not difficult for Neal to see the blunted shortness of Killian’s left arm, stopping short at the wrist and covered in fresh, ghastly scars. “Will you seek compensation?”
Killian had simply shrugged. “I’ll be receiving a sum for my service. I’ve been medically discharged as of two days ago.”
“And your hand?”
“I can file a claim.”
The man’s voice was rough and strained, the topic obviously making him uncomfortable, so Neal chose not to press. “And what will you and Emma do when you’re reunited?” Killian had stared at the man, his pain far too palpable and almost contagious in the small, bright room. “That is, certainly you hope to wed her.”
“Well, yes,” he had choked out weakly, although his demeanor was still as straight and strong as ever. “That is most certainly my hope, although I fear it’s far too unrealistic.”
“Why?”
“Well… she is betrothed.”
Neal had shrugged. His nonchalance was felt by Killian across the room, and Neal was certain he could detect the smallest hint of a smile. “For now,” he had agreed. “However, I've never been one to force a lady into anything, particularly not something that seems to be causing her a great deal of distress.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, it certainly is.”
There was silence between them for far too long, Neal finishing his whiskey and Killian barely choking his down. Neal could tell that there was something else on the man’s mind, something that he was struggling to put to words. It was clear enough that his return took a certain amount of fortitude, his discomfort obvious enough, although he had chosen to face the fiance of the woman he loved despite it. While Neal knew himself as a man who could take care of Emma Nolan, at least financially, it became clear to him that Mister Jones was the one who could truly love her, and be given her love in return.
“Mister Cassidy…” Killian had started, but he was interrupted immediately.
“If I may, Mister Jones, I’m struggling to see the purpose of you still being here.”
“I… I beg your pardon?”
“The woman you love-- more importantly, the woman who loves you-- is a mere kilometer down the road, and here you sit in my drawing room choking down my whiskey. If I may be so bold, I feel that you should leave here and go to her. I’m certain her status as an intended woman will be rectified by morning.”
“You’re certain, Mister Cassidy?”
With a small, soft chuckle, Neal responded, “Mister Jones, I am certain that if you wait here any longer, Miss Nolan is sure to give you a well-deserved slap when she sees you, before enthusiastically ensuring that you know how much she has pined for you.”
Killian laughed as well, placing down his half-full glass as he stood, and stated, “Yes, that does sound like something she would do.”
“No more wasting time,” Neal had insisted, standing as well. “I have it on good authority that the rest of the Nolan family has missed your presence almost as much as Miss Emma.”
His hand had extended once his glass was placed upon the table between them, reaching towards Killian’s one remaining appendage and shaking it in respect. “Thank you, Mister Cassidy.”
“It was honorable of you to come here tonight, Mister Jones. Miss Nolan deserves happiness, and it’s clear that you are her best chance in that respect.”
As Killian Jones left the Cassidy estate, he had only thoughts of his love, mixed with the fear that he would be unable to provide for her. And as he walked along the road that led him to the Nolan estate, he began to find himself filled with more hope than fear, something he would say he could not recall feeling since he had lost his mother and brother as a boy. With the renewed sense of hope and promise, he walked to the estate he once called home with the purest of intentions, prepared to prove himself worthy of her hand, no matter the cost.
~~~~
The Nolan estate was always quiet at night, the energy of the home setting with the sun in each wing aside from the kitchen. There, a woman affectionately known as Granny tended to her small herb garden, prepared her dough for the morning to come, and planned menus for the following evening’s dinner. Granny was used to the quiet by now, but before the deployment of her young partner, a man desperate to make a name for himself, she had enjoyed the energy that he brought to the space.
He was always a happy young man, one of the vitality and joy that came with young love. His eyes were bright, his personality beaming, and each morning, when he had given Miss Nolan her specially-made loaf of bread, Granny would swear that the heavens reflected in his smile. There was a change in Miss Nolan as well, when she had returned from college, one evident in the way that she hummed happily each morning, meeting Ruby by the chicken coops with a skip to her step as she completed a task not assigned to her, one that simply made her happy. Killian Jones often headed out to the chicken coops each morning himself, content to collect their eggs as Miss Nolan elected to toss the feed across the soil.
Since the previous September, Miss Nolan had not gone out to feed the chickens. She had started each morning with a straight face, her lips never seeming to turn into the gracious and joyful smile that she had worn for years on end. She had spent each morning in the front room, sitting quiet and still in one of the wingback chairs, staring out the large window that overlooked the drive, as if waiting. She had always been waiting, for something that could never be returned to her. She continued to wait even after her engagement to Mister Cassidy, never content to leave her spot in the front room, never content to stop her waiting.
She had spent her days in that chair, sometimes finding a book to keep her company, but usually choosing the company of her own thoughts, ones that Granny knew must have been playing a part in her pained face. Each morning turned to noon turned to evening, and Miss Nolan was never happy to remove herself from her spot in her wingback chair in the front room, never happy to remove herself from her post watching the drive. Always watching, always waiting, always disappointed.
