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alexandralyman · 1 year

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New Fic: Not Another Hallmark Movie

Hi Everyone! Coming off my long fic hiatus with a Captain Swan holiday story. I hope everyone has a very safe and happy Christmas after everything that’s happened in the past few years.

Not Another Hallmark Movie

The little fishing village of Storybrooke Maine was just like those quirky small towns you'd see in one of the Hallmark Channel's never-ending lineup of Christmas movies, so it was no surprise when it was chosen as the filming location for one of them to the delight of everyone in town.

Almost everyone.

Deputy Sheriff Emma Swan was less than thrilled to have Christmas come early in the form of a cast and crew that it was her responsibility to wrangle all over town, the prickly Scottish location manager Merida, seven surly Teamsters, the pretentious assistant director Arthur, and the two leads, former teen star Christina Bell and her love interest, up and coming English actor Killian Jones.

Well, maybe Killian wasn't so bad.

With Storybrooke fully decked out for the holidays several months early, a star-struck son, a totally not jealous brother, and Christmas music blasting everywhere she went, all Emma wanted was for the movie to finish and life in town to go back to normal.

(though a bit of flirting with the handsome lead actor certainly helped to fill the time until then)

AO3 Link / FF.net Link

“Merry Christmas!”

Emma gave a nonplussed stare to the teenage barista on the other side of the counter, who was holding out the coffee she’d ordered in a festive red and green paper up instead of the normal white one.

“Seriously?” she replied, one eyebrow raised.

The barista gave a cheery smile that it was far, far, too early for.

“We’re getting into the spirit! We should be getting a delivery later today with gingerbread syrup and pumpkin spice to make holiday lattes.”

“Great,” Emma muttered, taking the coffee and taking in the silver and gold tinsel strung up along the menu boards and the snowman cookies in the pastry case that she hadn’t noticed at uncaffeinated first glance. When she went outside the Storybrooke Bean & Brew it was more of the same, wreaths on doors, snowflake decorations in the storefronts, lights and bells and it was clear the whole damn town had gone completely Christmas crazy practically overnight. Which would be fine...if it was December, or even November.

It wasn’t.

It was August.

August, the middle of summer, when the chalkboard sidewalk sign in front of the Bean & Brew should have a sun and a beach umbrella drawn on it to advertise iced coffee, not a candy cane stuck in a mug of hot chocolate. The temperature was supposed to hit the high eighties today, for fuck’s sake.

No, Storybrooke hadn’t succumbed to the phenomenon known as “Christmas creep” when stores put out their holiday merch earlier and earlier each year so that artificial trees were on sale next to barbecues and gingerbread men shared shelves with Halloween candy. The little heritage town in Maine that looked like it had been designed by Currier & Ives themselves had been chosen by the Hallmark channel as the filming location for one of their insipid Christmas movies, where toothy, pretty people met, fell in love, and had their happy ending in an hour and a half against a picture perfect backdrop of evergreen trees and twinkling lights. A Holiday Romance, Jingle Bell Ball, New Love for Noel, Tis the Season, they aired them non-stop over the holidays and Emma never really gave much thought to where all those movies actually came from, until a fleet of trucks full of expensive-looking equipment had arrived a week ago.

They’d transformed Main Street into a faux winter wonderland within hours of unloading, and it seemed the townspeople were just as eager to get into character as well. Granny’s Diner was serving a turkey dinner special with stuffing and cranberry sauce, the local radio station had switched over from their usual playlist of songs that had been hits sometime in the 80s to nothing but Christmas music 24/7, and the coffee shop closest to the sheriff’s station was apparently now serving Emma’s morning caffeine fix in the cups printed with holly and ivy they normally didn’t pull out until it was closer to Thanksgiving than the Fourth of July.

It. Was. August.

And on top of having to listen to Bing Crosby dreaming of a white Christmas or Josh Groban calling to all ye faithful every time she got into her cruiser, Emma, in her capacity as Storybrooke’s deputy sheriff, had been tasked by the mayor herself, Regina Mills, to be the official town liaison to the movie people. Madame Mayor was adamant that they feel as welcome as possible, hoping to market Storybrooke as a filming locale to any Hollywood production that wanted small town charm and little red tape. All the permits they applied for had been approved without question, so Emma spent her days dealing with road closures and directing traffic around the sets, working long hours with the location manager, a no nonsense Scot named Merida, or with the assistant director, a jackass named Arthur who clearly viewed Storybrooke as nothing more than a backwater hick town that was stuck in time.

Which it was, but still. Rude.

As unenthused as Emma was having to deal with a woman whose accent she barely understood at times and a wannabe Martin Scorsese, her son Henry was just as excited about the movie coming to town. While not exactly in the Hallmark channel’s target demographic, Henry loved Christmas, loved movies, and loved the chance to actually see one being filmed in his own backyard. The fact that it was a cheesy TV movie aimed at women aged twenty-five to forty who drank wine and dreamed of their own hunky yet tender lumberjack love interest and not ten year old boys who were obsessed with Marvel and Star Wars didn’t matter, Henry had proclaimed to anyone who’d listen that it was the best thing to happen to Storybrooke in the history of ever. Since the last major event that Storybrooke had seen was a bad storm that washed a full container of live lobsters off one of the ships down at the docks and scattered them halfway to the town line, he did have a point.

Storybrooke was a fishing village in Maine. There were a lot of lobsters in that container.

A lot.

Emma had listened with half an ear while Henry spouted off every bit of information he could find online about A Midnight Clear, the title of the movie, scouring IMDB, Wikipedia, and the Hallmark channel’s social media accounts. Since Emma didn’t let him have his own Twitter or Instagram account yet, he’d followed anything remotely relevant from hers so he could keep tabs on them all. He was even more excited when he discovered the male lead in the movie was British actor Killian Jones. While he wasn’t exactly world-famous, with one of those fancy BBC costume dramas and some London theater work under his belt, Jones had guest-starred in a two-part episode of Doctor Who, making him, in Henry’s opinion, hands down the coolest person to have ever set foot in Storybrooke. An opinion he freely shared with everyone from Granny Lucas during lunch at the diner to the mailman when he dropped off the water bill.

David was visibly annoyed by it, which amused both Emma and his wife Mary Margaret to no end.

“I’m cool,” he’d protested, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back in his chair with a pout.

“Yes dear,” Mary Margaret deadpanned, patting him on the shoulder.

“I taught Henry how to ride a horse. Could Killian Jones do that?”

“I dunno, maybe,” Emma said with a shrug. “He’s English, isn’t riding a big thing there? Besides, he’s been inside the TARDIS, and sorry David, but that’s pretty hard for any of us to top.”

David threw his hands in the air. “It’s a TV show! The TARDIS is a prop, it’s not like the guy has actually been to space or traveled in time.”

Henry had come back in from the yard with dog and immediately started in again on the movie and how cool it was that someone like Killian Jones was visiting their town, brightly asking, “isn’t it the coolest thing ever, Uncle David?” and making David grumble to himself all through Sunday dinner while Emma and Mary Margaret trader knowing looks across the table at his sulking and Henry’s obliviousness to it. Emma and Henry had moved to Storybrooke because of David, her adoptive brother, and lived with him and Mary Margaret and their golden retriever Fandral on their farm at first until Emma got them their own place. Small town life had been a huge adjustment, at least for Emma. Henry had the ability to fit in wherever he went.

Big city girl with a cute, precocious kid moves to a picturesque small town and falls in love with a rugged lumberjack who looks like he stepped out of a paper towel commercial and proposes under the mistletoe before the credits rolled. Wasn’t that the plot of most of those made for TV Christmas movies? Although in Storybrooke it would probably be a lobster fisherman instead, and Emma’s life wasn’t a movie.

Plus, after the whole lobster incident, she really, really, didn’t want to see one ever again even if it was brought to her on a silver platter by Chris Evans in nothing but his Knives Out sweater.

Emma parked her Bug in the station lot after her stop at the Bean & Brew and went inside to both check in with Graham Humbert, town sheriff, and grab a bear claw from the ever present box of donuts he kept on his desk. More for the bear claw. Normally, she’d eat it at her own desk while going over the morning paperwork and seeing if there’d been any breaks in her one and only open case, the ongoing crank calls to Mr. Gold, pawnbroker and shoo-in favorite if Storybrooke ever needed to vote in an official town Scrooge. Not exactly something they needed to call in the FBI to consult on. But with the movie scheduled to spend all day filming at not one, but two different locations, Emma had to head out again immediately in one of the cruisers, so she brought the bear claw with her and slid behind the wheel, putting her coffee in the cupholder and turning the key in the ignition with one hand while she took a bite with the other.

Mariah Carey came blasting out of the stereo and Emma nearly choked, coughing and sputtering around her mouthful of pastry.

“Oh come on, it’s August,” she muttered, fumbling for the volume control. “Ugh!”

Once she got it down to a level that wouldn’t make her ears bleed, she pulled out and headed towards Storybrooke Town Hall. The trucks were already there when she arrived, cables snaking up and down the street and a sign with the name of the movie’s fictional town in place on the building’s facade. Several locals were watching eagerly from behind the barricades that Emma bypassed, badge on her hip and tossing back the last of her coffee as she went.

“How’s it going?”

She directed the question to Merida, whose cloud of red hair made her easy to find among the mostly male crew. The location manager had a clipboard in one hand, a walkie talkie in the other, a headset perched messily in her curls, and an expression that was the opposite of holly jolly.

“How’s it going? Well, I’ve got seven Teamsters who are all on their union mandated break at the same bloody time, the call sheet had the locations for today backwards so my two lead actors are currently at the wrong sets, which is absolutely grand, and to top it off the snow machine is on the fritz again so we’ve got no snow for our fecking Christmas movie. So that’s how it’s going.”

Emma understood about half of that, and it wasn’t just because Merida’s accent got as thick as oatmeal the more she talked. Henry was the movie expert, not her. Still, she made a sympathetic face, since it was clear things weren’t going particularly well.

“Bummer,” she offered, which made Merida let out a very Scottish sounding harrumph.

“You can say that again.”

The walkie talkie in her hand crackled to life in a burst of static and she started talking to whoever was on the other end.

“You got an ETA on Bell yet? Well, why not? I don’t care what the call sheet says, she’s supposed to be at the town hall, not the park!”

Emma assumed she was referring to the lead actress in the movie, Christina Bell. She’d met her briefly on the first day of filming, a tiny blonde pixie of a woman who Emma vaguely remembered from some soapy teen drama show that had been popular when Henry was a toddler. She hadn’t had much time for TV back then, and her own teenage drama was still too fresh for her to really be into the fictional kind, so she wasn’t nearly as starstruck as Mary Margaret and Ruby Lucas were when they came by to watch some of the shoot.

“Merida love, If you’d just give me the keys to one of the cars I can drive myself.”

“No,” Merida answered without looking up from her clipboard at the man who’d come over to join them. In contrast to the members of the crew in their jeans and black T-shirts, he was dressed in a three-piece suit that he had to be absolutely sweltering in, his dark hair was slicked back from his face and he had an accent that was tea and crumpets to Merida’s malt whiskey.

It was Killian Jones, the male lead and officially the coolest person to have ever set foot in Storybrooke. According to Henry, that is.

“But-“

“I said no, Jones. You’re not covered by the insurance and Arthur will have my arse in a sling if I let you. Or he’ll try to, at least, and I don’t fancy having to explain to the network exactly how their AD got a black eye. You just have to wait until Leroy finishes his break and then he’ll drive you over.”

Regina Mills had been adamant that Emma was to make everything as smooth as possible for the movie people, and if she’d learned one thing about Storybrooke, it was Regina’s town and the rest of them were just living in it. Normally it was beyond annoying, but, what Madame Mayor wanted, she would get in this case.

“I could drive you if it’s that urgent,” Emma offered. “Emma Swan, deputy sheriff. You’ll be safe with me.”

Both of them turned to look at her and she saw Killian’s blue eyes dart down to where she was oh so casually resting a hand next to her badge and then back up to her face.

“A police escort? Well, I suddenly feel very important,” he joked, with an easy smile that could only be described as movie-star handsome. Not that Emma planned on describing his smile to anyone. “Killian Jones, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Officer Swan. Oh, sorry, Deputy Sheriff Swan.”

“Emma is fine. Nice to meet you.”

She shook the hand he held out and smiled back. A few weeks ago she would have scoffed at the idea of playing chauffeur for some spoiled actor, she hadn’t gone back to college to get her criminal justice degree when Henry was old enough for kindergarten just to end up a glorified Uber, but the guy was cute and it beat standing around pretending to watch the crew fiddle with lights and cables in case Regina was in her office and decided to pop out and check that Emma was doing her civic duty.

“Brilliant,” Merida said, scribbling something on her clipboard. “He needs to be at the park, they’re filming at that bench we scouted last Wednesday. Thanks so much, Emma, you’re a lifesaver, in that you just saved Arthur’s life, since this was his cock-up and I was going to kill him.”

Emma knew the bench Merida was talking about, it was a favorite place of hers when she needed a quiet place to think. She nodded and pulled out her car keys, gesturing towards where she’d left the cruiser. “The Storybrooke Sheriff’s Department is always happy to assist. This way.”

Michael Buble informed them that it was beginning to look a lot like Christmas when she turned the key and the radio came to life again. Emma swore under her breath, the volume control was obviously broken.

“You’re really getting into this, aren’t you?”

He said it with an amused laugh and she felt her cheeks flush hotter than the eighty degree forecast. “Yeah, well, it’s the local station. We always keep the radio on them in case someone calls them instead of us, and they’ve been playing Christmas music in honor of you guys filming here even though it’s August.”

She glanced over at his not very seasonal attire and turned the air conditioning up, letting a rush of cold air wash over them both. At least that was working fine.

“You have a very charming little town here, Sheriff Swan. I grew up in a village by the sea like Storybrooke back in England before I moved to London, it reminds me of home.”

Emma had spent nearly an hour the other day listening to Arthur, assistant director and grade A asshole, bitch about the lack of a Starbucks and a decent place to get Thai food in Storybrooke when she’d had to work with him on the logistics of shutting down Main Street in the middle of the day so they could film a scene, as he oh so condescendingly put it, “before the light changes, Emma, you see, we have this thing in filmmaking called continuity.” At least Killian Jones had some freaking manners to go along with his good looks and sexy accent.

Nope. Don’t go there, Emma, don’t even think about it. Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars.

“Uh, thanks,” she mumbled. Lame, Emma.

The park wasn’t that far away, but she couldn’t take the fastest route thanks to the trucks blocking the streets around Town Hall and had to go the long way instead. With the volume turned down on the radio it was quiet in the car and she could sense him watching her from the passenger seat while she kept her eyes fixed firmly on the road. She was the deputy sheriff, she had to set a good example to visitors about safe driving habits.

Or something.

The long way involved driving past Henry’s school, it was closed for the summer, of course, since it was freaking August, but the message on the signboard out front had been changed from, “See You in September!” to “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!” because of course someone had done that. Still, she smiled to herself at the reminder of her son. Henry went to day camp during the week with his friend Paige, coming home every night eager to hear everything that was going on with the movie shoot and Emma had definitely earned some cool points in Henry’s eyes for getting to work with the cast and crew. He was going to freak when she told him she’d finally met Killian Jones.

“Did you grow up here?”

It took Emma a second to realize Killian had asked her a question. “What? Oh, no, I didn’t, actually. We only moved to Storybrooke about two years ago.”

“Ah,” he said, voice seeming to go a bit flat. “Well, I can see why you and your husband decided to relocate. It’s lovely.”

She snorted, trying to imagine Neal in Storybrooke. He’d think it was ridiculous, twee and old-fashioned, and he’d probably also complain that there was no Starbucks or Thai food within an hour’s drive of the town.

Not for the first time, she wondered if part of the appeal of Storybrooke was just how much her ex would hate it.

“Nope, no husband. My son and I moved here from Boston, my brother David and his wife have a farm just outside of town. He heard about the job opening in the sheriff’s department and told me about it, and the rest is history.”

Her long overdue breakup with Neal had come on the heels of finally finishing her degree thanks to night school and loans she wouldn’t pay off before Henry went to college, after dropping out on the first go round when she’d had a baby at twenty. Emma knew their relationship only lasted as long as it did because of their son and even though they kept half-heartedly planning to get married, it never did happen. David also wasn’t her actual brother, his mother, Ruth Nolan, had been Emma’s final foster parent before she aged out of the system and the Nolans became the closest thing she had to family.

Not that she was going to share her entire life story with a complete stranger, of course. Even a handsome one with bright blue eyes the color of the ocean just beyond Storybrooke’s harbor.

“You have a son?” he asked, “How old is he?”

He was a good enough actor that he actually sounded interested, even though most guys noped right out of the conversation when they found out she had a kid.

“Henry’s ten, and according to him the movie is the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to this town.” she said, and glanced over at him to add, “He’s also a huge Doctor Who fan, by the way.”

Killian’s whole face lit up at that, clearly pleased. “I’ve been a Doctor Who fan since I was ten, so getting that part was the most exciting thing that ever happened to me. You should bring Henry to the set next time, I’d be happy to give him a look at what goes on behind the scenes.”

“You would really do that?”

Emma realized with a start that they were parked and she was twisted in her seat to fully face him. When had they arrived at their destination and why hadn’t she noticed anything except the fact that, up close, Killian Jones had just about the bluest eyes she’d ever seen?

And not only that, he was looking right back at her.

“Of course I would.”

He said it like there was no question that he’d want to entertain an overly excited ten year old boy he didn’t know when he could be…practicing his lines or taking selfies for Instagram or whatever it was actors did when they had downtime on set.

It was a knock at the window that made them both look up and Emma had a very vivid flashback to being sixteen and getting caught parked in a car with a cute boy after sneaking out past curfew. That little stunt had gotten her kicked out of the group home she’d been living in at the time (safe haven for all, her ass) and even though she’d ended up at the Nolans as her next placement and been welcomed with open arms by Ruth, the memory still left a sour taste in the back of her throat. She turned away from Killian and got out of the cruiser with a cough, wishing she hadn’t forgotten her sunglasses.

“Mr. Jones, I’m sorry for interrupting, but we’re way behind schedule today and-”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” he said, exiting on the other side of the car and waving off the apology from the harried looking crew member with a lanyard around his neck and another of the ubiquitous walkie talkies they all seemed to carry. “Thank you very much for the official escort, Sheriff Swan.”

She didn’t bother to correct him again that she was only the deputy sheriff, giving him what she hoped was an official looking nod in response. “I’ll be sure to send Merida the bill for using so much of my valuable police time. And you’re welcome, Mr. Jones.”

“Killian,” he offered, before the crew member whisked him away, shepherding him through the maze of trucks and RVs while letting whoever was on the other end of the walkie talkie know that “Mr. Jones was now on set.” Emma thought that he might have hesitated for a bit, lingering for a moment longer with a glance back before disappearing around the side of an Airstream trailer with the crew member and she lost sight of him.

Or maybe she was imagining it.

She needed another coffee.

With their leading man safely delivered, Emma’s next task was to check that everything was running smoothly at this location and if A Midnight Clear needed any further assistance from the Storybrooke Sheriff’s Department.

“Another last minute permit…shut down traffic on Main Street again…close the library so you can film in it and have to listen to old Mrs. Hubbard bitch about not being able to read the latest National Enquirer for half an hour…give the ridiculously handsome star a blowjob-”

Emma halted dead in her tracks. Had she actually said that out loud? Shit, she did. Luckily, she’d only been muttering under her breath and it didn’t look like anyone was around to overhear. Her fingers found the badge on her belt, running over the metal star. She wasn’t some teenager crushing on a cute boy she’d talked to for all of five minutes, she was thirty years old, for fuck’s sake. An adult, with a college degree and a savings account. A law enforcement officer, come to…enforce the law.

God, that even sounded lame in her own head.

She really, really needed another coffee.

“Enforcing the law” in this case meant moving an orange pylon the crew had left that was too close to the accessible entrance to the park’s footpath. She’d make sure to note that stellar bit of police work in her daily log back at the station.

Signs had been posted to point the crew towards the set, not that Emma needed them. The bench was set in a clearing halfway down the path, not visible from where she was standing because of the trees. She followed along until it came into view, feeling her breath catch in her throat at the sight.

Henry had called it magic, and she supposed it was. Movie magic.

It was like an invisible snow globe had sprouted around the clearing. The green summer grass had been covered in a blanket of white that glittered in the sunlight the way actual snow would, while several faux evergreen trees had been strategically placed around the bench with more snow dusting their branches and dangling icicles that looked so real it was hard to believe they were probably made of plastic. A loud whirring noise suddenly rent the air, sounding like a motorcycle gang was about to come racing through. But this was Storybrooke, the closest thing they had to a motorcycle gang was when Marco gave Granny Lucas a ride to the diner on the back of his Vespa. A minute or so later, large white flakes started falling from the sky and the noise died down to a quieter hum as Merida’s malfunctioning snow machine had obviously been fixed. It all looked pretty damn realistic, Emma would give them that.

