a/n: Here's a bit of a shorter chapter for you, but it comes with a twist -- my favorite twist of the whole story, actually, and something I've been waiting to share with you since I first thought it up. Its been a long week, and I don't want to keep you guys waiting any more, so here you go!
Start at the Beginning: tumblr // AO3
Previous Chapter: tumblr // AO3
Also on AO3!
As always, you can find the entirety of the story under its tag on my tumblr.
The next morning, Granny’s is silent. Emma can tell that people want to ask her about what happened — hell, even though it was already late when everything started happening, it seems like the whole town already knows about the tension that has taken over Emma’s life before she can even order her coffee.
She suspects it has something to do with Granny, given the glares Emma did not fail to recognize when she would bring Neal with her. She can’t prove it, but she would be willing to bet that she’s right.
But whenever anyone has the nerve to approach her, all she has to do is turn to them, narrow her blazing green eyes that may have a darker red around them than usual, and the question seemed to disappear.
And it’s not just that day. It continues like this for a few days, a week, curious questions on the tips of everyone’s tongues about why Neal Gold is suddenly in Storybrooke jail and their house very quickly up for sale.
Not that there was ever another choice. There was no way that Emma was ever going back there, besides to pack up what was left of her belongings there, piling them in David’s garage until she could afford her own place. Mr. Gold even came one day for some of Neal’s belongings, knowing that Emma was intending to sell. Emma could tell that even he had some questions on the tip of his tongue, but he had the decency to keep them to himself, the only words shared with her a brief greeting and an assurance that he would lock up the house when he’s finished packing up Neal’s office.
But it is through this that Emma realizes just how little she actually owns. Sure, she has clothing, a nice collection of books that she’s gathered herself, and some sentimental things that Henry made her in school. But that really is the end of it. It’s enough to fit in just a few boxes, and that thought is much sadder than anything she needed to pile on top of everything she already feels.
The only light in her life is the dinners that she has started to spend with the Nolans and the Joneses, all of them gathered around Mary Margaret and David’s farmhouse table a few nights a week. Mary Margaret and Killian have started cooking together, dreaming up the fanciest meals Emma has ever eaten. Emma almost suggests that the two of them should open a restaurant, but then she thinks about the impact it would have on Granny — and the impact that would subsequently have on her, being the one to offer up the idea — and she keeps her mouth shut, simply smiling up at Killian as he sets one of the dishes in front of her with the most subtle wink she has ever seen.
One of these nights, Mary Margaret asks Henry if he is excited to go back to school, and Emma watches a wave of realization cross Killian’s face across the table from her.
“Back to school,” he mutters under his breath, so quietly that Emma would not have heard him if she hadn’t been watching him, especially over Henry’s enthusiastic response.
Later that night, when Hope has, once again, fallen asleep on the Nolan’s couch, Killian is sitting outside with Emma and David, a bottle of beer in his hand as he stares up at the stars. For a while, he says nothing, which does not go unnoticed by his companions, and Emma finally snaps.
“Killian, what’s on your mind?”
He does not respond right away, his eyes still focused on the sky, but then he takes a deep breath. “The summer is almost over. Hope needs to go back to school soon, and I should really start looking for a job for a little bit of extra income.”
“Just stay here,” Emma says, the words out of her mouth before she can stop them. As both David and Killian turn to her, the latter’s eyes wide, she’s thankful for the darkness around them as it hopefully hides her blush. But since she can’t take her words back, she can at least continue to argue her point. “You told me that you never had much in Boston, beyond Hope. But you — the two of you have been here for a few weeks now, and I think that you’ve found a good place here in Storybrooke.”
He’s useless against her argument. She wants him to stay here, to continue to be with her (though not in the way he so desperately longs for). There’s nothing else he can say, and he hopes the smile on his face is enough to make that obvious.
“I’ll have to run it by Hope and make sure that it’s okay with her, but I can’t imagine why it wouldn’t be.”
(He asks her the next morning, and she hugs him and says that he’s been waiting for him to ask since they first got there. They fill out the paperwork that day to register her for sixth grade at Storybrooke Middle School.)
However, searching for a job that he both wants and is capable of is a whole different story. Jefferson offers him a position as a bartender at the Rabbit Hole, but he only has one working hand, so that does not seem like the right choice. Granny even tries to get him there as a chef, but he’s sure that he and the old lady would butt heads on lots of things — the first being her lasagna “recipe” that he can tell she buys frozen but has been able to keep his mouth shut about it. He's glad he's starting cooking with Mary Margaret regularly, since it was one of the things he missed the most about Boston.