One evening, nearly a year after Mister Jones had left, Granny watched on as Miss Nolan held her post watching and waiting, and she became surprised to see the young lady stand before the sun set behind the trees just beyond the pond out back. Typically, Granny would see Miss Nolan sitting in her chair until long after the sun had gone down, but something had changed on this evening. Emma had stood, sighed, looked longingly once more at the front drive, and turned away from the window towards the stairs that would lead her to her chambers. Granny could read the distress on Miss Nolan’s face easily, the way her eyes appeared sunken and her lips adopted themselves into a permanent straight line.
She had given up, it had seemed. Miss Emma was a strong woman, one who had proven herself capable of many difficult tasks, but her wedding was upcoming, sooner than she would likely want. It had seemed that young Emma Nolan had begun to fall into a space of acceptance, finally moving on from the painful depression and anger that had accompanied the news of her loss. Mister Jones was gone, and with Miss Emma leaving her post, it had become painfully evident to Granny that he was not coming back.
Of course, that was what Granny had thought, before she had watched in disbelief as Mister Jones himself walked stoically up the drive from the quiet road that night. It had been believed by all that he was gone, never to return, and he was sorely missed among the staff as well as by the Nolan family. And as Granny watched him march up the stony drive, she needed to tap her fingers against her temples to ensure that she still had her wits about her.
He had rung the bell, as if this estate wasn’t his home, and Granny had taken it upon herself to hurry towards the door and hoist it open, the first one to shout at him and pull him in for a bone crushing hug.
She had heard his breath leaving his lungs with aggression, a soft, gentle laugh that she hadn’t realized she had missed so sorely dancing in her ears as she squeezed him through her disbelief. She had slapped his arm just below his shoulder, through tears, accusingly asking him, “Where the bloody hell have you been?!”
He hadn’t said much, simply giving her that smile she had missed dearly, though it wasn’t nearly as bright as she had seen it. He nearly whispered, “Is Master Nolan available? I realize it’s quite late, but--”
“Yes, boy,” Granny had said. “But are you sure he’s who you’re here to see?”
“Aye,” he had responded, clearing his throat and giving her a forced smile. “I’d like to have a word with him, if I can.”
“You bloody foolish lad,” Granny had cried, laughing as she slapped his arm again, but when she did, she had looked down, taking in the strange appearance. “What’s happened?”
Killian had smiled softly, shyly, pulling down at his sleeve to hide the wrist that lacked his hand. “I suppose I won’t be much help to you in the kitchen, love.”
“You were never any help before, boy,” Granny had said tearfully, pulling him back for another hug. “Let me see that he’s not yet turned in for the evening. You wait just here,” she had said, pulling him towards the front room and seating him in the wingback chair just beside Emma’s. She had smiled softly when she took in the image of him finally here, back where he was meant to be. He was home.
~~~~
“Truly, we weren’t expecting to see you again,” David said as he sat heavily behind his desk. He was wearing his dressing robe, the silk fabric covering his blue pajamas in a way that made him look as though he had been dragged from his chambers, although when Granny had delivered the news of Mister Jones’ return, he had sprung from his bed.
“I apologize for the late visit, sir,” Killian had answered, his head bowing in shameful embarrassment. “I hadn’t even realized the time when I arrived.”
“It isn’t a visit,” David had responded, shaking his head and meeting Killian’s fearful gaze. “I’m glad you’re home, Killian.”
“Sir?” he had asked, utterly and obviously confused despite David thinking himself quite clear.
The man chuckled and shook his head once more, leaning forward and resting his elbows atop the oak surface of his desk. “My daughter will be pleased to learn of the dissolution of her engagement, now that the man she loves has finally found his way home.”
“I’ve… I’ve a lot to explain to her,” Killian says softly, his brows deeply set in his forehead. “I was gone too long. And I’m not sure I'm worthy of her hand, sir.”
“Well, I suppose you’ll have to have a conversation with her, then,” David rebutted. “As for your worth, I struggle to see how a veteran who fought, was maimed, and nearly died for his nation could be considered unworthy of the hand of an eligible woman. Well, nearly eligible, I suppose.” David had given Killian a soft smile, one that he had hoped would relay a sense of ease to the young man, though he wasn’t sure that would even be possible.
“We’ve nowhere to live,” Killian had argued, making David roll his eyes into the back of his head.
“Emma has always been promised her grandfather’s house in Bristol,” he said. “No more excuses.”
“Well, that is good news,” Killian had agreed. David could see something simmering beneath his skin, a soft smile pulling at the lad’s lips that he tried to fight. It was hope, he had realized. “I suppose I’ll see Miss Nolan in the morning, sir, if you’re… in support of…”
“She’s in her bed chamber,” David had told him. “You know where that is, aye?”
“It’s late, sir.”
“Well, it’s no secret that you’ve been in her chamber before,” David had said, a smirk deeply set upon his face. “Though I tend not to dwell on the happenings in either of my children’s chambers.” He had watched on in amusement as Killian’s eyes grew wide, his cheeks reddening as he bit his lower lip between his teeth anxiously.
“It’s alright, sir,” he had conceded after a beat, seeming to need to regain his bearings. “I desire not to disturb her or to disrespect your hospitality by going into her chamber. I shall see her in the morning.”
