Anchor Me

by Ooshka

Emma Swan prided herself on being sensible, yet she's signed up for a house renovation TV show and persuaded Killian Jones to join her. She thought the worst thing would be choosing paint, but a fake relationship with a guy she barely knows, and who doesn't know if he can be what she needs, might be worse. Winning the show is only half the battle. CS Bigbang entry on Tumblr.

1. Chapter 1

This is my entry for the CS Big Bang (well, little bang really) on Tumblr. It's part one of something I'm expecting to end up being around three parts in total (but don't quote me on that). So I hope you enjoy!

Big, big thanks to kliomuse for being an amazing beta and helping me with the weird American lingo, and to chocolatecrackle for pre-reading and agreeing with me that yes, the US is weird :D

The title for this story is from the song of the same name by The Muttonbirds.

In retrospect Emma would decide that her first mistake was letting Mary Margaret look after Henry. It had seemed like a good move at the time. Her usual babysitter Ashley, a long-limbed, future Phys Ed teacher, had let her down again and Mary Margaret, the wife of a guy she knew from work, had stepped in.

To be honest Emma had been half-expecting Ashley to flake out ever since she got her new boyfriend, and, more than once, she'd had to bite her tongue so she didn't give Ashley the speech about where hot and heavy teenage romances led. Or showed off her own stretch marks just to ram the point home.

What she had done was entrust the care of her son to an actual teacher and assume everything would be fine from there. She just hadn't factored in Mary Margaret's television viewing habits and what they would mean.

"Mom! Mom! It's the big reveal!" became the standard greeting from Henry whenever she called to pick him up from David and Mary Margaret's. Who would have thought her ten year old son would have been so enraptured by a program about painting ceilings and ripping out walls?

"That's cool. So what'd they do this week?" Emma tried to show an interest, but really, it was all over her head. Basically she was happy if she had four walls, carpet, and a working shower. Paint colours had never really factored as a thing she wanted to contemplate.

"Oh well, the Red team did their living space, it's all in one now they've taken out the wall…" Mary Margaret answered.

"But the Green and Blue teams did bathrooms so it's really up in the air. The tiling in the Green house is immaculate though," Henry added and Emma wasn't sure whether to be more concerned with the fact Henry knew the word immaculate or his new-found interest in tiling.

"I think the Blue bathroom has the edge. It's a wet room. With a double shower head. And they've extended the window so you can look out from the bath," Mary Margaret added.

Emma peered at the TV screen they were both so focused on. As far as she could see all it showed was a couple busy arguing about what height a towel rail should be fixed onto a wall. Didn't seem much like quality viewing as far as she was concerned.

And it wasn't like she had the time to take in episodes of Our New Home anyway. Not when she was working full time as an administrator for the Boston police department and trying to fit in a few classes when she could, too. One day, sometime in the hopefully not too distant future, she wanted to be a police officer herself. But that required training, and time off from working and, well, more money than she had at the moment when she was just managing to keep Henry and herself in a small apartment.

Honestly, worrying about a towel rail would seem like a luxury some days.

"You know, if I had the chance, I might be tempted to go on a show like this," Mary Margaret said, wistfully.

"What? Why?" Emma couldn't understand that desire, although there was one thing that made her curious. "What do you win?"

"The public votes for the winner and they get to keep their house," Henry said excitedly. "So they have to move to whichever place they're holding the competition in."

That didn't really appeal to Emma. Sure a free house was a free house, but moving out of Boston? Not in her plan.

"But the others get to keep whatever extra the house makes at auction, over and above the work they put in. It's all on the capital gain," Mary Margaret added.

"So, like, actual cash?" Emma asked.

"Yeah. But the house'd be better. After you spent all that time on it, it'd be sad to give it up. Right, Mom?"

Henry clearly wanted to her to agree with him, but all Emma managed was a less than enthusiastic "Uh-huh." Still, it was all pie in the sky, really. Not like she was ever going on something like this. She'd be a disaster and, anyway, this show wanted couples they could stuff into dream homes like the Barbies and Kens she'd never had to play with as a little girl in the foster system. They definitely didn't want single mothers who couldn't tell a sconce from a cornice.

"If you go on it, can we come help when it's friends week?" Henry asked Mary Margaret.

"Oh. Sure. You'd be great at painting, Henry." Henry beamed but Emma thought that was pretty unlikely, too. Mary Margaret's husband David loved his job in the Boston PD and she couldn't see him shifting to some podunk small town just because his wife wanted to test her skills with a paintbrush.

It was a nice dream but that was all it was.

"Come on, Henry. Let's get home, OK?"

The show came to the end of its run, and, after a flurry of excitement during the finale, Henry and Mary Margaret seemed to forget about it. Ashley didn't resurface, but Mary Margaret was happy to keep on as back up babysitter even if it did mean that Henry watched far too much MasterChef and started trying to critique Emma's meals. It was only after she threatened to go on strike that Henry stopped awarding her points for her presentation.

Emma completely forgot about that stupid home renovation show. But, it turned out, Mary Margaret hadn't. Only by the time they were asking for people to nominate themselves for the next season, she was three months into her first pregnancy.

Of course she wasn't above lamenting the fact she couldn't sign up, and so Emma found herself seated at a table in the little bar she sometimes went to after work with David and some of the other guys, watching Mary Margaret sip her lemonade and complain about her lot in life. "You know, it would be so good to just know that you were set up for life. Especially now."

"Yep. Sure would." Emma would jump at the chance to just be handed stuff, money especially. But having to renovate a house for it did not appeal.

"Maybe you should do it?" Mary Margaret said, as though she'd been completely ignoring Emma's internal train of thought.

"What? Me? No, I'd be crap at it. Plus I don't have anyone. It's a couples thing. They only want people who come as part of a pair." Sometimes Emma felt like the whole world thought the same way. "I don't know where I'd just find some random guy who's desperate to pick paint colours with me."

"Does someone need a guy?" Emma looked up to see that Tink, who ran the bar and usually stayed safely behind it, had come over under the guise of collecting Emma's empty beer bottle and decided to catch up on the part of the conversation she'd missed.

"Emma," Mary Margaret said, emphatically, and for a moment Emma was afraid she'd stopped talking about the TV show. "I'm telling her she should try to get on that show, you know, Our New Home? But she says she can't do it alone."

"Right." Tink turned and called back over her shoulder. "Oi! Liam, you know of any random blokes lying around?"

At the sound of his name Tink's husband, Liam, popped his head up from where he was doing God knows what under the bar and looked thoughtful. "I'm willing to sell Killian for 50p."

Tink screwed up her nose. "Really? I would have thought he's worth at least £2.50. Oh well, fair enough." She turned back to the table. "Well, there's your best offer, Emma."

"I…OK." Emma was struggling to process what was going on. First there were the accents of the people involved. Liam was British, which was bad enough, but his wife was Australian, which was worse. Plus they were talking about a currency which meant absolutely zero to Emma. "So, pounds, huh? You use that in Australia?"

Tink frowned at her. "You know I'm from New Zealand, right?"

"Oh, yeah…yeah…" Emma was sure she had known that, at some time. Mary Margaret had other things on her mind.

"So, this Killian, do you really think he'd be interested?" she asked Tink, who shrugged in response.

"Dunno. Killian is Liam's brother and he's here at the moment, but he's not in the best space…" she trailed off and looked over her shoulder, almost as though she was afraid of being caught out. Then she sat down on the chair between Emma and Mary Margaret. "I think Liam just wants to get him out and doing stuff again."

"He's staying with you?" Mary Margaret asked, far more interested in Liam's brother than Emma could bring herself to be. It was all a waste of time, really, because she wasn't even going to apply for the show let alone rope this guy into doing it with her.

But, given they'd spent the previous five minutes discussing Mary Margaret's constant need to retch and sudden inability to stand the smell of cooked chicken, she'd go with this topic of conversation. For now.

"Yeah…" Tink said. "He's just here for a bit, after the accident. Trying to figure out what to do next."

"Accident?" Mary Margaret prompted.

Emma wondered how long this conversation might possibly go on for. She didn't have the excuse of getting home to Henry: he was sleeping over at his friend Avery's house. But she did wonder if David needed someone else to play pool against and she craned her neck to see what was happening by the pool table in the corner. She couldn't catch David's eye, unfortunately, and Tink started speaking so just getting up and leaving might have been considered rude.

"Yeah. That's why he's here, really. I mean he's had all the therapy and stuff, but he's just kinda hanging out with us now."

Just then, Liam appeared at the table. "Are you having a rest there, Tink?"

"Yeah…nah. Let me tell you, being a trophy wife is exhausting. And now, on top of everything else, I'm trying to sell Killian for you."

"I'm not sure he's that marketable," Liam said, dryly.

"Well…just tell us and we'll decide," Mary Margaret said, looking far too excited by the prospect of checking out a potential guy for Emma. Someone she could use for the purpose of appearing on a TV show dedicated to making people discover tiling is a job for the professionals, anyway.

