Alright, because I love Season 3 from the bottom of my heart, that's when this takes place. First venture into OUAT, so please be gentle. Enjoy!
Emma Swan is damn sick of being under pressure all the time.
From the very beginning, since the foster homes, the bail bonds job, Henry showing up at her door, magic, various evil people that wanted to hurt her family, being the 'savior', Hook (damn gorgeous, stupid-ass Hook), Never Land, and now the Wicked Witch, Emma has no time to just lay on the couch and rest. She cannot get a single moment of peace anymore; it's almost an accepted fact. With everything she combats, a new problem takes its place. One after another after another pops up until Emma's head hurts.
It's nighttime in Storybrooke. Henry's sleeping in the bedroom upstairs, completely oblivious to the weird crap going on around town, and Emma can't help but be a little bit jealous of him. Mary Margaret and David (it's hard thinking about them as Mom and Dad) are probably asleep too. The fact that she's going to have a baby sibling as a thirty year old woman isn't actually that bad. When she was younger, she had wanted a sibling. It probably was the reason behind her dolls, but Emma doesn't know for sure. The whole town is quiet, at least what she can hear from the open window. The streets are dark too, but she knows there's always a few stragglers from the Rabbit Hole.
So Emma won't be noticed, or if she is, people will think she's off to 'investigate' Regina.
Carefully, with all the care Neal taught her, she tiptoes through the door to her parents' house and down the stairs to the road. Neal is still missing, and it scares her to wonder where he is, so Emma pushes the thought away. Her yellow Bug seems to be extra quiet driving for her, as if it knows she wants a few minutes (preferably hours) to herself. There's only a couple streets in Storybrooke; Emma takes the one leading as far away from town as possible, the one toward the town line.
She has never said it, but she really likes the orange spray paint. Something about the color makes her smile. Of course, everything else associated with the line is bad. Just her luck. But Emma holds onto the paint idea as she drives further and further away from the town's spare lights. Sometimes, it's okay to be an optimist.
As she drives, she remembers a man she met on the side of this road. Jefferson, the Mad Hatter that just wanted to go back to the simple world, to get one of his lives out of his head. Even though he was in no way sane, Emma still thinks about whether or how she could have helped him. Henry told her he and his daughter were together again, but it could have happened earlier if she had just...
No, stop. In a few miles she can have the tiny amount of alcohol she keeps in a secret part of the car and sit outside the town border, where no one can bother her. Emma inhales deeply and then exhales, continuing to drive.
She has to turn her bright headlights on to see at this time of night. Thank her lucky stars the paint on the street is also acknowledged by a sign stating, 'Leaving Storybrooke'. Why did it always have to be the town line? Why can't anyone move around a little? It's like that Stephen King story Under the Dome. Well, Emma hadn't read it, but she'd read something similar once. She pushes herself out of the Bug with the knowledge that maybe the powers that be liked her enough that she could avoid the whole dome situation. That's probably absolute crap, but Emma likes to listen to Henry talk about it.
Her bottle of rum, which she stole from the Jolly Roger over a year ago, is half empty, but she appreciates the company. Emma walks across the bright orange line, hesitating before stepping over it but plowing her way the rest of the way. With a sigh of relief, she sits cross-legged on the road. Emma would honestly rather lay down, but it would be hard to drink anything from that position.
For the first several minutes, Emma doesn't talk at all. One, there's no one to talk to (or in this case, at), and two, it's nice to stop and listen to the sounds of the forest instead of screeching flying monkeys. The only noises she makes are those of the liquid sloshing in her glass bottle, and her breathing. Emma took a meditation class once in college, and remembers how stupid she thought it was at the time, but now it's like medicine.
She controls her intake and output every couple seconds, trying to make her brain a blank slate. No Wicked Witch, no parents, no Henry, no Hook, no worries. Emma lets it all go, closing her eyes. The rum actually helps with the mind-clearing since it fuzzes nearly everything at this point. Pretty soon, thoughts are like smoke: hard to hold on to. When she left the house, it was around ten-thirty. Now, Emma has no clue what the time is. It feels good to stop thinking for a while. Just sit and breathe...