David smiled, pleased with his answer despite giving him his blessing to see his daughter. Killian had always been a pleasant lad, one who brought with him a sense of easy lightheartedness, making each member of their household smile simply by being in the room. The mood of the Nolan estate had been significantly bleak since the day Killian Jones had gone off to war, and even more so following the evacuation of Dunkirk beach which failed to bring him home. Meeting him in his study, David had noted the stark change in the young man’s demeanor, as if his time away had taken from him far more than his hand.
He hadn’t wanted to ask for an explanation. Whatever was holding him back from returning had seemed to melt away, something convincing him to return to where he belonged, and despite the arrangement David had made between his daughter and her betrothed, he was pleased. Mister Cassidy had already phoned him earlier in the evening, informing David of Killian’s return and of their agreement, and it was almost too easy to allow things to fall into their natural order.
Emma’s love was finally home, something she believed so firmly would happen. It would seem as though her fierce hope and belief was enough to convince the heavens to let Mister Jones return from his tenure. And for that, and for her impending joy, David couldn’t be more pleased.
~~~~
Killian was too nervous to sleep, he had found as he lay in the bed that used to be his. His heart was racing almost as quickly as his thoughts, his eyes wide in the darkness of the room as he considered every possible scenario in great detail. Emma could reject him as easily as her father and fiance had done just the opposite, deciding that his excuse for his absence was as weak as he felt it was. She could take one look at his blunted wrist and decide him unworthy of her love and devotion. She could feel exactly as he had felt since he was pulled from the Channel; she could hate the broken man that the war had made him.
But he had decided that he hadn’t a choice. Nemo had told him that he had owed it both to himself and to the woman he loved to try to fight his way back to her, whatever the cost may have been.
He rose from his bed, the surface of the mattress feeling to foreign after a year away, and walked slowly and quietly through the door of his chambers until he got to the kitchen in the west wing of the house. It was too quiet, the sound of his heart and his memories overwhelming in the dark silence, but when he had arrived in the kitchen he used to love, he was able to hear the sounds of the chickens rustling just outside, the soft hum of the refrigerator settling his nerves.
He hadn’t even been thinking before he found himself gathering ingredients, combining his yeast with the warm water and sugar before sieving his flour. He struggled greatly with the eggs, finding it difficult to separate the yolks from the whites with only one hand. When it came time to knead, he nearly tossed the dough out the window to his left, his one hand barely able to roll the dough while also collecting it, and his bare wrist too painful still to provide any help. He had cursed and hissed and kicked the leg of the table he worked at, but everything had stopped and become unimportant at the sound of his own name.
When he had looked up, his world had stopped, his vision going black, a halo surrounding her as he blinked away the rest of the world.
He was home.
~~~~
Emma Nolan was too filled with melancholy to sleep. Her thoughts were swirling, never ending, always too loud, and she found herself as she often did, wide awake and staring at her ceiling when she should have been sleeping soundly. Her wedding was upcoming, Emma doomed to marry a man she did not love while she mourned the loss of the one she did.
She did not want to admit to anyone, especially not to herself, that she had lost Killian Jones. When he had left, she was so filled with hope, so determined to have him back and to marry him once he had finally accepted his own worth. He always had been unsure of himself and she was sure that would have changed when he had come home a veteran of the Second World War.
But he had been lost months ago, and he still hadn’t come home.
She had been waiting. She had spent her days and night waiting, and watching, and hoping. But he still hadn’t come home.
Her husband-to-be had been kind enough for the few times they’d met. She knew that he would take care of her, that he would respect her and be kind to her, but it didn’t seem to matter. There had been nothing to take her mind off of the man she was meant to marry. She’d known she would marry Killian when she was merely seventeen, and now, years later, to have that taken away from her was too painful to think about.
And yet, it seemed to be all she could think about.
She stood from her bed as she had every night, finding it too difficult to slow her thoughts and choosing instead to do what she had done each night since her love had left, wandering the house in which she grew up, choosing to busy herself exploring all of the things she had already explored years prior. She had always found herself in the kitchen, tearfully running her fingers along the countertops and peeking out the window at the chickens, content to pity herself for her sorrow. The counters reminded her where she sat while he cooked, accepting his kisses and his hands as they explored her over her dresses. The chickens reminded her of where they met on occasion, stealing more kisses and more touches. She couldn’t be in her own home without some painful reminder of the man she loved and could not find.
She wasn’t sure what had possessed her to give up that evening, standing from her usual spot in her wingback chair and ignoring the pull she had felt to stay and stare out at the stony drive. A part of her knew that he was alive, but she had been given far too much evidence against the fact, and she could simply take no more. She had heard a soft commotion downstairs while she had sat in her chambers, but she ignored that as well, figuring if her fiance fancied a late-night visit, her ignoring him would have sent the message that she wasn’t interested in seeing him.
Staring at the chair as she walked by, she pushed heavily against the swinging door leading to the kitchen, and when she made her way inside, she had stopped short in her tracks, her hands shooting up to cover her mouth in response to her utter shock.
She couldn’t speak, not only because her mouth was covered. Her eyes were blown wide, hardly blinking as she took in the sight with which she thought she would never be blessed again. He was cursing just as he used to, working his dough roughly and with great aggravation, and her heart stopped. It was something so simple and natural, something that she used to walk in on so frequently, but as she stared at him, all she could do was call his name through her fingers.