Or, at least, that's what Emma hoped. Because she was barely interested in doing that, and she certainly wasn't interested in dating any weird brother in law Tink had to offer her.

"He is…was…quite good at what he did," Tink argued. "He sails. Competitively," she added, as though that was supposed to mean something special. "And he was doing really well, working with some of the European syndicates."

"Killian was hoping to one day get a place in one of the larger teams. Like Oracle," Liam added.

"Or, you know, a real team that isn't a bunch of cheating arses, like, say, Team New Zealand." Tink continued, giving her husband a pointed look, but he just sighed.

"You have to get over that. It was 2013."

"Never! Anyway, the accident's put paid to all of that. He lost a couple of fingers off his left hand and can't manage being on board the boats anymore. Not doing what he used to anyway. So he's, you know, yours if you want him." Tink smiled broadly, clearly thinking the bargain was about to be struck.

"Oh, um…well it's just an idea. A really stupid idea that I'm never going to go through with." Emma hoped she looked a little apologetic and not just bewildered like she felt.

Tink looked nonplussed. "Well, if you're sure. I mean, I'm certain he'd love to just meet you…"

"30p and a Mars Bar, and that's my final offer!" Liam interjected.

Emma shook her head. "Nope. No. It would be silly to even, like, try and do it. No, I'll just keep on working and hope to win the lottery or something."

Liam shrugged and left the table. Tink looked a little more disappointed, but didn't add anything to her sales pitch. Instead she went to answer Liam's call of "Where the bloody hell did that invoice end up?"

Mary Margaret looked over at Emma. "I still think you should consider it. I mean, I know it's a long-shot, but it's something, right?"

Emma stayed silent on that front because it was nothing, at least, it was nothing she should even contemplate. Roping a guy she didn't know and had never even met into applying to some TV show with her just so she could win some money, what kind of person even did that?

She made the mistake of posing that question to Henry when she picked him up from Avery's house the next day. Not because she'd been mulling it over all night but because, well, clearly Mary Margaret was suffering from a touch of the baby brain.

"I think it'd be awesome, Mom!" was not the response she'd wanted. Serves her right for not respecting parental boundaries, but, even so, she'd gone in this far she wasn't about to turn back now.

"Yeah, sure the money'd be useful. And I'm pretty certain a renovation isn't that big of a deal, really. They make it look worse than it is on TV because the drama keeps people watching. But I'd have to pretend that some guy is my boyfriend, or whatever, and that's just crazy!"

Henry didn't look as shocked as she expected. "Mom, people have done worse. And it would make a great story to tell later on."

"Seriously? The story of how I got murdered in a small town by a strange guy with a power drill, maybe. But not something that I'd want actual people to know about."

"Well, do what you want. But I think it'd be cool. And unless you try, you'll never know if you could have done it."

Henry was right. Well, sort of right. What ifs were terrible things and Emma's past was littered with them already. What if her parents hadn't left her to the whims of the foster system for her entire childhood? What if she hadn't hooked up with Henry's father Neal and ended up with a baby and a juvenile record? What if she was able to somehow make things better, make things right, get herself and Henry the happy ending they both deserved?

That last one was still up in the air of course. Maybe she could do it on her own. Maybe she wouldn't have to appear on some stupid TV show pretending to be something she wasn't.

But the thought she couldn't shake was that maybe she would.

And that was how, two days later, she found herself marching back to the Anchor and Hope clutching a Mars Bar and hoping that her plan wasn't going to be scuttled before she'd even had a chance to float it.

---

Killian often felt there should be more perks to having a brother who owned a pub. Sure, the access to free booze was nice, although Liam did tend to keep a rather sharp eye on how often Killian was going near the top shelf. But then you got nights like this where a request to just keep an eye on the bar for Liam while it was quiet had turned into a good forty-five minutes spent standing here, watching some stupid baseball game on the TV while the same four patrons nursed the same four beers he'd served them nearly an hour ago.

He was incredibly bored, and there wasn't even the possibility of drinking away his boredom because, supposedly, he's the one in charge here. It might have been easier if he'd had a valid reason for refusing to help out in the first place, but he didn't and he had no appetite to see another pitying look cross his brother's face when Killian admitted that he wasn't feeling up to hanging around a bunch of strangers.

Although you can hardly call four people a bunch.

So when he heard the door open and watched the blonde woman walk in just as he felt the breeze from outside hit his cheeks, he was immediately glad of the distraction. Certainly she seemed infinitely more appealing than the two guys from the warehouse sitting and sweating in the corner, or the couple who kept taking turns to visit the bathroom and no doubt text their mates to come and rescue them from the date from hell.

No, this woman was something else altogether. All blonde hair and shiny leather jacket and the slightest hint of nervousness as she looked around which made Killian think that she was waiting for some guy from Tinder to stroll in wearing a cap on backwards, or whatever nonsense people did to make themselves recognisable to a prospective hook-up. She kept fiddling with something in her hand and that was just a dead giveaway that there was no chance she'd have any interest in chatting to a bored bartender.

It would be just his luck, after all.

He had been having a run of bad luck since...well, since it all went to shit really. Since the accident, the stupid, pointless accident that was really just a moment of inattention caused, no doubt, by his mind being elsewhere at the time. He didn't want to blame Milah for any of it; not for being sick of the lifestyle, not for wanting something better than living out of a suitcase in Barcelona or San Diego or Auckland or anywhere else Killian ended up. Not for deciding that the time was right to settle down and find someone else, someone stable and grounded and just plain there.

But all the same, he was certain that knowing Milah wouldn't be there when he came off the water that day hadn't helped him. It was just a slip of the rigging, and a grab and a twist that should have got his hand free and didn't. And now, here he was. Stuck with Liam and Tink until he could figure out what on earth he could do next.

Liam, in the moments when his brotherly concern spilled over, had suggested that Killian was drifting, but he felt anything but adrift. He felt anchored, but not in the good way. More in the way that he couldn't break free of a darkness that threatened to swamp him at any moment. A darkness that mostly seemed to exist inside his own mind.

And that felt incredibly bloody shitty.

So any distraction was a welcome one. And the blonde, well she was distracting in a decidedly good way. Killian watched her scan the pub, probably looking for her date, and then head purposefully towards the bar. He made a little bet with himself that she'd order wine, red, because this was a date, but that secretly she was probably a beer drinker.

He kept his left hand hidden beneath the bar but that was, well that was just because he couldn't lean all over it, could he? What would Liam think if he turned up and found Killian just draped across the bar like some slack-arsed kid buggering up their first job behind a McDonald's counter?

No, he had a little more pride than that. So he'd stand attentively and wait for her come just a bit closer...closer. "So, what can I get you this evening?"

The woman frowned at him. Killian didn't take it too personally, though. She'd been frowning since she walked in the door, probably because she'd been wondering where the arsehole who'd stood her up had gone.

He hoped that, after she realised what had happened, she'd want to drown her sorrows, and have no choice but to speak to him. He'd be sympathetic, of course, and she'd end up hanging around to keep him company.

And chatting to this gorgeous creature, with her green eyes and flushed cheeks would be a bloody perfect way to enliven a fantastically boring evening.

But then she said something that threw him completely. "So, uh, is Liam around?"

Maybe she was a past customer and somehow knew that Liam was the publican, but Killian thought it was odd he'd never seen her before, odd his brother hadn't mentioned her and completely odd that she was acting so shifty, looking towards the door to the back of the pub and fingering whatever she had in her hand.

"He's out for a bit. With his wife, they had a few things to catch up on. So can I get you something, love, or do you want me to give him a message?"

"So Tink's not here either. Huh."

Killian felt some relief that she wasn't Liam's bit on the side; not that he really thought his brother capable of such things. But this woman was just giving him a very strange feeling. And she still hadn't cleared up the matter of exactly why she was there.

"Nope, but you can trust me with your secrets. I'm very trustworthy."

He fixed her with a broad smile, but it got a less than enthusiastic response. "Yeah, yeah. I'm sure you are. It's in the bartender job description, right?"

Killian tried not to be stung by her dismissal. "Actually, I'm just filling in."

Her forehead crinkled again. "Oh. Well, in that case. Maybe I'll leave it."

She started to turn away and Killian felt a sudden rush of panic. The bar was still dead and he just needed something, anything, give him something to focus on for a bit. This woman was the only thing he'd found interesting in a long time and he was reluctant to lose that feeling so soon.

He leaned over the bar a little, forgetting his earlier notions of propriety, and tried to get her attention. "Hey, but, uh...you want a drink anyway? On the house?"

She turned back and fixed him with a long, cool stare. "OK. But only if you won't lose your job or anything. I don't want Liam kicking your ass out because you bought me a beer."

"I'd like to see him try," Killian replied with a shrug, although really he was concentrating on how fast he could move his hands so she wouldn't notice his injury as he pulled their pints. "So what's your name anyway, love?"

"Well it's definitely not love," she replied and, for a moment, Killian thought that was all he was going to get out of her. She gave him an appraising look and then finally said. "Emma. Emma Swan."