But when he walks by Smee one morning mumbling under his breath about how he could use more help but “nobody in this town knows anything about ships,” he knows he’s found his place.
Smee is more than happy to help him out, sharing some of the open hours with him in a makeshift schedule that can continue to change as Killian’s schedule changes, and he shakes his hand once they have finished all necessary paperwork, Killian hoping to get back to lunch at the Nolan’s in time, when Smee smiles at him for the first time.
“I suppose this is your official welcome to Storybrooke then, captain.”
Killian’s breath hitches in his throat. “Ex-excuse me?”
The already red-faced man blushes deeper. “I just — you captain that vessel over there, it would do her a disservice to refer to you as anything less.”
Though his heart still seems to be pounding at a mile a minute, threatening to burst out of his chest, he manages to smile at the man, nodding. “She and I both appreciate that, Smee. Perhaps one day, I would be able to give you a tour of her.”
Smee returns his smile with a nod of his own. “I would be grateful, Mr. Jones.”
“I’ll see you the day after tomorrow for my first shift, I can show you around her when we’re going over the rest of the job, if that would be alright?”
“That would be perfect. I suppose I’ll see you then.”
Killian turns on his heel, still on his way back to the Jolly to grab a few things before heading back to the Nolan’s, when something catches his eye.
Someone.
His mind tells him who he thinks it is, but it’s not… it’s not possible. No way.
He follows him around the corner, down the docks, and right up to the Jolly Roger, where he stops as Killian approaches. They both stand there for a moment, Killian too afraid to move, and then the man he was following turns around and finally faces him.
Absolutely bloody impossible, he thinks to himself, but too many absolutely insane, impossible things have happened recently for him to pass it off as his imagination, because there, in jeans and a light grey henley, smiling at him, is Liam.
His brother.
His brother, who died in his arms.
His brother, who died in his arms, almost three hundred years ago.
“Liam?” he breathes, but Liam does not answer.
He just smiles, opening his arms to his brother, who can do nothing to stop himself from stepping into them. “Hello, little brother,” he says finally, his thick arms wrapped around Killian's back.
Killian breathes a laugh. “Normally, I would have corrected that to younger, though unless you’re somehow not a figment of my imagination, I believe that’s no longer true, is it?”
Liam does not answer, just holds Killian in the hug, until the “younger” Jones brother backs away, staring into eyes that he never imagined he would ever see again.
“How are you here, brother?”
With every word he says, Killian’s disbelief grows larger. “After I died, Pan sent his shadow for my body. For as long as I was in Neverland, the magic of the island would keep me alive. Pan kept me there for lifetimes, his prisoner, alive only to do his will and unable to do anything but follow his orders. And then the Evil Queen made him a bargain for my body, just a few years before the curse was cast, and brought me over to be used as a pawn, but you must be getting closer to breaking the curse, because I was able to break free.”
“How do I know this is not just a scheme by the Evil Queen to get me to trust you, only to have you stab me in the back?”
Liam smiles softly at him, shaking his head the way he always did when he knew Killian was wrong. “If that were the truth, brother, why would I ever have told you about her in the first place?”
With his mind filled to the brim with questions, Killian certainly doesn't understand the entirety of what Liam is telling him, but he is too overcome by excitement to question it any further.
Killian nods just as his cell phone vibrates in his pocket, which he pulls out to reveal a text from Emma: Waiting on you for lunch.
Killian claps his hand on his brother’s shoulder, relieved to feel his hard muscle under his hand once more. “I have some people I would like you to meet.”
The entire drive to the Nolan’s, Killian listens to Liam explain that he has been hidden in a room in the basement of the hospital to remain a secret, and that is why he has not seem him in the weeks since he came to Storybrooke, but Killian is paying more attention to his own mind, trying to come up with the plan of just what he is going to say to Emma.
He is just two blocks away when he decides what he is going to do, a decision that becomes necessarily almost as soon as they sit down at the table.
“So what brings you to Storybrooke, Mr. Jones?” Mary Margaret asks.
Before Killian can stop him, Liam corrects her: “Captain, actually.”
Killian watches the confusion pass over David’s face, just as it did when Mr. Gold called Killian the same thing, but all Mary Margaret does is smile. “Oh, okay. Captain Jones.”
Thankfully, Liam finds his gaze out of the corner of his eye, remembering that the truth is not the thing to tell these people — at least, not yet.
“Liam’s been in the Navy since I was just a boy, and this is the first time he’s been able to come overseas since Hope was just a baby girl, but since I’m not in Boston, I just told him to come here.”
The table shares a nod, seeing his lie for the believable story it is, and lunch carries on as usual.