“Killian?” she said softly, her voice muffled. He lifted his head slowly, although his eyes darted quickly from his dough, his hands dropping from his tortured project.
No, hand , she noted.
But it didn’t matter.
“Emma,” he breathed, his lips pulling softly at the corners, obviously not nearly in the amount of disbelief that she was. He hit his hand against the white apron tied around his waist and stepped out from behind the counter. “My love…”
“You’re--” she started breathlessly, unable to speak as her hands returned to her mouth and then moved to cover her eyes. With a sob, she dropped to her knees.
“Emma,” he whispered once more as he hurried to her, squatting before her and placing his hand on her shoulder hesitantly, as if she may have cracked if he touched her. “Emma, darling, are you…”
“How are you here?” she’d asked through her tears, barely able to catch her breath. “I've always known you were alive but a part of me started to think you were really gone.”
“I’m… I’m sorry, my love. I’ve been gone too long; I thought-- that is, I thought I wouldn’t see you until the morning.”
“Killian,” she choked.
“I know how disappointed you must be,” he started, his hand landing heavily on her own before he removed it. “I’m so sorry, Emma. I just didn’t know how to face you after--”
His words were halted, Emma having leaned forward with such power and enthusiasm that Killian could barely catch her before falling backwards, the two of them landing upon the stone floor firmly, though neither of them cared. Emma’s lips were upon his own, finally , and she cared not where they were or in what condition. He was home , returned to her after her prayers and hopes and dreams and nightmares. It didn’t matter that he was not his complete self, his hand having gone in what she could only imagine to have been a painful and mortifying experience. What mattered to her was the fact that he was in her arms again.
“You’re here,” she said against his lips before kissing him once more. “I knew you would come home to me.”
His hand moved from her waist and up to her jaw, cradling her face to his as he returned her kiss through his obvious shock. It was as if he wasn’t expecting her to react in such a way, like he thought he would have to fight so much harder to have her back in his arms, but that would never have been the case. No cost would have been too great, so long as Emma had gotten him back. And she had gotten him back, a fact which she knew in that moment would be near impossible to wrap her mind around after months of hoping and praying and dreaming.
“Are you not--” He laughed as he was cut off by her kiss once more before continuing, his grin contagious. “Are you not angry?”
“How could I be angry?” she asked through exasperation and with a shake to her head. “You’re home.”
“I took such a long time to--”
“I don't care,” she shook her head again. “You’re here; it doesn’t matter. I don't care how, I’m just so glad you’re alright.”
Their lips couldn’t seem to stay apart; at least, that was what it felt like as Emma had drawn herself to his mouth once more, unable to part from him for more than a moment without the same anguish that she had felt for the last year. She couldn’t be apart from him without a pain in her heart, so she pulled him close to her and strengthened her grip on his hair, refusing to let go.
“I love you,” he had whispered into the small space between them. “So much. I’m so sorry.”
“ I’m sorry,” she had whispered back, her fingers toying with his hair and her lips meeting his once more. “Killian,” she cried, unable to speak more, at least audibly. Her fingers trailed from his hair to his shoulder, slipping down his arm until she reached his forearm, though she felt she shouldn’t go any lower. He had lost his hand, the brief preview of his injury she had been afforded showing her the angry and painful looking scars spattered against his skin, and she could barely comprehend how close she must have come to truly losing him.
“It’s alright,” he whispered. The space between them was short and quiet, although the rest of the world was quiet as well. His fingers laced their way through her hair, finally feeling the softness that she thought he must have missed in the year that he had been gone. “I don’t really remember much, to be honest.”
“What happened?” she’s asked, her voice a soft whisper, her fingers moving away from his wound and stroking against the soft skin of his temple and down to his jaw. “If you… I mean…”
He had hushed her, smiling softly, his own fingers brushing her hair away from her eyes. “It’s alright,” he had said again, his voice so soft and tender in the darkness of the kitchen. “I was saved. A retired captain, Nemo… he rescued me and convinced me to come back, love. I was so fearful of facing you, but he--”
“Killian,” she had cut him off, her elbows planting firmly into the stony floors as she hovered over him. “Why the bloody hell were you scared? Scared to come home?”
Her face must have conveyed a sense of hurt, as her pain of being feared, her pain of him being too fearful to face her with his injury despite the fact that she would always love him, far too great. She would never deny the love that she had for him, hand or no hand. He could lose his legs, his arms, his mind, and she would still love him. “I’m sorry,” he had whispered painfully again.
“I love you,” she told him solidly. “I love you more than anything or anyone. I could never hold your injury against you, Killian, how could you not know that?”
She had watched as a small smile crept onto his face, pulling slightly at his lips before she noted the sadness still painted in his eyes. “Nemo said you would say just that,” he had remarked. “I was such a fool.”
“It doesn't matter,” she whispers, pressing her nose to his. “You’re here, and whatever else happened… we’ll figure it out. I don't care as long as you’re alright.”