It suited her, and he was about to say something utterly cheesy to that effect when he pushed over her beer and she finally put what it was she'd been holding on the top of the bar. He might have wondered why someone would bring a bloody chocolate bar into a pub and then hold it for so long, if he hadn't known exactly why this woman was clutching a Mars Bar.

Bloody Liam.

"Did my brother try to sell me to you?"

Emma Swan looked annoyed and guilty all at the same time. "Wait. You're Killian?"

"Yes I am. And that bloody Mars Bar is a dead giveaway as to what Liam's been doing behind my back. He's done it before, you know. When I was a baby he tried to swap me for a bag of prawn cocktail crisps, and then later on, when Lily Kaplan down the road needed an extra body for her interminable tea parties the price was always the same; a Mars Bar. They're his bloody favourite."

"Oh. Well, uh…" Emma looked around as though she was trying to come up with an reason as to why she wasn't part of Liam's human trafficking ring, when the man who most needed the bollocking came walking through the door from the back of the pub.

"Oi, Liam! Forget to mention something, did you?" Killian held up the Mars Bar.

"Ah," Liam looked far guiltier than even Emma had. Tink, however, was utterly shameless.

"Oh, you've met Emma then!" she said, looking between the two of them. "That's nice."

"No, it's not nice. Not when you're just being sold off for chocolate." Killian lobbed the Mars Bar at Liam's head but the bugger caught it and just looked pleased with himself because now he had what he'd wanted all along.

"Sugar will kill you," Tink informed her husband.

"Not if I do it first," Killian warned, while Liam just smirked.

It was at this point that Killian realised that everyone had been all but ignoring Emma who, when he turned to face her again, looked like she wanted to flee the pub and not look back.

"Of course I don't blame you, love," he assured her. "I know exactly who came up with this plan and I think it's the fact that he hasn't yet learned that you can't sell another person that's the most disappointing."

Liam shook his head. "It's hardly a sale. I mean, Lily Kaplan always brought you back again. It's more a short-term rental situation."

It still didn't sound any better to Killian and, all joking aside, he was starting to wonder if this had all been some kind of set-up designed to get him to ask this woman out on a date. And he might have, but now it looked like the whole thing was a write-off because she was watching them all, wide-eyed and slightly shocked, and he could only imagine that a date was the last thing on her mind.

He really didn't want her to leave yet. Not when he hadn't had the chance to figure out anything about her. Quite why that felt so important when he no longer needed distraction from the empty pub, Killian didn't even want to question.

"So what exactly is it that you were renting me for?" he asked Emma.

"Well, see. Here's the thing. I just need a...a pretend boyfriend."

"Right. Yes. Of course."

It was too much to hope for that this would be a normal set-up. Nothing was going to be normal now, of course. Not when he was missing half his left hand. And this smacked of one of Tink's more ridiculous notions, based on some half-baked romantic comedy she'd no doubt watched and thought she could replicate. There was no way in hell he'd be willing to be pulled into that kind of bloody nonsense. He wasn't cut out to be anyone's hero; most days he was doing a bad enough job of just trying to keep his own head above water.

But he'd been stupid enough to hope that something good might be coming his way, and that just made him feel, well, stupid all over.

"Sorry. I can't help, love."

Killian didn't wait around to see Emma's reaction to that, just walked out the back of the bar and upstairs to the little flat Liam and Tink called home. After flopping on the sofa in the living room that had also been doubling as his own bed for the past couple of months, he switched on the TV and started flicking through the channels.

It was ridiculous. Utterly, utterly stupid. He knew that Liam, and Tink, had probably meant well and were trying to help out this woman whom neither of them had ever mentioned before and was quite possibly a stranger off the street. And, God knows, why should he feel like they should have thought about his feelings before Emma's?

Just plain stupid of him, really.

After a half hour or so Liam arrived and plonked himself down on the sofa next to Killian. He held out the Mars Bar.

"Want half?"

"No, thank-you very much."

Liam sighed and tore open the wrapper. "You know, I think you were a bit hasty before."

"Oh, really? I'm sorry, did my desire not to be paraded around her best friend's wedding or aunt's funeral seem a little rash to you? Well I am deeply sorry that my stupidity got in the way of you and Tink winning publican match-makers of the year. Or maybe you were just in it for the chocolate, you've scoffed it all down bloody quick enough. Too bad if I've changed my mind about wanting some."

Killian expected that Liam might suggest he'd be better off changing his mind about Emma rather than the Mars Bar, but instead he sighed and threw the screwed up wrapper on the coffee table.

"Little brother, the last thing I think you are is stupid."

"Younger brother," Killian grumbled. "And it's plainly bloody obvious that you do, always have. It's why you used to spend all that time giving me away to Lily, after all."

"You really think that's why I did it?" Liam sounded genuinely surprised. "You used to want to go. Sure, I got the odd Mars Bar but you got the whole spread; Jaffa Cakes and Wagon Wheels as far as the eye could see. Plus Lily's undivided attention. You bloody loved all the fuss."

"I did?"

Liam looked at him like he was a little slow. "Of course you did."

"Hmpf." Killian put his feet on the coffee table and looked steadfastly straight ahead.

It was a sobering thought to realise that maybe his version of events wasn't the true one. Doubting himself wasn't a new feeling, but not about something as fundamental as this; it had been a known fact for as long as he could remember that Liam had spent their childhoods trying to ditch him with the girl down the road.

Now it turned out that Killian had it all wrong. Perhaps he'd been wrong to dismiss Emma as well.

But that ship had sailed and now he'd never know. He'd have to live with that decision like he'd been living with so many others.

Mostly he just tried to push it out of his mind in the days that followed. Emma didn't come into the pub; she clearly wasn't a regular. And that was fine because he doubted she wanted his apology anyway. Although if they were handing out apologies, he did feel that Liam Jones should first in line.

But he couldn't help but wonder exactly what it was she'd wanted with him. It intrigued him in a way he hadn't been intrigued since...well, since he discovered most conversations began and ended with the sad tale of how he lost two fingers in a sailing accident on board a racing yacht. Dealing with the less than pleasant side of life made people uncomfortable, and uncomfortable didn't engender warm feelings and a desire to prolong the encounter.

And that was even before he got to the part about currently being 33, unemployed and sleeping on his brother's sofa.

While he would hardly have termed himself a damsel in distress, he hadn't missed the part where Emma Swan, brandishing a chocolate bar, had turned up at his door to rescue him from the monotony of feeling bloody sorry for himself.

The worst part was that Liam and Tink felt sorry for him too. Not just because of Milah and the accident and the shit luck he'd had since then. No, they clearly felt sorry for him because he couldn't even manage not to be an arse to a perfectly nice, and somewhat gorgeous, woman who wanted an escort to some boring event.

He could see it in the looks they kept giving him over breakfast when they asked what his plans for the day were, or when they checked if he was free for a spot of unpaid bartending or just when they thought he wasn't looking and they huddled in the corner of the kitchen drinking tea and no doubt thanking their lucky stars they'd found each other.

So really, he'd all but given up on Emma Swan when she marched back into the pub about a week later and put something on the bar in front of him. "These are to say I'm sorry. So...I'm sorry."

He looked at the bag. "Minstrels?"

"Liam said that's your favourite candy."

"Where the bloody hell did you find Minstrels?"

"I had to track them down. It took a few tries to find a store that stocked them, but there's this place in Peabody that sells stuff from England." She gave a small smile and looked pleased with herself.

"Well, apology accepted then, love." Killian opened the bag and held it out. "Want one?"

"You want to share your apology candy? OK, fine." Emma looked like she'd been offered a poisoned apple, but she reached in and took out one of the chocolates and popped it in her mouth.

Killian tried not to stare too openly at her way Emma's lips moved as she did so. She really was attractive.

"They're good," she said, frowning, as though that wasn't what she expected at all.

"Of course they are. I have excellent taste."

Emma shrugged, and he adopted a slightly offended look which made her smile. This was good, they were getting along and maybe it would all be all right. Of course that was the point when his mind turned rogue on him and decided self-sabotage was the best way to go.

"It makes up for this." He held up his left hand, letting Emma get a good look at the missing fingers and mangled scars he'd been trying to hide up until now.

To her credit Emma didn't shrink back from the sight, nor did she fall into the trap of being overly sympathetic and interested in the gory details.

"Those are some pretty major war wounds, huh?"

"You should have seen the other guy." He felt a little embarrassed now; it was a ridiculous thing to do to this woman, testing her to see how she'd react.

He pulled his hand away and ate another Minstrel out of the bag. She stayed put, which was encouraging. He hadn't scared her off so far.

"So you wanna hear my proposal then?" she asked, after squaring her shoulders and suddenly looking a little more business-like.

"Only if it's indecent, love."

"Seriously?"

Emma sighed and rolled her eyes and Killian kept the smirk plastered on his face although even he'd winced a little at the terrible line he'd given her. It was an old habit, and one that was hard to break. Somehow it made things a little easier if he was just playing a role, just as much as he did presiding over Lily Kaplan's tea-table and saying the lines she fed him along with slices of Battenburg cake. It mattered less if someone rejected this version of himself, because it wasn't the real one.