Killian appeared on the other side of the clearing, now sporting a black scarf and a pair of gloves with his suit. He was talking to Arthur, Emma was too far away to hear what they were saying but it didn’t take long before the actual filming started. She’d seen enough by now to know that it was a lot less exciting than it sounded. After watching the lead actress, Christina, film the same five second shot of her character walking into the library umpteen times, she really hadn’t paid much attention to what they were actually shooting whenever she had to babysit the crew on location around town. Regina called it “liasoning with the production” because Regina was, quite frankly, a bit of a snob, but really, it was babysitting.

She hadn’t seen Killian film before, and it was a lot more interesting. Yes, Emma could admit that partially it was because he was really, really good looking and it had been a while since her last date, and even longer since her last good date, but it wasn’t just that though. Something about him just changed when Arthur yelled action, the way he walked, his expression when he pretended to answer his cell phone, he wasn’t Killian Jones anymore, he was his character. Emma had only ever played the pity role of a tree in a school play once, she knew jack about acting. It was cool to watch an actual professional do it, especially when that professional looked like he did. They ran through the scene several times and during one of the breaks Killian waved at her. Emma waved back, telling herself the warm feeling in her chest was from the sun.

It was August, after all.

Henry was very excited to hear that she’d finally met the “coolest person ever to have set foot in Storybrooke” when Emma picked him and Paige up from camp that afternoon. They climbed into the Bug and showed her the popsicle stick snowflake ornaments they’d made in arts and crafts, since the Christmas fever had clearly infected Camp Arrowhead. After dropping Paige off at home and eating dinner Henry asked if they could watch Home Alone on Disney Plus, begging, “Please Mom? Please?”

Emma sighed to herself, putting the leftover potato salad back in the fridge. Whenever Henry was interested in something, he threw his whole heart and soul into it, and right now he was all about Christmas movies. She loved that about her son, while privately wondering where the heck it had come from. Not from her or Neal, that was for damn sure. Emma didn’t actually have a middle name, but if she did it might as well have been Cynical, and Neal, well, Neal never took anything seriously enough to care the way Henry did.

A part of her still loved Neal, even after everything that had happened between them.

She really didn’t want Henry to follow in some of his father’s footsteps, though.

Or hers.

“Home Alone it is then,” she agreed.

Henry settled happily on the living room floor, lying on his stomach with his chin propped in his hands to watch Kevin McAllister get left behind while his family rushed off to Paris. Emma curled up on the couch, feet tucked under an afghan Ruth had made for her when she’d been dropped at the Nolans’ door late one night with a duct-taped backpack and a chip the size of the McAllister’s ginormous house on her shoulder. She’d never really liked this movie, even when she was Henry’s age. Sure, the slapstick humor was still funny even as an adult, but…

But…

That huge mansion, filled to the brim with family on Christmas.

The desperate mother, fighting tooth and nail to return to her abandoned child.

The tearful reunion at the end.

Emma didn’t need a session with town psychiatrist Dr. Hopper to figure out that she had some issues with Christmas. Growing up in the system it was far from the most wonderful time of the year.

It was usually the worst.

Donated clothes that never fit quite right and generic gifts bought for “Girl Age 9-11”, no mother or father out there fighting their way back to her, no house full of family and Emma knew far too young that Santa wasn’t real, magic didn’t exist, and she was alone in the world, left behind to fend for herself not just for a few days, but for the rest of her life. She was the CPS equivalent of a misfit toy, a foster kid who got too old to be wanted. Even after Ruth took her in and David became the big brother she’d secretly always longed for, the damage had already been done. Even now, Christmas movies just reminded her of her shitty childhood.

“That was awesome!” Henry said once Kevin had been reunited with his family and the credits started to roll. Emma exited out of the Disney app and dropped the remote back onto the couch.

“You’ve already seen it about a million times,” she reminded him.

“If burglars tried to break in here, I’d set up booby traps to catch them too.”

She shook her head in exasperation. “No, you’d call 911 and do exactly what they told you to do. This is real life, kid, not a movie.”

“Movies are way cooler,” Henry proclaimed, flopping onto his back as dramatically as any actor with his arms spread wide as he announced it to the ceiling. She stifled a laugh.

“Yeah, they are,” she agreed, standing over him and holding out her hands to pull him to his feet. “Too bad you’re stuck here in the real world with me, huh?”

After Henry went to bed and she’d mindlessly scrolled through Netflix for a while —ignoring the algorithm’s suggestion to watch The Holiday and lingering for a bit on the thumbnail for Doctor Who before putting on a random episode of Nailed It instead—Emma found herself standing just outside Henry’s room. The door was ajar and she watched him sleep under the superhero posters that were dark shadows on the walls, with the Lego Star Wars x-wing fighter that David and Mary Margaret had given him last Christmas in place of pride on his dresser. Their little two-bedroom house in Storybrooke could charitably be called shabby chic, with its mismatched thrift-store furniture and and oddly-shaped rooms, it was a far cry from the McAllister’s giant McMansion and there was no luxury trips to Paris in Emma’s single mom budget, but she’d worked her ass off to make a home for her son and she was pretty damn proud of it

Her phone vibrated and she gently pulled Henry’s door closed before fishing it out of her pocket to check the notification. She expected to see a text from David or that Mary Margaret had tagged her in another Facebook post, instead it was from Instagram, letting her know that she had a new follower on her thatswangirl account, officialkillianjones. Sure enough, when she tapped the screen it took her right to his profile, the picture was definitely him and there was a blue check mark next to his name. The most recent post was a selfie where he had the black scarf he’d been wearing on set wrapped around his face and fake snow dusting his dark hair, one eyebrow quizzically raised while he stared into the camera. It was captioned, “Just walking in a winter wonderland, it’s still August, right?”

Having had similar thoughts multiple times a day over the last week, Emma snorted in agreement. She leaned against the wall, looking down at the screen. Killian Jones was now following her on Instagram, that was unexpected, to say the least. She followed him, or rather, Henry had followed him on her account, but she’d never expected him to follow her back. Had he actually gone looking for her profile or had Instagram just recommended her the way Netflix had recommended a Christmas movie even though it was August? Her finger was hovering over his latest post while she mused on it and the next thing she knew, she’d liked the photo. Seemed like the polite thing to do.

Henry was going to freak out again when she told him Killian followed her. Being “mutuals” on social media was apparently a Big Deal for reasons she didn’t quite understand.

She’d tell him in the morning, just like she’d told him that she’d met Killian on set, had answered all the questions he’d eagerly peppered her with during dinner, yes, he was very nice, yes, he liked Storybrooke, no, he hadn’t heard about the rain of lobsters (she hadn’t actually asked him if he did, to be honest), and yes, she told him Henry was a Doctor Who fan and he was happy to hear it.

She hadn’t told him about Killian’s offer to show him around the set and give him a behind the scenes look at the movie.

Her son wasn’t like her. Henry was cheerful, exuberant, and believed the best of everyone he

met. He would absolutely, one hundred percent believe that an actor in the middle of filming a movie would carve time out of his busy schedule to play tour guide to a random ten year old.

Emma knew better. It wasn’t worth getting his hopes up when the odds were that Killian had already forgotten all about it.

She closed Instagram. It was late, it had been a long day and she was ready for bed. Her own bedroom wasn’t that much larger than Henry’s and there was a serious lack of closet space, but it did have original hardwood floors that David had helped her refinish and a little wrought-iron Juliet balcony off the window. The house was an old sailor’s cottage, and Emma supposed the balcony had been for the sailor’s wife to lean on and look out to sea, waiting for her husband to return to her once more. She could hear the faint sound of the waves crashing on the beach when she opened the window to let in some air, the original features definitely didn’t include AC. It was a far cry from their old apartment in Boston, where there had been no chance of hearing anything except the drone of traffic or a drunken bar fight out of the window. Storybrooke had been a hell of an adjustment, but it was worth it to have a house with a backyard where Henry could play, a steady job with health insurance, family close by in the form of David and Mary Margaret, everything she’d ever wanted.

Well, almost everything, she thought, looking at the empty space on the side of the bed that used to be Neal’s.

Some dreams just didn’t come true.

************

“Seriously, you too?”

The turkey special was one thing, but now Granny’s Diner was fully decked out with little fake Christmas trees sitting on each table, snowflake banners strung up everywhere, red and green napkins in the dispensers and instead of the usual 80s music that was usually playing from the jukebox, it was Michael Buble again, currently informing them in his 40s throwback style that Santa Claus was coming to town. In August.

Granny Lucas looked down over the rim of her glasses. “Oh come on, Sheriff, it’s the most exciting thing to happen to this town since-”

“-since it rained lobsters on Main Street, I know, I know,” Emma finished with a sigh. “But it’s August.”

“It’s good for business,” Granny said. “The lobster bisque is still a top seller, you know.”

Emma hadn’t been able to stomach even the thought of lobster since that fateful day. She ordered her usual grilled cheese and onion rings, not bothering to look at the menu.

“Mom, can I get the turkey special?” Henry asked.

“Knock yourself out, kid.”

Henry wanted turkey instead of a burger and fries, and the woman whose picture could appear in the dictionary under “crotchety” was humming along to Christmas music in the middle of summer while she poured coffee. Everyone in Storybrooke had lost their damn minds. Or almost everyone. Mr. Gold was the lone holdout who’d refused to allow any filming on the properties he owned, his creepy little pawn shop was the only one left on Main Street without any decorations in the windows and Regina was utterly furious with him. Not that he cared, and the standoff between the mayor and the richest man in town didn’t look like it would end before the filming did.

Granny disappeared back into the kitchen and Emma listened while Henry chatted away about camp and whatever was considered new and cool among his fellow ten year olds, which seemed to change on a daily basis and she was barely thirty but god did she feel like she was about a hundred when her son started in on TikTock trends.

“Mom, look!”

Henry’s sudden gasp and grab at her arm came a split second after the bell over the door chimed, announcing that someone had just walked in. Her back was to whoever it was, but Henry’s eyes were as big as saucers and even before she turned around in the booth Emma knew exactly who had just walked into the diner.

Killian Jones was standing just inside the door, looking around with interest. Strangers in Storybrooke always stood out, something Emma remembered well from their first few months in town, and when said stranger was a handsome man who everyone knew was the star of the biggest thing to happen to the town since the lobsters, well, all eyes were on him.

He caught sight of her, and his face lit up with a smile. All eyes were on him, and he was looking only at her while he walked over to the booth.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hi!”

It was Henry who replied to his greeting first, practically bouncing in his seat in excitement.

“Sorry to bother you, Sheriff Swan, but I was told this was the best place in town to get real American food and I was wondering if there was anything in particular I should order?”

Again it was Henry who answered, grabbing one of the menus from behind the napkin dispenser and opening it up on the table. “Oh, you have to try a milkshake. And a cheeseburger. I always get it with fries, but Mom prefers onion rings, and-”

“Whoa, slow down there,” Emma interrupted him, while Killian looked like he was stifling a laugh at Henry’s rapid-fire enthusiasm. “Mr. Jones isn’t going to order everything on the menu.”

“Call me Killian, please. And you must be Henry.”

His attention was all on her son now as he held out his hand for Henry to shake and uttered the magic words. “I heard you like Doctor Who.”

By the time Ruby came over to take his order he was sitting in the booth with them, showing a completely enthralled Henry pictures on his phone of the Doctor Who set. Ruby gave Killian a wide smile, her signature crimson lipstick perfect and one hip cocked in his direction when she pulled out her order pad and pen from her apron. Most men (and more than a few women) in Storybrooke were unable to resist Ruby’s bare midriff and wolfish grin. Killian only gave her a polite nod before looking back down at the menu and ordering a milkshake after conferring with Henry on which flavor was the best (chocolate, was Henry’s answer) and a cheeseburger with fries, Henry’s normal go-to meal. Ruby went back into the kitchen with a disappointed pout and Killian went back to telling Henry what he said were top TARDIS secrets until the food was dropped off on plates roughly the size of frisbees.

“Bloody hell,” he swore, looking a little stunned.

“There’s your real American food,” Emma smirked, picking up an onion ring from her plate and biting into it with relish.

“If I eat all this I don’t think I’ll fit back into my costume.”

Henry decided to be helpful. “Mom’ll steal some of your fries when you’re not looking.”

She rolled her eyes. “Thanks kid.”

“Steal?” Killian repeated, putting a theatrical emphasis on the word. “A fine upstanding officer would never steal, unless…why, Sheriff Swan, are you secretly a pirate?”

Henry was giggling alongside him and Emma played along with the joke, corny as it was.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she shot back.

“Perhaps I would.”

They were interrupted by two teenage girls, sharing nervous giggles as they came over to ask for Killian’s autograph and a selfie. He turned to them with that movie-star smile, signing and posing for several pictures with each. When he turned back Emma was holding one of the fries off his plate, the end already dipped in ketchup.

“Oops, how’d that get there?” she mused with faux innocence.

His smile turned to something less suitable for the Hallmark channel’s family friendly reputation as he leaned back in the booth and gave her an appraising look that she met head on while she ate the pilfered fry. She was still pretty good at nicking food when no one was looking, it was a lot more fun now than it had been when she was sixteen.

When Ruby dropped off the bill it seemed like no time had passed, but Emma noticed with a start that the diner was practically deserted, the lunch rush was clearly long over. Killian’s plate was empty, after he’d taken a few pictures to post “real American food” on his Instagram he’d dug in and eaten everything except the fries Emma had filched every time someone else had come over to ask for his autograph or a photo. It had turned into a game they all played until there was none left.

Killian got her back by taking the last onion ring from her plate, aided by her son distracting her, the little traitor. Now she knew how David felt.

“Bye Killian!” Henry said. “See you on Monday!”

During lunch he’d invited both Henry and Paige to visit the movie set on Monday after camp. Emma knew Henry was going to talk about nothing else until then. David was going to be just thrilled to hear all about it during Sunday dinner.

They all slid out of the booth and she went to grab the bill so she could take it up to the cash register at the front, only to see that it had disappeared off the table. Emma frowned, wondering if it had fallen on the floor.

“Ah,” Killian said, and he was even better at sleight of hand than she was because when she looked up she saw he had it, having lifted it without her even noticing. “Let me get this.”

Her initial reaction was to protest, it wasn’t like they’d been on a date or anything, plus it wasn’t just her grilled cheese, it was Henry’s turkey special too on the bill. He must have seen her reluctance on her face because he added, “Consider it thanks for keeping me company, I was just going to get takeaway for one and this was much more fun than eating by myself.”

“Okay,” she found herself agreeing. “Thanks.”

Granny came bustling over from behind the counter. “Hang on, Sheriff, you almost forgot these.”

She handed over two oversized candy canes, Henry snatched one and immediately unwrapped a cellophaned end, sticking it in his mouth like an old man with a cigar.

“Thanks Granny!” he beamed around his mouthful of peppermint before bounding towards the door. “See you on Monday, Killian! Don’t forget!”

“They come with the turkey special,” Granny explained in response to Emma’s questioning look. “And here’s one for our visitor, too, on the house. Come back anytime, Mr. Jones. You were very good for business today. Try the lobster bisque next.”

She handed another candy cane to Killian, looking very pleased with herself. The diner had been more crowded than usual during lunch, now that Emma thought about it, and there had definitely been a higher than average amount of teenage girls. Emma watched through narrowed eyes while Granny went back to the counter and waited until she was out of earshot.

“Take my advice,” she said to Killian, leaning in to murmur it low in his ear, “don’t try the bisque.”

“I heard that, Sheriff!”

Okay, so maybe Granny wasn’t quite out of earshot.

“I think you just made the naughty list, Swan,” Killian chuckled.

“Yeah, well, it wouldn’t be the first time.”

She smirked at his stunned look, feeling something that she hadn’t felt in a long time when she turned and headed for the door, something that made her put a little bit more of a swing in her hips than was strictly necessary and unwrapping her own candy cane as she went. Maybe it wasn’t very professional of her to flirt with him like that, especially when Granny Lucas apparently had the hearing of a woman half her age, but hey, she was off duty and he was only going to be in town for a short while. What was the harm?

The candy cane was pretty good, Emma had to admit to herself.

Hey, candy was candy, no matter what month it was.

***********

David, predictably, was less than pleased at Sunday dinner to hear about Killian’s invitation, and was even grumpier the following week when Henry was still on cloud nine after visiting a real live movie set. He got to hear all about how cool Killian was, and how Henry and Paige got to watch him film a scene while sitting in real director’s chairs, and then they got to be extras in the background and were actually going to be in the movie and wasn’t that the coolest thing ever? Everyone at camp had been so jealous.

“They’re not the only ones,” Emma said with a knowing smile, glancing over at her brother.

“I am not jealous!” David protested. His crossed arms and childish pout told a different story. “Why would I be jealous? Pass me the potatoes.”

Emma handed him the bowl and he started spooning them onto his plate with more force than was strictly necessary.

“Hey Mom?” Henry asked, oblivious to his uncle’s black mood as he took a roll from the basket Mary Margaret was offering to him, “Can I be Prince Charles for Halloween?”

“Prince Charles?” Mary Margaret repeated, putting the basket of rolls down and looking completely baffled.

“Not Prince Charles, Prince Charles,” Emma tried to explain, which only made her look even more confused. “Not the real Prince Charles, I mean. The character Killian played on Doctor Who was named Prince Charles, it was this running gag because he was from a different planet and didn’t know there was a Prince Charles here too so everyone thought he was joking when he said that was his name. Especially since he’s a lot more hand-“

She caught herself before she finished the thought and covered it up with a cough, trying to divert attention away from the fact that she’d almost just called him handsome in front of both her brother and her son. Judging by David’s rolled eyes and Mary Margaret’s raised eyebrows she wasn’t entirely successful, although thankfully Henry didn’t appear to have noticed.

“But, kid,” she continued, “Halloween costumes already? It’s only August. You’ll change your mind ten times before October.”

He shook his head. “No, I won’t, I promise! Please Mom? Please?”

“You said that last year about Iron Man, but then you wanted to be Boba Fett instead, remember?”

“This is different!”

Henry had that stubborn look on his face, the same one he had whenever he’d made his mind up about something, like which was the best Star Wars movie after Empire, (it was Rogue One) or that peas were gross (she agreed with him there), the look that Neal claimed he got from her and boy did that never fail to piss her off. But Neal was back in Boston (with Tamara, that little voice in her head oh so helpfully reminded her, the woman he said she didn’t have to worry about) and while he may have been right about where their son got that particular trait, she didn’t feel like arguing with Henry tonight, especially not so close to Christmas…

…fuck. It was August. She blamed the constant stream of Christmas music and the decorations Mary Margaret had put up already. Her Bug could only pick up the local station and it was too old (or vintage, as she preferred to call it) to have Bluetooth, so they'd arrived at the farm before dinner with the Little Drummer Boy rum-pa-pum-pumming away from the radio to find enough wireframe reindeer set up in the yard to pull Santa’s sleigh and a wreath on the door, while inside the stockings Ruth had made were hanging up on the fireplace mantle and even Fandral the golden retriever was jauntily dressed in a festive red plaid collar instead of his normal black one.

“They won’t make a costume for that,” Emma said instead of saying no outright, trying to let Henry down easy, “he’s not a big enough character.”

He frowned, looking down at his plate and chewing on his lip. She knew she was right, Target wasn’t going to have a Prince Charles costume alongside the umpteen Spidermans and Elsas.

“I could make it,” Mary Margaret offered.

Henry looked up, hope flaring bright on his face. “You could?”

“I’ve been meaning to get Ruth’s old sewing machine down from the attic to make a few, um, projects anyway, it’ll be good practice. Do you have a picture of it?

“Mom?”

He swiveled to face Emma with big, excited eyes. She had her phone sitting on the dinner table in case there was an emergency back at the station, like Mr. Gold getting another call asking if his refrigerator was running or Regina making an urgent report after catching someone littering. With a few taps she opened Instagram, going to Killian’s profile and scrolling back until she found a photo he’d posted of himself dressed in the Prince Charles costume of a long brown coat worn over a white shirt and black vest.

“It doesn’t look easy to make,” she warned, turning the screen towards Mary Margaret. Emma wasn’t the crafty type, not like her “I saw it on Pinterest!” spouting sister-in-law, but that coat seemed pretty complicated. Mary Margaret took the phone to have a closer look and squinted down at the photo, chewing her lip just like Henry.

“I’ll have to look for a pattern that I can adapt into the coat, and it’ll take a decent amount of fabric, but I should be able to copy it.”

“Yes!” Henry was bouncing in his seat, “See Mom? Aunt Mary can make it for me!”

