Walking the Baseline by @let-it-raines They're coworkers, in a loose sense of the word. They have the same job, a lot of the same sponsors, and they both have the same goal: to win. What neither of them is looking for is a public relationship, but after one thing leads to another, they might just be heading that way.There are secrets and personal lives and a lot more at risk than simply losing a tennis match, but as most know, Killian Jones and Emma Swan hate to lose.(A collection of one-shots in the Walking the Baseline universe from before and after the 2016 Olympic games from the original one-shot.)
Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part Seven
Summary: Summer in Storybrooke, Maine means one thing for its residents: tourist season. This year, for Emma Swan and Killian Jones, it means relationships ending and friendships changing all the while they attempt to figure out just what their relationship is. It’s somewhere straddling the line between friends and lovers, and there’s no guarantee of a soft landing if they fall into new territory.
Chapters Completed: 18 of 18
As I said previously, I can’t say enough about the author. Everything I read takes me to a different place or situation with my favorite characters and makes me love another piece of them. This is a great modern AU with a great build up of friends who become lovers with benefits only to realize they love each other. This one is precious!
Author: @let-it-raines
AO3
Rating: M
Summary: Killian met her in a pub on a rainy night in March. Going inside was only supposed to be a way for him to avoid the rain and fight off the demons in his head. It was a place for him to pass through, not stay. But then he was charmed by a blonde woman with a quick wit who had absolutely not interest in him or who he was.
That was a first. It was also the beginning of Emma Nolan helping to bring him back to life. It was the beginning of everything.
Five years later, with their worlds crumbling around them, Killian can’t help but wonder if this is the end of the peace they have known now that his family knows about his relationship. It wouldn’t be a problem if his father wasn’t the King of England.
“If your entire life story involves you liking pretzels and waffles, and being asked out by a jackass on live television, then yeah.”
She barks out a laugh, her lips curving upward, and reaches down to take a sip of her coffee. “I mean, that’s it. There’s nothing else to know about me.”
“You sure about that?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
The smile on his lips fall into a straight line, his gaze intense, and he lifts the bill of his hat up before adjusting it back down. “Perhaps I would.”
-Catch Me if You Can by @let-it-raines
I’m so glad Raines picked CMIYC for her giveaway aesthetic since I had so much fun putting this together and looking through the first few chapters of the story to choose an excerpt to post with it. Something tells me a full reread may just be happening over the next few days 🙈 Big thanks to @let-it-raines for entering my giveaway, for writing incredible fics that give me all the feelings, and for overall being an excellent human 💙
Betting on the Bullseye: Emma Swan loses a drunken bet that means she has to ask her celebrity crush - if you can call him that - to be her date to her office’s annual fundraising gala for Boston’s Children Shelter. Killian Jones is that celebrity. She expects all kinds of humiliation and for her dignity to be completely lost all because of the ridiculousness of the situation. What she doesn’t expect is for him to say yes.
What she truly doesn’t expect is to actually like the man.
Found on AO3 | Here |
Found on Tumblr with artwork Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18| Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30
Bonus Scenes: 1 | 2 |
Catch Me If You Can: 298 days. That’s how long Killian Jones was away from a baseball field. It’s less than a year, only part of a season for him, but it might as well have lasted a decade as he alternated between physical therapy and spending an excessive amount of time sitting on his couch.
But then he came back and won the World Series.
It’s something no one saw coming, and it’s certainly not something anyone who knows about his arm would predict. Now it’s a new season with new possibilities, and anything could happen. On-field reporter Emma Swan will be there to cover it all even if she is not his biggest fan right now.
Not Your (soul)Mate: Killian Jones doesn’t like the idea of soulmates. He sees how happy his friends are with theirs, but he still doesn’t like the idea, not when he’s found love and lost it time and time again only to still not know his sign. He has no markings on his skin, no voices in his head, but then one day he meets Emma Swan and everything changes. Because, well, he may not have ink on his skin to tell him who to love, but the very first time that he hears Emma’s voice he knows that she’s the one for him. Then again, that could simply be his desire talking. After all, for every word she speaks, he becomes aroused.