Or, at least, he used to think that. Now, he wasn't so sure. And he definitely wasn't certain he'd take any rejection by Emma Swan particularly well at all.

"Sorry, love. Can't blame a man for trying."

Emma looked like she could, quite happily, blame him for a lot of things, but she put her hands on the bar on front of her and started again.

"So…" she said, slowly, as though she was putting off breaking some painful news. "This good taste thing you mentioned, does it extend as far as knowing which tiles go with which paint colours?"

---

Emma had never met anyone quite like Killian Jones. He could go from a blatant, almost aggressive, flirtatiousness to moody introspection in the space of about three seconds and occasionally it gave Emma whiplash. She liked to think that she was good at understanding people, almost as good as she was as tracking down weird British candy, but Killian was something she hadn't really encountered before.

You didn't have to be able to tell when someone was lying to see that most of what Killian presented to the world was a front; all style and no substance with the occasional appalling innuendo thrown in to boot. The problem wasn't that she knew all of this. The problem was that she cared why he couldn't just be himself around her.

It really weirded her out.

But, strangely, Killian himself didn't. At least not enough to put her off the whole idea anyway. Once she'd explained it to him in the pub he'd been receptive to the idea, if a little perplexed at the whole thing.

"So, you want us to pretend to be in a relationship and desperate to move to some dead-end small town, so that we won't win and we'll get the money we could have earned just labouring on someone else's renovation?"

"Well, it's more money than that. Hopefully. But, I guess...yeah, I do."

"That's certainly an interesting proposal." He'd looked almost as though he was going to turn her down, again, but he hadn't, and Emma, slightly elated at having overcome this initial hurdle had invited him over to her place to go over the application process.

Emma hadn't really thought it through beforehand, but this would, of course, mean she'd have to introduce Killian to Henry. Henry himself had been far too excited about the whole thing for her liking, and she was tempted to banish him from the scene but it was too late and Killian arrived at the door and Henry opened it before she could stop him and she never did get the chance to actually let her prospective pretend-partner know she had a 10 year-old-son before they came face to face.

She was glad when Killian seemed to take it in his stride, although not thrilled with having to answer Killian's questions when Henry was out of the room. "I think," he began. "That I understand your desire to do this a little better now."

"Really?" Emma hoped this wasn't one of those lines that ended with 'any chance to get close to me, eh?' which left her rolling her eyes.

She wasn't too far from the mark. "Well, you're somewhat of an open book, love." Killian raised one eyebrow and waited for her response.

"Phfft." Emma didn't know quite how she felt about that. On the one hand it just smacked of being another pick-up line, but on the other…

Was he really that interested in her? It was almost nice to think that, maybe, he was. But that just made her uncomfortable in a way his attempts at flirtation didn't.

"So, uh, what's in this book then?" Emma asked, when she realised that her own thoughts were a confusing muddle and there'd been silence between them for just a moment longer than was comfortable.

"Well," he said, sounding serious which made Emma feel a little apprehensive about what was to come. "I can see, now, why you'd want to head off and slog away on some house for six weeks. I mean, Henry's quite into it, isn't he? He tried to engage me in a conversation about hardwood floors earlier, thinking I knew about wood because I knew about yachts. I had to break it to him that there's been some marvellous developments in the last hundred years or so and everything's fibreglass these days…" Killian paused, and realised that Emma was frowning at him, not really certain what all this had to do with her.

"So I just wanted to say that I see why it's so important to you to find a home...because it's not just you, is it? It's Henry you're doing it for."

Emma nodded, not quite trusting herself to speak.

"But what I don't understand," Killian continued. "Is why me? Why wouldn't the lad's father be willing to sub back in long enough to do this with you? Doesn't he want to be on the telly?"

"Oh." Emma felt like she'd been punched in the stomach. "It's just...he's not around...now. Ever, really. Henry doesn't know him."

"Right. Yes, I see." Killian sounded a little embarrassed, but Emma was far too gone with her own emotions to offer him any way out of that hole. What she'd told him, that covered the bare minimum really.

She certainly wasn't going to own up to the fact that she'd been young and stupid and so desperate for someone to love her that she'd believed everything Neal had told her. That she'd assumed that 'I'll be back after I off-load these watches' was a promise he really meant to keep. That 'I'm sorry I have to leave for a while' was the actual truth.

And the worst part was that it was years later, years and years and long after Henry was born when she realised that all hope of tracking him down was lost because Neal Cassidy was just a name he'd picked out of a fucking book.

So, no. Henry's father wasn't going to come to their aid like some white knight on a horse anytime soon. But Emma was here, and Emma was going to win some goddamn money on this stupid show and give Henry a better life, if it was the last thing she did.

Even if it meant putting up with Killian Jones in the process.

They spent over an hour sitting side by side in front of her laptop, filling in the application forms. It was a little mortifying having Killian looking over her shoulder as she filled in her height and weight, but it was nothing compared to how quiet and still he got when they reached the section about health problems.

She watched him in profile as he pressed his teeth into his bottom lip and held his hands far away from the keyboard. It crossed her mind to try to offer some comfort, but it wasn't really her strong suit. Apart from Henry, she'd never been the nurturing sort.

In the end she settled for what she might do for Henry anyway, and passed him the open package of cookies sitting on the table. Maybe it was better between them when they just...didn't talk.

But the silence could only last for so long and the application required a short video which meant not just sitting close together on the couch, but actually trying to look like they were...well, in love.

Easier said than done, and not really helped at all by Henry, who'd been put in charge of recording them on Emma's phone, discovering his inner Spielberg and admonishing them to "Sit closer, and try to like, you know, look like those couples on TV that want to do the stuff I'm not allowed to watch."

"That's just...not a subject we're going near, Henry," Emma said, wondering when on earth he'd started being interested in things like that.

Henry frowned, which made Killian snigger. "What?" Emma demanded, feeling a little picked on, and more than a little worried that Killian was about to bust out with something that was really inappropriate in front of Henry.

"Just...he looks an awful lot like you when he's annoyed, love."

"No I don't," Henry said. "Now, just move closer so I can fit you both on the screen."

Emma gave up and did as she'd been asked, shifting along the couch so her hip bumped Killian's. He turned to her and started pushing her hair back over her shoulder. "Need to look your best there, Swan," he said, cheerfully.

Emma wasn't entirely certain whether he was just taking the opportunity to cop a feel or not. Even worse, she wasn't even sure that she didn't want him to. Her mind was wandering and she tried to just clear her head, but Killian was too close and she could smell his aftershave and feel the barest brush of his arm against hers and her chest suddenly felt a few sizes too small.

Was her heartbeat always that fast?

And then, thankfully, Henry told them to look at him instead and she remembered that they were far from alone in the room.

The video they made, outlining all the reasons they supposedly wanted to move to a new town for a fresh start in their own home was excruciating. Emma stopped and started multiple times as she lost her train of thought. Afraid of laying it on too thick she tried to keep details to the bare minimum, only to be informed by Henry that she was hopeless and they were never going to pick her if she couldn't even sound excited about the whole thing.

So she tried again, and hoped she did better.

But when it was Killian's turn it was a completely different story. He was charming, and effusive and managed to sound as though this was the thing he wanted most in the world; not just a house, but a home and a life with her. For about 30 seconds Emma found herself being sucked into it, and almost believing him.

That was ridiculous though, and she ended up flustered and embarrassed, almost pushing Killian out the door once Henry declared they were finished.

It wasn't until later, when she watched the video over again that she realised that all the way through the part where Killian was speaking she was just...staring at him, like some kind of lovesick high-schooler, left slack-jawed and drooling by sitting next to the quarterback in chemistry class.

But she hadn't wanted to be that girl in high school, and she definitely didn't want to be her now.

She was better than that.

Wasn't she?

After the application was submitted, she didn't see Killian again for a couple of weeks. All they could do was wait for the outcome. Contacting him for no concrete reason would have felt a little redundant.

There may have been a text from him, asking how she was but Emma knew that she received a lot of texts and occasionally one got lost or forgotten in the shuffle.

She just hoped that she'd been as good at lying to the people making the TV show as she sometimes was to herself. Not about Killian. Emma knew exactly where things stood with Killian, and that's on a purely professional - assuming you could count swindling TV companies as a profession? - basis.

But sometimes she allowed herself to believe that there was still someone out there who wanted her; an utterly ridiculous thought that left her a little embarrassed. Emma prided herself on being clear-sighted to the point of absolutely brutal about most things. For example, she had no qualms about labelling what they were doing with the TV show as something less than honest, after all. She knew what she was, knew what she was doing and knew what she wanted.

Or, at least, she had done. Until everything got a bit mixed up in her mind and it was so much better if she just stayed away from Killian for a little while.

It didn't last though. They were called to do an in-person interview with a producer who'd flown in from...Emma wasn't certain where. But when she gave Killian the details of the hotel where the meeting was taking place, she didn't suggest they travel there together even though that would have kept up the pretence.

She was playing with fire enough as it was.