He had told her everything that he could remember then, how he was stranded on the beach and finally found his way onto a ship, thinking himself saved before it was sunk by a U-boat. He had thought himself so lucky before he nearly died once more, the bombs dropping from the sky enough before the added fear of the U-boats. He thought he would never leave that beach, and then he thought he would never leave the Channel, doomed to never again see the woman he loved.
And then, when Nemo had dragged him from the painfully salty water and given him a new lease on life, he had determined himself unworthy of her with his missing appendage. Nemo was a former naval captain from Calais who had used his personal vessel to travel across the channel in search of men in need, and had happened upon Killian, nearly dead from drowning and blood loss although determined not to die. The loss of his hand had taken a great toll on him, the fear of being unable to provide for her becoming far too great. He had been able to convince himself that she was better off without him, despite how much she had loved him, and he feared ever returning home. He had informed her that it wasn’t until the announcement of her engagement that Nemo was finally able to convince him to leave the bloody farm, way up on the cliffs of Dover, and return home to her.
She couldn't begin to formulate a statement of gratitude to this captain Nemo, neither for saving the man she loved, nor for convincing him to return to where he belonged. She couldn’t seem to stop repeating her disbelief at his return, saying, “You’re home,” over and over in a soft whisper.
Killian had seemed to finally gain his bearings after a moment or so, his fingers tangling in her hair and pulling her impossibly closer before he had decided to roll them over gently. His hand moved to cradle the back of her head as her back landed on the stony floor, Killian carefully resting his body weight atop hers in a way that was soothing and grounding and exactly what she had been missing for the year he had been gone.
She didn’t care that they were in the kitchen, on the cold floor in the middle of the night. She didn’t care that it was unbecoming of a woman intended for another man to grind her hips up against her lover’s. She didn’t care that it was improper for a lady to have physical relations with a man to whom she was not married. She didn’t care, because as her tongue snuck along the inside of his upper lip, his hand left her hair and squeezed against her thigh, lifting her leg so that he could push his own hips against hers. The moan that slipped from her mouth into his was not ladylike, and she didn’t care.
“ God, Killian,” she whimpered as his hand moved from the outside of her leg to the inside, slowly climbing up her inner thigh and sending a shiver down her spine. Her thin cotton nightgown did little to fight off the autumn chill or the coolness of the stones beneath her, but it didn’t matter to her as the warmth of him was finally pressed heavily to her once more.
They had been with each other in certain ways prior to his leaving, each of them exploring their own bodies as well as each other’s, but they had never taken that step that she so desperately wanted to as his fingers tickled lightly along her skin, only just missing where she wanted him.
“I’ve missed you so much,” he murmured into her skin, his lips trailing down her neck to run his tongue along the sensitive spot beneath her ear. “There wasn’t a day that went by in which my thoughts were not consumed by the memory of you.”
“I thought of you every moment, Killian,” she whispered. Then, more boldly, but with her voice just as quiet, she told him, “especially at night, while I touched myself.”
“Bloody hell, love,” he uttered before lightly biting her skin. “You’re far too impossible to resist.”
“Then don’t,” she challenged.
“It’s not very honorable to sully the purity of a woman before marriage,” he’d argued, although it was clear to Emma that he was struggling to follow through with his own insistence as his hips jutted into hers again, the evidence of his desire clear.
“Please, I need you. I need to feel you everywhere, Killian. It’s been a year that you’ve been gone, and you… I thought you were… I need you.”
His lips had found hers again, finally fusing them together once more before he pulled back slightly and whispered, “I’m so sorry for what I’ve put you through, my love.”
“You don’t have to be sorry,” she’d whispered back. “I know that it must have been hard for you to come back. But you’re here now; that’s what matters. Just… be here with me.”
He had been cautious, his movements slow and gentle as he had brought her to the edge and beyond with his fingers just as he had done before. But when he slipped himself inside her, his empty arm bent and his elbow supporting his weight as his fingers drew soothing patterns along her temple. It was a different feeling from what she was used to, but no less pleasurable as he gently drove into her until they were both seeing stars. Though she had never done such a thing before, she knew that she could never be separated from him again after experiencing the pleasure of being with him, mind, body, and soul.
~~~~
The sun had yet to rise, not even close to breaking over the front drive that overlooked the estate as they lay comfortably in each other’s arms. Killian had forgone his dough, realizing that his need to make Emma bread was for naught by the time they had finally been reunited. She hadn’t needed him to make her anything or give her anything; all she needed was him.
He’d started a small fire in the sitting room, gathering a nest of blankets around Emma on the small loveseat before he sat beside her, a gentle smile upon his lips as he lifted an arm, the right one, and cradled her close to him.
“How are you feeling?” he had asked, his fingers dancing lightly on the bare skin of her arm.
“Perfect,” she had whispered back. “Anything unpleasant that I was feeling melted away when I stepped into the kitchen earlier.”
“Oh, aye?” he laughed, planting a firm yet gentle kiss to the side of her head. She hummed and nodded sleepily, the weight of the lateness of the hour mixing with the emotional exhaustion of his return. He wanted to apologize, again, but he knew that if he had, he’d have gotten an elbow to the ribs.
“Will you tell me what happened to your hand?” she had asked after so much silence that he’d thought she was asleep. He wouldn’t have blamed her, though it had seemed as though she was too keyed up to sleep despite her obvious exhaustion.