"Swan? What are you doing up?"
Emma jumps, yanked out of her peacefulness by the last person she wants to see. "Hook, now is not a good time."
Hook smirks at her. "It is always a good time to see me. May I repeat my question, or will the lady object?"
She sighs annoyedly, but she is a little too intoxicated to be truly peeved at him. "I needed time to ignore all the crazy stuff that tends to happen whenever I have a down moment. So, I am sitting on the road on the other side of the Storybrooke line and drinking rum that I stole from you." Emma pauses, looking up at him. "By the way, how can you cross the line?"
He shrugs. "I wasn't brought over with the curse. My ship, she wanted me back here, so she sped here as fast as she could. I think I was in Storybrooke before anyone else."
Emma pats the asphalt next to her. "It sucks to drink alone. Come sit with me."
Killian looks so surprised for a minute that Emma has to laugh. "Come on. You drink rum all the time, plus, it would be nice if I could rant to someone that isn't my parents or Regina or my son. I don't think they'd understand."
He quirks an eyebrow before unbuckling his sword belt and setting it on the ground next to Emma as he sits. Killian grabs the bottle from her hand and gulps down a mouthful. "Alright. I'm sitting. How do you want to start, Swan?"
She contemplates this for a second. Her brain isn't moving very fast; it hasn't since she got out of her car. "Let's start with the fact that my life has been a giant mess from the moment I was born. I mean, being the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming would have already been strange if I hadn't been thrown in a wardrobe moments after my birth! And then, I was tossed around the foster system because no one else seemed to want to be my parent. Bar none, that sucked massively. I stole cars, I stole food, I met Neal," she ticks them off on her fingers, "and then I went to prison after he broke my stupid heart. I found out I was going to have Henry soon after that."
"Seriously, I couldn't be a mother at eighteen in a prison, so I let him go. Of course later, that came back to haunt me when Henry shows up saying I'm his mom and that he lives in a town full of fairytale characters! On top of that, I have to be the savior! What if I can never be savior? It doesn't seem to be working out all that well so far."
"Emma-"
"Nope, you're going to let me finish." She glares at Killian, who takes another drink of rum. "Next thing I knew, the Evil Queen and her damn dragon wanted to kill me, and I ended up killing the dragon before reviving my son from a sleeping curse. And then, magic showed up again. Magic. I fell in a portal with my mom and traipsed through the Enchanted Forest, avoiding Cora and ogres, until we could find a way home. You in no way made that journey easy, but I'm not going to start on you yet.
"By the time I get back, Mr. Gold wanted me to help him find his son, who just happened to be Neal! What kind of coincidence is that? You stabbed Mr. Gold, and then Cora came to Storybrooke with the intention of hurting my family. My mom killed Cora, which crushed her by the way, and you got hit by a car! You. Got hit. By a car. Of course, then we had the problem of Greg and Tamara infiltrating the town and torturing Regina to get rid of magic. Neal fell through another bean portal, Henry got kidnapped, and the whole town nearly got destroyed by a stupid trigger! Which I also had to help fix!
"Well, then my parents and Regina and Mr. Gold and you and I went off to Never Land to find Henry. We ended up finding the miniature psychopath named Peter Pan and his band of Lost Boys, which was really hard for me considering I've felt like an orphan most of my life! Neal was alive and got captured, and everyone had to reveal secrets to save him. I don't know about you, but that was also extremely difficult. I'm sorry you had to say what you did." She mellows out a little here. "When we finally found Henry and came back, Peter Pan tried to hurt everybody with another curse. That whole bit of awful ended with me and Henry leaving everyone behind, hurting everyone there.