At least Killian was in the agreed spot in the hotel lobby when she got there, running slightly late and flustered and it took her a moment to actually work out that the tall, handsome guy in a suit she'd seen when she first scanned the space was, actually, Killian.

It was weird, seeing him out of the usual t-shirt and jeans he wore and she stopped in her tracks, near a woman playing a harp which put her on edge even more because how goddamn fancy was this place if there was a harpist in the lobby.

She was making a huge mistake and her first instinct was to run. Flee the scene and never look back. But it was far too late for that. Killian looked at her and she watched as he broke out into a smile before calling out "Swan!" so loudly that even the harpist glanced his way.

Great. Just great.

"You made it," Killian said, as she walked over to him. "I was getting a little worried."

"Uh, yeah. Traffic. You know." Now they were in the same room again Emma seemed to have lost the powers of speech. It had been easy when this was just a pie in the sky idea.

Now it felt far too real and here she was, standing next to this man in his good suit and his shiny shoes, who made her feel sweaty and unkempt in comparison. This man who was looking at her in a concerned way that made her heart speed up and her throat feel tight; he was far too real as well.

"So what's the game plan, then?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"You know. How are we going to convince this bloke we're really a couple? What's the story of how we met? Was it a dashing rescue to save you from drowning or something?"

The questions sent a wave of panic through Emma. She'd been focused on the stuff to come and hadn't really thought about their fictitious past. Damn it all to hell.

"Don't be silly. This isn't, like, immigration or anything. The TV company won't care. If they ask we met at the bar and your brother introduced us. Which is true. A whole bunch of lies will be too hard to maintain." She looked at Killian sharply. "You're not doing this so you won't get deported or anything, are you?"

"No. I assure you, love, that if I were here to defraud the United States government, then you would be the first person I'd tell."

"Right. OK. Good. Then let's...let's do this."

They took the elevator up to the third floor and then walked along the hall to the room number printed on the email Emma had been sent to arrange the meeting. As they made their way past identical pale wood doors and along the ugly hallway carpet they fell into step so that they reached their destination side by side.

Only, neither of them actually knocked. Instead there was some shuffling and a few sideways glances exchanged.

"Well, last chance to back out," Emma said in the end.

"Nope. I'm in this for the long haul."

Matter somewhat settled, Emma knocked on the door and they were ushered in to meet August Booth. He offered his hand to them both and there was a moment when she could see Killian carefully hiding his damaged hand behind his back, before putting the other forward to shake August's. It made Emma feel a pang of well...something. There wasn't anything she could do, and she doubted Killian needed her to tell him it didn't matter when it quite obviously did.

August then offered them a seat in front of a table littered with folders and paper that may once have been stacked, but were now spread across almost the whole surface.

Emma sat, feeling a little like she'd been called to the principal's office but didn't know what for. She risked a glance at Killian, and he gave her a half-smile that made her feel marginally better.

Meanwhile, August Booth continued to shuffle pieces of paper around. Emma studied him across the table. He was tall, and dark, with light eyes and a dusting of scruff across his jaw and really, if Emma thought about it, not all that dissimilar to Killian.

But for some reason he didn't make her heart do a weird little juddering thing like Killian did, which was...probably because he held some kind of power over her future. At least, that's what Emma was going to put it down to. Because it would just be ridiculous to think she was attracted to Killian who was here, simply, as a means to an end. It could have been anyone, really, and it wouldn't have mattered at all.

Although Emma was glad it was Killian sitting next to her, nervously drumming the fingers of his good hand against his leg and making her feel as though she wasn't in this alone.

"Sorry guys. Just getting things organised...OK." He suddenly looked up across the table. "Now, let's talk about Killian and Emma."

Emma opened her mouth, and then promptly closed it again. Killian-and-Emma just sounded...weird. Because it wasn't a thing, and now there was this guy she'd never met before asking her to talk about a relationship that didn't exist and was never going to.

What the hell was she was doing here?

But clearly August Booth didn't notice any reticence on Emma's part. He carried on, earnestly, as though this wasn't some spiel he rolled out for every pair of prospective contestants.

"I know this show seems like it's about the house and the renovations, but it's not. It's about the people. It's about telling your story, the story of Killian and Emma, and sharing that with our viewers."

Well that just made it sound ten times worse as far as Emma was concerned. The idea of all this sharing made her skin crawl.

What if the viewers figured out she was a fraud?

She couldn't bring herself to say anything, fearing that whatever she discussed now might be used against her at some later date.

Killian didn't appear to have the same concerns. "So...we have a story?"

August smiled, like he might at a particularly precocious child. "You do. Well everyone does, don't they? But we're seeing you guys as sort of a second chance at finding happiness narrative. The idea of travelling halfway across the globe and finding that special someone, having one more shot at happiness right when you think all hope has been dashed. It's a classic romance trope that we think will really appeal to a slightly older demographic than reality shows usually would. But that's great because it's a niche we'd really like to explore."

He sat back in his chair, looking like this should all make sense. Emma was just...lost. "I'm sorry. What?"

"It's because you're foreign, love," Killian said in an exaggerated whisper, leaning over so far that she got a hint of his aftershave. "The housewives will think I'm wonderful for putting up with you saying cookie when you really mean biscuit."

"What...no." She raised a hand as though she was going to push Killian's shoulder, but then thought better of it and returned it to her lap. "I mean, I'm not foreign."

August didn't seem at all concerned by the fact Killian was teasing her and she was just confused by it all. In fact he was beaming at them, well, mostly at Killian, like they'd come out top of the class.

"See? This is what we want. A little friction thrown in, but within the safe parameters of knowing that you guys are absolutely working hard on making it work, because this time it really matters. A family home, right? That's the dream."

Emma nodded slowly, because yes, that's what she had signed up for.

"And your family must be excited about it all? Your son, Emma...it's Henry, right? He's got to be thrilled that you're about to take this next step with Killian."

"Um. Yeah. I guess." It was a less than enthusiastic response, but Emma knew she was lying, well, lying about the Emma-and-Killian part anyway, and that was bad enough. She didn't have to be happy about being involved in such a deception, did she?

"Great," August continued, with all the enthusiasm that Emma had failed to muster. "So we'll look forward to seeing him help out with the renovations. I think the viewers will really respond to the idea of a whole family working on the project together."

"Oh. He's not coming," Emma said, quickly.

The overly-friendly smile dropped immediately from August's face. "Not even to family week?"

"Well maybe then. I mean, I kinda promised him he could. But I...I don't want him on camera at all. He's only 10. If he wants to do this when he's over 18 then, sure, but not now."

"Uh-huh," August said, studying her so intently that she felt like a specimen under a microscope. "Well, we can discuss that later."

He turned to look at the laptop perched on the corner of the table and Emma was about to say that no, they wouldn't discuss anything later on, but she suddenly became aware of the fact that Killian had reached over and gently placed his hand over hers.

He was right, of course. No point shooting themselves in the foot now they'd made it this far. And she was grateful to Killian for maintaining the whole relationship thing in front of this guy. That'd surely work in their favour, even if she had to keep reminding the people in charge of the show that Henry was out of the picture.

"So, Killian," August said, turning the laptop around so she and Killian could both see the screen. "Let's talk about you."

Emma peered at the picture on the screen which was of a boat, one of those ones with the two main parts that always looks like it's really awkward and about to tip over. And then Emma realised that this must have been Killian's boat, or, at least, the one he sailed on. Huh.

The sails had the logo for Prada rather prominently displayed down the side and Emma glanced sideways at Killian; the suit made a little more sense now.

When she looked back at the screen there was a picture of Killian with the boat behind him. He was wearing a rather revealing grey wet-suit type outfit and carrying what looked like a crash helmet. It wasn't the sort of thing Emma had imagined people wore for sailing in, but then she'd never met anyone who sailed as a sport. Or a job. Or whatever it was Killian had been doing.

"That's you, isn't it?" August asked with a smile, pointing to the figure that clearly was Killian. Emma felt his hand retreat and wondered whether it was such a great idea to bring this up.

"Yeah. That's me," Killian answered slowly, and, Emma thought, a little sadly.

August wasn't as quick as picking up on Killian's change in mood. Or perhaps, and this was the most likely option Emma thought, he just didn't care. Either way; he just carried on enthusiastically.

"So I didn't know much about sailing before...I mean, it seemed to be just all rich assholes, right? But when I saw the research they did on you, it was quite the rags to riches story. And then the accident, which was tragic, huh?"

Emma felt like that shouldn't even be a question, especially when you saw how Killian's posture had completely changed now, his shoulders hunched and his head lowered.

"Yeah," Killian said, almost without expression.

"But," August continued, still sounding upbeat about the whole thing, "The viewers will want to see you triumph. Well, they'll want to share this journey with you as the love of a good woman, and the time that you spend building a home with her, sets you on a healing path."

The way August was describing it, the story of Emma-and-Killian kinda sucked. It sounded like a bad Lifetime movie. But then she wasn't the one starring in the 'look at the disabled person wield a hammer' portion of the presentation.