Emma wondered if she’d ever stop getting caught by surprise every time David showed up at her house with his toolbox whenever she complained about the water pressure in the shower or the window that refused to open, or when Mary Margaret made social media-worthy cupcakes for Emma to take to the PTA meeting after she had a late shift at the station the night before and had no time (or skill) to bake herself. Her knee-jerk reaction was usually to protest, to say she could handle it herself, except she had to admit she wouldn’t be able to make anywhere near as good of a costume as Mary Margaret could make no matter which online tutorial she tried to follow.

“Okay,” she agreed, knowing she was powerless against the both of them now that they’d teamed up against her, “but, Mary Margaret, if it turns out it’s too much work for you-”

“Bah,” she interrupted. “What’s family for? Henry’s going to be the best Prince Charles in Storybrooke when I’m done.”

“He’s going to be the only Prince Charles in Storybrooke,” David pointed out. “Sure you don’t want to be Han Solo this year? I can be Chewbacca.”

“Nope!” Henry said, his ten year old mind clearly made up. Which meant he’d probably change it tomorrow, just like he’d gone from insisting that he had to be Iron Man one day to Boba Fett the next last year, but for now, her son was going to be a two-episode character that no one except die hard Doctor Who fans would recognize for Halloween.

David continued to sulk in his chair and stab at his food while Mary Margaret handed the phone back to Emma. It was still open on the photo from Killian’s Instagram and when she looked down she saw the heart was now filled in, meaning Mary Margaret had liked the months-old post.

Crap.

She narrowed her eyes at her sister-in-law, who was calmly serving herself from a snowflake patterned bowl that normally didn’t appear until December. For someone who dressed and acted like a 1950s schoolteacher with her pastel sweater sets and sunny, glass-is-half-full optimism, she had a suspiciously satisfied look on her face.

“Pass the salt, please,” she asked mildly, meeting Emma’s gaze over Henry’s head. “It’s certainly a nice…costume, isn’t it, Emma?”

Yeah, liking Killan’s post was no accident.

************

If there was one place in town that Emma would have bet actual cash on not giving in to the red-and-green wave that had spread through Storybrooke like a zombie apocalypse, only with a horde of gingerbread men instead of the walking dead, it was The Rabbit Hole.

Nope.

The shitty dive bar atmosphere of mismatched glassware and pool tables with faded felt was somehow even shittier with one of those white artificial trees set up in the corner and old-school multicolored lights strung haphazardly around the walls. At least there wasn’t any Christmas music playing—Emma may or may not have looked up flights to Canada one afternoon at the station while plotting how to murder Michael Buble and make it look like a tragic accident—classic rock thumped in the background instead when she walked in the door.

Henry was spending his monthly weekend in Boston with Neal and Ruby had dragged Emma out of her empty house to hit the town. In Storybrooke the pickings were slim, it wasn’t like there were any wine bars or clubs, so they went down to The Rabbit Hold alongside everyone else who wanted to blow off some steam on a Saturday night. Which included a bunch of the movie people, Emma saw the seven Teamsters pounding back beers together at a table and Merida throwing back shots as if they were water, while Arthur was hitting on anything in a skirt. Including Emma herself when they first arrived, which…no. Even though he was a good looking guy and would be far from the first asshole she ever slept with, she did not need to get laid that badly.

“You know it’s August, right?” she said to Ruby, pointing at the headband she was wearing. It had reindeer antlers. She was also wearing a short, sparkly red dress that would fit in perfectly at a Christmas party, but then again she wore red year round anyway.

“So? Lighten up, Emma, you’re giving off serious Grinch vibes, you know.”

She stuck out her tongue and blew a raspberry at Ruby, which probably proved her point. Emma had to admit she was in a grinchy mood, with Henry gone and the house so much quieter without him there.

“You need a drink, and a dick, and not necessarily in that order.”

One thing about Ruby Lucas that anyone who spent more than five minutes with her learned was that while she may live in a storybook town that looked like the very definition of family friendly, she talked like she was starring in her own show on HBO.

“Let’s start with the drink,” Emma said, steering Ruby towards the bar and not having much hope of finishing with a dick.

The thing about small towns where everyone knew each other was that...it was a small town and everyone knew each other. One night stands were super awkward when you had to pull them over for speeding a week later after they never called you back, and she didn’t need Mary Margaret to start wedding planning after hearing from Ashley at the grocery store that her boyfriend Sean had been told by his friend Philip that Emma had left the bar the night before with someone they’d all known all their lives. So she nursed her Sam Adams (you could take the girl out of Boston, but you couldn’t take Boston out of the girl) for as long as possible and watched Ruby work her mojo instead of looking for someone to give her the “D” - as Ruby so unsubtly put it. Not that Ruby herself was leaning that way either, since she ended up doing shots with Merida and from the way they were looking at each other, leaning in close to speak in the other’s ear even though it wasn’t that loud, “friendly” touches to hands and arms and shoulders that lasted a little too long...yeah. Ruby wasn’t going home alone.

Well, she did like red. That extended to redheads, apparently.

“So...looks like your friend is having a Highland fling tonight.”

Emma looked over as Killian Jones sat down next to her in the seat Ruby had abandoned to go visit Scotland instead. He tipped his glass towards the pair, Ruby was now sitting on Merida’s lap with her dress riding dangerously high up her thighs and Emma really hoped she wouldn’t have to arrest her best friend for indecent exposure.

Again.

“I guess so,” she drawled, waiting to see if he was going to leer and make some gross comment about how hot two girls were together. He didn’t though, he just finished his drink and waved at the bartender.

“Another rum, neat, and one of whatever the lady is having.”

He looked good, that knife’s edge jaw covered with dark scruff several hours past a five o’clock shadow, his blue eyes bright even in the dimly lit room. Blue eyes that were fixed firmly on her, making Emma warmer than the liquor or the balmy summer night.

Ruby and Merida disappeared together at some point, Emma wasn’t really sure when. She drank the beer Killian bought her, and then bought him a drink, because she was an adult with a job and her own credit card and he didn’t know Philip or Sean or Ashley.

Especially because he didn’t know Philip or Sean or Ashley.

“Need a police escort home?” she asked, when his glass was empty and she knew the burn between her thighs wouldn’t be satisfied with her own hand tonight. Technically she was off the clock, but it was her sworn duty to protect and serve the people of the town, and that included handsome visiting actors with accents more delicious than candy canes or pumpkin spice lattes. It was just hitting midnight when they left The Rabbit Hole into a clear night of sea breeze coming in off the ocean and the stars above guiding their way like the sailors coming home to the lovers left behind on land. There was heat in the air, heat between them in the heavy-lidded glances they shared that were thick with anticipation, heat in the rum Emma wanted to taste directly from his mouth instead of a glass. She pulled him to her by his necklace, fingers wrapping in the cool metal of the chain and her back hitting the wall behind them.

The music from the bar was still faintly audible when their lips met, bass notes echoing like the beat of her pulse as she felt the kiss all the way to her toes. He caged her in place, hand sliding to the back of her neck and she met him more than halfway, her hips pressing against the bulge she could feel in his tight jeans and sliding her tongue along his reddened bottom lip. She relished his shiver when she grazed it with her teeth.

Killian pulled back, his eyes a glittering line through dark lashes and his voice a rasp of liquor and lust.

“Swan, are you sure?”

Emma really, really shouldn’t be doing this for a number of really, really good reasons, she had a kid, she had to oversee the rest of the movie shoot, Regina would probably kill her if she found out, literally, not figuratively, but, fuck it.

“Yes.”

He was staying in a house that the production company had arranged for him, he explained, a giant Victorian affair with gingerbread trim and one of those wide wrap-around porches that was made for a swing. Killian seemed slightly embarrassed when she couldn’t stop herself from gaping at it, although who could blame her, the house had a damn turret, for fuck’s sake. He fumbled with the lock and muttered that it was far too big for one person but it had been on the market for ages with no takers so they got a good deal on a short term rental. She followed him in when he finally got the door open, catching a glimpse of a kitchen that would have Mary Margaret squeeing over the vintage appliances and a giant bay window before he was on her, mouth latching onto her neck and all thoughts of her sister-in-law and architectural details flew out of her head. Strong hands reached under her thighs, lifting her up so that her legs wrapped around his hips. The line of his erection pressed against the damp lace under her dress with the movement, making them both shudder.

Killian carried, actually carried, her up the stairs, like she was a heroine from Bridgerton or something and not just a blonde he picked up at a bar, and damn if that wasn’t even more of a turn on. They tumbled through a door and onto a bed, her ankles crossing behind his back while he continued to grind between her thighs, his tongue in her mouth and his hands now planted rather firmly on her ass. She didn’t mind that at all and was eager to get her hands on him too, grabbing the hem of his T-shirt to find bare skin that was scorching to the touch when she dragged it up his sides. He had to go up on his knees on the bed to get it off completely, pulling it over his head and tossing it to the side as soon as his arms were free. His chest was dusted with a generous amount of dark hair, it turned into a line that went down his stomach and disappeared into the waistband of his jeans with a tantalizing hint of the treasure that lay at the end of the trail. There was something so delightfully male about it, and the noise he made when she raked her nails through the fine mat was even better.

Her dress was next to go, and while she hadn’t gone out with the expectation of getting laid she had worn something underneath that definitely meant she wasn’t opposed to the idea, lace-trimmed and sheer in all the right places and would look damn good on Killian’s bedroom floor. He pulled a bra strap down with his teeth and swirled his tongue around her nipple, bringing it to a tight pebble in his mouth while his fingers worked at the button of his jeans.

“You have condoms, right?” she asked, voice more than a little breathless and her back arching to give him better access.

“Yes,” he answered, flicking his tongue one more time over the tight peak before his dark head came up and he winked at her. “But we’ve got time before we need them.”

He leaned forward then and kissed her, far more softly this time. The hookups she’d had after her breakup with Neal had been more about scratching the itch, getting off and getting out as soon as possible. She’d almost forgotten it could be like this instead. Killian kept his word and took his time, kissing a line down her neck and back to her breasts, lavishing each one in turn with licks and sucks that had her flushed right down to her navel. When he hooked his thumbs in the lace clinging to her hips and dragged it down she was more than ready, slick with arousal under his fingers while he braced himself on one arm to reach between her legs. He slid up and down in a friction that had her gripping his shoulders and holding on against the wave that was poised to drag her under. When he slid two fingers inside and crooked them just right she met his eyes for a moment, the blue swallowed in a dark storm of desire, before her head tipped back helplessly into his pillow and she fell over the edge with a gasp.

“Fucking gorgeous,” he whispered, more to himself than to her. Another kiss was pressed to her lips while she lay panting for air and then he reached over to the bedside table and pulled open a drawer, rummaging around blindly inside until he found the box of condoms. Emma saw that it was unopened, which made her wonder if she was the first woman he’d slept with since he arrived in town. Not that it really mattered, this was just a one time thing, but still.

His boxer briefs were tented with his erection. She sat up and slid her palm over it while he was tearing a condom off the string and his hips jerked into her hand. A smirk played at her lips as she did it again, before toying with the waistband and tracing the lines of his abs with the tip of her nail.

“You said we had time, right?”

His accent was thicker, rougher, when he answered. “I did, didn’t I?”

Emma peeled the cotton down his thighs and pushed him onto his back, plucking the condom from his unresisting hand for later and laying it on the sheets next to his hips. As late as it already was, she wasn’t ready for the night to end just yet. They had time, time for her to lick a teasing stripe up the length of him and watch the muscles in his stomach contract at the sensation, time to take him in her mouth and continue the tease with her tongue. Each gasp and groan that followed made her feel sexy, gorgeous, desired, all the things she didn’t usually have time for in her daily life. When she finally released him her was rock hard and the second the condom was rolled on he dragged her onto his lap, a wrecked look on his face. It was just the right side of rough when he thrust up, hands tight on her hips and breath hot on her neck. His beard rasped against her skin while the thick drag of his erection rocked inside her, she was going to feel it in the morning and she relished the thought.

They found a rhythm, Emma riding him to the tempo only they could hear, rolling her hips and squeezing around him. The bed creaked with the movement and his deep groans mixed with her own higher-pitched cries. He filled her on each stroke, it felt amazing and yet it wasn’t quite enough to bring her off again. Killian seemed to sense it when she started to falter, chasing the high that stayed just out of reach. He tightened his arms around her back and rolled them, settling on top of her and giving a heavy thrust that made her toes curl and her back arch. Her eyes squeezed shut and one of his hands found hers, lacing their fingers together against the mattress and holding tight. The other lifted her knee and changed the angle just enough to give her that last little push she needed to come a second time.

Killian followed her a few moments later, burying his face in her neck and his back slick with sweat as he shuddered through his climax.

“That was,” he breathed, clearly too blissed out to even finish the thought.

“Yeah,” she agreed.

It had been the best sex she’d had in a long time, blowing every other one-night stand completely out of the water. She had no illusions that it was more, he was only in town for a short time and it was all she wanted, anyway.

“Does Granny’s serve breakfast?”

The sudden question from the pleasant weight pinning her to the bed caught her off guard. “What, like right now?”

Killian chuffed quietly into her shoulder. “No, it’s just that I’ve got nought but some tea and toast to offer you in the morning, and I think I’ve finally finished digesting that cheeseburger by now.”

That made her snort, remembering the look on his face when he’d first encountered Granny’s idea of a portion size. It took her another second to realize that he expected her to not only stay the night, but to stay for breakfast. It was sweet, but-

There was always a but.

But if she went to Granny’s Diner with him in the morning, wearing the same dress she’d worn to The Rabbit Hole the night before, the whole town would know they’d slept together before the lunch rush. She should make an excuse to leave, find her underwear, and go home.

Killian kissed her neck and got out of bed, disappearing into an ensuite bathroom. She’d tell him she had the early morning shift at the station, she’d tell him Henry was coming home and she had to go, she’d tell him something, anything, and leave…

The combination of alcohol and incredible sex was making her limbs heavy and the prospect of having to put her bra back on was about as appealing at the moment as a budget meeting with Mayor Mills. Plus his bed was so comfy, king-sized and covered in pillows that she wanted to bury herself in.

Emma was almost asleep when Killian climbed back into bed, one arm snaking around her waist and pulling her so that she was spooned against him with her back to his front. Lips brushed against her ear and he whispered, “Goodnight, love.”

Just before she drifted off completely she felt a pang of regret, that she couldn’t go out for breakfast with him in the morning or go home with him again at night no matter how good looking he was or how good he was in bed.

Or how good he was with her son.

It was just a one time thing.

********

“A grilled cheese and onion rings, right Emma?”

“Yes, thank you Ruby.”

Ruby jotted the order down on her pad and turned to Henry. “And for you, kiddo?”

“No turkey special?”

She rested a hand on her hip and shook her head. “Fraid not. Back to the old menu now, I can do a burger, or the lobster bisque.”

Emma suppressed a shudder. Luckily Henry wasn’t much interested in lobster unless they were raining down from the sky, and he ordered a cheeseburger with fries instead. In addition to the old menu Granny’s Diner was back to the regular decor, the napkins were white, the mini trees were gone, and the jukebox was playing Top 40 hits from the Reagan administration instead of Christmas music. No more Michael Buble, no one was wearing Santa hats, or wishing each other happy holidays, the Bean & Brew was back to promoting iced coffees instead of pumpkin spice lattes and everything was back to normal in Storybrooke.

Just what Emma had been waiting for.

Henry started chattering away about whatever was currently going viral, something that was of vital importance to any self-respecting ten year old. Emma listened with half an ear, waiting for their order. Ruby brought over Henry’s milkshake and her hot chocolate with cinnamon. It was slightly cooler now than it had been a few weeks ago, but it was still almost seventy degrees out. She’d just been in the mood for one.

“Crap, I forgot to add the cinnamon. Sorry Emma, I’ll go grab it.”

Before she left the bell over the door rang, announcing a new arrival to the diner. Emma’s back was to it so she couldn’t see who it was at first, it was Ruby who looked over first and a smile broke over her face.

“Hey, look who just came back to town.”

Emms felt her heartbeat quicken and a flush rise in her cheeks that had nothing to do with the heat coming from her drink. Henry was grinning and waving like a maniac and she took a breath, eyes fluttering shut for a moment. When she opened them and turned around she immediately locked eyes with the man who’d just walked in.

“Oh,” she said, slumping down in her seat and unable to stop the wave of disappointment washing over her. “It’s August.”

*********

“Merry Christmas!”

Emma smiled and took the festive red cup from the barista, a young man wearing an elf hat with his green apron.

“Thanks. Merry Christmas to you too.”

She stepped outside of the packed Starbucks after adding an extra dash of cinnamon from the condiment bar to her gingerbread hot chocolate, beanie pulled down over her ears and her jacket zipped up to her chin. The cold still nipped at her cheeks and her breath immediately fogged the air, it was December, after all.

Fortifying herself against the chill with a sip of her drink, she joined the throng packing the sidewalk. The skyscrapers above, the massive crowds, the Starbucks and takeout places on every corner, New York City was a far cry from Storybrooke.

Henry’s list of exciting things to happen in their sleepy little town now included the day when the FBI had arrived without warning to arrest Mr. Gold. It turned out that the pawn shop owner and richest man in Storybrooke had made his money years prior by defrauding investors in a scheme where he claimed to be able to create gold from inexpensive materials, like lab-created diamonds, that was indistinguishable from the real thing. In truth, it was all a scam and the supposed gold was fake. By the time his investors found out they’d been fleeced, he’d taken the money and run. “Gold” wasn’t even his real name, he’d chosen that as his alias and from Emma’s acquaintance with him she was sure he was probably feeling very smug and satisfied with himself over his not so clever little joke. Storybrooke had been his hiding spot with his young trophy wife and stolen cash, the townspeople none the wiser until a literal SWAT team showed up.

Emma had caught him before he crossed the town line, trying to flee in a car that had just been reported stolen to the local radio station instead of the sheriff’s department. She’d been completely unaware of the special task force that was raiding his house at the same time, a group of highly trained agents who didn’t look too happy that it was a small town cop who’d actually apprehended the man who was fifth on their top ten most wanted list when she brought him in.

Gold had stolen a lot of money. A lot.

As the arresting officer she’d had to come to New York City, the scene of Gold’s crime, to give a formal statement in person at the FBI’s field office, answer the same questions over and over again about a hundred times, sign more paperwork than the Storybrooke Sheriff’s Department generated in six months, and accept her share of the reward money.

Yes Virginia, there was reward money.

Enough to pay off her student loans, put a sizable chunk into Henry’s college fund, splurge on a killer leather jacket that she’d been eyeing online forever and looked damn good in, if she did say so herself, and buy some very nice Christmas presents for the people in her life. She had several things already stashed back in her hotel room for Mary Margaret and David, although her idiot brother was still in the doghouse with her for the little stunt he’d pulled. Bound and determined to prove he was Henry’s cool uncle (never mind the fact that he was Henry’s only uncle) he’d let her ten year old son drive his truck.

Right into a town mailbox.

She should have bought him a lump of coal instead of AirPods. Luckily Regina was too busy gloating over Gold’s arrest and the defeat of her longtime nemesis to notice the wilful destruction of town property before Graham had it removed. Emma, on the other hand, had threatened both David and Henry with a weekend in side by side cells at the station with nothing but bread and water if they ever did it again. Technically that was a misuse of police authority, but considering she had a citation from the FBI with a fancy seal and everything now posted above her desk she felt she could get away with it.

David’s gift was done, Mary Margaret’s was done (along with a few gifts for the new addition to the family that had been tearfully announced at Thanksgiving, Baby Boy or Girl Nolan would be making his or her appearance right around Easter) and while she’d picked up several things for Henry, there was one item on his list she was still trying to snag.

Gingerbread hot chocolate in hand, she crossed 34th street and walked into Macy’s to hit up the special Lego pop-up holiday store inside. It carried several sets that weren’t available anywhere else, not even online, including a limited edition Star Wars themed one that Henry had declared to be the coolest Lego set ever. He wasn’t the only one, it was such a hot ticket item among Lego enthusiasts that the store only put out a few at completely random times of the day to discourage scalpers and they always sold out immediately. There were even Twitter accounts solely devoted to posting when they were available, Emma had followed them all in desperation but had no luck so far. Now she was down to her last night in New York before heading back to Storybrooke and she was going to give it one more try even though she had little hope of finding one.

But for Henry, it was worth a shot.

Like every other store Macy’s was completely done up for the holidays, with garlands of tinsel and greenery draped everywhere, giant stars hanging from the ceiling, and Paul McCartney simply having a wonderful Christmastime over the loudspeakers. The entrance to the pop-up itself was flanked by two six-foot tall nutcrackers made of Lego, and inside there was a Lego Christmas tree that everyone stopped at to take photos. As impressive as it was, Emma was on a mission and she bypassed all the tourists taking selfies to make her way straight to the Star Wars section, feeling a bit like Princess Leia when she knelt down by the life-sized Lego R2-D2 to check the lowest shelf just in case one had been shoved back there.

