part one of the folie à deux series

'disloyal order of the water buffaloes'

After a week of being back in town, she feels like she's overstayed her welcome. She barely gets out of her room at Granny's, unless it's to grab a meal or make a quick visit to Ruby moonlighting at the Rabbit Hole. A place that once felt like home feels like the complete opposite of it.

She should have known this would happen. She should have left the moment they bumped into each other on her first night back. The look in his eyes when he saw her with Henry rivaled the look she saw on his face when she left years ago.

That night she made a stupid trip to the bar after dropping Henry off at Mary Margaret and David's (that kid loved his aunt and uncle fiercely and they did the same). Seeing him at the end of the bar, nursing what looked like his fourth glass of rum pulled at her heart strings more than before.

Killian was a man who never got drunk, not anymore. When she met him ten years ago, he was a mess. Fresh from losing his brother and losing his hand thanks to all the bad decisions his grief led him to, he was a broken man who needed saving.

So she sat with him through detox. She sat with him through the tremors and shakes and the randomly spiked fevers and the trips to the hospital to make sure he wouldn't die in the process.

Little did he know that through it all, he was saving her, too.

And when he sobered up and joined AA and became a better man, he thanked her, because no one had stuck around long enough to help him see this through.

And when he told her he loved her, after a passionate night together, he whispered against her skin about how he wanted to marry her and have a future with her.

She wanted all those things, too.

She loved him, too.

But while Killian Jones was a better man, Emma Swan still had a long way to go.

So she ran.

And came back seven years later to see the damage she had done and the wreck she left behind.

"You really did a number on him, Emma," Ruby said, serving her another shot at the bar her first night.

"It's not that simple, Ruby," Emma told her. She knocked back her shot as she connected eyes with him across the bar.

He took the chance to slip away when she glanced back at Ruby.

Call her a masochist or a glutton for punishment, but she went back to the Rabbit Hole once every night, just to catch a glimpse of him. Like clockwork, he would leave after her first shot.

Not once did they bump into each other at Granny's after their first encounter.

"How is he?" Emma would ask David and Mary Margaret over after-dinner drinks.

Regina (Henry's adoptive mother, through an open adoption process when Emma was eighteen) had fiercely avoided answering this question, opting to check on Roland and Henry in the living room.

Robin, well, he was of no help, either.

"He's...hanging in there," Mary Margaret would say.

As much as her brother loved her, she could tell he wasn't too fond of how things played out between his sister and his best friend—or, to put it bluntly, how his sister majorly fucked with his best friend's head after making it better, again.

"When are you leaving?" Ruby asks her just a week after her arrival.

"Tomorrow morning," Emma answers.

She had only stopped in to town because she had a case nearby in Portland, and Henry was over the moon at having his mother visit him at his own home instead driving down to Boston every so often to see her.

"Just a week?" She can hear the sadness evident in Ruby's tone, because despite everything the two were—are still best friends.

Even if they only talk every once in a while and haven't seen each other since Ruby took a weekend vacation to New York City and made Emma tag along.

"Ruby, you know I can't stay," Emma tells her. "It's only been a week and from what I'm gathering, I'm just making things worse."

Ruby sighs and bites her bottom lip before pulling out a napkin and scribbling down an address. She slides it over to Emma.

"What is this?" she asks.

"The church burned down a few years ago. Mother Superior had it built elsewhere. More of an open space now, too," Ruby explains.

Emma furrows her brows. "I don't know what this has to do with anything."

"They hold weekly AA meetings there," she tells her. "Something about how having a safe space to believe in anything is supposed to be helpful to a recovering addict who believes in nothing. Or so say the pamphlets Archie has everywhere around town."

She stuffs the paper into her pocket and nods as Ruby pours her another shot.

And yet, only an hour passes before Emma's feet lead her to her car, and her car drives her to a church on the outskirts of town.

There's no sign of his truck and yet clear signs of him when she opens the door and spots the back of his head.

"It's closed," he shouts, voice bouncing off the walls and echoing.

She stuffs her hands into her pockets. "I could tell you the same thing," she calls back.

It breaks her heart to see the stiffness in his shoulders appear, as if the sound of her voice alone causes him more pain than anything could.