Killian looked like he thought it didn't just suck. He looked a little angry, and a lot despondent. "Mate, I don't think we need to dredge up the past too much, do we?" he said to August, with a forced air of friendliness. "Couldn't we just talk about the future, or, or...something?"

All friendliness, forced or otherwise, dropped immediately from August's face and he sighed, loudly. "Look, I get that you guys aren't comfortable with just throwing everything out there for public consumption. It's a lot to get your head around. But this is TV, guys. And at the end of the day you gotta have something to sell, some kind of angle. Something that's going to hook the viewers in and keep them coming back...and that's got to be a little more than just finding out if you paint a hallway green or blue. I mean, we can do so much with the show's promotion but if you aren't prepared to go with the ideas we're putting forward then I don't know…" He trailed off in a way that sounded a little ominous to Emma.

"So what you're saying is that if we don't give you some angle you can sell to the public...something that makes us a couple they'd root for, then you're not interested in us as contestants?" Killian asked, voicing Emma's worst fears. They'd come so close, and now it looked like it might all be for nothing.

August shrugged nonchalantly. "Look, you guys are great, but you can only go so far on the fact you have an accent and she's blonde. The viewers have to care about you as people, too. Feel like you're their friends and they want you to succeed. Without a little bit of, uh, backstory then you're just some pretty people getting everything they can't have themselves."

He waited a moment for that to sink in, before he started speaking again. "But I'm sure we can come up with something. I mean...Henry, right? You could hear him on that video you sent us, directing the two of you. I bet he'd love a chance to appear on the show...not, not all the time. But just an interview or two...maybe we could film him helping out around the place, show how he gets on with Killian. What do you think, Emma?"

Emma felt cold dread work its way down her spine. It was one thing to pretend to be in a relationship knowing she was doing all of this for Henry, it was quite another to drag him into it and have him parade around with a guy they barely knew and who they'd never see again when it was all done and dusted.

The one bright spot in the whole mess that was Neal's betrayal was that at least he'd already been gone when Henry was born and that had spared her son the pain of seeing his father leave. She didn't want to put him through a warped version of that pain just so she could win some money off a stupid reality TV show.

She was on the verge of giving August a, 'thanks, but no thanks' speech and leaving the room when Killian suddenly shifted forward a little in his seat.

"So, this story," Killian asked. "The one the viewers will be so riveted by. It doesn't really matter if it's got anything to do with Henry or not, it just has to be something. Is that right?"

"Look, I get it, I do. In this world, with the internet and the media...I know it's hard to let a kid take centre stage…"

Killian cut August off. "No. No, I'm just saying that you won't need Henry, will you, if we, uh...well, the accident...the yacht racing. You can cover that if you like. I mean, it doesn't matter now, does it?" Killian's rather forced chuckle at the end of that sentence suggested that it did, but Emma wasn't going to stand up and contradict him. Not when she was mostly just confused by what was happening.

Was Killian really offering to let them tell his painful story just so that no one would interview Henry?

"Sure," August agreed, the good-humour back in his voice. "It'd work really well. We've got the top sportsman angle, and then the tragedy...yeah. I know how we'd spin that." He got a far-off look on his face, like he could very well imagine just exactly how he'd tell that story.

Emma was still unsettled by the whole thing. The show she'd thought was about whether or not you could strip some floorboards more successfully than a bunch of other couples turned out to be just another one of those ones where people's tragedies were brought out to be examined by the public. And then Killian had to go and offer up his own story in place of hers. This wasn't at all how she'd expected this meeting to go, and Emma had the unpleasant feeling that she'd somehow sacrificed Killian for a shot at her own future happiness.

It made her feel a little sick and a lot uneasy. She was glad when, after another ten minutes or so of August telling them they were still in the running and handing them information packs about the town they were holding the competition in this time, the meeting was over.

Only that left her out in the corridor, alone with Killian, and wishing she were anywhere else in the world right then. They rode the elevator down to the lobby in silence, each clutching the information pack August had pressed into their hands.

"So…" Emma began, when they stepped out into the lobby again.

"Yeah," Killian agreed, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck.

"Um," Emma said, staring off at where the harpist was still diligently plucking away while being ignored by everyone just walking past her. "I mean...I know I roped you into this, but you didn't have to do that."

"What now, love?"

"Do...that. The thing back there." Emma sighed and tried valiantly to gather her thoughts into some semblance of order. "Say you'd let them talk about your accident in place of interviewing Henry. He'd probably like being on TV."

"But it was abundantly clear that you don't want him to be the star of this little show."

"It was?" Emma wondered why, if that was the case, August hadn't done the decent thing and dropped the subject.

"Open book, remember love," Killian said, finally smiling at her.

"What? No." She couldn't tell if his statement was another example of his weirdly endearing attempts at flirting, or something else altogether. Something a lot more honest that was, to Emma at least, far more frightening than another innuendo would ever be.

She decided the best thing was to try to brush it off. "Me? No. I just...I'm not that interesting. No one wants to know my story."

Killian looked at her with an expression she couldn't quite read. "Well, perhaps I would."

That was definitely a line. Right?

Emma hoped it was. "Well if you're that fascinated then you can ask me one question. Anything you like."

She waited expectantly, silently hoping that Killian would take this opportunity to ask her something filthy that she could brush off with an 'euww', but mostly expecting that he'd ask something about Henry's father or, rather, why she'd driven him away in the first place.

But for a good few moments the only sound was the clinking of the flatware being moved by a lone waiter and the incessant harp music that was starting to give Emma a headache. "You know what?" Killian said, at long last. "I will. But I'm going to save my question."

"That wasn't part of the deal," Emma said quickly.

"You said one question. You didn't say when."

He was right. Dammit. "Fine," Emma huffed. "Well that's assuming I ever see you again. For all we know we're not going to make it any further than this short list. So, uh, thanks anyway Killian. See you round." With that, she turned on her heel and marched past the harpist and out the door of the hotel.

She tried very hard not to think any further about exactly what it was Killian might want to know about her. In fact it was hardly on her mind at all. Not even when they made tentative contact after August informed them they'd made it onto the show. Not during the whole contract signing process when she had to use David's ex-girlfriend as her lawyer and Killian came too, even though Kathryn kept insisting that separate legal representation might be a good idea given they weren't really together.

Not at all during the planning, and the packing and the saying goodbye to Henry and pretending that she was going off on some adventure and wasn't starting to dread being away from him for so long.

But then came the day when she couldn't put it off any longer. She was stuck in her tiny car, driving to Storybrooke, Maine, with Killian beside her, taking up so much damn space that every time she tried to change gear she risked accidentally running her hand up his thigh. Which he'd probably enjoy. Emma wasn't sure she'd find it entirely distasteful either.

That picture August had shown her, the one of Killian in the wetsuit. It had stuck in her stupid brain. Worse, it made her curious in a way she didn't want to be curious because, dammit, this was supposed to be a business arrangement.

Killian was drumming his fingers on the car door and filling the car with the same scent of aftershave she'd found so appealing at the interview and she finally couldn't take it anymore.

"Go on, then. Ask me the burning question."

---

Being stuck in as small a space as a VW Beetle with Emma Swan should have been a lot more enjoyable, Killian thought. Although it wasn't the fact she kept frowning at the road as though it had personally offended her that bothered him, nor did he mind the fact that she'd been hot and cold towards him since they met.

Well, if he was being truthful, he did mind that a little. But what was the most pertinent problem at the moment was this damn question she kept going on about.

Like most things concerning Emma, Killian had somehow managed to talk himself into a corner. What had clearly been intended, by Emma, to be a way of moving the conversation along from the fact he'd thrown himself to the wolves, or the mercy of the TV producer anyway, had now become this thing hanging over them. And all because he'd wanted the upper hand in the relationship for once.

Except that it wasn't a relationship. Not a proper one, anyway. It was just Killian tagging along with Emma while she set out to conquer the world, or renovate a house, or however she saw this project they'd now embarked on. Killian had absolutely no qualms about whether or not she could do it; the woman was nothing if not forged with a steely-eyed determination that was really quite attractive when it didn't cause her to obliterate everything that stood in her way.

He just really wished that she didn't treat him quite like an annoying bystander all the time. And now, here they were, in this godawful bone-rattler of a car and she was pressing him to ask the bloody question.

Killian had a million questions about Emma Swan. He didn't think she'd answer any of them.

"Right, love. Well, how about this? Can we stop for chowder the next time we pass one of those dodgy looking places advertising it? I'm bloody famished."

"Yeah. That's not what I meant," Emma replied. "You know, the question that you get to ask me so you'll be the person who gets to know the real Emma."

She sounded grumpy, and Killian guessed that asking her anything right then wasn't going to get him a look at the real Emma Swan at all. In fact, quite the opposite. He was willing to bet that all he'd get was the brush-off.

So he'd settle for chowder. Or anything to eat, actually. He hadn't been lying when he'd said he was hungry.

"No, I was serious about needing to eat. Trust me, if I pass out here you'll be the one trying to prise me out of this seat. And, quite frankly, I don't fancy your chances, love. I think my legs might be permanently wedged under this glovebox."