Hey only hope was dashed when all she found was a line of Baby Yodas.

“Excuse me,” she straightened up and snagged one of the employees walking by in his “Merry and Br(icks)ight” T-shirt, “are there any of those limited edition May The Force Be With You sets out right now?”

He shook his head, juggling an armful of Imperial tie fighters. “No, sorry, we’re already sold out of those for the day. You can try again tomorrow.”

She couldn’t, but she didn’t say it. “Okay, thanks.”

It had always been a longshot, but she couldn’t help the stab of dejection. Some part of her had thought that maybe, just maybe, she’d miraculously be able to find one for her son and make his Christmas dream come true. The employee walked off and she gave one final, resigned look at the display of Millenium Falcons before she left the store too, just in case.

“Excuse me, miss.”

Emma turned around at the voice to find another employee standing behind her, and older man with white hair and glasses. He looked a bit familiar, but before she could figure out how her gaze dropped to the box he was holding. She recognized it on sight even though she could hardly believe what she was seeing, it was the limited edition, impossible to find even on eBay, May The Force Be With You Lego set, number one on Henry’s Christmas list.

“I couldn’t help but overhear, is this what you were looking for?”

She took it from him, almost too stunned to speak. “Yes,” she managed to squeak out, sounding like a little kid, “yes, this is the one my son wants. But I thought it was sold out?”

“Ah,” he smiled. “There was just this one left in the back, I’m glad I was able to grab it for you. Merry Christmas to you and your son.”

“Thank you. Merry Christmas to you too.”

She turned the box over carefully in a bit of a daze, double and triple checking to make sure it was really the right one and she wasn’t seeing things. When she looked up to thank the employee again, he was already gone.

Huh. Weird.

On her way to the checkout she got stopped three separate times by people offering to buy the set off her, it was that hot. It was also ridiculously expensive, like holy shit, how much kind of expensive, but she didn’t even flinch at the total when she swiped her credit card. It was for Henry, and that was all that mattered.

The temperature had dropped some more by the time she left Macy’s and she wanted nothing more than to go back to her hotel and order some room service, since she was on official business all her expenses were paid for and an overpriced grilled cheese and a glass of wine from the mini-bar followed by a hot bath were calling to her, but she had one final thing to do in New York before she left.

When Henry had found out about her trip he’d been incredibly excited, which surprised her because she’d been expecting him to be disappointed that she had to leave so close to Christmas and would miss out on both the Town Hall carol sing and David and Mary Margaret’s annual ugly Christmas sweater party. It turned out he was so thrilled because the nonstop holiday movie marathon that had been going on in their house all month thanks to Disney Plus had included numerous viewings of Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. Henry had all these grand plans for her trip, that she was going to stay in a lavish suite at the Plaza Hotel, visit Duncan’s Toy Chest, and be driven around in a limousine, just like Kevin McCallister did when he got separated from his family, again.

Right.

She was staying at a nondescript Hilton in midtown, was taking cabs instead of limos, and had to break the news to Henry that the toy store in the movie was fictional.

There was one key location though that wasn’t either insanely expensive or non-existent and she hailed a cab, keeping a tight hold on her shopping bag as she slid into the backseat and told the driver where she wanted to go. He pulled away from the curb and Emma watched the streets go by from the window, storefronts all decorated and a kaleidoscope of lights reflecting on the glass.

“The WYNC-FM weather forecast is brought to you by the Hallmark Channel, where every night is Christmas Eve! Tune in tonight for Mistletoe and Memories, a brand new movie about a secret, second-chance romance at the holidays! ”The latest weather forecast has changed again and most of the Eastern seaboard can expect to see a white Christmas this year, with snow expected on the twenty-fourth through the twenty-sixth. Maine in particular will receive several inches spread over the holidays, especially in the coastal parts of the state. And to celebrate, here’s the time-honored classic itself.”

The radio station started playing White Christmas, Bing Crosby’s gravelly voice drifting out of the speakers. Henry would be happy to hear there was going to be snow on Christmas, while it had definitely been cold and blustery in Storybrooke, there hadn’t been any snow yet. He’d asked if the town could get one of those machines they used to make the movie and have Christmas all year round.

Emma didn’t find the idea nearly as unappealing as she might have a few months ago.

“We’re here, miss.”

After paying the fare she stepped out and was immediately looked up. The famous Christmas tree at Rockefeller Centre was a lot taller in person than it was on screen in Home Alone 2, she had to crane her neck to see all the way up to the star on top. It was covered in lights and shone bright against the night sky, presiding over the open plaza below. At the foot of it was a skating rink, and despite the near freezing temperatures it was still full of people gliding back and forth on the ice. There were tourists come to sightsee milling about, couples bundled up against the cold walking arm-in-arm, hot dog carts and souvenir stands and the whole scene was all very quintessentially New York.

Back home in Storybrooke they had their own tree-lighting ceremony on a much smaller scale at the Town Hall a few weeks prior to kickoff the season, followed by the “Gala Premiere,” as Regina called it, of Storybrooke’s very own Christmas movie. The gala premiere consisted of a screen and a projector set up in the high school auditorium, hot drinks catered by the Bean & Brew, and a rented popcorn machine. David and Mary Margaret came, and Ashley and Sean, and Paige and her dad, and a very, very excited Henry with Emma in tow, all to watch the bookish small-town girl played by Christina Bell fall for the visiting, mysterious Englishman played by Killian Jones, against a backdrop of fake snow and careful editing to hide the fact that it had been filmed in August. They’d renamed the movie, instead of A Midnight Clear it was now A Count for Christmas, because the big reveal was that Killian’s character was actually a count.

Henry was already planning next year’s Halloween costume based on it. As David had predicted, no one had known who he was supposed to be in the Prince Charles costume Mary Margaret had painstakingly made when he went out trick-or-treating with Paige in her much more recognizable Scarlet Witch outfit from Target. But Henry hadn’t cared, not when the official Doctor Who Instagram account itself had reposted the picture Emma had taken of him all dressed up.

She was pretty sure she had Killian to thank for that.

So next year her son was going to be a count instead of a prince. The scene where he and Paige were extras in the background had lasted less than a minute, and only the back of his head was briefly visible on screen, but in true Mike Wazowski fashion none of that had mattered to him and he’d proclaimed to anyone who’d listen, Ruby, the mailman, his dentist, Pongo the Dalmatian, that he’d actually been in a movie!

It was cheesy, and sappy, and sentimental, and all the things Emma swore up and down she wasn’t into.

Maybe she was, a little bit.

A clip from it even went viral, of a rather smoldering look Killian had shot to Christina that was very un-Hallmark like and more suited to something on HBO. It blew up on TikTok, to the point where Killian had even been interviewed by several media outlets and gained over a hundred thousand Instagram followers. Emma was happy for his success (and maybe, just maybe a tiny bit jealous that the look hadn’t been directed at her), although she wasn’t as thrilled as Regina, who actually put out a press release about Storybrooke’s role in the clip.

The selfie Emma took with the Rockefeller Christmas tree behind her wasn’t going to go viral when she posted it on Instagram, adding the caption “not so lost in New York”. That was okay,

it was for Henry and his love of Christmas movies, belief in superheroes and magic and all the good things in the world that she might have forgotten about without him in her life.

There was a busker in the plaza in fingerless gloves and a Santa hat, playing the guitar. Naturally, it was a Christmas song. Even though she’d only planned to grab the photo with the tree and then head back to her hotel, she found herself staying to listen.

Emma recognized the irony of it, after all her complaining back in August about the non-stop Christmas music that drove her to secretly plot how to take out the three worst offenders, Josh Groban, Mariah Carey, and Michael Buble (he was Canadian, so it involved a hockey stick and maple syrup) she’d come around and actually didn’t mind the acoustic version of All I Want For Christmas Is You the busker was strumming. A small group had gathered around to listen and when he finished, she clapped along with them. His guitar case was open on the ground by his feet for donations and a few people tossed in some coins and small bills.

She dropped in a fifty, with the reward money safely deposited in her bank account she could afford to spread some extra Christmas cheer to a stranger. His eyes absolutely lit up when he saw it and she smiled to herself.

“Thank you everyone, I hope you’re all having a lovely evening tonight,” he said to the crowd. “Are there any requests?”

The question was directed at her and there was one song, in particular, that immediately sprang to mind.

“Do you know It Came Upon a Midnight Clear?”

He thought to himself for a moment, plucking a few experimental chords on his guitar. Then he found it, and music filled the air again. As far as Christmas songs went it was softer than a lot of the other, more popular ones, it was wistful, with just a hint of melancholy but ending on a hopeful note. Even though the title of the Hallmark movie had been changed, they kept a scene where Christina and Killian’s characters had to meet up at midnight to break into the library and find the stolen deed to Killian’s ancestral estate that proved he was the rightful heir so he could claim his title. The song had played while snow fell around them as they opened the book of fairytales where the deed had been hidden and found it at last.

Emma had heard Merida cursing at the snow machine with insults that got increasingly more Scottish when it kept malfunctioning the day they filmed the scene, even the seven Teamsters were shocked by how colorful some of them were, and that asshole Arthur had been in a giant snit by the delay and was even more insufferable than usual. But it all came together in the end and watching the final result in the darkened Storybrooke High gym with Henry beside her staring in slack-jawed awe at the screen like it was Avengers Endgame, she had to admit it was worth it.

Movie magic, as Henry called it.

“Emma? Emma, are you here? SWAN!”

The voice cut through the music and the crowd, rising above them all and she felt herself frown, turning in a circle to look for whoever the hell it was who was calling her name. She was alone in the middle of New York City, hundreds of miles away from home.

A man pushed his way through a knot of tourists clustered around one of the hot dog carts and came to a halt several feet away as he caught sight of her. Emma froze on the spot, too shocked by the unexpected sight in front of her to do anything except stare as the music and the crowd and everything else faded away.

It was Killian Jones.

She blinked.

He was still there.

Dressed in a black puffer coat with a scarf around his neck but his head bare against the winter chill. His dark hair was longer than it was the last time she saw him back in Storybrooke the day after filming wrapped, a lock almost fell into his eyes and it curled around the tips of his ears in the winter breeze. He looked good and he looked happy, smiling bright as he crossed the last bit of distance between them.

“Fancy meeting you here, Deputy Sheriff Swan.”

“What? How?” she sputtered, not quite believing he was real. “Killian?”

“I saw your Instagram post.”

She saw now that he had his phone in one gloved hand and when he held it up, the photo she’d just posted was displayed on the screen. Her own phone suddenly vibrated inside her jacket and when she pulled it out, she saw a notification that officialkillianjones had liked her new post.

“I came to see if I could find you,” he explained, which didn’t exactly clear up her confusion.

“You came to find me…from London? Did you Apparate here, or something?”

“No,” he chuckled, “alas, I’m only a Muggle. No, I’ve been in New York for a few days now, I’ve been auditioning for a new TV series and I just got out of a meeting at the production office over there when your post popped up on my phone.”

He pointed across the plaza at one of the office buildings that surrounded it and she followed the motion, registering what he’d just said.

“You’re auditioning for a new TV show? That’s great!”

Was that a bit of a blush on his cheeks when he ducked his head or was it just red from the cold?

“Yeah, the meeting was actually to tell me I got the part. It was this whole last minute thing, they’ve been trying to full the role for months but couldn’t find anyone they liked, and then when that scene from A Count for Christmas went viral they contacted my agent to see if I was interested. So, I guess I have your lovely town to thank for helping me land it.”

“Oh, wow. Really?”

Henry was going to flip when she told him. He loved all that behind the scenes stuff and would be so proud that it was Storybrooke’s very own movie that was responsible for Killian getting the part.

Heck, she was kinda proud too.

“Really,” he winked. “I’ll have to thank everyone else in person, when we start filming.”

He couldn’t possibly mean…? She met his blue gaze and saw how intently he was looking at her, as if gauging her reaction.

“Start filming?” she asked, “In Storybrooke?”

He turned a bit sheepish, reaching up to scratch behind one ear. “Yeah, they also told me in the last meeting that they just settled on the filming location and signed the contract. Apparently your mayor put together a very impressive and persuasive proposal last week. Frankly, I think they were too intimidated by her to say no.”

Regina had been in a suspiciously good mood lately, but Emma had chalked that up to Gold’s arrest and to winning the town gingerbread house competition for a record-breaking fifth year in a row. Legitimately, too, even she had to admit Regina’s gingerbread castle was pretty dang impressive.

“So, you’re coming back to town,” she said, slowly, and quickly added, “for your TV show.”

“Looks like,” he agreed. “For at least six months of filming. Maybe longer.”

Killian was going to be staying in Storybrooke for at least six months. The official coolest person ever to set foot in it, according to Henry, and the man she hadn’t been able to get out of her head was coming back.

“Good.”

The single word that fell from her lips grew between them in the air with the promise of something more, something new and unexpected and exciting. Emma didn’t know where it was going to lead, but she was willing to find out.

“I’m sorry, I’ve been nattering on all about myself and I haven’t even asked, what are you doing in New York? Is Henry here with you? His Halloween costume was incredible, by the way.”

She shook her head with a laugh, “No, Henry’s back in Storybrooke with my brother and sister-in-law. As for why I’m here, that’s kind of a long story.”

“I’ve got time,” he said. “Tell you what, why don’t I buy you a drink and you can tell me all about it. There’s a lovely little bar in the lobby of my hotel that does a great hot buttered rum. What do you say, Swan?”

She would say that hot buttered rum and a hot as fuck guy who was about to move to her small little town both sounded like Christmas had just come early.

“Lead the way.”

He offered her his arm like the count he’d played in the movie. She looped her hand through it and they started over to a waiting line of taxis on the other side of the square.

“What hotel are you staying at?” she asked.

“Oh, it’s the Plaza.”

Emma halted mid-step. He was staying at the Plaza?

“Seriously?”

Killian looked down at her, brows knitting together in a frown at her reaction. “Yes? The network put me up there, I understand it’s rather famous?

“Yeah, it is, it’s just, um, have you seen Home Alone 2?”

He made a face. “Once or twice when I was a child, I think. Now don’t go telling the Hallmark people this, but, truth be told, my deepest, darkest secret is that I don’t really like Christmas movies.”

Her shoulders silently shook with mirth, thinking of that interview he did post TikTok blowup where he’d absolutely gushed about them. He really was a damn good actor.

“Well, your secret’s safe with me. Although, really, they’re not so bad.”

The star on top of the Rockefeller Centre Christmas tree winked in the rearview mirror when they climbed into the backseat of a cab and started to drive away, Killian’s arm wrapping around her shoulder like it was meant to be there.

Yeah, Emma decided, Christmas movies were alright.

**********

Henry was thrilled when she came home for Christmas with both the most coveted Lego set on the planet and Killian Jones. He couldn’t leave the country while his work permit for the new TV show was being processed, and she wasn’t going to leave him all alone on Christmas.

David was less than pleased when she brought Killian over for Christmas Day dinner at the farm, although he hid it behind a smile and a handshake while Mary Margaret immediately fussed over their last-minute guest and Fandral the golden retriever ran circles around them.

Emma just hugged her brother and whispered in his ear, “This is payback for letting my ten year old son drive. Merry Christmas.”

#captain swan #captain swan fic #cs ff #cs fic #my fic #(yes there's smut in this)#merry christmas ya filthy animals #and a happy new year

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donteattheappleshook · 1 year

Text

Barefoot in the wildest winter... a captain swan Christmas AU

Summary:

She wasn’t supposed to come back. It had been a stupid plan, thinking she could get in and out of Storybrooke without anyone knowing she was here. Just catch the skip, bring him in and go back to Boston without her brother finding out that she’d lied about not being able to come home for Christmas like she did every year. There’s some kind of cosmic joke being made at her expense. There has to be for this day and this storm to have led her here of all places, on tonight of all nights.The walk to the building feels all too familiar and she struggles to push back the memories of the last time she was here as she works up the nerve to make her way up the stairs, to knock on the door. There’s still time to run. “Swan?” “Hey, Killian.”

Rated M (E?)

Merry Christmas @killiansprincss ! It’s me, not the problem this time but your Secret Santa 🎅

I’ve SO enjoyed getting to know you over the last few weeks and getting to talk CS, Christmas and Taylor Swift! 🥰

I hope you like this little story I’ve written you for the @cssecretsanta2020 I tried to fit in as many of your favorites as I could: soft Killian, forced proximity/only one bed, fluff/smut/angst (with a happy ending of course), and a little nod to some favorite holiday movies, a splash of favorite side characters and scenes, and (obviously) a little inspiration from the queen of love songs herself

And a hundred thousand million thank yous to @the-darkdragonfly who saved this fic when it went off the rails and made it not terrible <3 It never would have come together without you holding my hand through all of it.

Read on Ao3 were my italics work!

❄️❄️❄️

It’s not that bad.

It’s just a little snow.

The Bug is reliable and she’s got winter tires.

She’ll be fine.

Shit, she just missed her turn. They need more street lights around here - the snow covering the signs doesn’t help either. She ducks her head, trying to see better, looking for any landmarks she recognizes. Emma thought she knew Storybrooke off by heart, but it seems a decade away has left some of her recollection hazy.

The snow had come out of nowhere, blanketing the ground in the amount of time it took her to walk in and out of the Sheriff’s station, the flurries massive and wet as they hit her windshield. What little light her headlights manage to shine through the dark is blinded by angry streams of flakes, falling furiously against them in the harsh wind, the consistent rattling noise unnerving.

She used to wish for winters like this, town blanketed in snowfall, schools closed and days spent hiding out with friends. ‘Here.’ A gift pushed awkwardly into her hand, an embarrassed smile, flakes swirling around a little version of the town they both lived in. ‘Now you’ll always have snow.’ Now she just needs to get away. The magic is gone. No more dreams of white Christmases.

She can see the water - she thinks - to her left. There’s a road along the shore, one that leads out of town in a more round-about way, and so she makes the next left turn she can, weaving through the narrow, empty streets until she finds herself on Misthaven road with a triumphant cheer. Okay. She’s got this. This way leads right out of town and towards he highway and she can -

Emma slams her foot down on the break, eyes suddenly reflecting bright in her headlights and the car swerves on the slick ground. She doesn’t have time to see what it was, cursing as the bug swings frantically from side to side, fighting with the wheel to get it back under control as it skids towards the ditch piled high with snow. But there’s no stopping it.

The impact is jarring, her whole body rocking forward with the force of the sudden stop. She grips the wheel, heart racing as she puts her head down against it to take a breath. You’re okay. It could have been a lot worse, she rationalizes when she looks up to find her windshield and front windows completely clouded in white. She could have hit the water.

She manages to get her seatbelt off, falling forward into the dashboard with a grunt. The door won’t budge when she tries it, the snow packed tightly on either side, so she pulls out her phone to call for help. She finds it on the floor instead, screen shattered and ominously black. Of course.

Climbing through the car, over the back seats to the trunk, she manages to pop it open and heave herself out. Emma looks back at her little bug as she sits on the bumper, uses it to step back onto the road. I’m sorry, I’ll come back for you. She just needs to find a phone. Do payphones still exist? This town has been stuck in the 90s for decades. Or someone has to come by eventually, a snow plow, another person as determined to get out of here as she is…

Her coat isn’t warm enough, arms wrapped around herself as her hair, freezing in icy tendrils, whips across her face as she struggles to keep her eyes open against the onslaught of wet snow. Where are you? No answer comes, her memories of this road too hazy to see through the storm. So she walks, picking a direction rather than standing and losing extremities one by one.

She wasn’t supposed to be here. She was never supposed to come back here at all. She should have ignored the call, let someone else take the bounty on the skip that had decided to go hide out in her hometown, a place she’s managed to avoid for over a decade now. She’d gotten out, run as far and fast as she could, hurt one too many times by this cursed little town where all her happy endings were taken from her.

Christmas morning, the day after her first and only boyfriend had dumped her - the last in a long line to leave her behind in Storybrooke - because he ‘wanted to see what was out there’, she’d taken a train to Boston and never looked back. She wasn’t supposed to come back.

It had been a stupid plan, thinking she could get in and out of Storybrooke without anyone knowing she was here. Just catch the skip, bring him in and go back to Boston without her brother ever finding that she’d lied about not being able to come home for Christmas like she did every year. And yet here she is, wandering the streets of Storybrooke on Christmas Eve, lost and alone.

She’s not sure how far she’s gone when she sees the water, a clearing in the trees, a straight shot to the beach. The waves bring memories with them as they crash against the shore, the sea always refusing to be frozen by the harshest of colds. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere. Arms wrapped solidly around her, a hand taking hers, ‘come with me,’ sitting in the cold sand throwing rocks at the waves with his hands on her ears, ‘they’re going to fall off, Killian,’ and her heart on her sleeve.

