Okay, I realize that it isn’t morning anymore (as I promised @kmomof4 Sorry Krystal!) But it is still Monday, and I’ve kept you waiting less the a week after the painful update. This one won’t fix everything, but you’ll have a better sense of what’s going on, and hopefully things will look less bleak. Also, this update marks the halfway point in the story - so there’s a bit of a hinge point with this one - the first half is from Emma’s point-of-view as usuall, and the second part shows us what’s been going on with Killian.
I hope you’ll enjoy (and perhaps feel less likely to keep out your pitchforks) after this one!
Still a Birthday Fic for @searchingwardrobes -- who I hope will trust me just a little longer, despite the momentary pain.
Also available on AO3, if that’s your preference, or from the start here on Tumblr
Summary: Through the years, Emma keeps waiting - one more placement, one more year, one more separation - until she can find where and with whom she truly belongs. It turns out the person to show her has been right beside her all the time...
by: @snowbellewells
iii. nineteen years old (two years later)
“Just one more good push, Emma!” the nurse at her elbow cajoled, urging her on intently, knowing the young woman was almost out of strength, at the very dregs of her reserves. “You can do it, I know you can. …Ready? Push!”
Gritting her teeth on a last effort to free the little one inside her, whom she had clung to the hope of meeting, despite the heartache and worry that had hung over her as he grew. She couldn’t fail him now. They would both need every ounce of her resolve to face the world, just the two of them.
Shakily, Emma attempted to give Nurse Green a tremulous smile, though barely able to hold her head upright through her exhaustion. “Just one more, huh?” she huffed, her breath ragged as she exhaled and tried to draw in another. “I think the little guy has other plans, Tink.”
Tina Green, known to many of her patients and co-workers at the small women’s clinic in Seattle where she worked and where she had met Emma as ‘Tink’ for her petite, blonde, pixie-ish looks and chipper manner, merely shook her head. “Whatever it takes to keep you fighting to see him,” she countered stoutly.
The doctor broke into their back and forth from the foot of the bed - matter of fact and as though he had heard none of the women’s conversation that had come before. “Alright, Ms. Swan. The baby’s head is crowning. Now is the time for that final effort. You’re about to meet your son.”
Emma didn’t know that she had more to give; she had been laboring so long now that drawing breath and retaining awareness seemed almost too steep a battle. All the same, she bore down again, praying this truly would be the last push, that her little boy would finally join them. She could only hope she didn’t break Tink’s hand as she clutched it for some minor amount of support.
Over the last several months, there had been so many times; moments when she tossed and turned unable to sleep, when she tried to read maternity books to prepare and only felt inadequate and overwhelmed, or when she stood in the corner market near tears over boxes of cereal, wondering how she would ever keep her child fed and clothed with her meager sole income, when she had almost admitted defeat. She’d considered giving her precious little one up for adoption; thinking even as her heart bled at the idea that he would have to be better off with a family who couldn’t have a child of their own than with her - not even out of her teens, who’d never had a mother herself and could barely keep a roof over her own head. But then Emma remembered her own experience in the system, always alone and never wanted. What if her baby wasn’t adopted either? She simply couldn’t leave him to the same sort of childhood she’d lived through.
Emma kept herself fighting because, in getting to this point, she and her child were already survivors. They would find a way, because they would have each other. Drawing in a ragged breath and forcing herself to exhale it slowly, Emma refocused on the goal before she was urged to push yet again. If nothing else, she would give her child what she’d only had for a short, golden period in her life - someone to love him unconditionally… a family.
The contracting pain inside her swelled yet again, feeling as if it might tear her apart. ‘One more, one more, one more…” she repeated to herself, almost a mantra that matched her heartbeat, urging her to carry on.
The pressure crested to almost unbearable proportions, and Emma couldn’t hold back the cry torn from her thoat as she gritted her teeth and strained to finally see her baby enter the world, to finally hold him in her arms.
“There you are, I see the shoulders,” the doctor reported, guiding the newborn on his way. “You’ve got this, Ms. Swan.”
Falling back on her pillow, winded and drained like a deflated balloon, Emma tried to catch her breath, even as she listened intently for the first cries of her little boy, the announcement that he had arrived alive and well.
“Did you hear that, Emma?” Tink’s voice chirped happily at her side, brushing the mussed, sweaty strands of her hair off her forehead and offering her a gentle, encouraging smile. “He’s here! Your little guy’s finally here! You did it!”
