Yes, it's true. You aren't dreaming. I am finally updating this long-neglected fic! Not only that, but I will be finishing it. As a matter of fact, you will have an update every day this week. If anyone still cares, that is, lol. I know the fandom isn't what it once was. However, I suddenly got inspired again to finish this. So whether or not anyone reads it, it's getting the resolution it deserves. Why did I neglect it for so long? Writer's block. I just haven't written hardly a thing in at least a year, probably longer. So when I laid awake, unable to sleep because I was finishing this fic in my head, I was ecstatic. That's why I'm finishing it whether anyone reads it or not. Of course, if you are still reading it, may I politely suggest commenting? It definitely feeds the muse!
Rest assured, there will be an update tomorrow. I don't have much going on tomorrow, and I actually planned more in this chapter originally. So be looking out for that!
Much thanks to the two biggest fans of this fic, Krystal @kmomof4 and Marta @snowbellewells - re-reading your reblogs of this fic helped kick me back into high gear!
And as an extra treat, here is a picture of Emma's wedding dress in this chapter:
Summary: Seventeen-year-old Emma Swan has had a charmed life, despite being a foster child. She has a wonderful family who loves her, and the best friends in the world. The only thing that mars her idyllic existence is her birth mother: a homeless woman who mutters nonsensical rhymes and claims to be Snow White. One fateful night, however, Emma’s world is shattered. Perhaps her mother’s rhymes aren’t nonsense after all.
Rated: M for date rape, dubious consent, teen pregnancy, and sexy times (the good kind!)
Words: Over 1k in this chapter
Chapter One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight
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Liam and Ingrid, unsurprisingly, had concerns when they came home to Emma and Killian announcing their engagement. Anna, unsurprisingly, was bouncing up and down with joy.
“Are you sure you’re proposing for the right reasons?” Was their main question for Killian.
“Well, the main reason is I love her,” he told them with conviction, “but it’s also the timing. She needs me. I know deep in my bones I was always meant to be her husband, so if she needs me now, why wait?”
“Are you sure you aren’t just accepting out of fear? Because it’s safe?” Was their main question for Emma.
Emma’s answer was delivered with just as much conviction. “It isn’t just that I feel safe with Killian; I love him. Shouldn’t love feel safe, anyway? And I feel the same way he does. If we waited five more years, or ten, or twenty, nothing would change. We’re meant to be together.”
Liam and Ingrid couldn’t pretend to be surprised. Both of them had noticed a soulmate type of connection between Emma and Killian for a long time. They also couldn’t deny the logic of the decision when it came to Emma’s security and the baby’s. There was only one other concern.
“What about school?”
“I can finish high school married just as well as I can single,” Emma told them with a shrug, and Killian vowed he wouldn’t get in the way of her education.
“But Boston College, Killian?”
He squared his shoulders and looked his brother dead in the eyes. “I won’t be returning. I’ve already told my boss he can count on me full time with the construction company. He’s promoting me to a foreman position, so I can easily support Emma. When the baby’s a little older, I can enroll at Red Oak and get my degree there.”
Liam wanted to argue, but there really wasn’t anything wrong with Killian’s plan. Lots of people worked a year or two, or longer, before getting a degree. He wanted to say that Boston College was a lot more prestigious than Red Oak, but he knew full well it was a pretty weak argument. Killian would save a lot of money by transferring to Red Oak, not to mention gaining job experience. He let out a long breath and shared a meaningful look with his wife.
“Well okay, then,” she said, her signature grin filling her face, “let’s plan a wedding!”
A date was set for mid-August, giving Emma two weeks between the wedding and the first day of her senior year. Unfortunately, Elsa wouldn’t be back from her study abroad program in time for the ceremony. It also gave them only three weeks to throw a wedding together. Thankfully, neither Emma nor Killian were big on grand ceremonies.
The first item on Ingrid’s checklist was the venue. The bride and groom solved that easily: their own living room. Anna and Ingrid - and Elsa via Zoom - tried to protest that it was too small, but Emma just shrugged them off.
“We can just pull out all the furniture and line up folding chairs. It’s not like we’re inviting that many people.”
Ingrid was concerned that the second item, the dress, would be impossible. Fate, however, seemed to be in their favor. Emma found a vintage dress that suited her personality perfectly at a thrift store downtown. She hadn’t even been dress shopping that day. Ingrid had taken her for ice cream after one of her prenatal appointments, and they had decided to stroll around the square with their ice cream cones. They were simply walking along the sidewalk, licking scoops of chocolate ice cream, and suddenly, there it was, displayed in a window.
Emma wasn’t even sure it was meant to be a wedding dress, but it didn’t really matter. It was a cream colored, empire-wasted, sleeveless dress with one tier on the bottom of the long skirt. The fabric had a delicate floral pattern in light gold that shimmered when Emma moved. The top was a halter, which flattered Emma’s fuller bust due to her pregnancy. The empire waist also masked her growing baby bump and provided plenty of room in case she gained more in the next few weeks. When she tried it on, Ingrid started to cry.
An employee stopped to admire Emma. “We just got that in yesterday,” she told her. “A woman told us it was her mother’s prom dress in 1976.”
Emma’s mouth fell open as she locked eyes with Ingrid. Her foster mother pressed her hands to her mouth and let out a happy squeak.
“It’s fate, Emma,” she told her, and the two embraced.
They left the store with the dress lovingly wrapped in its original box, having paid a whopping thirty-five dollars and seventy-five cents.