Emma looks up at the building across the street. If she squints she thinks can see a light on. There’s some kind of cosmic joke being made at her expense. There has to be for this day and this storm to have led her here of all places, on tonight of all nights. She still has a snowglobe on her mantle, a gift given to her by a boy she’d spent most of high school infatuated with, and the years after navigating an ineffable friendship.

How long has it been since she’s seen him? Not since that morning she left, the one where everything had almost changed. It did, she supposes, but not the way she’d been so suddenly terrified it could in those few breaths between a question and a goodbye. He may not even live there anymore. She knows he’s still in town from what David’s told her and the occasional social media stalking, but that’s about all she knows about him now.

It’s your best bet. At least whoever’s there might have a phone she can use, know a tow that she can call to get her bug back on the road and her on her way back to Boston. The walk to the building feels all too familiar and she struggles to push back the memories of the last time she was here as she works up the nerve to make her way up the stairs. Still, her heart pounds in her chest and her stomach tightens reflexively when she knocks on the door. There’s still time to run.

“Swan?”

“Hey, Killian.”

***

They were at the Christmas market, Emma grumbling to Ruby about the fact that there hadn’t been any snow that year as they picked through a pile of novelty keychains. “It just doesn’t feel like Christmas without it.” She picked up a little skull and crossbones, holding it up for her friend’s appraisal.

David called them over, offering to buy everyone hot chocolate, all thoughts of shopping abandoned - “Who would you even get that for?” “I don’t know.” She just thought it was cool. This was the first time she had her own set of keys to a front door. It slipped so easily into her pocket, a habit picked up between foster homes. Take whatever you can get your hands on. You might not get the chance again.

“Hey, Swan.” Only one person called her that, whispered too low for anyone else to hear. “Nicely done.” Killian smirked at her, nodded toward her pocket, eyebrow raised.

Crap. “You’re not going to tell David, are you?” She couldn’t lose this one too.

“Why would I do that?” Thank god. His face softened. “It takes a while.”

“What does?”

“To stop feeling like you have to.” Something passed between them then, an understanding. David had said they had a lot in common. “Here.” He put something in her hand, smile awkward, cheeks red. A snow globe, one of the ones Ingrid from the ice cream shop made, a vague rendition of Storybrooke in the center. “You’re right about Christmas.” He touched a finger to the back of his ear. “Now you’ll always have snow.”

“Did you steal this?”

His laugh was loud. She liked it. “No. It’s a gift.”

She smiled at it, face flushing furiously - a gift from David’s new friend, the nice one with the pretty eyes who smiled a lot. Shaking it a few times to make the little flecks of white dance around her currently green town, Emma looked up at him, lip catching between her teeth. “I love it.”

“Here.” She reached into her pocket, pulling out the stolen keychain, wanting to be able to give him something in return.

His slow smile sent something twisting in her stomach, mischievous, like they had a secret. “Your loot, Swan? I’m honoured.”

“Well if you don’t want it -”

“No, I do,” he said quickly, grabbing it before she could take it back, ears red, running his thumb over the little skull. “Thank you. I’ll treasure it always.” Idiot.

***

He’s staring at her, like he can’t quite decide if she’s real, a literal ghost from his past appearing on his doorstep after a decade without a word. He looks good. She knew he would - he always had. But the last time she saw him he was twenty-two and the years have been unfairly kind to him. He’s grown a beard, a ginger scruff that covers his cheeks, both them and his ears reddened by the cold like he’s just come inside.

She shifts uncomfortably as the silence drags on and he continues to stare, brow pulling down in confusion. “What are you doing here?”

She’s not sure if he means the literal here at his door, or here in Storybrooke, or here suddenly in his life again, so she answers all three. “I ran my car off the road a little ways up the street. I was hoping you might have a phone.” She holds hers out. “Mine didn’t survive.”

“You what?”

“There was a deer or something… Can I come in?”

Killian blinks at her, finally registering her question, her answer to his. “Aye,” he says, stepping back to let her pass. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, just, you know, cold. And stuck.”

It’s different. The first thing she’s come back to in this town that isn’t exactly the way she left it. The large, single room is furnished in old wood and leather, the heavy curtains along windows keeping out the fury of the storm. There’s art on the walls. When she’d been here last it had belonged to a guy in his twenties: second hand couch, posters of bands and movies tacked up with push pins.

She looks over towards the back of the apartment, the bed in the same place it had always been but new. She let out a squeal falling onto the mattress, the distance further than she expected. Laughing, ‘you need a bed frame.’ A rushed promise, ‘I’ll go to Ikea in the morning.’ Better not to pay attention to that.

“Are you hurt?”

She shakes her head. “Just need a tow.”

“Do you want a towel?” She thinks she needs to answer yes to one of his questions or he might not stop asking them. Her hair is soaked, snow melting in her lashes, probably smudging mascara down her cheeks.

“Sure, thanks.” She kicks off her boots. Her socks make an unpleasant, wet sound when she sets her feet on the hardwood, damp fabric squishing between her toes and she makes a face at them.

Killian notices. “Do you want to borrow a pair of mine?” More questions.

She shakes her head, “No, I’m fine,” quickly pulling them off and draping them over her boots. She won’t be here long.

“Cell service is down, but you can use the landline,” he offers, nodding towards the phone in the kitchen.

“You have a landline?” she smirks before catching herself. But he sees it, his shoulders relaxing a little.

“Comes in pretty handy when we lose power.” There’s just a ghost of that cheeky smile she remembers as she pads barefoot across his apartment, too modest to be smug but close.

“Fair point.” She stares at the thing. Oh, right. “Do you have a number for a mechanic?”

He hurries over to join her in the kitchen, searching through a drawer until he pulls out a business card. “Here.” Gus’s Auto Repair.

Gus can’t come get her car out until tomorrow. “Got to be on standby for emergencies and since you’re clearly somewhere safe and not stranded on the side of the road freezing to death -”

“I don’t count. Got it.”

Perfect. Could also have done without the somewhat patronizing comment that she shouldn’t be out driving in a blizzard.

Killian’s waiting for her to fill him in when she hangs up, handing over the promised towel. “Looks like I’m stuck,” she tells him, wringing her hair out.

“Sorry, love,” he sighs. “I’m sure you had people waiting on you to get home for Christmas. Do you want to call anyone? Let them know you’re okay? Make as many calls as you need.”

She almost debates lying, pretending that yes, there is someone at home waiting for her to get back, having a fake conversation with her own answering machine rather than admitting the slightly pathetic truth. “No, it’s okay. It was just going to be me this year.”

She’s gotten used to being on her own though. She did it for a long time before she’d ever had any family to spend the holiday with. She’d started out alone, after all, found just outside the town line, a few hours old, abandoned and wrapped in a blanket with her name on it, a small suggestion that maybe someone had loved her at one point. But nobody had come forward.

There had been a series of foster homes after that, none sticking, in and out of Storybrooke for the entirety of her childhood. She’d had one good year, the Sheriff taking her home for Christmas, no social worker around when the latest family left her at the station. She’d always liked him, the kind man with the beard and the funny accent who let her hold his badge and chase him around the station.

But when he’d died it had been a series of foster homes again until she’d met David in high school. Older enough and big enough to scare off bullies, he’d brought her home for dinner until his mother decided she should stay. And Emma had stayed, until David got married and moved out, until Ruth passed away shortly after, and then it was just her again, alone in Boston celebrating Christmas, eggnog and a plastic tree.

Neither of them say anything for a moment, her last comment hanging between them until he finally breaks the silence. “I was going to warm some cider. Would you like some?”

“You got anything stronger?”

“It’s mostly rum.”

“Then yes.”

She takes a moment to wander the apartment rather than standing awkwardly in the kitchen with him, tracing her fingers along the back of the old leather couch with heavy blankets draped over it. She tries to reconcile her memories of the twenty-two year old she knew and this man he’s become. And while they don’t quite fit, they make sense. He’d always been this way, warm, inviting, comforting.

“Nice place,” she says as casually as possible, as though she’s never stepped foot in this room before. He’s put up Christmas decorations, lights and pine branches, little wooden trees and reindeer sculptures. Emma looks over at the massive fir in the corner. “Your tree doesn’t have any decorations on it,” she tells him absentmindedly, because focusing on that is much easier than focusing on how familiar and comfortable the place feels.

“Aye, we’re decorating it tomorrow,” he explains, scratching behind his ear in the same way he always did when he was nervous. It’s nice to know she’s not the only one. “Your brother and Mary Margaret are coming for dinner.”

She takes a seat on the sofa, pulling her legs up and wrapping her arms around her knees, bare toes curling over the edge of the cushion as she tries to figure out what to do next. Right, she’s stuck in Storybrooke for the night. “Sounds fun.” The words fall flat.

He hums, then stops what he’s doing, deep breath, hands gripping the edge of the counter, bracing himself for whatever’s about to come. “Why are you here, Emma?” The question is hard, she can tell, his jaw clenching and shoulders tight.

“In Storybrooke?”

“For starters, yes.”

“I was chasing a skip,” she sighs. “He was hiding out here and I thought I could catch him, collect the bounty and be back in Boston before the end of the night.”

“It’s Christmas.”

“I didn’t really have any other plans...”

“What about David and Mary Margaret? Do they know you’re in town?”

“No. And I don’t want them to. I said I couldn’t come - it would just hurt their feelings if they found out.”

“And that’s it?”

“What’s it?”

“The only reason you’re in Storybrooke.” She nods, wrapping her hands around her cold toes, resting her chin on her knee, his gaze hot on her, reading her in that way he’d always been able to. “Alright.” He brings over a steaming mug, sets it down on the table in front of her. “So what now?”

“I haven’t gotten that far yet,” she winces.

“Just stay here, love,” he sighs, like his offer is an apology. “It’s hell out there. I’ll take the couch for the night. It’s better than freezing to death in your car,” he adds when she doesn’t answer right away. Emma bites her lip. She’d been considering it - he knows her too well. Killian raises an eyebrow. “I’m going to try not to take offence to you deciding which is actually worse,” he tells her and a smile tugs at the corner of her lips.

“Okay.” Her voice is quiet, her answer also an apology, for disappearing from his life without a word, for bursting back into it without explanation. “Thanks.”

“Good,” he says, then breathes, “bloody ghost of Christmas past,” into his mug.

Emma takes a sip of her cider, immediately coughing when the burn of spiced rum hits her throat. “Holy shit, you weren’t kidding,” she coughs again and he smirks, taking a more dignified drink of his own. “Listen, I appreciate you letting me stay here and not freeze to death or whatever,” she tells him when he takes a seat next to her on the couch, leaving as much space between them as possible. “But I don’t want to ruin your night if you have plans…”

“Nothing important.”

“What were they?” She’s horrible, doing this to him twice.

He shrugs. “I usually spend Christmas Eve on my own before the big hoorah tomorrow. Drink spiked cider, watch a Christmas movie… I usually take a walk along the coast first but, well, between the storm and you showing up here like the Little Match Girl, I think I’ll skip that part this year.” He smiles crookedly at her, the same way he had another Christmas Eve so long ago. And her heart gives a little lurch as the memories come flooding back.

***

Maybe she was being irrational, maybe she was overreacting; people broke up all the time. But it was the coldness in his tone as he did it, the dismissal, like he never actually cared at all, like she was a placeholder until he could go and find something better that made it hurt so much.

She was already outside, having left Neal’s place as quickly as she could, already halfway down the road, halfway towards god-knows-where before she even realized that it was snowing, that it was cold. But it wasn't like she could bring herself to go back. She couldn’t go home either. Not to that house where Ruth would have been only a year ago, would have known what to say and what to do to make everything better - that house where it was just her now.

He’d just ended it. Just like that. As though they hadn’t spent almost a year together, as though they didn’t have plans to go to Boston in the morning for a little Christmas holiday. As though they didn’t already have tickets. He ‘wanted to see what else was out there’. She knew what he meant but didn’t say. He wanted to see who else was out there.

She was stranded. Stuck on a windy road in this horrible town with nowhere to go, nobody to call. Everyone was gone or celebrating with their loved ones. She was running out of those. She knew there was really only one person she could call - one person who would pick up and come find her, regardless of the fact that she’d never actually called his number before.

Headlights shone down the winding road, the sound of a car slowing echoed on the quiet street. The engine turned off, the door slamming shut before footsteps crunched in the snow. “Swan?” Killian came running over. “Swan, what happened?” She hadn’t told him much on the phone, just asked if he could come, and he looked so worried now, so much like he actually cared, like she actually mattered, that it chipped away at the walls around her heart just enough that she couldn’t keep the hurt out anymore.

“I didn’t know who else to call.” The tears overwhelmed her and she let him pull her against his chest. Maybe it should have felt strange, but instead his arms felt solid around her. His fingers stroked through her hair the way Ruth used to and it was something she needed more desperately than she realized. All that soft affection that he always showed her, that she’d always held for her brother’s friend - the one who always smiled at her, always teased her, always cared - flooded her as she tightened her grip on his jacket.

“Are you okay?” Killian asked when she’d finally managed to stop crying, to pull her face from the collar of his shirt she’d definitely ruined. He wiped at her tear stained cheeks. “Do you need a ride somewhere?” he asked before cocking his head at her and raising a brow. “Or maybe for me to murder someone?” She snorted out a laugh, his smile relieved if still tentative.

“I’m fine… Neal and I just broke up.”

“I’m sorry,” he sighed, and then, “Would you like me to murder him?” She snorted another laugh. “I never liked the guy anyway. Wouldn’t be a big deal.”

“He’s not worth it.”

“Do you want me to take you home?”

“No, I’m sorry. Thanks for coming to get me, I just... I can’t face home right now.”

“It’s okay,” he promised. “I was on my way home. Do you want me to take you somewhere else? Granny’s maybe?”

“It’s almost midnight,” she pointed out. She couldn’t believe she called him this late - and on Christmas Eve. But she just… needed him. Nobody else would have been able to make her laugh just now.

“Right.”

“This is so stupid. I’m not even crying over him. I don’t know why I’m crying at all,” she insisted, rubbing harshly at her eyes in frustration. “I just - this town fucking sucks. I need to get out.” Her laugh was bitter. “Neal and I were supposed to go to Boston in the morning. We were gonna spend Christmas there together. I even have the stupid ticket.”

He considered her for a moment and she thought maybe he got it, the urge to escape for a little while, forever. He reached out and took her hand in his. “Come with me.”

They walked along the edge of the water, waves crashing against the shore, surface refusing to freeze despite the cold. Killian didn’t say anything, just kept her hand in his and led her further down the beach until he finally came to a stop, looking out at the sea. She followed his gaze.

“What are we doing?”

“Looking at the water.”

“Okay… Why?”

He huffed a laugh, sitting on the snow-covered sand. “I thought you might find it soothing.”

“It’s cold.”

“It is,” he agreed, nodding but not moving to get up. With a sigh she plopped down beside him, drawing her knees up to her chest and resting her chin on them. “I come here whenever I’m pissed off and need to get away,” he shrugged.

“You get pissed off?” She didn’t think she'd ever seen him lose his temper. He was always so calm, even when he had just as much reason as her to want to curse out the whole world. Killian smiled, picked up a rock and tossed it into the water. She did the same, and then did it again, the splash satisfying against the roar of the waves before it was swallowed up by the rest of the sea. She sighed, shutting her eyes and letting the sound of the water fill her ears and calm her anger, dull her hurt a little.

“You know this is still Storybrooke though, right?” she reminded him.

He shrugged. “Maybe. But the water always kind of feels like its own place, everywhere and nowhere all at once. It’s easier to imagine being somewhere else here.”

“Poetic,” she teased, turning back to watch the water a little longer, the waves pulling at something in her every time they slipped back from the shore, like they were trying to drag the words from her chest. “I feel like an idiot. I think I knew he wasn’t a nice guy, deep down.”

“You’re not an idiot, Swan. You fell in love. Happens to the best of us.”

“Maybe.” Was it love though? Or had she just clung onto someone in the hopes that she could make them stay, that they’d be the first not to disappear on her. “I think this town is cursed.”

He raised an eyebrow at that. “Cursed?”

Emma threw another rock into the ocean. She didn’t know how to explain it to him, something she’d started believing as a kid, when every family she found left her here alone, as everyone she cared about in this town was ripped from her one by one. It became a lot easier to try not to love them, to keep David and Ruby at arm’s length after Ruth died, to choose a guy she knew she couldn’t completely open her heart to. And to ignore the way she felt whenever she was around Killian, the pull and the longing, how easy and tempting it would be to just pour her whole heart out and trust him not to judge her, not to hurt her.

“Well,” he said, nudging her shoulder with his, smile crooked. “That’s one of the nice things about Christmas, magic in the air and all that. Probably enough to break a curse.”

It was so cheesy and she wished she could believe him, but years of heartbreak just made it impossible. Emma looked away from him, pulled her coat more tightly around herself, a shiver running through her and she changed the subject.

“Do all of your philosophical ideas involve Christmas and frozen beaches?” she asked, tucking her chin into the neck of her coat. “Because we probably could have looked at the water from inside. And then I might still be able to feel my ears.”

He laughed and she breathed a sigh of relief - he was gonna let her off the hook. He wasn’t going to make her talk about her stupid cursed life in this stupid cursed town because he got her. She didn’t need to explain it to him. She never did.

“Baby,” he teased.

“They’re going to fall off, Killian,” she insisted. “And it’ll be your fault.”

His hands came up to either side of her face, fingertips chilly but palms warm as they covered her ears and her heart stuttered in her chest.

“Better?”

She nodded, swallowed. Slowly, his amused smile slipped and she could tell he was trying to read her. Emma slipped her hand into one of his, holding them both against her cheek. She would blame the waves, drawing her stupid, battered heart out of her chest, or maybe the cold, urging her towards all of the warmth inside of him, but suddenly she was leaning across the space between them, pressing her lips to his.

Killian froze and she pulled back, panicked. Shit. Shit, she’d completely misread that. It was stupid and impulsive and now she’d probably ruined whatever it was they had, this little bit of good that she’d just tried to grab onto.

He didn’t let her go, pulled her back to him, mouth hot against hers, fingers sliding from her cheek to weave through her hair, the other curling around her waist. It should have felt strange, it was probably a mistake, but it was Killian, and this felt long overdue. So she let him pull her closer, let him hold her like he had on the side of the road and kiss her like he was trying to break whatever curse would eventually rip him away from her.

***

“Guess I kind of ruined your night alone.”

“I don’t mind the company,” he promises. “So long as you don’t comment on the movie.”

“Why would I - Oh, no.”

“Oh yes,” he beams, reaching for the remote. “Every Christmas Eve.”

Emma groans as the music starts, an English accent giving a monologue about airports and then the dreaded words flash on the screen. Love Actually. “This is literally the worst Christmas movie ever.”

“This is the best Christmas movie ever.”

She rolls her eyes but does her best not to say anything as the movie begins, Killian getting up at one point to make a bowl of popcorn - with Milk Duds mixed in so they get all melty. Her silence doesn’t last very long, the rum making her bolder, making her forget the awkwardness. She finally reaches her breaking point.

“This is so stupid. They can’t even understand each other. And they’re just saying the complete opposite thing the whole time.”

He looks over at her, exasperated, head rolling over the back of the couch. “People don’t have to be able to say they love someone out loud for it to be real.”

She doesn’t have an answer for that, staring at him for a moment before shutting her mouth and turning back to the movie. He has a talent for saying things without saying them. It’s only a few minutes before she can’t help herself again.

“Okay, but even you have to admit this one is terrible.”

“There’s… something romantic about loving someone from afar.” He’s not even buying it.

“Sure, but this is just stalking.”

“It’s just one story.”

“Out of a hundred other terrible stories. Like this girl. Just don’t pick up your phone and -”

“Swan, I will make you sleep in your car.”

“I just don’t get what the appeal of this movie is. Everyone makes such a big deal out of-” She’s interrupted by a handful of popcorn shoved into her mouth, Killian licking melted chocolate off his finger.

“There,” he says, pleased with himself. “Now if you promise to be quiet for the rest of the movie, we can watch Home Alone after, alright?”

Emma just stares at him, eyes wide in disbelief. He did not. When he looks up at her, back on his half of the couch but not quite as far away, a smirk starts to tug at his lips, stretching wide when she spits the popcorn out into her hand.

“You’ve got chocolate all over your face,” he tells her, barely holding back a laugh.

“Whose fault is that?” She drops the handful of mushy popcorn into her empty mug, wiping her palms on her jeans.

Chuckling he reaches out again, wiping his thumb over the corner of her mouth. “I’m sorry,” he says - he’s not - looking at her with very serious, and very insincere, apology.

His attention drops to her mouth, hand settling on her cheek, and traces his thumb along her bottom lip where she’s sure there’s more chocolate. But all she can focus on is how close he is and how much she wants to replace his thumb with his mouth and her breath hitches. ‘Are you sure?’ whispered between heated kisses, his name broken on her lips, her fingers desperately fisting in his hair, falling apart on his tongue, the heat of him inside her, gentle touches and praise breathed against skin as they came together again and again.

