Stay safe my love 🥰 in the #sfair 😷 (at San Francisco, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/BqRsSigj555/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1s8qgrmg2rs4p
I thought of carving your name in my core although you aren't mine yet. What better way to symbolize what's on my heart, than on something that's constantly growing. #sfair
CS Valentine 2016 - Scenes From an Italian Restaurant (Ch 2)
A/N: @lenfaz I’m so glad you liked the first part! Hopefully you keep liking it! I like to do multi-chapter things for these kind of gifted works, because it lets me pull in more of your favorite things!
This chapter is a bit, well, it’s not my favorite, but it kind of establishes things so that I can do more with the next chapters, which I’m really excited for. That being said, I hope it’s not too bad.
You can also read this on ff.net and ao3.
Read the beginning here.
You were lonely and you needed a friend
And he was there at the right time with the right smile
Just a shoulder to lean on
Someone to tell you it'll all work out alright
Don't let him steal your heart away
No, don't let him steal your heart away
For the next week, Emma kept having the same dream every night, something that had never happened to her before. She dreamt she was a princess in some far away land, at ball in a red gown that made her feel as though she was the center of attention, and Killian was her prince, taking her hand and escorting her around the dance floor in a most gentlemanly way, surprising her with his waltzing prowess. Why she was having the dream was beyond her, she had never been much for princesses. When she consulted Mary Margaret about it, Emma’s friend gushed about being in love, which made her scoff and roll her eyes so hard, she thought that for once the old adage might be true – they just might roll right out of her head. Still, she could take a hint from her subconscious, so after a week, she decided to text Killian, asking him if he was still up for a coffee.
That was how she ended up sitting in her local Starbucks, hand wrapped around a steaming cup of coffee, tapping her heel on the floor as she waited anxiously for Killian to arrive. It was nearly fifteen minutes past the time they had agree upon, and Emma, feeling stupid, embarrassed, and highly annoyed, was getting ready to leave, when a very harassed looking Killian rushed in, hurrying over to her.
“I’m so sorry, love,” he gushed immediately, the look of apology sincere in his eyes. “Henry was just… he was being difficult this morning, didn’t want to go to football – er, soccer – practice.”
“That’s alright,” Emma answered, immediately forgiving him at the earnest look of concern wrinkling his forehead. “Plans aren’t always easy to stick to with a kid, I guess.”
“Ah, not exactly, no,” he smiled. “Henry is a bit unusual for kids his age, I think. Always with his head in a book or a comic or writing. It’s great, he’s a bloody brilliant kid, and he’s damn talented for a nine year old boy, but I want him to make friends too, so I try to get him to do things like football, sorry, soccer, only some days he puts up a bit of a fight.” He shakes his head, grinning to himself. “Sorry, Swan, I don’t mean to prattle on about the boy.”
“No, it’s okay!” Emma said with a genuine smile. “It’s cute, that you like to talk about him, you’re an enthusiastic father.”
“Aye,” Killian laughed lightly. “So, love, how was your week?”
“It was fine,” Emma shrugged, sipping on her coffee. “Actually, it was kind of weird. I keep having a dream about being a princess, which is just not me at all, and I’ve never really had recurring dreams either, so it’s a little strange.”
“Perhaps it means that you feel like you deserve better than you’ve gotten,” he answered with a pensive look on his face, and Emma stared back at him, surprised by the spot on assessment of her feelings.
“That is, actually, not bad,” she replied, and he smiled in return.
“Any particular reasons for these sentiments this week, love?” he asked her, and she got the sense that he genuinely cared.
“Well,” she started, somewhat anxious about sharing, “I had the privilege of catching a con man who… well, I’ve been hoping for a chance to get him for years. I guess it brought up some old memories though.” Not to mention you just might be the ‘better’ I’m looking for, a small voice said in the recesses of Emma’s mind.
“What did he do, if you don’t mind my asking?”
Emma hesitated. She had never willingly divulged the story of her and Neal to anyone before – Mary Margaret knew because she had met Emma when it happened, and August knew because it was how she got her job, but she had never told anyone else, not even Walsh.
“When I was fifteen, I ran away from the family that had decided to adopt me before they could go through with it. After a couple months I found Neal while I was trying to steal a car,” she winced, hearing just how awful this made her sound, “and we kind of, got together. It seemed easier to get by with both of us than to make it on our own. I fell for him, hard, and I thought he felt the same way, but like a year later, he framed me for a crime he’d committed. Set me up to take the fall, and while they were arresting me, he skipped town. I spent a year in jail, got out when I was 18 and was on my own. If it hadn’t been for Mary Margaret, I probably would have resorted to a life of crime again.”
“What an ass,” Killian said suddenly at the end of her story, his blue eyes darkened with anger. “What an absolute bastard.”