It’s not the worst thing in the world to be incredibly attracted to a beautiful woman, but things aren’t that simple when she doesn’t have any interest in being his soulmate.
Rising From the Ashes: When her husband died, Emma wasn’t sure that she could ever move on. He left her with a broken heart and a baby who was only three-months old. It’s enough to take most people down, to make them not want to keep going, but Emma Swan isn’t most people. She’s stronger than she has any right to be. And after years of heartache, she’s found ways to move on…one of those being in Neal’s best friend, Killian Jones. As she’s always known, however, things are more complicated than they ever seem to be.
Second in Command: Life as the “spare to the heir” isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be when you’re the supposed screw-up of the family, but people don’t know what really happens behind closed doors.
another kind of green: Emma Swan spends her days in pretty white dresses and heavy layers of makeup. Day after day and dress after dress, she poses for pictures and acts like she’s in love and having the happiest day of her life with the man standing next to her.It’s not. This is all a gig, and at the end of the day, she’s no longer the girl in the pretty dress who’s faking getting married for a magazine cover or a wedding convention. Instead, she’s the girl who probably never wants to get married.Little does she know, she already is.
| Based on two-trope game forgotten first meeting + accidentally married |
Single Riders Won’t Stay Single: Emma Swan gets in the “single riders” line for a rollercoaster only to be paired with a handsome stranger for what turns out to be the ride of her life.
Found on AO3 | here |
Found Tumblr with artwork | 1 | | 2 | | 3 | | 4 | | Extra
Christmas one-shot: A Single Riders Christmas
One shot: Look Ma, I’m on the Internet
No Longer Blue: Killian Jones met Emma Swan on one of the worst days of his life. That day continuously plays over in his mind, and as much as he wants it to stop, he never wants to forget.
Found on AO3 | Here |
Found Tumblr with artwork | Part 1 | | Part 2 | | Part 3 | | Part 4 | | Part 5 |
Sea Dogs: Emma Swan and Killian Jones met as children and have been friends ever since, learning to navigate all of life’s ups and downs together. They’ve always known that when they have no one else, they have each other. It’s been a constant in their lives, so when their futures are up in the air, will that constant stay the same?
Found on AO3 | Here |
One, Two, Three Shots:
At Least For Now: Detective Killian Jones is fond of his partner on the force, David Nolan. They work well together, and he thinks it’s a nice partnership. He’s also fond of David’s sister…who he didn’t realize was David’s sister when they met. He and Emma have an entirely different kind of partnership that David knows nothing about. At least for now.
Found on A03 | Here |
Found on Tumblr: | Part 1 | | Part 2 | | Part 3 |
Indirect Deposit: It’s the oldest story in the world, isn’t it? Falling in love with your neighbor. Killian’s sure that he’s seen hundreds of books and television shows starting off that way, and he’s always thought them all to be entirely unrealistic. That is until he started getting to know Emma Swan, who just so happens to live across the hall from him, and he has absolutely fallen for her in a way that he hasn’t fallen for anyone in a long time.
It’s the oldest story in the world…until it isn’t. Because it’s not just Emma he’s fallen in love with. It’s her unborn child too, and while everyone he knows thinks he’s crazy for falling in love with a pregnant woman, he knows that he’s not. Some things in life are worth taking the risk.
Some people are worth loving. And some things about life may surprise you.
Found on AO3 | Here |
Found on Tumblr: Part One | Part Two | Part Three
Drabble | Here |
Additional Artwork | Here |
Frozen Peas: Emma Swan and Killian Jones are not coworkers. Okay, they kind of are. Emma Swan and Killian Jones are not friends either. Okay, maybe they kind of are. Honestly, Emma’s not sure what’s up and what’s down when it comes to Killian Jones…well, that’s also not true. She knows one thing that’s up.