His eyes dart back up to hers and she wonders if he’s thinking the same thing as the amusement in his eyes fades and then she’s waiting for him to do something, even if they probably shouldn’t, even if she definitely shouldn’t.

But she doesn’t stop him when he pulls her mouth down to his, lips slanting across hers as he drags her closer. They knock over the bowl, popcorn scattering across the floor when she climbs into his lap, fingers digging into his hair, his digging into the skin at her hip as he presses himself against her, tongue seeking hers.

This is probably a bad idea. In fact it’s definitely a bad idea, because she’s been exactly here before and she knows how it ends. But his lips are on her neck, tracing the line of her jaw, and she lets out a small whimper, hips rolling over the hardness she can feel growing beneath her. He catches her mouth again with a growl, one she knows all too well, and his hand slips under her sweater, calloused palm rough against the skin of her back as he arches his hips up into her, hard and hot against her centre.

She wrenches her lips from his, her fingers finding the buttons of his shirt and hurrying to undo them. She lifts her eyes to his face, finds him watching her, his own gaze dark and heady, hesitates on the next button. “I’m going back to Boston in the morning.”

“I know.”

Her heart beats frantically against her ribcage, as she tries to read his expression beyond the obvious want and temptation. So long as they’re on the same page, she tells herself. That’s all that matters. This isn’t like last time.

***

They stumbled through the door, practically running from the beach, giggling like kids the whole way. He’d kissed her for ages out there by the water, until she told him she thought she would lose her fingers from the cold and suggested they go somewhere warmer.

Now that they were inside though - the apartment new, some of his things still in boxes on the floor - he hesitated. So she took his face in her hands like he’d done before and kissed him, feeling the doubt melt away as he wrapped her in his arms and pulled her close.

They fiddled with zippers of puffy coats, laughing as they unravelled too-long scarves, boots kicked off as they crossed the length of his apartment, Emma letting out a squeal when they fell onto the mattress, the distance further down than she’d expected.

“You need a bed frame,” she laughed, lip caught between her teeth.

“I’ll go to Ikea in the morning,” he promised, claiming it for himself, fingers going to her hair as he deepened the kiss.

It wasn’t what she expected. She’d never kissed anyone this long before, hadn’t ever taken things quite this slow. But he seemed content to continue kissing her for the rest of the night. When she arched up against him he sucked in a breath, pulling back to look at her, “Are you sure?”

There wasn’t any question, not for her. She kissed him again, clothes pulled off slowly, his mouth finding her neck, her stomach her breasts, hands hot on her skin, pulling her closer - always closer.

He asked again, settling between her legs, a kiss to her thigh - “This okay?” - words breathed hot against her center, waiting for her nod before putting his mouth on her. Killian took his time, finding what made her breath hitch, what made her cry out and what made her hips arch up desperately against his tongue, building her up slowly, bringing her over the edge and leaving her trembling.

She kept waiting for him to take what he wanted, to rut into her and find his release, surprised he’d waited this long already. Instead his lips mapped her skin, discovering places he hadn’t yet, drawing his tongue across her body like ink, leaving marks wherever he found a gasp or a sigh - a secret trail for him to follow, hidden from the rest of the world.

He traced the marks with his fingers, mouth falling over hers and they slipped between her thighs, leaving her writhing when he found that sensitive bundle of nerves. She fell apart again, fingers deep inside her, lips speaking praise against her skin until she was left a shaking, boneless mess.

“Gods you’re beautiful, Swan,” he breathed into her ear like a confession, one he’d held onto for a long time.

Emma snuck a hand between them, taking hold of him once more and canting her hips up until she felt him brush against her heat. His groan echoing hers as he slid in just the tiniest bit. “We can stop if you want.”

She shook her head, taking his face in her hands and meeting his lips in a messy kiss. “Please don’t,” she breathed into his mouth, fingers fisting too tightly in his hair.

He took her slowly, the same way he’d kissed her, the same way he’d done everything. She wasn’t used to slowly, to the way his lips kept finding her own, tracing along her neck, hand finding her breast and tongue rolling languidly over the sensitive peak as he moved inside her.

This wasn’t fucking, this was something she’d never done before, something tender and gentle. He made love to her, drawing out her pleasure, staving off his own until she was shaking, nails digging at his back, forehead pressed to hers as he brought them both over the edge.

He stole an exhausted, sated kiss from her lips before settling beside her, pulling her to him. Emma lay her head on his chest, tracing absentminded patterns through the small smattering of dark hair as she tried to school her breathing, to keep her eyes open.

His fingers ran over the length of her arm, turning every few minutes to press a kiss to the crown of her head. “Are you okay?” he asked.

She let out a low, lazy giggle. “How would I not be okay right now?”

“I’m sure this isn’t what you imagined when you asked me to pick you up tonight,” he sighed. He was berating himself. She could hear it in his voice, imagining himself a villain for coming to her rescue, for healing her heart just a little bit - and then making her come three fucking times.

Emma raised her head, meeting his self-conscious gaze and smiling softly. She leaned in, kissed him, relieved when he kissed her back, hand weaving through her hair again like maybe he was trying to keep her there a little longer. When she pulled away he gave her a crooked, hopeful little smile, only growing when she pressed her lips to his again, tasting it.

Tucking herself back against his chest, he curled his arm more tightly around her, fingers tickling along her spine. “Merry Christmas, Swan,” he whispered into her hair.

***

She kisses him again, finishing with the fastenings of his shirt and pushing it off his shoulders. He leans forward enough to shrug it off, not breaking the kiss except to pull her sweater over her head and then dragging her back to him as soon as she’s free of it.

Emma traces the line of his shoulders, over his chest and the hair that blankets it, nails scratching down his stomach, relishing in every inch of soft skin and hard muscle beneath her fingers. His mouth wanders the length of her neck again, tongue teasing the line of her collarbone and down through the valley between her breasts, leaving goosebumps and fire in his wake.

She gasps when he tugs one of the cups of her bra out of the way, taking her nipple between his teeth. She lets out a curse, back arching into him, hips grinding roughly against the outline of his cock through their jeans. Her fingers fist in his hair, holding him there as he licks and sucks at the sensitive peak.

His hands slide along the outside of her thighs, palming her ass and squeezing as he drags her slowly, firmly over his length before standing, taking her with him, legs wrapping instinctively around his waist. His mouth finds hers again as he walks them across the room to his bed, kneeling on the edge before dropping her onto the mattress.

His hands quickly find the waist of her jeans, tugging them open and Emma catches her laugh between her teeth as she helps him slide the tight denim past her ankles. He tosses them aside while she pulls the remaining fabric from her chest. Killian pauses, looking her over slowly and she does the same.

It’s really not fair how much better he looks after so much time - he was already handsome enough when he was young. Now the angle of his jaw is sharpened, his shoulders broader, the hair on his chest darker and thicker. Her tongue runs over her bottom lip wantonly before she tugs him back down to her.

He lowers himself between her open thighs, the scratch of his chest against her breasts and his beard against her neck making her writhe beneath him. Killian’s hand slides over her waist, down across her stomach before going in search of where she’s wet and aching for him.

“Fuck,” she breathes as his fingers tease their way between her legs, turning to hiss “yes” against his ear when he finds the sensitive bundle of nerves there, rolling it under his thumb.

“Tell me if you want this.” - making sure, always making sure - as he slides a finger inside her, adding a second and thrusting slowly, dragging against her walls in toe-curling torture. It takes her a moment to find her voice as he continues to fuck her with his hand, thumb and fingers working in a steady rhythm, a knot tightening in the pit of her stomach.

“God yes,” she tells him, remembering how good he felt inside of her, how full and perfect and right. She scrambles for the button of his jeans, popping it free and making quick work of the fly before sliding her hand inside. She finds his cock, hard and straining in her palm, and he lets out a choked moan when her fist tightens around him.

“Now?” he asks, voice strained, and she nods, not able to find her own with his fingers working her faster, the circles he presses into her clit holding her right on the cusp of her climax.

Her hands shove at the waist of his pants, using her feet to push them further down. He slides away from her, standing to kick them off, and she bites her lip, moaning at the sight of his length bobbing against his stomach. She hears his slightly desperate groan before he’s on her again, mouth claiming hers, hot and messy, tongue sliding past her lips and drawing a whine from her chest.

Taking himself in hand and lining his cock up with her entrance, he hesitates only until she cants her hips, trying to take him inside herself. Her hand finds his back, the other grabbing at his ass as she hooks a leg around his thigh and urges him forward.

They both cry out when he finally sheaths himself inside her, thrust rough, cock thick and long as he slides out slowly only to push back in hard, hips snapping against hers. God yes, she thinks as he fucks her. This is what she’d expected last time, the desperate race towards the edge, her whole body rocking every time he drives back into her, the roll of his hips powerful and so fucking good.

She starts to writhe beneath him, the knot coiling so tightly inside her that she can feel it about to snap. His lips are at her neck, his hand reaching for one of her breasts, palm rolling over her nipple and then pinching it between his fingers as he moves faster. Her nails dig into his sweat slicked back, cries growing louder and more frequent, his curses and praise spoken into her skin between the slide of his tongue and the scrape of his teeth until her back bows sharply, pleasure ripping through her as she comes apart around him.

Emma can feel him following after her, fucking into her at a frantic pace until his own release takes him and he goes stiff in her arms. He collapses on his back beside her, his breathing ragged as her own as they both lay there and wait for their hearts to stop racing and the sweat to cool on their skin.

Killian rolls onto his side, hand reaching for her, fingers spreading over her stomach just below her breast, different from the way he’d pulled her to him last time. His thumb traces absentmindedly along the underside of her breast and she knows they understand each other - or he understands her at least. A one time thing. She’s leaving in the morning.

Killian clears his throat, voice still raspy when he speaks. “Bloody hell, I didn’t know you hated the movie that much.”

She laughs, boneless, exhausted. “Anything to get out of watching it.”

He raises himself up a little, looking over towards the TV. “I don’t think it’s over yet, actually.” He raises a brow. “We could probably still catch the big finale.”

Emma groans, long and suffering. “Please no. I literally can’t think of a worse way to spend the night.”

“Oh?” he asks and she can tell just by his tone what he’s thinking, even before his arm snakes around her waist and he pulls her back to him, rolling and bracing himself above her. “What did you have in mind, then, love?” There’s that cheeky smile again.

His lips are already teasing, feather-light over the spot below her ear, grinding his hips suggestively against hers before she can answer. She’s tempted to let him continue, to let him make her fall apart again and again for the rest of the night. But, “I’m leaving in the morning.”

He nods, giving a nip to her jaw as he answers, “Aye, so you’ve said. Many times now.”

“So this - tonight - needs to be a one time thing.”

Killian pulls back, searching her face carefully. He brushes a piece of her hair behind her ear. “I know you’re not staying, Swan. I won’t ask you to.” Not again, lingers where the words stay unspoken. “This was all just a freak, horrible series of events brought on by bail skippers, snow storms and devilish good looks that landed you into my bed tonight. And in the morning you’ll be on your way back to Boston and I’ll be here trying not to replay everything in graphic detail while I sit next to your brother at Christmas dinner.”

“Ew,” she laughs, shoving at his shoulder.

“But it’s not morning yet,” he finishes, tongue tracing the inside of his lip, gaze fixed on her mouth, waiting. A one time thing for a second time. A bad idea, a dangerous one. A desire she’s going to give into again, one she’s not sure she’ll ever be able to resist. She’ll never stop wanting him, not so long as she stays here.

“No,” she says, sliding her fingers into his hair, tongue sneaking out to tease the seam of his lips. She’ll be gone tomorrow, tonight doesn’t matter. “It’s not.”

***

He’s already up when her alarm goes off in the morning, Emma blinking crankily against the light shining through the windows. It takes her a moment to remember where she is, wrapped up in the familiar spice of salt and leather that clings to the sheets and her pillow, skin bare against the warm blankets. He’s standing by the stove puttering around with something and she watches him for a minute. It’s strange, still being here. She’s not used to her one night stands lasting into the next day.

“Merry Christmas,” he greets when she’s pulled her clothes back on and padded into the kitchen. She manages to mutter. He hands her a slip of paper. “Gus called, said to give him a ring when you were up and he’d come by with the tow.”

“Thanks.”

“There’s coffee,” he tells her, gesturing towards a pot. Her second thank you is more enthusiastic and he laughs. “I know you wanted to get up and on the road as soon as possible.” Emma hums, pouring herself a cup and drinking deeply.

“Can I ask you something?” she ventures, thinking of returning to Boston, of leaving this town once and for all for the second time. He nods. “Why are you still in Storybrooke? I thought you’d have left a long time ago.”

Killian shrugs. “I thought about it a couple of times. It just never felt right. This was the first place that felt like home.” Emma plays her fingers over the rim of her mug, nodding like she understands. “I know that wasn’t the case for you.”

She hesitates, trying to figure out how to explain her complicated feelings about this town. “Storybrooke never felt like home to me,” she admits. “Graham’s place did for a while,” she shrugs. “But that didn’t last very long. Without him it was just a house. Ruth’s did too. But with her gone…”

Killian’s expression softens, sympathy without pity from someone who knows what it is to lose those you love. “It doesn’t feel like her anymore. And I love David but that home is his and Mary Margaret’s now and for me it’s just…” A house, too large and full of too much grief. “I always figured home was someplace I would miss when I left it. But they’re all just buildings,” she shrugs.

Killian nods, looking pensively into his cooling mug of coffee. “I suppose it’s not the places but the people in them that make it home,” he says, finally looking up at her, the only person in this town she’s ever really missed, and the silence hangs heavy between them.

She can’t read his expression, his eyes more guarded now than they used to be, his heart no longer on his sleeve like it had been when they were young. And she thinks that’s her fault. She cut him out of her life for a decade, of course he wouldn’t trust her like he used to. And yet here they are, right back where they were that morning.

She doesn’t know how he feels now, doesn’t know for certain how he felt about her then. But she does know how she felt, how seeing him again has brought back so many of those old feelings, ones she’d always hoped would fade with time, that she’d managed to ignore until now when they risk becoming fresh and raw once again.

And she worries… most of all she worries that if she lets them come flooding back - break through the wall she so carefully constructed around her twenty-one year old heart - that she’ll want to stay.

“Knock knock,” a voice calls, too cheery for the early hour. Killian turns panicked eyes on her.

“What is she doing here?” Emma hisses.

“I don’t know! They weren’t supposed to get here until tonight.”

“I hope you don’t mind,” Mary Margaret continues, already pushing her way inside. “The door was open and we thought with the storm you might need help getting things ready and -” She stops dead in her tracks, David nearly running into her before looking up and staring in shock at the sight of his sister.

“Emma?” Shit. Shit, shit, shit. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought you were in New York.”

“Um…” she hesitates, trying to come up with a story that won’t hurt their feelings - a reason to be in Storybrooke. “Surprise?”

The lie comes almost too easily, Emma and Killian exchanging guilty winces over her family’s shoulders. She meant to come down to surprise them. The storm got in the way and she had to crash at Killian’s for the night. Parts of it are true. It was all planned. She’s thrilled to be home for Christmas. Most of it isn’t.

“How long are you here for?”

“Just the day.” Her grimace is taken for guilt. She can’t spend another night here.

There’s lots to do - or so she’s told, more the type to order in when she hosts her family for the holiday - and they put her to work. ‘Don’t worry, Swan, you can do the easy bits.’ ‘I can cook!’ ‘Whatever you say.’

Her insistence backfires, gagging when they ask her to help prep the turkey, nearly losing a finger chopping vegetables - ‘Give me that,’ Killian takes it from her. ‘Who gave Emma a knife?’ ‘You should be really glad I don’t have one right now.’ - until she’s banished to cookie duty.

“Think you can manage icing without injury or illness?” Killian’s smirk is shit eating and she takes the sugar and milk from him.

“Is it supposed to be this runny?”

Once Mary Margaret has fixed the icing, she’s left with a piping bag and several tins of gingerbread. She’s halfway through, Killian’s hands on the back of her chair, looking over her shoulder at the little man she’s decorating.

“Did they send you here to check on me?”

“Just some run of the mill quality control.” She’d gotten bored a little while ago - ‘two eyes, three buttons and a smile, that’s all you need to do’ - deciding to get more creative. “What on earth are those supposed to be?” he asks, eyes wide as she traces icing in the shape she wants.

“A bow.”

“Swan.” He’s barely holding back his laughter, face red and she narrows her eyes at him. “Please don’t make me say it out loud.”

“What?” Emma looks down at her cookie, at the four others she’s already made - ‘they’re bows!’ - but the icing has spread, the wobbly squares at the top rounded, the two hanging ribbons melded into one. “Oh my God.”

His roar of laughter sends the others over, crowding around her horrible creation. Killian’s barely able to hold himself up anymore.

“Oh,” Mary Margaret says, trying her best when David loses his shit too. “Well, it’ll certainly be the most phallic gingerbread we’ve ever had.” Everyone’s laughing now.

“Got something on your mind, Emma?” her brother snorts and she shoves the cookie in her mouth, destroying - some of - the evidence. “Maybe you should help,” he tells his friend, returning to the kitchen.

“Aye, Swan,” his voice is low, whispered against her hair, breath ghosting over her neck, “got something on your mind?" She tries to hide the way her cheeks heat, goosebumps down her spine. She does now.

They make a pretty good team, Emma supplying the ideas while Killian does his best to execute them. The task quickly becomes a game of finding what she can stump him with. ‘Are you really gonna be smug about being good at icing cookies? That’s the bar you want to set?’ ‘I’m a man of many talents, love, some I’d be more than happy to remind you of.’ She gives up when he turns the chubby little cookie into a skeleton. “Fine, you win. I’m sure this skill will take you far in life.”

People start arriving sometime in the late afternoon, the apartment filled with the smells of Christmas dinner, every shelf of the oven and every burner on the stove in use - her skills in the kitchen finally appreciated when she made them all mac and cheese in the microwave for lunch. Every guest wears the same expression of shock at seeing her standing with the others.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Ruby demands, tactful as ever. Nice to see you too. Emma can tell by the look Ruby gives her that she doesn’t buy this being a planned surprise, but her friend pulls her into a hug regardless, a murmured promise that they’ll be talking about it more later whispered over her shoulder. When Granny asks why she didn’t stay at the inn, she repeats the story about the storm and the accident - ‘Where did you sleep?’ Ruby knows. ‘The couch.’ - and then quickly changes the subject.

Two waist-high heads of strawberry blonde curls come hair barreling through the apartment, Killian returning the identical little girls to their parents, one swinging from each of his arms.

“Girls, we’ve told you before,” Elsa scolds, “Uncle Killian is not a tree.”

“Aye, only his head is made of wood”’

“Is that the best you’ve got, brother?”

Emma watches them play, the girls infatuated with their uncle, smiling into the rim of her wineglass as they attempt to tackle him onto the couch only to be tossed onto the cushions over and over.

She’s caught, Killian looking over, eyes meeting hers, his own lips quirking up tentatively and she feels that same soft warmth from all those years ago spreading through her chest. She doesn’t know what it is, not exactly, but she knows that she’s missed that smile for the last ten years.

One of the twins hurls herself at his stomach sending him falling backwards with an ‘oof’ and Emma has to bite back her laugh, turning and pretending she’s been listening to the conversation when someone asks her a question.

Killian’s apartment is small packed in with what feels like half the town, and when it’s time for dinner everyone finds a spot to sit or stand, plates balanced in their laps or set down on a counter or an end table, whatever surface they can find. Emma manages to snag a spot on the couch, Granny and Elsa next to her, wrapped up in an intense conversation over the benefits of real versus plastic trees.

“How are you fairing?” He takes a seat on the arm of the sofa, one leg still on the ground, plate resting on his knee, and handing her a glass of wine.

“Much better now,” she beams, taking the drink from him. She’s never had so many conversations about her childhood in her life, everyone determined to reminisce about the way they used to spend Christmas, the dinners and the ice skating and the secret party that Ruby would always throw in the basement of the diner. ‘Turns out Granny knew all along.’ The old woman only shrugs, impish smile on her usually dour face.

Some of it hurts, remembering the mornings with Ruth, the presents and the hot chocolate - and the mornings where there were no trees, no presents, no smiling foster parents or siblings. She’d suppressed all of them for so long, determined to forget the way her happiest moments were taken away, forever tinged with sadness so that she’d forgotten how good they’d once been.

When David talked about the Christmas market they all used to hurry to, buying each other cheap gifts from the weird collection of crafts and things people found in their attics, she felt a twinge in her chest. A little snow globe pressed into her hand, red ears and cheeky smiles. A little skull and crossbones she’d taken because she thought she had to, then given away to the first person who ever really understood. She realizes that a part of her does miss it - the people, not the places, like he’d said.

“I’m sorry you got stuck here. I know it’s hardly how you wanted to spend your Christmas.”