Every single item on Ingrid’s list was checked off with simple solutions by the bride and groom:
Killian’s tux? Well, if Emma was wearing a 70s prom dress from a thrift shop, Killian would find a thrift store suit, too.
The food? A potluck lunch would do just fine.
The cake? The ones at the grocery store would do. As George Banks said in Father of the Bride, a cake is just flour, eggs, and sugar, right? Or something.
The only thing Killian was concerned about was a place to live. Sure, he knew his brother and Ingrid would never kick them out, and there was at least a modicum of privacy in his attic suite. Still, it would be a little awkward, for one. More than that, however, was Killian’s pride. If he was really providing for Emma and the baby, he should be able to put a roof over their heads.
His pride wouldn’t even allow him to go to his own brother with his concerns. Yet, Liam somehow knew anyway. Which was why he greeted Killian at the door one evening, a week and a half before the wedding, with a huge grin on his face and a slip of paper in his hand with an address on it.
After hearing what Liam had to say, Killian raced eagerly up the stairs to Emma’s room with the good news. He came to a sudden stop in Emma’s open doorway, the smile falling from his face. She was sitting atop her bed, hugging a pillow, hastily wiping tears from her cheeks. Her mother’s journal rested atop the quilt beside her.
“Hey,” Killian said softly as he entered the room, “what’s wrong?”
Emma slid over to make space for him on the bed, still trying to wipe the traces of tears from her cheeks. Killian picked up her mother’s journal as he made himself comfortable against the throw pillows along the headboard. Emma lifted his arm, put it around her shoulders, and tucked herself against him.
“Is it the curse?”
She shook her head. “It’s my mom,” she told him softly.
He waited, rubbing her arm gently, and pressing his lips to the top of her head. Emma let out a shaky sigh before continuing.
“I wish I knew where she was. I’m getting married, and she doesn’t even know.”
Killian nodded but said nothing. Emma lifted her head just enough to look up at him.
“Is it crazy that I wish she could be there?”
“Of course not. She’s your mother.”
“My insane, homeless, unpredictable mother who threw glass bottles at my head.”
Killian chuckled lightly. “True,” he tapped the green, cloth-covered notebook resting on the bedspread, “but I think reading her journal has given you a glimpse of the woman she was before. I think it’s made you realize, maybe for the first time, what you’ve lost.”
“That makes sense. I think I’m also worried that we haven’t heard from her in so long.”
Killian didn’t know what to say to ease her worries, so he cupped her face in his hand, tipped her chin up, and covered her lips with his. The kiss started gentle, intended simply to comfort, but then she responded so fervently and eagerly, that he lost himself. He shifted so she was beneath him, which caused a mewling sound to pass her lips that drove him wild. Emma slid her hand beneath his t-shirt, sending shivers up his spine as her fingers caressed his lower back. His hand grasped her waist, and his thumb slipped beneath the hem of her shirt. At the simple contact, Emma arched into him, and he began to trail kisses along her jawline. With one hand still on his back, her other hand threaded through his hair. She gasped when his lips trailed to the sensitive skin behind her ear, and something about the sound snapped him out of his haze of desire.
Killian pulled away abruptly and sat up, putting some distance between them. Emma still lay there on the bed, her face flushed, her hair splayed out on the pillows beneath her, a look of confusion marring her brow.
“I’m sorry, Emma,” he said thickly, fixing his own mussed hair with shaking hands.
“What for?” Emma asked indignantly, sitting up beside him. “We’re engaged.”
He turned to her and took her face gently in both hands. “I know. I love you, Emma, and I plan to cherish you. You deserve that. After everything you’ve been through, I’m not going to take you like this, hurried and frantic, thinking in the back of our minds that someone could interrupt us at any moment.”
Emma glanced sheepishly at the still open door and giggled. “Then close the door next time.”
He laughed with her and pulled her to him, holding her gently. He ran his fingers through her slightly tangled hair.
“I want to make love to you. Slowly. Thoroughly.”
Emma shivered in his arms. “Are you trying to torture me on purpose?”
He laughed again. “I feel a bit tortured, myself, truth be told. But we only have a week and a half. Then we’ll have the time and the privacy we deserve.”
“Time maybe. But privacy?”
Killian pulled the forgotten slip of paper from his pocket. “Yes, privacy.”
Emma snatched it from his hand, looking at it curiously as she settled in the middle of the bed with her legs crossed. “An address?”
“Our address,” he told her, grinning broadly.
“For real?” Emma’s eyes widened.
“For real.”
Emma squealed and threw her arms around his neck. He laughed as she peppered kisses all over his face.
“How?” she finally asked.
“There’s a professor of archaeology taking a sabbatical to do a dig in Greece. He told Liam he was looking for someone to take care of his house while he’s gone. So it’s ours. For free.”
“For free?”
Killian shrugged. “Well, there are also some maintenance things on the house I’m agreeing to do for him free of charge, but basically.”
Emma gazed in shock and happiness at the paper in her hands. “It’s too good to be true.”
“It’s fate.”
Emma’s eyes shone with happy tears as she looked back up at him. “It really is.”
Killian was ready to throw caution to the wind and press Emma back down into the pillows when Ingrid appeared in the doorway. He was worried what she would say, seeing him on Emma’s bed, but Ingrid seemed too ecstatic to notice.
a/n: IM BUILDING UP TO IT I SWEAR JUST BEAR WITH ME 💖😭
⚠️ALSO: how do y’all feel about a Q&A? y’all could send in asks about me (you can call me Tee), the fic, future fics, or anything at all!! it’s pretty much free range🥰