“I did, didn’t I?” Emma slurred blearily, her eyelids hovering exhausted at half mast but determined to see the bundle who had caused such worry and excitement before she could fully relax. “Can I hold him yet?”
As if knowing his mother’s voice and prompted to answer it, just then a high, thin wail rang out in the delivery room, the reedy cry of a babe cold and scared outside of the cozy home he had known in his mother’s womb. The plaintive sound reached out as distinctly as an outstretched hand to squeeze her heart. Emma struggled to sit forward, straining to see and comfort her little one in his distress.
Only moments later, Tink moved toward her cradling a white-blanket-swaddled bundle passed on from the doctor as he had finished washing the newborn and clearing his airway. “Here he is, Emma,” she crooned, leaning over to carefully hand the baby off to his eager mother. “He just wanted to see his mama,” she added sweetly. The little boy’s cries lessened the moment he was nestled in Emma’s arms, and the angry red of his tiny wrinkled face lightened as he calmed.
Predictable as it might have been, Emma felt tears welling in her eyes, pooling and streaming down her cheeks. Her joy at holding him in her arms after nine months of waiting - her son, her flesh and blood - overwhelmed and spilled from her in an unchecked torrent. His little upturned nose, chubby cheeks, thin tufts of damp, curling bown hair were already cherished, even as they blurred before her eyes.
Naively, she had feared that he would remind her of the man who’d fathered him; someone she’d met not long after landing in Seattle a year ago, roving blindly in a lost and broken haze, barely remembered beyond messy brown hair, teasing cocoa-colored eyes, and a handful of rushed, less-than-incredible couplings in the back of the stolen car he’d left her with. She fallen in with the older guy almost solely because he’d shown an interest, she’d been running scared, almost starved and out of money to rent a motel room another night, and simply tired - tired of having to figure it all out on her own. When she’d wakened to find him gone about a month after they’d met and thrown their lots in together, she hadn’t even been surprised. She probably should have been hurt, but after Killian’s loss, Neal’s desertion was more like the prick of a thorn than a lasting wound. The positive pregnancy test stolen and then used in the Target bathroom had been the shock that had almost felled her.
Instead, gazing down at her little boy’s placid face, relaxed and nearly dozing once held again in his mother’s soothing warmth, Emma could only see his beautiful sweet innocence. She would give her own life - mere minutes after meeting him - to see that preserved. He should always be able to have the sort of hope she had lost long ago.
Unable to look away, afraid to even blink for fear he might vanish, Emma loved her baby on sight, as if she had never even understood love before. This was one thing at last she knew she had gotten right.
“Henry,” she breathed out softly against his baby soft skin. “Mama’s here… I love you so much, okay? No matter what.” And she vowed then and there, whatever came, Henry Swan - her Henry - would always have his best chance.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
eighteen years old (not quite three years ago)
When Killian Jones first woke in a base camp mobile hospital overseas, he couldn’t remember where he was or what had happened to him. As he tried to regain his bearings, glancing around and intently tamping down the beginning flickers of panic and that blank canvas within his mind, he knew who he was, but who might be missing him, and why he might be lying there injured in the strange bed beneath him were completely beyond his capability to recall.
Thankfully, as he remained conscious, and doctors and nurses came to check on him and report on his condition and what was being done for him, more of Killian’s awareness and memory came trickling back. He had enlisted in the Navy and reported for basic training. He was had hoped to do his duty, to travel, find his purpose, and also pay for his chance to pursue college study for a career that truly inspired him. He’d been thinking of those possibilities, along with the more mundane pleasure of cuddling with some clearly familiar and comforting blonde beauty in some off-campus coffeeshop, humming along softly to some unknown singer, ignoring his school work and hearing of her day, even as he had been going about the tasks of a routine patrol in what were supposed to be friendly waters, when something had gone wrong. He’d been gladly thinking of making his older brother proud and the happy future stretched out before him when their vessel had been struck.
His brother! An alarm blared in his mind suddenly. Liam! How could he have forgotten?! He’d already wasted so much time! He shook his head in agitated frustration as his realizations multiplied. Bloody hell! Would they have already told his brother he was missing? Or dead?