“It could be worse,” she admits.

“Here, I saved you one.” Killian hands her a little gingerbread man from the corner of his plate.

“Awe, you’re giving me a little gingerbread dick?”

“It’s clearly a bow. Get your mind out of the gutter, love.”

They’re all decorating the tree - Killian’s nieces arguing over which would get to climb on his shoulders to put the star on top - when she sneaks off to the bathroom, the only place in this apartment with a door that closes.

She just needs a minute to herself, needs a second to reconcile her dislike of this place and the fact that she’s actually enjoying herself. It’s never been safe to let her guard down, but it just keeps slipping around him, and it’s getting harder and harder to put it back up. And she doesn’t know why - after all this time…

Something catches her eye when she looks in the mirror - ready to give herself a talking to, to remind herself why she has that guard at all - a piece of a chain hooked over the corner, the rest fallen behind the back of the frame.

It’s a necklace, long and worn, the silver tarnished from years of wear. A little skull and crossbones hangs from the end. He kept it. All these years. It slips into her pocket, as easily as it had that day at the market, another secret kept between them.

“Are you coming back with us?” David asks when everyone has started to make their way home, the hour late, the glasses empty.

“Actually, I think I’ll stay for a bit. My car is still here…” Emma looks from her brother to where Killian is clearing dishes, his eyes lifting to hers for only a second before dropping them quickly. She doesn’t say she needs to get going, can’t quite bring herself to - can’t quite bring herself to leave, to have this be their final goodbye. “If that’s okay?” His guard is slipping too. She can almost read him again when he nods, enough to know that he might not want her to leave just yet either.

They’re curled up by the fireplace, the dishes done and the room tidied. There’s only the two of them and the silence of the empty room, their voices sounding so much louder against it with everyone gone.

“Do you want to call Gus?” he asks, looking at the time after they’ve talked about the party, gossiped about all their friends. “If you want to get back to Boston tonight you probably shouldn’t wait much longer.”

Oh. “Right.” She tucks her hair self-consciously behind her ear, staring at the fire.

“Unless…”

She looks up. Unless? There’s no question posed, the sentence never finished. But neither moves for the phone. She can’t leave. Not without telling him. Not without knowing if it’s all in her head. Not when it means leaving him behind. Not again.

“Killian, I -” Just say it. “I’m sorry.”

His guard is back up, weak and struggling, but it’s there. “For what?”

“For how I left things - for how I left you.”

Warm fingers tracing over her skin, sitting on the edge of the mattress in the cool morning air, bare toes on the floor, always braced to run. ‘You know you could stay, if you wanted...’ Heart screaming to be heard, too terrified of what could happen if she stayed, if she let herself love him like she wanted to. An apologetic shrug, a glance over her shoulder, shirt pulled over her head, boots laced. ‘I already have the ticket.’

“You don’t have to apologize, love.” It slips again, a small sigh as he shakes his head. “You don’t owe me anything. It was one night, however I felt about it… whatever I might have wanted or hoped for was on me, not you.” But it wasn’t just one night, not really. She can’t make herself say the words. Felt, wanted, hoped, past tense. “I always wondered though.”

“Wondered what?”

He can’t look at her and it hurts. “If you left because of me. If you regretted it or if I did something.”

Her heart sinks. She was such an idiot. “Is that why you never called?”

“I was afraid you wouldn’t answer.”

“I never regretted you, only that that night made it so much harder to leave.”

“Why did you leave?”

“Because of you,” she says finally, the heartbreak clear on his face even as he nods in acceptance. “Remember how I told you I thought Storybrooke was cursed?” Another nod. “Almost everyone I’ve ever cared about in this town is gone - died here, left me here.” Her parents, the Swans, Graham, Ruth, Neal… “I had to leave. And I couldn’t ask you to come with me because -” Her hands shake, her biggest fears spoken out loud. “What if it wasn’t Storybrooke, what if it’s just me? What if I’m the one that’s cursed - to lose everyone I love… I couldn’t lose you too.” But she had, in a way that was so much worse in the end.

“Lose me?”

“I thought it was safer to stay away from you, from everyone I loved - for them… and for me. I know it doesn’t make any sense but I -” He puts a hand over hers, fingers twisting in her lap.

“No, it doesn’t. But I get it.”

She forces herself to look at him. It takes a while - to stop feeling like you have to. And she’s so sick of running. “I would take it back if I could.” She pulls the necklace from her pocket, slips it into his hand, his breath hitching. “Because the truth is…” Deep breath. “I miss you. So much, Killian.”

The silence stretches on too long, her whole world hanging on whatever he’s going to say next, his thumb tracing over the pendant. “Emma.” He hesitates again. Just say something. “I’ve thought about you every day since you left.” Something sparks in her chest, hope. “I think maybe I couldn’t leave,” his fist closes around the necklace, “because I was hoping you’d come back.”

His words are rushed, spoken in a breath before his hands are in her hair and he pulls her to him, his kiss long and deep and perfect. She missed this. She missed him. She tries to apologize again, ‘I’m sorry’ whispered against his lips, but he steals the words from her tongue. ‘Later. We can talk later.’

Later is good, later means after, later means this is more than just right now, more than just tonight. No more one time things - this is the third time, after all.

He lays her down in front of the fire, hands more cautious than they’d been last night, peeling the clothes from her body until she’s bare beneath him and he can find the map he drew so long ago, lips tracing the lines that have faded from her skin.

They make love like they had the first time, no desperate attempt to fuck away the feelings they couldn’t voice, no need to rush for fear they would run out of time. She presses all of her apologies into his body, feels the forgiveness in his touch, fingers tight in her hair when she takes him in her mouth and begins to learn him as well as he does her.

He breathes words that aren’t quite love but could be into the space between them, Emma rocking above him, hands on his chest, his at her hips, dragging him towards the edge with her. Sitting up and pulling her to him, skin pressed to skin, repeating the same words against her lips, against her neck and breasts, ‘I love you,’ spoken somewhere in the moments before they find release, neither sure who said it, only that it’s true as they fall apart, clinging to one another, no intention to let go.

“Does this mean you’re staying in Storybrooke?” he asks when they’re laying intertwined on his floor.

Emma lifts her head, resting her chin on his shoulder and giving a small, hopeful smile. “Do you want me to?”

“Aye, I do. But only if you want to stay.”

She presses a kiss to his chest, above the pendant that now hangs around his neck. “I want to stay with you,” she tells him quietly, heart still timid, unused to being seen. “No matter where that is.”

“There’s always Boston.”

“You’d come to Boston with me?”

He tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, thumb tracing along the length of her jaw, over her lips as he watches her with what she finally knows is love. “I’d have come with you to Boston ten years ago, Swan. All you had to do was ask.”

She kisses him then, her words not enough to do justice to the way his burn through her, fill her from the inside out. He rolls them, settling above her, beginning his exploration again, fingers and mouth finding her where she’s hot and desperate for him, driving her to the edge with careful strokes of his tongue and languid touches that leave her writhing and begging for more.

She comes apart at his hands once again, kisses trailed up her body before he claims her lips with his and pulls her into his side. Limbs tangled, skin warmed by the fire, her fingers trace patterns over his heart, patched up to match her own. ‘I could get used to celebrating Christmas like this.’ He presses a kiss to her temple, words breathed into her hair, ‘Then we will, love, every one.’

❄️❄️❄️

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

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#cs secret santa #captain swan #cs fanfic #cs christmas au #the ghost of bloody christmas past #only one bed #cs angst #cs smut #cs fluff #cs ff #ouat au

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everything-person · 5 months

Text

Kazoos Advent Calendar

@kazoosandfannypacks Day

Todays gift is based on “12 Dates of Christmas” abc family movie.

On the 12 day of Christmas my true love gave to me

“I hate this song.”

“It’s the holiday version of 99 bottles. Speaking of bottles. Why don’t me and you get out of here and get a drink?”

Bella glared at the office creep until he walked away with his tail tucked between his legs. Returning to her phone as she shouts over her shoulder, “Killian when did Pan say we could leave?”

“When the party was over.”

“Are you planning on joining us?”

“Be there in a moment,” Killian shouted from his cubical. Picking up his phone dialing the number he’s been thinking about all day.

“Hey Milah. It’s Killian. I was just calling wondering if we could share Smee for Christmas. I haven’t seen him for a couple of months. Just give me a call and let me know.” Killian hung up the phone as one of his coworkers dropped his secret Santa gift on his desk.

Ripping the wrapping paper revealed a Nicholas Sparks book. Grabbing the rest of his stuff he jumped up and ran to join the rest of the holiday party.

"Hey," he called getting the attention of his dancing coworker, "Stop that. Would a woman like a Nicholas Sparks book for Christmas?"

"Yeah."

"Sure."

"Totally."

"No. Not really. Get her wine."

Killian shoved the book into a coworkers hands muttering, "Merry Christmas." Before grabbing Bellas hand and leaving.

"You know what I got for Secret Santa?" Bella asked as they walked down the street.

"Hmm?"

"Jam. Freaking jam."

"Jam isn't bad."

"I hate jam."

"It's the thought that counts."

"There was no thought."

"I like jam."

The petite blonde turned and looked at Killian, "Oh my god! It was from you!"

Killian scratched behind his ear, "I forgot about secret santa. I grabbed the first thing I saw."

"Socks would've been better."

"Your real present is coming tomorrow. I apologize lass. I have just been distracted."

"By what?"

Killian hesitated before saying, "The holidays."

"Meaning Milah."

"I called her today." Killian steered them into a mall.

"You holiday dialed your ex?"

"Excuse me?"

"Its like drunk dialing but during the holidays and more pathetic. You can't blame that call on rum."

"It's not pathetic and you need to help me find a present for her."

As they entered the first shop Bella turns and asks, "How do you know she will even want to see you?"

"It's the holidays. We love the holidays," Killian explained. Remembering how they mostly loved how the holidays were an excuse to stay at home in bed with each other.

"News flash," Bella shouted at him interrupting his day dream, "You aren't a 'we' anymore."

"We will be after tonight," Killian stated firmly.

"You're delusional," Bella muttered while looking at a rack of coats.

"I prefer optimistic. Now help me find a gift."

"Whats the rush?"

"I have a blind date at 5." Killain threw over his shoulder as he made his way to a display of jewelry.

That caught his friends attention.

"You have a blind date and you're meeting Milah?" Bella stormed over beside him.

"The blind date isn't going anywhere."

"How do you know? You haven't even met the poor girl."

"It was set up by my dads friend."

Bella rolled her eyes, "You mean by Maia his wife. Killain they've been married for 10 years. They have a son. Your half brother."

"AH HA!" Killian snatched a box holding gold diamond earrings, "What do you think of those?"

Bella took a look at the price, "Their 250$."

"Nothing says miracle like diamonds."

Bella looked between Killian and the earrings, "I'm out. You are my best friend and I love you platonically. But I will not stand by and encourage your insanity. I'm going back to the holiday party."

Killian turned his gaze to her at that, "Why?"

"You have a blind date and your crazy optimism. I have Felix in security."

Killian winced, "You're better than that."

Bella rolled her eyes, "Right back at ya. Happy Christmas."

"Happy Christmas."

Killian paid for the earrings then made his way through the mall hoping to find the Christmas wrappers. As he stepped off the escalator there were christmas caroler singing to his left as he turned her was hit with a strange scent and wet spray. The world began to spin and then went black.

The next thing he knew he woke up on the floor with a tan elderly man and a black woman standing over him.

"Are you alright?" the man spoke in a gruff voice.

"I spritzed you and you passed out."

Killian began sitting up.

"Oh wow. Be careful now," The gentleman warned grabbing his arms to hep him up. "Has this ever happened to you before?"

"Uh no. This hasn't." Killian thought for a moment before speaking again, "I haven't eaten today. Must be low blood sugar."

"Maybe you should take it easy."

"Thanks mate but I'm fine." Killian continued walking.

He finally made it out of the mall, passing a man trying desperately to untangle lights, to his apartment. He was welcome to the sight of his buildings elevator broken. After marching up the stairs he made it to his apartment door, before he could unlock the door his neighbor, a sweet old lady who insisted on most everyone calling her Granny, cornered him.

"Elevator still broken. Super says it'll be fixed by the new year but I wouldn't hold your breath. Anyways I made you a cherry chip loaf."

Killian was finally able to get his door open, turning he took the offered gift thanked the woman before closing the door behind him.

His apartment phone blinked red indicating he had a message. He pressed the button hoping to hear the voice of his ex but was instead greeted with the voice of a different woman.

'Hey Killian. It's Emma your blind date for the evening. Um just calling to say I got your message about the Rabbit Hole. Sounds good to me so I guess I'll see you at 5.'

Killian threw the cake his neighbor just gave him on the counter then went to change out of his office attire and into something more suitable for his date. When he felt he was dressed appropriately headed on his way.

He entered the bar first thing he sees is a rather large gentleman staring expectantly at the door.

"You look like a man that has been waiting for a miracle."

"I have a blind date."

"Oh please tell me you aren't waiting for someone named Killian."

The man grimaced, "No a Phyllis."

"Killy?"

Killian turned his gaze to a stunning blonde in a pink dress, "Emma?"

She flashed him a blinding smile as he approached her.

"And it's Killian."

"Sorry. Maia told me-"

"It's fine. It's something we are working on." Killian brushed her off as they took a seat.

"You look relieved," Killian commented.

"Yeah well you never know with blind dates."

Just then a waitress came over and dropped off two drinks, "Oh I ordered for you. I hope that's alright."

"I'm actually not a beer man."

Emma cocked her head to the side, "Its not a beer it's a logger."

"I just never fancied it."

"It was a shot in the dark. Why not try something new?"

He turned to the waitress and asked for a rum. He turned back to the blonde and offered a smile as she fidgeted in her seat.

"This is going well," Killian commented trying to subtly look at his phone that he placed on the table.

Emma let a giggle slip from her lips, "Not awkward at all."

"So Killian what do you do? Maia wasn't willing to give any details about you other than you're a handsome gentleman."

Killian turned away at the compliment, "If it makes you feel any better she was the same with information about you. Only saying that you were a lovely lass that I just had to meet."

"I hope I don't disappoint."

Killian looked down at his phone again before answering her question, "I working in shipment. I keep track of what packages go where and which shipping containers they go in."

"That sounds-"

"Boring? Aye." He looked down at his phone again.

"Is there something wrong?"

"No why?"

"You keep looking at your phone."

Before he could speak his phone began going off. He rushed to pick it up muttering an excuse me before answering it.

"Hello? Milah? My place? Give me a moment." He pulled the phone away from his ear turning to his date who's face had scrunched up a bit.

"Would you mind if we pick this up another time?"

"Whos Milah?" Emma leaned back in her seat crossing her arms over her chest.

"My Ex."

Emma waved him off as she got out of her seat grabbing her leather jacket off the back of the chair, "Go. It was nice to meet you Killian."

She stormed out of the bar before Killian could speak another word. Pressing the phone back to his ear he confirmed with Milah to meet up with her at his apartment building. A half an hour later he was standing outside his building.

"Killian?"

He turned around to see a dark haired woman approaching him. The woman he has been waiting all night for. When they met they smiled at each other and leaned in for a polite kiss on the cheek.

"I brought Max like you asked. I think he missed you."

"I missed him too. Great we can spend the night the three of us."

A dog bark turned their attention to behind them. Killian looked to see max being held by a strange man.

"Killian this is Robert. We are heading to a cabin and thought you could watch Max for us."

Killian looked between the man and the woman in front of him.

"It's a little cold." The man said handing off the leash to Milah, "I'll just wait in the car."

As the man walked off Killian turned back to Milah. "Who's he?"

"Killian-"

"How long?"

"3 months. We knew each other in highschool. We reconnected and really-"

"Connected." Killian paused before asking his next question, "Do you love him?"

Milah took a breath in before say, "Yeah I do."

Killian just nodded taking the leash from her, "Thank you again for bringing Smee I really did miss him."

Without waiting for her response he made his way down the street to his own car starting the trek to his fathers.

Killian sat in an armchair in the living room as his father and Maia talked about how disappointed they were Liam couldn't be there tonight with Elsa and the grandchildren but Will should be there first thing in the morning for presents.

"You are staying the night Killian right?" Maia asked.

"Sure he will. We'll open gifts Christmas morning just like how we used to." his father chimed in patting him on his shoulder.

"Dad nothing is like it used to be. Not since moms passing."

Brennan glanced at Maia who's face had fallen slightly. Just then the phone rang, Maia stepped out to answer it.

"Killian that was rather rude."

Killian shook his head, "Dad you're wife died and you found a replacement. But I won't replace my mom."

Brennan leaned forward meeting his sons eye, "Maia isn't trying to replace anyone."

Just then Maia stepped back into the room, "That was Emma. She said you blew her off for another woman."

"Killian."

"That wasn't my intention-"

"Emma is the sweetest girl. She deserved better than that."

"I will call her tomorrow, offer a sincere apology, and try to reschedule our date."

Maia scoffed, "That ship has sailed. And I'll tell you it was one hell of a ship. You can't go back and fix this."

Not wanting to deal with anymore disappointed comments or glares Killian decided it was his time to leave.

Once home he quickly stripped out of his clothes threw on some sweat pants and cuddled up in bed them smee resting at his feet.

Nearing midnight Smee shifted, his paw landing on the remote turning on Killians tv. An infomercial played across the screen of a partridge broach warning customers of the sale that will end at midnight. As the clock turned to 12:00 something strange happened. The partridge broach began to glow. The light encompassing the entire room and the clock began to turn back.

Killian opened his eyes and he was once again greeted with the sight of a elderly tan man and a black woman standing over him as carolers sang in the distance.

"I spritzed you and you passed out," the black woman explained.

Killian furrowed his eyebrows, "What the bloody hell?"

#kazoosadventcalendar #captain swan #cs au #cs fanfic #cs ff #cs fic #emma swan #killian jones #ouat #once upon a time #12 dates of christmas

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sotangledupinit · 6 months

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Christmas music is tickling the muse… Will my two perpetual WIP Christmas fics be finished this year finally???

#christmas fic #captain swan #cs fanfic #cs ff

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anmylica · 1 year

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Something About December (Throw a Wrench in Your Plans)

Summary: Killian and Emma have been secretly dating for close to a year, only none of their friends know it. They’ve agreed to keep it a secret until they know it’s real, but what happens when Emma’s brother, David, starts to become suspicious? One thing is for sure, this Christmas will be one that none of them forget!

Inspiration for this fic: @xarandomdreamx and @kmomof4 encouraged me to write this fic (fondly referred to as the procrastination fic) based on a prompt in the CSMM Discord that said: “Christmas prompt: Emma and Killian have been dating about a year or so but they kept it secret because Killian is Emma’s brothers best friend. So Christmas comes around and they have to act like they haven’t been sleeping together so David won’t give Killian a black eye for Christmas.” My idea was based on the Buzzfeed article where someone wrote about how they knew two people were dating (“At a place I worked at about 25 years ago, my co-worker had dropped her screwdriver, and our boss picked it up and stuck it in her pocket. Later that day, my buddy said, 'She did not flinch or look away from what she was doing when his hand went to her pocket — his hand has been in that pocket before.” —u/CathyTheGreatsHorse). I also blame @everything-person and @teamhook for this fic, as they were the ones who either came up with the prompt or encouraged me to add another WIP. I’m debating adding a part 2, as I couldn’t work my other ideas into the narrative, but we’ll see!

This is my (surprise) gift to them, but also to the fandom as a whole. May your days be merry and bright!

The title is also from a Christina Perri song, in case you recognize it!

Read Here on AO3

Tagging List:

@kmomof4

@snowbellewells

@sotangledupinit

@tiganasummertreemertree

@zaharadessert

Let me know if you want to be added to the Tag List for future updates!

Read under the cut!

Something About December (Throw a Wrench in Your Plans)

David tried really, really hard not to disturb his sister before 9:30 in the morning on her days off (and let’s be honest, he tried not to disturb her before he had to on days she wasn’t off anyway), as Emma “Swan” Nolan wasn’t a morning person in any interpretation of the word. But his wife, and Emma’s best friend, Mary Margaret Nolan, wouldn’t hear of his excuses and forced him to brave his sister’s wrath and bring her her favorite leath jacket (that she had inconveniently left at his place last week and thus subsequently nagged him to death about delivering it to her). He rolled his eyes, but he liked to remain on his wife’s good side, so he reluctantly agreed to run it over to her early on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

He had just parked his truck, thankful that he didn’t have to work today himself, when he saw her door open. ‘Good,’ he thought, ‘she’s already awake. I won’t have to slay the dragon today, after all. This makes this easier.’