Found on AO3 | Here |
Found Tumblr with artwork | Part 1 | | Part 2 | | Part 3 |
Seasick: Sometimes moving home when your life falls apart isn’t a bad thing. But sometimes moving home does lead to things you never thought were possible. Or so Emma Swan learns.
Found on AO3 | Here |
Found Tumblr with artwork | Part 1 | | Part 2 |
Palms and Recreation: Bartenders at hotels are just supposed to serve you drinks, not change your entire life, but Emma Swan’s life never seems to go as planned.
Found on AO3 | Here |
Found Tumblr with artwork | Here |
His Voice Keeps Calling: They were together…and then they weren’t. But just because you’re not with someone anymore doesn’t mean you stop loving them. And it doesn’t mean that their words stop playing over in your head, even if new ones are being said.
Found on AO3 | Here |
Found on Tumblr with artwork | Here |
Lunchboxes and Taxicabs: Sometimes strangers steal your cab from right under your nose. And sometimes those strangers aren’t strangersanymore.
Found on AO3 | Here |
Found Tumblr with artwork | Here |
Unraveling the Thread: Returning home is never something anyone wants to do when they’ve been trying to leave for their entire life, but it seems to happen to most everyone. It’s just not something Emma ever thought would happen to her. But after getting let go from her job and refusing to work in another office answering phones for the next ten years of her life, she moves back home to Storybrooke and has to deal with all of the loose threads that she left behind.
It’s easier said than done. She’s still going to do it.
Found on AO3 | Here |
Found on Tumblr | Here |
Magical Rings and Mystical Donuts: Discovering you have magic in a world where it doesn’t exist is scary enough. Having yourself exposed as some kind of magical being because onion rings are falling from the sky might be even worse.
Found on AO3 | Here |
Found Tumblr with artwork | Here |
A Simple Favor: Killian Jones is a pirate. He’s no longer a Naval man or an admirable man as he once was. He’s a pirate, and that’s all he’ll ever be to the outside world. That is, until he meets a woman who changes his entire world…and then who changes it again when he has an encounter with her father.
Found on AO3 | Here |
Found on Tumblr with artwork | Here |
Mistress of the Sea: He comes into the tavern whenever he’s docked in Misthaven, always following his crew and settling down at the table in the center of the room, ordering a rum before falling into telling a rousing story that has the entire room roaring with laughter. It’s like that for years, and Emma gets used to watching Captain Killian Jones in his element on land, idly wondering what he must be like when at sea. They speak to each other, enough to know names and to be comfortable in conversation, but he’s rarely around long enough for her to truly know him, his mistress of the sea always calling him home.
And yet he always returns to Emma.
Found on AO3 | Here |
Found on Tumblr: Part One | Part Two | Part Three
Striking Out: For someone who has never picked up a bat, Emma Swan knows more about baseball than some of the guys on the field. To be fair, she’s that way with every sport. It’s her job, and it’s one she takes seriously. She’s been an on-air sports broadcaster for the past four years, and she’s damn good at it, better than some of the former professionals and pundits that she works with every day.
So when she gets a chance to cover the World Series, a chance to follow her home team, she knows that nothing is going to stop her from doing her job.
Well, except for Killian Jones asking her out on live television.
Found on AO3 | Here |
Found on Tumblr | Here |
Another Bad Christmas Movie: Emma Swan’s life is not a Christmas movie. Sure, there are some aspects of it that are similar, but that’s true for everyone who has a pulse and has ever heard All I Want For Christmas is You (don’t lie, you probably sing along to it). So maybe she’s a little frustrated and annoyed with some holiday traditions, especially the cheesy ones in the movies, but Killian Jones is going to help change all of that.
Found on AO3 | Here |
Found on Tumblr with artwork Part 1 | Part 2
I Have a Method: Finding your neighbor drunk and nearly passed out in the snow isn’t exactly a great way to become friends. But that’s exactly how Killian Jones becomes more of a friend to Emma Swan than he has been in their years of knowing each other. And it’s exactly how the both of them learn to be a little less alone.