Quickly flagging down the first orderly who passed, Killian urgently attempted to make the person understand just how desperately, how immediately, his message needed to be sent. He needed to find out if he had already been listed as missing, if his brother had already been notified, and if -
Emma! This second remembrance was like a bolt of lightning slashing right through the center of his being. How could he have forgotten the most important name he had ever known? She was the beautiful girl beside him in his fantasies of quiet afternoons in a peaceful college town; the smile and sparkling green eyes looking back at him in his dreams. They had been nearly inseparable from the moment they’d met, so how was it possible her memory had not been the first to return to him?
Killian’s stomach fell away, gut clenching in fear and regret at how bravely Emma had tried to seem happy for him when he’d told her of his enlistment. How he had promised her he’d be back at her side before she could even miss him. Tears swam unbidden in his eyes, knowing how it would have devastated her to hear he was lost. Of course, Liam would have tried to tell her gently, but she would have assumed the worst. Life had given Emma Swan little reason to do otherwise in her first seventeen years. And he would, for all that she knew, be just one more person to desert her and leave her behind.
Mercifully, once Killian calmed himself enough to make the situation understood, and to speak with the right higher-ups to ascertain what had been reported and how he should proceed, it didn’t take long for them to help him contact Liam stateside. The relief and joy in his brother’s voice, at what seemed no less than a miracle to the elder Jones brother, was a balm to Killian’s fraught and anxious soul.
But when Liam balked at taking the call next door, not letting Killian speak to Emma, his insides turned to ice. Haltingly, in a voice full of pained regret - both for Killian’s hurt, and as one who had loved the neighbor girl as an older sibling himself - Liam managed to explain that they had no way to tell Emma of Killian’s return. The moment she had turned 18 and was free of the foster system, Emma had vanished. As if she hadn’t been able to look at Killian’s house next door without him there, Emma had fled; no one had seen or heard from her since. She was just… gone.
The last, but not least important, ficlet I wrote for a reblog here and now decided to make its own post. Just young Killian this time, sadly saddening sads.
Inspired by this picture.
Word count: 455
AO3
~
He hears music coming from straight ahead. Something of a lute, and a viol, amongst the sounds of people talking.
He runs ahead. It’s been some time since he last heard music and let himself sit back and absorb it. There’s a tavern down the road, the sign hanging above the door says “The Hollow Twig”. He walks to the window - it’s too high, so he raises on his toes and tries to peek in. There are dew drops on the glass, so he grabs his sleeve and wipes at it, finally getting a view inside.
There’s a man sitting on a bench right in front of the glass, one woman on each of his sides. He’s got his arms draped on the women’s shoulders, and his face is red as a beet. The women lean on him and smile.
Killian looks away. Ah, quartermaster Jenkins is sitting on another table, a stein in his hand and a woman rubbing at his shoulder. He’s mouthing the words of the song sounding from the corner.
O you are me only treasure
Shallow, o shallow brown!
Killian’s breath forms more dew on the glass, so he wipes it again and keeps gazing inside.
And I love ye still full measure
Shallow, o shallow brown!
There are no kids inside, Killian notes with a frown. The waitress seems young, probably a little older than Liam, and Killian has to grab onto the windowsill to keep himself from running inside to just… talk to her. One of the things he would never have imagined about servitude is how lonely he’d feel, despite having Liam. There are times he wishes he had someone else, someone from the outside, someone… someone who wouldn’t feel sorry. Someone he wouldn’t be a burden to.
He lowers back to his heels and leans his head on the windowsill.
In me cradle lies me baby
Shallow, o shallow brown!
I don’t want no other lady
Shallow, o shallow brown!
They don’t sing together anymore. They used to, even after Mama died, but right now it hurts too much.
He sniffles, feeling tears in his eyes.
As much as it hurts, there’s been too many times he hasn’t admitted the truth to Liam, that he still remembers her song, that he still finds himself singing it, in his mind when Liam’s lying next to him, in whispers when he’s on duty.
And now all he wants is something new to sing to himself.
So he runs for the taverns and listens and tries to learn as many new songs as possible.
“I've spent enough time below deck to not be afraid of the dark, so if this is your idea of torture, well you're just gonna have to try a little harder.”
We all know what Killian means, right? It’s an awesome line written with care and I love it so much because it’s basically Killian referencing his time as a slave in Captain Silver’s (I assume that Silver is who the Joneses are sold to) ship.
Because we have all seen his cabin: it has a window on the end of it so, even during the night, it’s not completely dark so this is him talking about being dumped below deck as a child and teenager...