Emma walks over to the pew where he's sitting, wondering if she should cross herself or what before sliding in anyway. It's only then, when she sits down next to him, that she sees the small butterfly bandage on his forehead.

"What happened?" she asks as she reaches out to touch him.

Her hand caresses his cheek and he leans into the touch and for an instant, they're not the messed up versions of them from now but the messed up versions from them before.

The ones with a brighter future ahead of them.

The ones who never saw this coming.

"I fell out of bed," he tells her, eyes closed as she revels in the moment, in the feel of her touch. "It's what happens when you go to bed with too much rum in your system."

She shakes her head. "No," she tells him. "What happened to you?"

His eyes shoot open. "You," he spits out, reaching for her hand and pulling it away from his cheek. Then his voice turns soft, like a whisper, as his fingers caress her thumb. "You did, love."

She shuts her eyes tightly, willing herself not to cry. She almost does, right when he reaches out and touches her cheek. Instead, she shifts and rests her head on his shoulder.

She doesn't know how long they've stayed like that, head on his shoulder as his arms remain crossed on his chest, but something reminds her to take him home. It's the least she could do for causing this mess.

"I'll walk," he says as she coaxes him outside. "It's not that far from here."

"Just get in the car, Killian."

It takes a bit of pushing, but he does so and soon enough they're inside the car and she's driving away from the church.

"Same place?"

"Aye."

She pulls into a spot just behind his truck and helps him out of the car seconds later. His keychain's still the same and his manner of leaning against the door as he opens it when he's working off the rum.

She shouldn't follow him inside, knows it's the worst idea, but she does it anyway, wanting to make sure he's all right. Everything in his small house, still by the water, stayed the same and she's not too surprised by that.

It's a mixture of relief and disappointment that fills her when she spots that picture of them by the docks, just behind that picture of him and Liam.

"Swan," he says, leaning against his bedroom door. "You're free to go. I've gotten myself into this mess before. I can get myself out of it."

She reaches for the photo of them, holding it close, before turning to him.

"Why did you keep this?" Emma asks him. He sighs, runs a hand through his hair and looks down at his shoes. "Killian..."

"It helped," he told her. "Kept me on the right path. I found it on the anniversary of Liam's death, when you had just left and I was in a horrible place," he says, scratching behind his ear. "Figured it was my brother sending me a sign."

"And me coming back, seeing me in person, leads you right back to the bottle?" she throws back at him, bite in her voice. "That's great."

"You were gone for seven years, Emma!" he throws at her. "You pop back in like it's nothing, like you didn't just leave me one morning and have your brother come and pack the rest of your things! Like your only reasoning to me while I watched you clear your drawers, begging you to talk to me, was 'because I have to'."

"You think I don't regret that?!" she shouts back. "You think I don't regret leaving my family, my son, my friends behind? You think I don't regret leaving you behind, too? Because I did!" The tears start to fall. "I do," she whispers. "Seeing you now, this past week, made me realize that leaving you was the biggest mistake of my life."

He walks over to her, closing the distance between the two of them. "Then don't make it again. Stay." He reaches up and cups her face. "Stay here, with me."

She doesn't answer him. She can't find the words to do so, now. So she leans up and presses her lips to his. He's shocked, momentarily, before responding and kissing her back.

It's not a want, but more of a need. A need to taste her again, to feel her against him again as he wraps an arm around her and pulls her closer. He tastes like rum and salt and she's sure they're from her tears.

With ease, he lifts her up and she wraps her legs around his torso, letting him lead her to the bedroom moments after.

It's a frenzy of clothes thrown about and naked bodies pressed together when they're on the bed, and when their bodies join she feels like she's whole again.

He kisses her when they both come undone, and when they come apart she tucks herself into his side, his arm around her holding her close as she rests her head on his chest.

She falls asleep to the sound of his heartbeat.

.

.

.

When he wakes up in the morning, the cool sheets have him convinced it was all a dream. That is, until he spots a text on his phone from an unfamiliar number.

'Job in Portland called. I'll be back tonight, promise. I'm not making the same mistake twice.'

A month later, he drives down to Boston to help her pack.