"You're worse than Henry," she muttered. "Always thinking about your stomach."

"Amongst other things," Killian said, before he could stop himself. At least that made Emma's face relax from its frown, but only so she could turn her head and raise her eyebrows. "That's your dirty mind, not mine," he added.

"Well, whatever. Let's get you something to eat, and maybe if your mouth is full then it'll stop you making those stupid wisecracks." There was a pause. "And, yeah, if you say anything about the full mouth thing, I swear I will leave you on the side of the road and you can hitch the rest of the way. Or not."

"Fair enough, love."

It was true that getting Emma riled up like this wasn't exactly the relationship he wanted with her, but now that Killian had started down this path, it was hard to step off it.

And when this thing was only a job, in a manner of speaking, it was hardly worth getting too invested in it anyway. When it was all over, when she'd wrung all the manual labour out of him that she could and he'd been paraded all over the telly as some sort of wounded hero brought back from the brink by her fair hand. When they'd done their time in Nowhere, Maine and got their money, then it was all back to normal, wasn't it?

Only Killian wasn't exactly thrilled with that thought, because he didn't really have a normal to go back to. The couch-surfing was losing its appeal and he couldn't hang around getting in the way of Liam's life forever.

They drove on, Emma occasionally fiddling with the radio when the song didn't suit her, or trying to get a look at the screen on her phone to work out where they were going.

"You know, love. I'm actually quite good with a map if you have one."

"Don't need it. I have this," Emma said, taking her eyes off the road to squint at the phone again and making Killian wish that he was finding his own way to Storybrooke. Or, at the very least, that he'd been allowed to drive. But despite offering his services when they left Boston Emma had turned him down flat, insisting that only she knew how to handle the car.

And now she didn't even need him to read maps. Killian hoped it wasn't going to be this way right through the contest. Sure, Emma had talked a good game, wanting to know if he had taste and the like, but Killian was left with the niggling feeling that perhaps he was just there to make up the numbers.

"Look, how about that place?" Emma said, pointing to a building on the side of the road, a red flashing neon sign on the roof alerting passing motorists to its existence.

Killian felt a little better after lunch. The chowder itself had been almost inedible; if this was what passed for decent seafood around here he was going to starve. On the plus side, however, Emma seemed slightly calmer outside the confines of her car and he thought, or maybe imagined, that she was even starting to relax a little.

But it didn't last. When they finally located Storybrooke, after an episode that involved Emma swearing vociferously at her phone when she made a wrong turn and with Killian having lost most of the feeling in his legs from being cramped up for so long, Emma's face turned dark again.

Killian could understand the feeling. Now they were here, just the two of them, it all seemed a little too real. What had started as a distraction, a way to get a pretty blonde to pay attention to him, had now turned into a six week DIY boot-camp and Killian felt the weight of Emma's expectation sitting heavily across his shoulders.

Maybe drifting through life, waiting for inspiration to walk up to Liam's couch and punch him in the face hadn't been so bad after all.

"Dammit," Emma said, whipping her head around so fast that the end of her ponytail caught Killian across the cheek. This really was a bloody ridiculous car. "We were supposed to pull in over there."

Downtown Storybrooke consisted of exactly one street, by Killian's estimation, imaginatively titled Main Street. But even with those limitations, Emma had driven past their destination which, according to all the information they'd been provided by the show's producers, was somewhere called Granny's.

Emma executed a U-turn which, Killian thought, might have been completely illegal and then drove into the car park beside the building with the large sign that designated it as Granny's. It looked to be more a restaurant of some sort, rather than the B&B they'd been promised for their first night's accommodation.

"I guess there isn't a lot of choice around here," Emma muttered, as she stopped the car and peered through the windscreen at the blank wall of the building.

"I suppose not," Killian agreed. For a moment they sat in silence and he wondered if there was something else Emma wanted to add, but in all honesty his legs were killing him and he just wanted to get it over with now.

"Shall we go inside then, Swan?"

A terse "Yep," was all he got from Emma, before she was out of the driver's door and opening up the boot to get their bags. He'd seen this behaviour from her before, when they'd gone to the hotel room to meet August Booth, and he really hoped that this time it didn't end with him agreeing to any further outrageous demands for bloody backstory.

He liked to think that his sacrifice...noble sacrifice, even, was driven purely out of a desire to help Emma protect Henry. Killian could even reason why he'd want to do such a thing for a boy he hardly knew. All those years when his own mother wasn't protecting him from the realities of his father's life had taken a toll; the snide comments about how his dad was down the pub again, the questions about whether he'd seen him and who he was with and then, when Dad had stopped coming home from the pub altogether, the endless diatribes about what a shitty bloke he'd always been. She'd treated Killian like she might one of the other women in the street, merely there to be the willing audience for her interminable kitchen sink dramas, never caring how it affected her son in the slightest.

That was the role his own mother had cast him in, and he hadn't enjoyed it one bit. And, certainly, Emma's desire to prevent Henry from inadvertently becoming some kind of internet meme before he even had his own phone was a different kettle of fish altogether, but he still admired her for wanting to keep her son out of the fray.

He admired her for a lot of reasons. And, maybe, whether he admitted it or not, they had as much to do with why he'd agreed that they could talk about his accident on-camera as any other tenuous link between his own childhood and Emma's relationship with Henry might.

But August had said that everyone liked a good story, and Killian was growing quite attached to the one he'd made up so perhaps, for the sake of his own mental health if nothing else, it was better to stick to it now.

Killian shouldered his bag and followed Emma towards a side door into the building, one marked with a small sign over it announcing that it led to the B&B. Inside there was a counter with no one around and he watched as Emma clamped her hand down hard on the bell.

A young woman, tall, brunette, bright-lipsticked to match the smile she wore, ducked her head in. "Oh, you're here!" she said. "We were getting a little worried about you guys making it."

Emma frowned, as though she couldn't figure out why they may have been expected here, and then, clearly, realisation dawned. As did a desire to absolve herself of all responsibility for their tardiness.

"That's Killian's fault. He wanted to stop for lunch."

"In my defence love, I do occasionally require food."

Emma gave him a look over her shoulder that suggested his input into the conversation wasn't required. But he was feeling a little rebellious so he leaned forward and said to the woman, in a conspiratorial voice, "I've seen her efforts with houseplants, if I didn't remind her that I require sustenance I suspect that I'd be left to wither in a corner as well."

It might be true that he'd seen Emma's beleaguered houseplants on the one occasion he'd been allowed to step inside her apartment, but it was clear from the glare Emma was still giving him that she didn't think their state of neglect was something that should be brought to anyone else's attention.

He tried to find it in himself to feel ashamed for letting his mouth run away with him, but he couldn't. He was annoyed with Emma for all but ignoring him this whole time and, more importantly, annoyed with himself for caring so much.

The woman behind the desk didn't make any comment, but kept on smiling as she handed a key to Emma. "No plants to take care of in there, but, uh, you guys got the twin room. Sorry about that!"

She didn't sound sorry at all, and Killian couldn't read Emma's expression from where he was standing to figure out exactly where she stood on the matter. It wasn't until they had actually located their designated room, down a sickeningly green corridor and up a flight of stairs, that she said anything.

"At least this way no one has to sleep on that thing," Emma commented, pointing to an over-stuffed, floral-upholstered monstrosity of an armchair pushed into the corner of the room.

"No. I suppose not," Killian agreed, placing his bag carefully on the bed Emma wasn't hovering beside. There was an envelope placed by the pillow and he picked it up and opened it.

"It says we're requested to meet at the diner downstairs," he informed Emma.

"When?"

"Now. I guess that's why they thought we were late."

"Right, yeah. I'll just…" She pointed to the bathroom door, and then disappeared inside, leaving Killian to sit and wait for his own turn. And when she did return to the bedroom, there was some awkward shuffling as they tried to move past each other, during which time Emma refused to make eye contact and Killian began to despair that they'd ever manage to look like a couple to random people on the street, let alone to a film crew who wanted to capture their every activity.

By the time he re-entered the bedroom, Emma was a little impatient. "We better get down there," she said.

Killian noticed that she'd taken the opportunity to swap the tank top she'd been wearing for a looser fitting t-shirt and that her hair was now out of its ponytail and less likely to be used as a lethal weapon. Still, she shrugged on the same red, leather jacket that she'd worn practically every time he'd ever seen her and it wasn't hard to notice the way her posture changed with it, as though she was preparing herself for battle.

And he could hardly talk either, he realised, as he carefully placed his left hand in his jeans pocket when they left the room. He reflected that between them they had enough defence mechanisms to litter a small minefield and he wasn't at all sure whether that made them better or worse for each other.

There was always the chance of getting caught in someone else's blast, he supposed, so that meant they were probably unsuited. Which was an utterly depressing thought because he was...well, fond of her, might be the most apt description.

And he did rather fancy her when she wasn't scowling at him.