I feel like my writing has grown tremendously since I posted this MC, but I still love the premise. Looking at the dates on Ao3, I can’t believe that A - this fic will be FOUR years old in July and B - I cranked out this five chapter fic in five days. Probably needed more revising and a beta, but dang! Haha, anyways, since it pre-dates my tumblr, I thought I’d share it and make a little picset to go with it.
Summary: As a joke, Liam Jones pays a gypsy to show 15 year old Killian his true love in her magic mirror. When Killian looks in the mirror, he falls through realms and time until coming face to face with a 15 year old Emma Swan.
Words: 5 chapters, complete
Rating: M
Trigger warnings: When I first posted this, it was rated T. Since that time, I’ve learned more about what people expect under different ratings. This fic does include an attempted rape, so I upped the rating to M. It really isn’t graphic though, and this fic overall is pretty tame and innocent. Just wanted to err on the side of caution.
Okay, here (at way too long last! ;p ) is the second part of Melanie’s @searchingwardrobes birthday gift fic, which I began way back in November! I don’t have much of an excuse for why it has taken me so long, other than that I have gotten too many WIPs going at once, and I’m having to take turns. Anyway, I also waited until I had the third installment ready to go as well, because ~*FAIR WARNING*~ this chapter is sad and angsty and I didn’t want to leave you with it for too long without the next update, I don’t even feel like I should make you wait a week. Just please know going into this one that this isn’t the end, and there’s more yet to come, so don’t give up hope... (I can already feel Krystal @kmomof4 scolding me for the angst and pain!)
Okay, without further stalling, Part Two of “One More”...
Summary: Through the years, Emma keeps waiting - one more placement, one more year, one more separation - until she can find where and with whom she truly belongs. It turns out the person to show her has been right beside her all the time...
{A 5 Part CS Modern AU}
From the beginning here on Tumblr, or on AO3 if you prefer
Part Two
by: @snowbellewells
ii. seventeen years old (three years later)
“Just one more year, Emma,” he assured earnestly, his sparkling eyes wide and imploring her to understand. “Just one more year and you’ll be fre to go wherever you want. We won’t be apart that long.”
Tilting her head to look up at her best friend, Emma blinked back the tears rapidly gathering behind her eyelids, determined not to let them fall where Killian could see. She nodded in agreement, logically knowing his words were true, but unable to deny the hurt that lanced through her at the thought of their parting. The ache in her chest expanded and grew with every breath she took.
For all her life, Emma had been alone. Oh, not physically - she had rarely experienced true privacy or had space to call her own - but emotionally, with no one to listen to her hopes, her fears, her secrets, to laugh with her over inside jokes, or to offer a shoulder when she needed to cry. Not until three years ago when she had almost literally fallen at Killian Jones’ feet. Since then, Killian, and his older brother Liam too, had become what seemed to Emma like her whole world; the best approximation of family that she had ever known. To think of him leaving her behind, when she was stuck in one place and unable to follow, was crushing. Even as she tried to seem supportive, it pained her more than she’d like to admit.
Perceptive as always, Killian paused in his torrent of explanation to really take in her expression, the struggle on her face no matter how she tried to mask it. Reaching up to brush his fingers under her eye, he subtly wiped away the errant tear she hadn’t yet realized she’d let fall. The enthusiasm he had been broadcasting was tempered with concern for her as he murmured lowly, “Hush now, Swan, what’s this? Surely it isn’t all for me.”
Emma bit her lip, shaking her head quickly in frustration at herself. She hadn’t wanted to dampen his excitement or hold him back from the opportunity before him. Grasping his hand abruptly before he could withdraw it, she clutched it in both of hers and interlaced their fingers as she pressed it to her chest. “Killian,” she choked out, trying to push past the emotion clogging her throat, “Of course it is! I want to be happy for you - I do - and I didn’t want to cry. B-but I’ll miss you so much. Without you… it’s lonely, Jones.”
He dipped his head to playfully waggle his eyebrows at her in the way he had that never failed to make her laugh. Emma shook her head at his antics, feeling the tiniest bit better in spite of nothing having changed. “Seriously, Jones?” she griped, equally in jest, even as she put her hand to his chest and shoved him away, disgruntled by his antics. She sniffled, the tracks of her tears drying as she found he had her laughing again, bouncing back from her push and wrapping her up tightly in a hug she couldn’t escape, no matter how much she wriggled or feigned protest.