The stormy look on his face made Emma laugh lightly, amused by how seriously he was taking something that had happened to someone he barely knew, years before they had even met.
“Killian, it’s fine, it was a long time ago,” Emma told him, placing her arm on his wrist in what she hoped was a pacifying gesture.
“I’d still like to… I don’t know, punch him,” Killian said, his expression easing as he gave her a somewhat strained smile.
“It doesn’t bother you?” Emma asked cautiously, pulling her hand away, as her insecurities took hold. “That I’ve been in jail? That I was a criminal?”
“No,” he answered, and she could see all his previous irritation melt into concern for her. “Not at all, Swan.”
“Why?” she said simply, unable to fully believe him.
“Because you’re not a criminal now,” he replied, reaching out and taking her hand. Emma looked at his eyes and the sincerity she saw in them made her heart squeeze. “Even then, you weren’t a bad person, Emma, you only did what you had to. That’s far more noble than my past.”
Emma stayed quiet, unsure of how to respond to his words. Nobody had ever had so much faith in her, except perhaps Mary Margaret, but somehow that was different. Though Mary Margaret had seen the good in Emma from the beginning, she had never been able to understand why Emma had run away, taken up with Neal, become a criminal. She had always wanted to help Emma become the woman Mary Margaret knew she could be, and while Emma was grateful for that, and she had needed it at the time, it could be frustrating that her best friend still viewed her as someone with a checkered past.
“I’m sorry if I’ve made you uncomfortable,” he said quietly, pulling his hand away and sipping on his coffee for something to do.
“No, it’s not that,” she replied. “It’s just not often that people see it that way.”
“Well, Swan, I choose to see the best in you,” he answered sincerely, and she couldn’t help but smile. “Look, love, I have to go get Henry soon, but perhaps I could persuade you to spend the afternoon with us? I’m supposed to be taking him and his friend to the Morgan Museum and I could use another adult to talk to, if you’re interested.”
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to spend more time with him, because she did, very much so. But Emma had never been the kind of person to let her walls down and admit her feelings (even to herself), and she was already letting him in so far… but meeting his kid was a different story. If it was just the two of them having coffee or getting dinner, then they were just friends, and she could continue firmly denying that she was dying to know if his lips were as soft as they looked or if he would be the kind of guy to make breakfast the morning after staying over. But if she hangs out with his kid then they’ll be more than that, and the kid will ask questions (Killian said he was smart) and it’ll be awkward and uncomfortable and she just wasn’t ready for it.
“I can’t, I promised my friend, Mary Margaret, that I’d help her with some wedding things this afternoon,” she said. It wasn’t exactly a lie – Mary Margaret had been asking her to help for weeks and she had been skillfully avoiding it for the most part, but she hadn’t promised to do anything this particular day. She could see the disappointment in Killian’s blue eyes, and she felt a stab of guilt in her stomach, but he replaced the look with one of understanding quickly, and Emma told herself that she had just imagined it.
“I hope not yours,” he quipped lightly, and Emma was taken aback momentarily.
“Hmm?”
“The wedding,” he clarified, “I just, it was a joke, a rather poor one, I admit.”
“Oh, right, no, not my wedding, hers. To David,” she sighed, and Killian eyed her curiously.
“What’s wrong with David?” he asked.
“Nothing, they’re just so…” she shrugged, “in love, I guess. It can be draining.”
“Ah, understandable.”
When she arrives back at her apartment, Emma finds Mary Margaret curled up on the couch looking at website after website of wedding dresses.
“Emma! How was coffee with Killian?” the bride-to-be asked, sounding very surprised. “I didn’t think you’d be back this early.”
“It was good, fine,” Emma shrugged, not wanting to go into details. “I thought I’d help you out with some of the wedding stuff this afternoon though.”
“That bad?” Mary Margaret said, with a sympathetic look toward her friend, and Emma responded with a confused expression. “Oh, come on, Emma, you’ve been avoiding wedding stuff for weeks now. You must have been really desperate if that was your excuse to leave.”
“No, I – coffee was great, Killian’s… Killian’s great,” Emma stammered, surprised at Mary Margaret’s perceptiveness. “I just – I felt bad about not helping out more.”
“If you say so,” Mary Margaret hummed, clearly not believing a word of it. “Come on, help me find a dress.”
Emma sat next to her on the couch, critiquing wedding gowns with her friend, trying desperately not to imagine herself in one with Killian by her side. He’s just a friend, she told herself adamantly, just because it seems like he cares, doesn’t mean you should fall for him. Don’t do it, you’ll only get hurt again. Just friends.
Chapter 3
Notes: The lyrics are from Phil Collins’ Don’t Let Him Steal Your Heart Away.
Also sorry the text in the picture got a little wonky, I don’t know what happened...