He didn’t want to tell her what happened. He didn’t want to put to words the traumatic events that had separated them for so long, finding it both painful and embarrassing. His excuses were pathetic and childish, and he wasn’t sure he could move on.
But he loved her far too much to deny her of something she had wanted, and so he nodded. “I suppose it had started on the beaches,” he told her, relaying what had happened over those few days during which they had realized that they were doomed. He couldn’t seem to avoid talking about it. He told her of the vessel he had thought himself lucky to get onto, until he was below deck eating jammy bread when the U-boat had struck, sinking them more quickly than they could escape.
He told her of his hand getting caught in the heavy steel door, of the blankness in his mind blocking out the unimaginable pain of what had come next, of his almost inability to even comprehend what had happened, before he got out of the ship and had allowed himself to succumb to his fate. That was, until Nemo.
He didn’t know how long he had been floating, how long it had been before he had let himself sink below the surface of the water, content to let death take him away from the pain he’d begun feeling. His hand was screaming, though he had later realized that it was the wound being washed with the salty, oil slicked water causing the intense throb. His lungs had burned with each failed breath, taking in salt water instead of his much-needed air.
He didn’t even realize how easy it must have been to become emotional, the fear that he had felt coming back in droves and reminding him of the terrors of war. He cleared his throat, stirring slightly in an attempt to shake off his feelings of horror, and apologized again for his weakened display.
“Don’t, Killian,” she had whispered, her hand cupping his cheek-- the one with the scar that he got after she had pushed him too hard on the swing when they were children-- and brushing away a rogue tear with her thumb. “I’m sorry you went through all of that.”
“It’s no excuse, I should’ve been here for you.”
“No, my love. You needed to heal.”
“I could’ve come back and healed with you, Emma,” he’d said. “I knew I should return to you; I was too much of a coward.”
“It’s okay--”
“Please don’t say that,” he whispers. “It’s not. I realize I had a reason at first, but I was too afraid.”
“Of what? My reaction?” she’d asked as she sat up, a look of obvious disdain spread across her face. “Killian, I could never--”
“No, my love. No, I’m sorry. I just… it was never you. It was the fact that I had left you with the promise that I’d return a man worthy of your hand. And instead, I’ve returned with… Well, with one less hand.” Her fingers stroked lightly against the scar on his cheek before she kissed it, just as she had refused to do when they were children and he had goaded her for causing his fall. “There are so many things I can’t do now, my love. It’ll only make things more difficult if I--”
“There’s no if , Killian. You’re here, aren’t you?” Henodded. “Then there’s no if . I don’t give a damn that I’m engaged; I call that off tomorrow. And the only reason I care about your hand is because I know how much it must’ve hurt for you. I hate what’s happened because of how clear it is that it affects you so strongly. It doesn’t matter to me that you’ve lost your hand, Killian. I just want you to be safe and happy.”
“I am,” he whispered.
“Then be with me,” she whispered back.
“I will if you’ll have me, my love.”
She kissed him again, her hands cradling his face against hers, her thumb slipping along his scar and her fingers pulling at the hair at the back of his neck. “Always,” she whispers. “I don’t want to ever be apart from you. I wish to be with you, always.”
With a smirk, he had stared into her eyes happily, informing her, “Luckily, I’ve had a word with you intended already. Your engagement is off.”
“Is it?” she’d asked, pushing away from him to give him a bright grin. It has been obvious enough by her reaction that she hadn’t been interested in the marriage, and he knew that he had done the right thing by speaking with Mister Cassidy prior to returning to her.
“Aye, I spoke with your father as well.”
“So you’ve been back, and the first thing you did was not come and find your beloved? How rude,” she had joked before leaning in for another kiss.
“Apologies, but I figured it would be the honorable thing, to announce my intentions to be with you.”
“It was,” she grinned. “And will you have me, then?” she asked, as if his answer would not have been completely obvious.
“Always. You, and only you.”
“Then marry me,” she whispered.
“Aren’t I meant to ask you that?” he asked softly, bumping his nose against hers.
“Well, you bloody well haven’t yet, have you? You’ve been here all evening and still haven’t proposed; one of us had to eventually.”
“I love you,” he’d laughed. He wrapped his arms around her more tightly, pulling her so that she had landed upon his lap, and repeated, “I love you.”
“Then mar--”
He cut her off with a kiss, grinning against her lips at the way she laughed lightly. “Emma Ruth Nolan, will you marry me?”
She hadn’t answered, although the way that her legs had parted to straddle his lap as she deepened their kiss seemed like answer enough. Without words, without actually saying yes , she took control, taking her pleasure from him as she eventually helped him slip inside again, never once letting his lips part from hers. She did eventually say yes as he drove up into her, though she was also quietly crying his name and her love for him until he finally took her over the edge.
“Yes,” she finally said breathlessly as she dropped her head to his chest just beneath his chin, and this time, he knew what she had meant.
“Yes?”
“Mhmm,” she said as she kissed his neck. “We’re getting married.”
He had hummed, his smile soft and tired as he kissed the crown of her head. “I’ll be there.”
“I know.”