In truth, for a moment she had to catch her breath and concentrate on not reacting to how much more solid and muscular his pectoral muscles felt under her palm and how wildly her heart fluttered when he pressed warm, full lips to the crown of her head as he held her close. Killian was no longer the lanky fourteen-year-old boy she had met on the front steps, though she had been under his spell even then.
No, he was nearly a man now, ready to strike out on his own and find what he was meant to do in the world. The military had served his older brother well, had even given Liam the means to take guardianship of his younger brother when his enlistment had ended about the same time their mother had passed away, leaving Killian all alone. She had heard Liam speak fondly of the places he had seen and the comradery he had shared with his fellow officers when they talked over supper sometimes while she was over at their house for the evening, or when the travel shows all three of them enjoyed happened to feature a place he had sailed. He didn’t bring it up all that often - Emma could sense without being told that the elder Jones never wished for his younger brother to feel guilt or like he had been a burden - but his fond reminiscence of the experience was clear nonetheless. Killian too spoke of his brother’s service with a definite sense of pride, looking up to the brother who was role model, parent, and friend rolled into one with a desire to follow in his footsteps.
This would allow him to do just that, as well as give him a real start in the world. They were two young men without much to their names. That he could then afford schooling when he returned was huge. Emma knew Killian wanted to prove himself, to show that what Liam had given up was worth the cost, for his big brother’s sake almost as much as his own. Even setting making Liam proud aside, Killian was smart. He wanted badly to go to college - either for marine biology or astronomy, most likely - whether he would usually admit it or not. This gave him that chance without putting he and Liam both into years of debt.
And he would be marvelous at it. Emma had no doubts about that. She might be biased, but there was literally nothing she had ever seen Killian Jones set out to do that he wasn’t brilliant at once he started.
So it was just the matter of the huge hole he would leave in her life while he was gone. She needed to try not to let him see how desolate the very thought made her feel. It wasn’t forever. Like he said, ‘just one more year’. She would be out of the system, graduated from high school, and free to go wherever he might end up. She could find a job, make her own money, and figure out what called to her, what she was meant to do as well. As long as he came back, and whatever she found was also with him nearby, everything would be fine. She could do this.
Offering him a crooked and rather wobbly smile, Emma returned Killian’s embrace, making him promise he would write every chance he got, and that he’d return with stories and pictures from all over to share with her. Meanwhile, he swore he’d be there with her again before she had a chance to really miss him. She nodded her agreement, already knowing that wasn’t possible. She would miss him the moment he left; like she had been split down the middle, like the other half of her body and soul was gone. It was the same empty feeling she’d carried with her from home to home, town to town, one foster family to another, until she’d ended up with Killian next door.
Emma didn’t want to go back to that, even if it was only temporary. But, if they had the rest of their lives afterwards, she could make do.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
It wasn’t until eight months later, when she saw through the screen door an unfamiliar and official-looking vehicle sliding silently up to park along the curb outside the Jones’ house that Emma truly feared her best friend might break his word. When two soldiers in dress uniform got out and moved slowly up the walk to Liam and Killian’s front door, one holding what even from a distance appeared to be a folded flag, Emma knew. Her head felt heavy, and she listed to the side as if she might fall over, dizzy and unable to see straight; suddenly she was unable to draw a full breath.
Liam came to tell her himself, an hour or so later, looking shrunken and pale to her eyes; his grief eating at him in a manner she knew all too well. Granted, Emma knew before he managed to tell her that Killian was gone, but that couldn’t have made putting it into words any easier for his elder sibling. They might be saying ‘missing’ rather than dead, but the detached, blank haze that had taken her over in order to survive didn’t seem to comprehend the difference. Liam promised he would tell her of anything he learned, that they should hold onto hope, that there was still a chance, and he assured her that she was still welcome at their house any time. She thanked him, promised to check in with him - though she wasn’t sure she could be in that house knowing that Killian wouldn’t be standing there again - and they hugged and cried together until both their eyes ran dry.
That night as she lay in bed unable to sleep, all Emma could think was that ‘one more year’ had become the rest of her life… and she was once again alone.
“But thankfully I had Liam to steady me. He was always there for me. I never would have survived without him”
-”Family Business (406)” script from Adam’s twitter [x].