"I'm coming," he assured the back of Emma's head, and they made their way back downstairs and through a door which led to a brightly-lit diner of the sort he had once imagined only existed in the American TV shows he'd watched in his living room at home. Usually while ignoring whatever argument was going on between his parents in the kitchen.

August Booth was there, and stood up to greet them immediately. "Emma! Killian! You made it!"

He sounded as though he were greeting long-lost friends who'd trekked cross-country to attend a wedding, not a couple of people who'd been jumping through hoops to get the opportunity to out-wallpaper a bunch of other cretins and were therefore obliged to make their presence known to him.

Killian smiled, a little. Emma said nothing. August didn't appear to realise that neither of them were as happy to see him as he was to see them.

"This is just a little informal get-together with the other contestants," he continued. "Before all the real fun starts tomorrow."

He turned to a corner booth, around which were crowded four other people. Curiously, one of them was the girl who'd handed them their room key and Killian wondered, briefly, if there'd been some kind of foul play already. Shooting the opposition in the foot...by what, exactly? Depriving them of sharing a bed?

Except that he was the only member of their party who felt deprived and it was definitely the armchair's less than comforting embrace he'd avoided so he could hardly cry foul. Even though he wanted to.

August started on a round of introductions which Killian tried to pay attention to, but mostly he was concerned with the fact that every new name required a handshake and, although he was offering his right hand, he was conscious that everyone's eyes somehow drifted towards his left. It certainly wasn't his most favourite activity in the world.

That done, he and Emma took seats alongside the others and he did his best to size up the other competitors. There were Anna and Kristoff, newlyweds from somewhere in Minnesota. "We've been living in my sister Elsa's basement," Anna announced. "And she's really good at hiding her feelings, but even I can tell she's ready for us to leave."

That set the party chuckling in a nervous kind of way. It was clear Killian wasn't the only one trying to sort out who the competition was, everyone was warily studying the other faces around the table while August looked on, like the parent whose kids were playing nicely in the sandpit.

Then the woman who'd given them the room key spoke up. "I'm Ruby and I guess I should 'fess up that I have the hometown advantage. Well, I'm from here, anywhere. Literally, right here." She pointed to the floor. "The Granny on the sign is my grandmother."

"And I'm Mulan," the woman next to her said. "Ruby's fiancée who's here to tick more than one box on diversity." She rolled her eyes and they all chuckled, half-embarrassed by the truth of her words.

Killian realised that everyone was now looking expectantly at Emma and himself and he wondered if he should speak up, or wait for Emma. In the end Emma mumbled a brief introduction that covered the bare minimum.

"So this is exciting, huh?" Anna gushed, under the fond gaze of her large, blond husband. Killian thought it was anything but. He kept his opinion to himself, however, and stayed mostly quiet as everyone else chatted about the competition, despite ordering and devouring a large quantity of food. Portion sizes in this place were ridiculous.

It was during the moments when Kristoff was complaining about the enormous binder of renovation ideas that Anna had brought with them, and Mulan was complaining about the cost of the home-decorating magazines Ruby had been subscribing to for months that he felt Emma go stiff as a board next to him.

"You guys are...uh, well-prepared then?" she asked.

"Oh, I've been wanting to do this for years and years!" Anna said, happily. "Elsa and I used to have this old dolls house and I'd re-organise that every week if I could." She gave Emma a bright smile and went back to eating her lasagne.

"I guess because I used to be a receptionist for an interior design firm I kind of got the bug," Ruby confessed. "And that's where I met Mulan. She's just finished her Masters in architecture."

"Oh. OK." Emma's voice gave almost nothing away but Killian could see the tension across her shoulders, the way she sat up straighter as if that would make all the difference to the fact that they'd been caught out badly by not doing any of their homework. Bugger it all to hell.

He wished he had something he could pull out, some trick he had up his sleeve; a spare architecture degree, or a sister-in-law who liked interior decorating and not just sticking glitter on things or something.

But he couldn't, and it left him feeling jittery and useless. The whole thing was a bad idea from start to finish.

The meal over with, everyone drifted away, still chatting excitedly about what might happen when the competition started properly the next morning. Except, of course, for Emma who just looked tired and drawn and all of a sudden Killian wanted to be anywhere else but stuck with the woman who was counting on him not to bugger up all her dreams.

"You know what, love? I'm just going to take a walk around. Get the lie of the land, as it were." He stepped away before Emma could suggest going with him, if she was even likely to of course, and walked out the front door of the diner and on to Main Street.

The breeze outside was cool and made him wish he'd brought his own jacket, but he wasn't returning to the room now. Instead he put his hands in his jean pockets and strolled slowly, past the shops displaying souvenirs and wedding dresses, past the ice cream parlour and the bakery. Walking without even really thinking about exactly where he was headed.

But it was obvious when the cries of the seagulls grew louder and the rolling wash of the waves became visible as he rounded a corner. Past a building that looked abandoned, Storybrooke Cannery painted on the side in fading black letters. He stood on the jetty and looked out at the sea, watched the dinghies moored just out from shore and birds searching in amongst the retreating foam of the waves for their dinner.

At least the place wasn't a complete dead loss, Killian thought. This spot was all right. And he could think a little better out here, near the water.

Only most of his thoughts were still a little melancholy. It felt wrong, being here. It felt like he was the wrong person for this task. He couldn't be what Emma needed and he wasn't even sure if she knew what that was anyway. It had been a bit of a lark at first, the woman with the chocolate bar who'd wanted to go on some TV show with him. A story he could tell about how he met...well, whatever Emma might go on to be to him in the future.

Only if he stuffed up everything now that would be it. And he couldn't...he wasn't sure he wanted that kind of pressure.

In an effort to turn himself away from the morbid tone of his thoughts he concentrated on the launch that was coming in to dock. Storybrooke Tours and Charters was displayed prominently down the side, but exactly who its passengers were was a mystery to Killian. The only occupant he saw was the guy in the red knit cap who got out to tie it up as it bumped up against the jetty.

Knowing there was no putting off the inevitable forever, he turned and started retracing his steps back towards town. This time he wasn't really taking any notice of his surroundings, just working through in his head exactly what he'd say to Emma, how he'd try to extricate himself from the ridiculous situation he'd ended up in.

Bloody Liam. It was all his fault for even encouraging him to do this in the first place. It was probably just a ploy to get the couch back, and had nothing to do with what he thought would be good for Killian.

It felt good to pin it all on someone else, but Killian suspected that he really only had himself to blame. The desire to impress Emma, all that bullshit about noble sacrifices he'd been spouting to himself, it had just led him to the point where he was going to fail spectacularly. And, at this point, he'd had enough failure to last a lifetime.

He reached the diner and walked through to the back, taking the stairs two at a time in his rush to get there and get it all off his chest before he chickened out.

Inside the room though, Emma was in the process of settling down for the night. "Oh, you're back," she said. "After you left there was some discussion about what we might be in for with the opening challenge tomorrow. I didn't even really know there was going to be...anyway. It sounds like it might be a physical thing, so I thought a good night's sleep would be for the best. So I've set the alarm on my phone for six. OK?"

"Yeah. Sure, love. I'll just…" he pointed at the bathroom and grabbed a t-shirt out of his bag, before stepping in there, cursing himself for not having the courage to just say what he needed to say. He was a coward. A bloody, ridiculous coward.

But telling that to the reflection he saw in the mirror didn't help, and in the end he finished up and went back in the room to confront her.

"Look, Emma…" he began, but she looked up from her phone and he was suddenly dumbstruck. It was unfair how beautiful she looked at that moment, right at the point when he knew he was going to have break her heart and dash his own hopes in the process.

"No, I just...I get it. This is all...weird," she said, frowning a little. "It's not quite what I thought it would be...I mean, binders? Why didn't Henry tell me about the freakin' binders?" Her voice rose, tension and worry spilling out along with her words.

"But, I think…" she continued. "It won't be that bad, will it?"

She looked up at where Killian was standing, her green eyes wide and, he realised, hopeful.

And then it struck him, what it was she wanted from him. Hope. Hope that they'd make it through without ending up looking like idiots and maybe even win some money in the process. Most of all though, she wanted hope that she wasn't going to let her son down.

"No, I think we'll be fine, love. It won't be bad at all. And anyway, you don't need a binder. You have me." He fixed her with a smile that bordered on the ridiculous, and climbed into his own narrow, hard bed.

Emma snorted, loudly. A ridiculous noise that shouldn't have come from quite such an alluring creature. "Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, buddy. You're the secret weapon after all."

"Yep. That I am, love," Killian said, gently, as he settled himself against the pillow.

Emma switched off the light on the nightstand. "Just make sure all weapons stay on your side of the room, agreed?"

"Of course, love. Best behaviour." He paused. "Goodnight, Emma."

"'Night, Killian."

Killian wasn't completely certain that it would be better in the morning. He was more than a little convinced that it actually might be worse, and that they really were two idiots who didn't know what they'd got themselves into.

But he'd convinced Emma that they'd be all right in the end, and he thought that maybe his work here was done. At least for this day. Tomorrow would be another story altogether.

Thanks for reading!