He was just about to open his door when he saw his best friend and fellow sheriff’s deputy, Killian Jones, step out of Emma’s apartment. He stopped in his tracks, his hand on the handle of the door and poised to throw it open. He stared at the sight before him, turned his eyes briefly back to the dash to check the time, and then turned his eyes back to his best friend and his sister. He watched as Emma followed Killian out, wearing nothing but the button down shirt he could have sworn he saw Killian wearing yesterday while they worked their shift and a pair of socks. Killian turned and gave his sister a long, slow, lingering kiss. The kiss lasted so long it made David feel awkward, as if he were about to get a show he didn’t ever want to see. Finally (at last) Killian pulled away and left, getting into his vintage Shelby Mustang and waving as he did so. Emma waved back and stood staring in the doorway as he pulled out of sight. Once she couldn’t see him, she disappeared back into her appartment.

David stared at the closed door dumbfounded. What had he just witnessed? He hadn’t seen them together before this. He wouldn’t ever have said they would have been attracted to each other before this. (That was a lie; all the rest of his friends had commented numerous times before that you would get an explosion if you lit a match anywhere near them, but David refused to accept that as truth.) Did any of their friends know about this? Surely not. Mary Margaret couldn’t keep a secret to save her life, Ruby couldn’t hold back gossip this juicy (her words, not his), and, although discreet, Belle would have told Mary Margaret. David doubted that any of their other friends, though probably not Victor, would even care about this revelation. (Again, this was a lie. Liam, Victor, Graham, Eric, and Jefferson were all highly invested in the not-Killian-and-Emma ship.)

How long had they even been together, for that matter? Or were they even dating? David was going to break every single bone in Killian’s body if he were putting one over on his sister. The bro code had to be honored, in this case. There was no way Killian was getting out of the consequences.

David sat so long in his truck pondering this new revelation that he was startled to see that thirty minutes had passed. Deciding that this was plenty of time to wait, he got out of his truck and delivered his sister’s jacket, though he didn’t say a word about what he had seen. He needed more information than what he had to go on, at present. Surely there had to be another explanation? When Emma answered the door, he greeted her the same as he always did and presented her her red leather jacket.

Nope. Everything was just fine. He was not going to automatically assume they were boning just because of circumstantial evidence. He was going to wait for further proof.

“Dude, they’ve gotta be fucking,” Victor exclaimed later that evening. Their group of friends had all met at the Rabbit Hole for their traditional post-Thanksgiving get together. Some years they had it at one of their places, but no one had felt like staying in, so they all agreed to go to the best bar in Storybrooke.

“Who?” Demanded Liam, turning to look at who Victor was pointing at.

“Killian and Emma,” Victor replied. “Look at them! All cosy playing pool together.”

Belle frowned. “How does this indicate they’re together?”

“Look how close they are! I only get that close to girls I’m trying to persuade to go home with me.”

David examined the amount of space between his friend and his sister. They might have been closer than strictly necessary, but that was because another group was playing pool at the next table over and were on the same side as Killian and Emma. They weren’t any closer than anyone else.

“It doesn’t look that close to me,” Liam dismissed skeptically.

“No, not right now, but I swear just a second ago they were like this,” Victor insisted as he pressed as close as he could to Mary Margaret, who shrank back away from him instantly, making a face. “You don’t get that close unless you’re banging.”

Mary Margaret scoffed. “Must you be so disgusting?”

Ruby laughed and Graham grinned. DIsgusting and sleazy were Victor’s middle names.

Victor cast a roguish grin towards Mary Margaret. “It’s a talent,” he replied flippantly. “But I still stand by what I said.”

Liam’s brow furrowed as he contemplated the picture that Killian and Emma presented. “I haven’t seen him with anyone since Milah. He’s brought a few home for the night, but nothing serious.”

Belle nodded in agreement. “It’s been the same way for Emma. We all know how Neal turned out.”

Silence fell over the table as they all agreed, remembering how badly Neal and Milah, who were brother and sister, had screwed over their friends. Neither lived in Storybrooke anymore, and it was a good thing, as David was willing to bet that many of their friend-group would have had criminal records if they had stayed in town.

Victor nodded sagely. “Yes, well, be that as it may, they’re doing the dirty.”

Everyone rolled their eyes in response, but no one at the table deigned to reply.

“Who’s doing the dirty?” Elsa asked as she had just walked up, shrugging off her ice blue coat as Liam jumped up to help her.

“Killian and Emma!” Victor announced triumphantly.

Elsa rolled her eyes. “How on earth did you figure that?”

Victor pointed at them. “Behold!”

Elsa and the group turned to watch Killian and Emma again. Killian seemed to be mocking a guy’s stroking technique from the next pool table over while Emma had collapsed against the table in tears from laughing so hard. Killian was laughing at how much Emma was laughing, but this was nothing different from how they had acted in the past. Elsa turned back to Victor with one eyebrow raised as if to say, ‘Is that all you’ve got?’

“Oh yes,” Elsa replied as she sat on Liam’s lap, “they’re getting it on right as we speak.”

Victor huffed in frustration. “I’m telling you, they are!”

Graham pulled out his phone. “Let’s do some research,” he responded. “Let’s find out what the Internet says.” He ran a quick search on his phone. “First: do they make a lot of eye contact?”

Everyone turned to evaluate how much eye contact the two were making. Neither looked at the other very long.

“Alright, next: do they seem closer in general?” Graham continued. They group fell silent as they thought about it. David silently watched the others shrug, but he didn’t say anything. He wasn’t sure if what he witnessed counted as closer, anyway. One by one, they all shook their heads.

Graham nodded his head. “Are they sharing lingering looks?”

They all looked up to see Killian checking out a brunette in a short mini skirt who was jumping up and down and Emma eyeing a guy at the bar.

Graham shook his head. “Doesn’t look like it. Do they communicate in a secret language?”

Mary Margaret was the one who answered that. “They’ve always communicated in a secret language.”

Liam nodded his head in agreement. “Ever since they were in school together. Even when he was with Milah and she was with Neal. That hasn’t changed.”

Everyone nodded. Victor mused, “Yeah, I can see that one.”

Graham turned his head back to his phone. “They become very protective of one another.”

Belle was the one who answered this. “They’ve always been protective of one another. Remember what happened with Neal?”

Everyone winced and David laughed. Neal had cheated on Emma back in high school with a girl named Tamara, and Killian had kicked his ass. This was right before Killian found out that Milah had gotten pregnant by an older man in the community, Robert Gold, and was planning on eloping with him (he was one of the richer men in town). Once Killian had found out, Emma was quick to take up for him in return. They’ve always been that way with each other. After thinking on it, David wondered if maybe that should have been a hint to him then that there was something between them.

Graham said the next item on the list. “You will see them together more and at odd times.”

Ruby shook her head. “That’s inconclusive since they both work such crazy schedules. And they’re always together or with us in a group.”

“They suddenly have more to say to each other,” Graham continued.

David and Liam shook their heads. “The last conversations we’ve had have been about the usual stuff. He hasn’t mentioned Emma at all,” Liam said. David agreed.

“She hasn’t mentioned him to me either,” Elsa replied and the other ladies agreed.

“They tease each other more or they choose their words more carefully.” Graham looked at everyone, but they shook their heads.

“They’re smiling and happy all the time.”

Mary Margaret tilted her head as she thought about this one. “Maybe? Emma does seem happier recently.”

“So does Killian, but he’s been talking about a lot of good happening at the station,” Liam added.

Graham nodded his head. “So that’s a possibility. What about avoiding each other?”

Everyone shook their heads. If they had started avoiding each other, none of their friend group had noticed. David wondered if the lack of mentioning the other recently counted as avoidance, but he kept silent.

“Alright, last one. Have they started touching more recently?”

Victor started vigorously nodding his head. “Dude I just saw Killian’s hands in Emma’s pockets and they were standing right beside each other!”

They all turned to look back at Killian and Emma. Neither was beside the other, and they were taking drinks out of their glasses. Everyone turned and looked at Victor in disbelief.

“Not right now, I mean earlier! When I decided they were getting lucky with each other!”

Elsa scoffed. “Oh, you decided. Suddenly it’s all becoming clear.”

Liam shook his head. “You can’t just decide these things Victor, we’ve been over this!”

Ruby rolled her eyes as Victor protested, “I’m telling you, it was real what I saw!”

Everyone picked up their glasses and took a drink with no one bothering to say anything in response to Victor’s whining. Emma and Killian were making their way over with newly refilled glasses.

“I have emerged victorious!” Killian announced to the table as he sat in his abandoned chair, Emma coming behind him rolling her eyes.

“He won by a scratch,” she corrected.

“That’s not all I win by a scratch, Swan,” Killian winked at her, causing Emma to roll her eyes.

“Well, win with that brunette over there by a scratch,” she threw back. “I’ve got to head out, I’ve got research to do for my next job. I’ll see everyone later?” Emma surveyed the table. Everyone nodded their heads in agreement.

“Emma! Don’t forget that we’re doing Dirty Santa at our place on the 10th,” Mary Margaret added. “I meant to tell everyone, so I guess I’m telling all of you now.”

Emma nodded and waved at everyone, grabbing her jacket. David watched carefully to see when Killian left, still suspicious of their dating status. After about ten minutes, Killian said his goodbyes as well, citing an overtime shift he was picking up in the morning. David knew this to be true, so it didn’t seem too off for him, but he also wondered at how close in time Killian’s leaving was to Emma’s departure. There were a lot of signs that seemed to point to Killian and Emma being a thing.

David wondered what he should do next.

It turned out there wasn’t much he could do next to confirm what he suspected, as the flu began to go around the station and he had to start covering extra shifts. He and Killian began working overtime trying to fill in where they could, with Graham (who was the sheriff) filling in on the road with the rest of the deputies as needed. After almost two weeks of this, things finally slowed down to where they could resume their normal shift work. Killian and Emma hadn’t, as far as David knew, spent any time together outside of what they already did at work.

Emma also worked for the Storybrooke Sheriff’s Office, but as a detective who investigated murders or cold case files. Her schedule was a bit different from theirs, but every now and then, she had to fill in on shift work the same as everybody else. The recent flu endemic meant that she was pulling more road work than usual, and she was patrolling more with David. This was how he had known that Emma and Killian hadn’t seen each other much, as they were all pulling overtime. None of them were at home much, so there was no way for them to see each other outside of work, right? And David never saw them flirt while on the job, at least not recently. They had quit their ridiculous flirting-on-the-job stuff almost eight months ago.

It made David very happy that his best friend and sister finally saw fit to cease making everyone else so uncomfortable. It was very considerate of them, really.

On what Graham had sworn to them was their last shift of pulling double duty, Emma had collapsed into a desk in the bullpen. “If I have to arrest another drunken guy from The Rabbit Hole, I’m going to scream,” she announced.

David laughed. “At least we’ll have everyone else covering for us while we get some time off.”

“That’s the only good thing about this,” she agreed.

Their conversation was interrupted by Killian coming in bearing coffee and a box of donuts. He wordlessly handed David a cup, to which David muttered, “Thanks,” and set the box down. He proceeded to hand Emma her cup, which she took without a word of thanks, and she opened the box.

“There better be a bear claw in here,” she said as she pried open the top.

Killian chuckled. “Oh there is,” he laughed in return. “And one for me as well.” He handed her a napkin, which she took without any mention of gratitude, and handed one to David as well. David did express gratitude again, and they all dug into the donuts.

Killian and Emma joked around like always, but David was silent.

He couldn’t imagine not telling someone who wasn’t Mary Margaret thanks for something they had done for him, and he knew that his and Emma’s parents had instilled better manners than that. By this point, he was ninety percent sure that Victor Whale’s summation of events between Killian Jones and Emma Nolan was correct.

But he didn’t receive confirmation until the night of the Christmas for Friends party at his and Mary Margaret’s house that they did every year.

It was still very early in the evening, and not everyone had arrived at David and Mary Margaret’s place yet. Though Ruby, Graham, Victor, Emma, and Killian were there, several other couples had yet to arrive, including Killian’s brother and his girlfriend, Elsa. Emma was helping Mary Margaret with a few last minute details while Killian and David set up the drinks bar. Everyone was chatting lightly together, laughing, and enjoying the first gathering in a few days that they had gotten to arrange.

After placing the ice in the bucket, Killian took his phone out of his pocket to call his brother to find out how much longer it would be before they arrived, only to discover that it was dead.

“Bloody hell, I forgot to charge my phone before I came over here,” he cursed. David was just about to offer his phone to Killian to use, but his sister beat him to it.

“Here, use mine!” Emma handed it to Killian, who took it (again, without a thank you, David noticed) and stepped outside.

The conversation inside the loft continued as it always had, with everyone laughing and snacking before the rest of their friends arrived. Killian came back in after a moment.

“Liam says he and Elsa are about five minutes from here,” he announced once the door shut behind him. “He said to make sure his favorite cookies are ready to go, Mary Margaret.”

Mary Margaret rolled her eyes. “They’re right where I always put them.”

Emma laughed and kept stirring the homemade dip she had just gotten ready. Both of her hands were too messy to take her phone from Killian. David watched as Killian slipped her phone into her pocket without a word; David also noticed Emma’s distinct lack of reaction at Killian’s hand going into the front right pocket of her too-tight jeans.

He wasn’t going to say anything. He finally had the confirmation that there was something going on between them, and that was all he really needed. David glanced around at everyone else, but no one else seemed to have noticed anything. He was the only one who realized there was a romantic (or something like that) relationship between his sister and his best friend. Obviously they felt the need to keep it a secret, so he wouldn’t be the one to rat them out. Nope, he was the one who could keep secrets in his relationship. Had it been Mary Margaret, she’d have already announced it to the world. But he didn’t need to do that. They would tell the whole group when they were ready.

“You’re fucking my sister,” David said loud enough for everyone to hear. They all stopped and looked at him. Emma turned and gave him a strange look, and Killian looked up from the tray of cookies with what could only be described as a deer-in-the-headlights expression.

“What?” Victor asked. “Who’s fucking your sister?”

“Wait, what?” Ruby asked. “Is that really what he said?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what he said!” Victor replied.

“Pardon, mate?” Killian asked.

Victor looked at Killian. “Is he talking about you?” Killian looked back at Victor helplessly.

“You sorry son of a bitch. How dare you try to take advantage of Emma?” David continued, starting to feel really angry at the secrecy.

“Who’s taking advantage of me?” Emma asked indignantly.

Victor gave a leering look. “I’d have taken advantage if I could have gotten it,” he responded to her, earning a disgusted look from both Emma and Killian.

“It’s a good thing you never could have ‘gotten it,’” Killian snarled back.

“Hey, I’ve never made it a secret that I’d have gotten Emma in the sack if I could have,” Victor shot back.

“Are you sure you’re not on call at the hospital? Because you’re about to have to go there,” Killian retorted as he took a step closer to Whale and angled his body to be slightly in front of Emma’s.

“Oh, I think you’ll be the one there before me,” Victor responded, instinctively stepping forward at Killian’s challenging tone.

“Touch him and you’ll have more to deal with than him,” Emma responded to Killian being threatened.

“Killian Jones is about to have more to deal with if I have anything to say about it,” David cut in. “How long have you been screwing my sister?”

Killian looked back at David. “Mate, I have no idea what you’re-“

“I saw you at her house!” David cut him off. “You left at 7:30 in the morning for an overtime shift the Saturday after Thanksgiving! Emma is never up before 9 on weekends she’s off! And she opened the door wearing nothing but your shirt that you had worn the day before!”

Everyone’s heads had been turned to David, but once he commented on his sister’s state of dress, all eyes swerved to land on Killian, who was growing a bit red and had his jaw clenched.

“How do you know that?” Emma asked.

“I was there outside your apartment! Remember that I brought you your favorite red jacket back? I saw you kiss! I stayed out in my truck for thirty minutes after he left wondering what was going on, why neither of you had said anything!”

Emma and Killian fell silent, as the rest of their friends looked on in abject curiousity. David stared at them hard. No one said anything.

Belle, Will, Liam, and Elsa arrived, opening the door and letting themselves in without knocking. They had been friends for so long that they no longer felt the need to follow the standard niceties. They were all laughing amongst themselves, but that laughter quickly died upon their entering the room.

Each of the newcomers surveyed the loft. The atmosphere was tense and expectant. They slowly filed in, wondering what kind of minefield they were entering.

“Is everything alright?” Liam asked tentatively.

“Dude! You just missed it! David just accused your brother of doin’ a little bow chicka wow wow with his sister!” Victor enunciated his words by doing a lurid dance, making sure to gyrate his hips as he spoke. Ruby had to cover her mouth to muffle her laugh, and Graham had to look down at his feet. Mary Margaret rubbed her forehead in exasperation. David scowled at Victor.

Liam frowned. “He what?”

“Actually, we don’t really know what happened.” Mary Margaret shot a warning look at her husband. “David just made a baseless accusation.”

“What kind of baseless accusation?” Liam asked.

“He claimed that Emma and Killian are sleeping together,” Ruby said to fill him in.

“It’s not baseless! He put her phone in her front pocket!” David exclaimed. Everyone stared at David’s exclamation.

“Oh, yeah, that’s a hell of a sign, innit? Putting someone’s phone in their pocket is always how I determine how someone is doing the deed,” Will stated. Killian scoffed and shook his head, but before he or Emma could say anything, Belle piped up.

“No, I think David actually has a point, here. People don’t do that unless they’re very close.”

“I’m sure there’s a more reasonable explanation to that action. Maybe Emma told Killian to put it in her pocket?” Liam suggested.

David shook his head. “I was watching them. She didn’t say a word.”

Killian by this point had clenched his jaw and Emma could see the muscle twitching in his jaw (which, if she were being honest, was insanely attractive to her). She knew things were about to boil over very quickly, ruining their Christmas party, if something didn’t give soon. She crossed over to him and took his hand in hers. He looked at her for a long moment, and for that one moment the room faded away. Killian visibly calmed down with just that connection.

David watched their silent interaction, and in that instant he knew. Nothing he said or did would stop what was unfolding. No matter what else was said, his best friend and his sister were more serious than everyone was making it out to be. He took a deep breath and counted to ten, zoning out of the conversation continuing around him, Emma and Killian not being able to get a word in edgewise.

Perhaps this was why they hadn’t said anything yet? Perhaps they knew what would happen if everyone in their group of friends found out before they were ready to tell people?

“YOU GOTTA SEND ME DOWN A MISTRESS FOR CHRISTMAS! I WANT A WOMAN IN RED WITH A BOW IN MY BED!” Victor started half-singing, half-shouting in response to something David hadn’t heard from Will, who was laughing.

“The only bow around here is gonna be the one they have to tie your bandages with, Whale!” Killian shouted in return, though not nearly as loudly as Victor was wailing.

Victor paid him no mind as the girls all rolled their eyes or put their heads in their hands. “MISTRESS FOR CHRISTMAS! I CAN HEAR YOU COMING DOWN MY SMOKE STACK, YOU WANNA RIDE MY REINDEER AND RING MY JINGLE BELLS!” He resumed the suggestive dance around the loft.

“What are you, twelve?!” Emma sneered. “Grow up, Whale! This is why we haven’t told anyone yet!” She looked very upset, tears forming in her eyes, and David knew he had just fucked up majorly with her.

Victor didn’t stop his antics, carrying on butchering the song and everyone started to get irritated. David had finally had enough. He yelled as loud as he could, and everyone stopped.

“Victor, if you can’t comport yourself properly you need to leave,” he said. Then he turned to Emma and Killian. “How long has this been going on?”

“Almost nine months,” Killian answered.

“That long?!” Ruby exclaimed in disbelief, but she was quickly silenced with a look from David.

“Aye, that long. At first, it was so new and we wanted to see if it was something that would last, and then once it became apparent it would, we enjoyed not having to worry about all of this,” Killian waved his hand around to indicate the chaos that had taken off this night.

Emma looked at Killian, who looked back at her.

“We’ve both been interested in each other for longer than we care to admit. I hate that it took us this long to give us a chance,” she said.

“We alway said you two would be perfect together,” Belle responded, smiling gently.

“Yeah, we are,” Emma and Killian shared smiles.

“It’s crazy because I don’t think any of us realized a change in how you acted,” Elsa added, trying to make sure the conversation stayed on a more serious note. “We all probably suspected something at various points, but the two of you never really changed towards one another.”

Emma shrugged and Killian responded, “We just continued as we were. I guess when you’ve been in love for so long, nothing really changes in how you treat each other.”

David nodded and they all fell silent for a moment. Finally Will piped up, “I thought this was supposed to be a party? Have we finished with the Killian-and-Emma-sitting-in-a-tree nonsense, or are we going to carry on with that some more? Because I would really like to get to the gift-giving portion of our evening.“

Everyone started laughing and the serious atmosphere was broken. Everyone started mingling, separating into groups as they finally moved past the confrontation.

David moved closer to Emma and Killian, who had retreated and were standing quite close, having their own conversation. David hated to interrupt, but he felt he owed them an apology. He had this bad tendency to fly off the handle once his temper was lost, and he had definitely lost it today.