"And, to top it all off," she huffs loudly, "in the next year I got engaged to a flying monkey and forcefully kissed by a crazy pirate!" Emma rests her chin on her hands. "Also, my son has no memories, Regina's getting prosecuted again, the Wicked Witch is probably cackling her green head off right now, and Neal's still missing."
Hook taps her on the shoulder. "What about me? I believe I deserve more of a description than a crazy pirate."
"Oh, you're a whole new kind of crazy." Emma takes the rum from him and drinks. "Flirting and stabbing people and gallivanting about on your ship without any care for anyone else! What kind of sane person does that?! You constantly put yourself in danger to be the noble, vengeful one, and I'm sick of it. And for some reason, you use me as an excuse to be even crazier and more reckless! I just don't get it!"
"So, what I'm hearing is that you're worried about me." Killian smiles at Emma, quickly pushing a strand of her hair behind her ear before she can stop him.
"Hell, yes, I'm worried about you! You can't seem to keep out of trouble for one minute!" She glares at him with the kind of fire that normally turns men to soup, but he just laughs.
"Thanks for worrying. Not a lot of people would do that." He seems sincere, and Emma kind of likes it. It's nice to know he can actually be sincere every once in a while.
"I'm obviously not most people, considering my magic and the fact that I can cross the town line, and also that I even know about this place." Emma looks back behind her. Her car is completely undisturbed on the other side of the line. It looks like she and Hook are still the only ones out here. No flying monkeys crashing the party yet. "There. I'm done ranting. Those are all the reasons why I'm here instead of sleeping. I'm tired of getting no moments to just stop and have a moment."
Killian and Emma don't speak for an unknown amount of time, sitting side by side on the road leading away from the generally invisible town they both live in. Emma has finished off the rum, but Hook hasn't gotten any more out of his jacket pocket. The sky is filled with stars, ones that Emma doesn't get to see very often. She remembers learning about them in her not great schooling, but they look like more than just lights and far-off balls of fire. They look peaceful, constant. "Do you ever watch the stars and think about how small you are?" she asks to the sky instead of looking at Killian.
He nods beside her, but she only notices it peripherally. "Sometimes I look at them and wonder if there's a plan to everything. Because if everything was meant to happen, it could have gone a lot easier. But I still feel better when I look up. Especially when I'm in the middle of the sea and the rest of my crew is asleep. It's calming."
Emma grins at him. "Who knew Captain Hook himself could be so honest about something like that?" Without thinking about it, she leans her head on his shoulder, snuggling close. "Thanks for listening. It really helped."
"It's always been my mission to help you, Emma. No matter how much I didn't want to, I helped you." He goes quiet, and she wraps her arms around his waist. Killian is warm and he smells like the ocean, and for once, she really wants to hold him.
"It's 'cause you love me, don't you?" She whispers it, because she's not sure if she'll want to hear she's right.
"Yes," he answers back, voice just as quiet as hers. "I do love you."
Emma doesn't say anything. When she does reply, it's like she's breathing it. "I'm sorry. You never seem to get the good end of anything. I wish I could help you too."
"You help me every time you say hello. You help me every time you charge off on a new tangent and I can't help but follow you. You help at times like this when I think you might just give me chance someday." Killian strokes her hair back, and it feels really comforting and nice. "Don't be sorry, Swan."
"Okay," she murmurs. "Can I sleep on you?"
"Yes, of course." He pulls her into his lap and shifts her until he's sure she's in a good position. "You good?"
"Yeah. Goodnight, Killian."
She thinks he sharply intakes a breath, but she's too far gone to notice. "Goodnight, Emma."
When Emma wakes up, she's in her car on the Storybrooke side of the town line. Her head hurts a little, but other than that, she thinks she fell asleep before she got to her plans. And she would believe that, except there's a clear, warm part of her brain that disagrees. Emma feels a lot better about the situation, enough to go on.
The bottle of rum in her glove box is new and corked. She wonders about that, though.
Anticyclonic flow: a circulation of winds blowing clockwise away from a center of high pressure and into an area of low pressure; the area of high pressure eventually dissolves
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