Found on AO3 | Here |
Found on Tumblr | Here |
The Writing is on the Other Side of the Wall: Emma Swan’s favorite author is her next door neighbor, but just because she loves his writing doesn’t mean she loves him. She doesn’t even like him. In fact, one could say that she absolutely hates Killian Jones and the way he blares his music through their shared walls and how he is always incessantly flirting with anything that breathes.
He drives her insane, and she’s about one three am wake-up call away from breaking into his apartment and throwing his speaker out the window. Or maybe she’s one three am wake-up call or one knock on her door away from her life beginning to change forever.
Found on AO3 | Here |
Found on Tumblr | Here |
Pitching A Tent: Emma Swan does not want to go camping. Who even goes camping anymore when things like air conditioning, indoor plumbing, and the internet exist? Why would anybody in their right mind sleep on the ground instead of the softness of a mattress? David says that it’s an adventure, and while she doesn’t believe him those first few hours of trekking through the wilderness, she does once she drunkenly wanders into a British man’s tent in the middle of the night.
Created by the 2 trope game of | wilderness + awkward first meeting |
Found on AO3 | Here |
Found on Tumblr | Here |
Every Monday Morning: Emma Swan likes her routines. She wakes up at four in the morning, goes to work as a host on The Morning Show, spends her day doing segments about cooking and this season’s fashion trends, and then she goes home to spend time with her son and help him with his homework. She’s finally found something stable, and she doesn’t like change.
So when the show’s regular chef retires and is replaced by Killian Jones, it throws Emma for a loop that she doesn’t necessarily like.
At least not at first.
Found on AO3 | Here |
Found on Tumblr | Here |
Storybrooke Haunted Farms: “Want to be chased through a corn maze? Take a ride in a trailer full of hay in the middle of the woods? Play paintball with zombies? Explore a haunted ghost ship? If this sounds like fun to you, come to Storybrooke Haunted Farms where the fun is cheap and the thrills are terrifying. Open from October 1st - October 31st.”
Emma Swan has been working at Storybrooke Haunted Farms for the past four years, and she’s done everything from work the haunted hayride to chasing paying customers through a corn maze with a fake chainsaw. It’s always been a good way for her to make a little extra cash for the holidays for her son, and it’s most likely the best time she’s ever had working.
That is until her assignment changes and she’s made to work on the pirate ship exhibit with Killian Jones, quite possibly the most obnoxious man alive.
Found on AO3 | Here |
Found on Tumblr | Here |
it’s all an act (until it isn’t): High school drama teacher Killian Jones doesn’t have time for drama off the stage. He’s had enough of it in his life, and no part of him is searching for more. But then the day before his theater class’s modern day interpretation of a fairytale begins its four-week run, his two leads get sick. There are no understudies, no one to fill the roles, but as they say, the show must go on.
With him in it, apparently.
Having Emma Swan, the music teacher and woman who has avoided him since her first day of work at Storybrooke High, fill in as the starring role opposite him is the complete opposite of what he expected.
Found on AO3 | Here |
Found on Tumblr | Here |
Yellow Flowers In Your Hair: Emma Nolan has been raised in a privileged household and has never wanted for anything other than freedom to live her life on her own terms. Her parents want that for her as well, at least to a certain extent, but when her father unexpectedly passes, Emma is left with two options: marry a man she doesn’t love or lose the home filled with memories of her beloved father as well as memories of her first love, a man with blue eyes and a kind smile who left for the Navy years ago and hasn’t been home since.
But what if her first love were to come back?
Found on AO3 | Here |
Found on Tumblr: Part One | Part Two | Part Three
Tell Me It’s Real (it’s real): Killian Jones has done a lot of stupid things in his life. The stupidest, however, was telling Liam that he and his best friend Emma Swan are dating after Liam presses him on why he hasn’t started dating again after his last breakup. It’s fine. Liam lives an ocean away, and Killian has time to figure out how exactly he’s going to deal with this before there are any actual consequences.