~~~~
David Nolan was surprised by the quiet lack of energy in his estate when he had woken up the morning following Killian Jones’ return. It wasn’t as though he had expected some fantastical celebration, but he knew that the staff as well as his family had loved and missed Killian, and he was not expecting how sleepy the home was after he’d returned.
His wife was not in bed when he’d awoken, though when he’d gotten to the dining hall, he noticed that she was there at the table, and that it was not set for breakfast. Mary Margaret sat, her hands folded on the surface and a beaming smile drawn across her lips as she stared at the doorway leading into the kitchen. Granny was also there, staring coyly at the door while Ruby stood with her ear pressed against it.
“What’s wrong?” David asked as he took in the sight.
His wife looked up to him, her grin somehow growing wider and causing a small smile to tickle at the corner of his mouth as well. “See for yourself,” she had suggested, gesturing towards the door against which Ruby was listening intently.
Stepping over, he pushed against the door lightly, letting it swing just a bit so that he could peer silently into the kitchen, and what he saw was of no surprise to him.
“You’ve got to use all of your body weight, love,” Killian had said, coming up behind Emma and placing her hands where they should be on the ball of dough. David noted the bare finger on her left hand, her engagement ring given to her by Mister Cassidy haphazardly left on the counter, likely to never be worn again. “You really need to work the gluten so it proves properly.”
“It’s hard!” she’d exclaimed with a smile, turning her head to press a kiss against his cheek.
“Yes, I know. I’ve slaved over these for years.”
“But that was so that you could get my attention,” she’d giggled.
“Aye, and so I could keep it,” he agreed with a laugh. “I never claimed to be sly in my intentions, though I will admit that my labors were worth it.”
“I’ll say,” she grinned. He watched for just a moment more before she turned in Killian’s arms, forgoing the bread dough as she kissed him. David noted another ball of dough lying on the counter, obviously abandoned hours ago, and wondered what had gone wrong with that batch.
He stepped away from the door then, content not to watch his only daughter displaying her affection for the estate’s baker as he let the door fall shut once more. He fought the small smile as he turned back to his wife, who stared at him excitedly.
“He’s back,” she’d exclaimed.
“So is Emma, it seems,” he agreed.
“Did you see how happy she is? David, we can’t make her marry Mister Cassidy, no matter how comfortable she would be with him.”
He hummed, taking a seat across from his wife, resigning himself to the fact that he may never get his breakfast. “Yes, that’s what I told Mister Cassidy when he called me last night.”
“He called you?” he heard from Granny, who snapped her mouth shut but gave him a smirk to his weak glare.
“After Killian visited him. It seems things have worked themselves out quite nicely.”
“Yes they have,” Emma had agreed as she carried a bowl of fruit to the table, her grin impossibly wide as Killian followed her out with a heavy stack of plates. “Haven’t they, Killian?”
“Indeed, love,” he had smiled. “Master Nolan, may I offer you some fruit to start your breakfast this morning?”
“No,” David had chuckled, shaking his head. “Take the car to Bristol, for goodness sake. It’s time you and your future bride see the home you’ll share.”
“Father,” Emma had beamed. “You’re certain? Killian can have the day off?”
“Killian doesn’t work for me,” he’d argued easily. Then, with a smile, he said, “Killian’s family.”
And with their union a mere month later, he truly was.
Me and you, you and me
Let's go back, let's go back
Nineteen-eighty-three is calling
I've been on my knees and crawlin'
Back to you
It's coming all back to me
Nineteen-eighty-three
Summary: Alliances are vital in war. Emma knew this and accepted it. She just wished that her being married off to a prince she didn't know wasn't the only way to secure this alliance.
Rating: T
Warnings: None (yet!)
AO3
A/N: Here is the first (short) chapter for my new story, written for @cshistfic! It’s an idea I’ve had floating around in my head for a while that I figured this event would give me the drive to work on. This first part is definitely short, but I promise that more will being coming soon! The history inspiration for this fic is the Tudors-era, where there was a lot of political upheaval around many nations and where arranged marriages between kingdoms was how alliances were formed (or broken). I also wanted to note that I have used EF-kingdom names, but it is not set in any sort of magical realm. Again, think more older centuries Europe in this particular context. Anywho, I hope you enjoy and if you’d like to be tagged for future updates, please let me know!
And thank you so much to @spartanguard for doing a wonderful beta-ing at the very last minute!
-------
The sound of Ruby retching into the bucket next to her yet again had Emma throwing her playing cards onto the table and rising abruptly from her chair. She didn’t even bother to attempt decorum as she stomped past her seasick companion, the swaying of the ship causing her to knock into the bucket and upend it. The sound of Ruby’s pitiful moaning followed her as she swung open the door to her cabin and quickly made her way up the stairs to the top deck.
There was a small part of her that felt bad for leaving her friend to deal with the mess, knowing full well that Ruby was already struggling on their current voyage. But the stubborn, oftentimes childish, side of Emma silenced that small part rather quickly and she stepped over towards the side of the ship.
She was mad, damn it. And right now, with all that was happening, considering Ruby her friend was a bit of a stretch really. How could she when Ruby had been just as guilty in putting her in her current predicament as all the rest of them?
Arranged marriage.
The thought of it made her frown in disgust as she placed her hands on the wooden bannister and stared out at the choppy sea. It wasn’t the undulating waves that would make her sick, like her former friend below. No. It was the realization that all the years of hard work she had put into not becoming property to be sold had been for nothing. That’s what made her want to lose her breakfast all down the outer hull of the ship.
‘If we’re going to have any chance of surviving this war, we need this. We need you.’
Her older brother David’s words rattled around in her head once again and made her that much angrier. All her life he had assured her he would never let such a fate befall her. That she would have the freedom to choose who she married, if she chose to marry at all.
Only David wasn’t king of Misthaven - his twin brother James was, and James had never seen her as an independent person free to do as she willed. To her other older brother, she was a bargaining chip in the ongoing feud between the monarchies - he key piece to secure him a powerful alliance with not one, but two kingdoms.
And how quickly such an alliance had swayed the opinions of everyone around her. Even her sister-in-law, Snow, had gently implored upon Emma the merits of the dreaded marriage she was now sailing towards. Since she’d been ten years old, Emma had heard nothing but how important true love was from David’s wife, a rare match that hadn’t been born out of necessity or desire for more power.
“Betrayed by everyone,” Emma muttered quietly over the crashing of the waves.
“Certainly not everyone…” A deep, accented voice rose up from behind her and she rolled her eyes as she turned to see her head guardsman stepping towards her. How he managed to hear her over the cacophony of the sea around them was less irritating than the fact that he was there at all.
“Can I not even get a breath of fresh air without you hovering, Graham?” she snapped, the aforementioned fresh air doing nothing to alleviate her anger and hurt.
“Just doing my duty, princess.” Graham gave a low bow which made her roll her eyes again.
“Hovering,” Emma made sure to emphasize the word as she repeated it a second time, “Is not one of your duties, Commander.” She returned her attention towards the sea, her long blonde hair flipping with the force of her clear attempt to will him out of her presence.
“It is when your life is in danger.”
Letting out an aggravated huff, Emma turned back towards him again. “We are still aboard a Misthaven ship, surrounded by our own crewman and members of my own household. The only danger I have been in since this journey began is wearing your bethrothed’s vomit more times than I have ever wished to.”
Graham stepped up against the bannister beside her, giving her an intense stare. “You know I do not believe that.” And it was true. When he had questioned her declaration of betrayal by everyone, it was because he had been the only person in Emma’s life that had been vocally against her looming arrangement. So much so that he’d almost come to blows with David, his commanding and royal superior, over it.
Emma sighed and looked back out over the water. “I know you are prone to let your emotions get the better of you.” For as much as Emma loathed the idea of being bartered away in this alliance, she didn’t feel any inherent danger in it. Not in the way Graham kept insisting there was. Sure, her husband-to-be’s kingdom was one notorious for its sea-roving cutthroats, but that reputation was what made them such valuable allies to anybody who had what they wanted.
And what they wanted was a princess for the king’s younger brother.
It was what ultimately had made Emma agree to the marriage instead of running away like she’d first insisted she was going to. Because for all her feelings of anger and betrayal, for all the resentment that had settled in her chest since the moment David had told her, he’d been right. They needed allies such as these.
It wasn’t dangerous. It was practical. Enraging and imprisoning, but still practical.
Graham didn’t see it that way. Of course, Graham had also harbored not-so-secretive feelings for Emma for as long as she could remember and she had a strong inclination such feelings were coloring his opinion on the matter.
“You’re one to talk of emotions,” he finally added as he too turned his attention towards the sea, his hands settling behind his back in a casual parade rest. “Did I not see Lady Ruby below, struggling to clean up her own sick as you stormed up here in a huff only a few moments ago?”
Before Emma could so much as utter an excuse for her poor behavior towards her lady-in-waiting, a loud clap of thunder startled her and caused her eyes to shoot upward. It was at that same moment a large wave rocked the ship so hard that she lost her balance and went flying into Graham. If the abrupt change in weather wasn’t enough to cause her concern, the deathgrip he now had around her had Emma looking into his eyes and seeing a steely thunder to match the storm they’d found themselves in.
“Commander?” She breathed out as the rain began to pour.
“We’ve crossed into Glowerhaven territory.” He said tersely, staring out over the heaving sea towards something in the distance.
Emma turned to glance at what he was staring towards with such bitterness just as a man from somewhere else on deck cried out ‘sail ho’. And sure enough, in the distance beyond the sheets of freezing rain now soaking her completely through, Emma could just make out a set of sails.
Not just any sails, either. Black ones.
And if the sails were black, that could only mean one thing. The Jolly Roger, the most notorious of Glowerhaven’s Navy to rove the open seas, had sailed out to meet them.
Emma could recall the stories she had heard over the years of the Jolly Roger’s conquests. Her ability to outsail any vessel, anywhere, at any time. James had practically salivated at the thought of having such a ship on their side in the war. It was the jewel of the realm of Glowerhaven. The greatest prize to be won from the impending alliance.
And captained by a man so infamous, she’d heard he’d garnered the moniker of ‘Hook’ for his preferred method of dispatching of enemies. A man who also happened to be the crown prince of Glowerhaven, younger brother to the king himself.