That is until Liam shows up at Emma’s parents’ house in Storybrooke four days before Christmas thinking that Killian and Emma have been dating for months.
Emma’s going to murder him.
(A Fake Dating AU)
Found on AO3 | Here |
Found on Tumblr | Here |
what a plot twist you were: Emma’s life is solid. She has her few friends, a job that pays decently enough, and a schedule that works for her. She doesn’t want any of that to change. But when she gets a call saying she’s been left a house in Storybrooke, Maine, she ends up leaving Boston intending to deal with the house and then return to her life like nothing has changed.
Intentions never quite work out, however, especially when she runs into a blue-eyed bartender who just might entice her to stay.
Found on AO3 | Here |
Found on Tumblr | Here |
The Spectacular Ms. Swan: 1959. New York City.
Women aren’t supposed to have their own voices and opinions, and they certainly aren’t supposed to be funny. Emma Swan, however, has a lot of opinions and is damn funny. She also doesn’t care what anyone thinks.
Except maybe Killian Jones, a comic who has been her supporter since the day she bailed him out of jail after one of his comedy routines.
Found on AO3 | Here |
Found on Tumblr | Here |
Tumblr Prompts:
Found on AO3 | Here |
On Tumblr on my page under the header “prompt stories”
I’d list them here, but Tumblr won’t let me add in all of those links on one post 😊
I would just like to talk about the fact that Dansby Swanson lost a poll about who has the best hair in the MLB, and it is obviously a tragedy and the people don’t know what they’re talking about. I figured you would appreciate my disappointment because I know just how much you love his hair (and his face) too 😂🙈😌
I honestly cannot imagine who would beat Dansby Swanson at best hair in baseball? Like, this is not the Rangers. There’s not a surplus of fantastic baseball hair. Actually no, did Bryce Harper beat him? It doesn’t really matter because anyone beating Dansby Swanson in this very specific poll is ridiculous. Like--look at Dansby Swanson’s curls:
This is in-game! He’s just out there! With hair like that after it’s been under a helmet? People are silly.
Hello again everyone!!! Please help me welcome @let-it-raines back to the CSSNS20!!!
Tumblr name
@let-it-raines
How long have you been in the CS/OUAT fandom?
A few years. Honestly not sure when exactly.
When did you start shipping Captain Swan?
I'm the worst because I don't know actually know an exact moment. I just always liked them when I watched the show.
What drew you to this event?
I participated last year because Krystal wanted me to, and I ended up writing literally one of my top three favorite stories I've ever written with Not Your (soul)Mate. So that was a really fun time, and I figured it would be the same way this time!
What inspired your topic?
If things go according to plan, which knowing me they won't, my topic is inspired by a one-shot I wrote last year called Wishing on a Star(fish). I got a few requests for a follow-up because it was open-ended, so I might just write a follow-up or may change up the original and add some more detail/change some plot point.
What are you looking forward to most about participating in this event?
Getting to explore a story that's outside of my comfort zone!
I am soooo thrilled that Raines is back again with another fic for us!!! I can’t wait to see what she has for us when she drops on June 19!!! Everyone go welcome her back to the event and give her lots of love!!!
Congratulations on your baby! It’s a weird, wonderful, sometimes awful time! But also magical in its own special ways! You’re gonna love it! ❤️
I’m reeeaaaaally looking forward to the wonderful parts because so far it’s only been weird and awful. But I know it’s worth it so I’m trying to keep that in mind even as I’m no longer able to eat anything but crackers and ginger ale. 😂
Also, the other day I had a meltdown on my husband about how much Emma must have suffered being pregnant alone in jail and he had to remind me she’s not real and I was like HOW DARE YOU. Hormones are fun 😂
