A gift for my Captain Swan Network Secret Santa giftee, Rain ("emmaslovebug" from tumblr)!
I intended to make a one shot, but it's impossible with this AU xD. I also wanted to find a beta, and make this better written but time ran out (I had finals) and I was determined to finish at least the first chapter by Christmas Eve. I know it's a little fast-paced and all over the place with POVs, but I don't want to stretch the story in more than a couple of chapters because otherwise it would take many, many months to finish! Hopefully my next chapters can be a little better and to my lovely Secret Santa giftee's taste.
(To any of you waiting for WOTG, I am almost done with the next chapter. So sorry for the wait.)
So without further addo... hope you enjoy the Sense 8/ Captain Swan AU! Two amazing shows in one fic :)
Emma
(Manhattan, New York)
She was being hunted. That's what the woman in blue said when she cornered Emma in her workplace parking lot. Then again, she had also called Emma a "sensate," psychically connected to other seven people born the same day she was. Obviously the blue woman was on crack or just plain crazy. And yet, part of Emma wanted to believe the craziness. It wasn't just the fact that her superpower hadn't told her she was lying, but that she had also been feeling at a loss lately, having nightmares about people she never met dying terrible deaths that she could not find any other explanation for. The woman had guessed this about her, and had told her they were part of her cluster - the part of the cluster she never got to meet. And that there were only two people on her cluster left: her and a man named "Killian."
Bullshit, Emma kept telling herself. If she even considered believing anything the blue woman said, she would be threatening to derail her whole life. And her life was good... She had her son, Henry, and a stable job as a private detective in New York City. They had a nice apartment near Lincoln Center, and Emma had started to see a man named "Walsh" a few weeks ago who seemed really nice. Unlike her ex, Neal, Walsh had a job, a clean record and would probably not let her fall for a crime and go to jail. (Not like she was going to commit the same mistake she did before.) Overall, Emma really didn't want to screw up her life again by believing she was being hunted down. Well... she and this "Killian" person. Convenient that the woman didn't give her Killian's last name to check before she said panicked about something and said she had to go. He probably wasn't real anyway.
Emma went about her daily life peacefully for the next few days. The blue woman and her strange story had left her mind completely until...
Killian
(Wicklow, Ireland)
"Oi, mate, get over here, I need some help with the mast," said Will, his voice thick with struggle as he pulled at a rope connected to the mast of the ship, "What the hell you lookin' at?" Will said, sounding irked as he looked over his shoulder.
The young man with dark, windswept hair had taken to looking around incredulously. His blue eyes were wide, perturbed, and his lips slightly parted in surprise. What Will didn't know, was that at this moment, Killian was looking around to find out where the loud sounds of traffic were coming from. After all, they were miles from land and surrounded by the calm waters of the Irish Sea. The last thing that Killian should hear is honking cars, the chatter of crowds and vehicles zooming past him.
"OI MATE," Will said a little louder, his voice filled with annoyance, "Are you gonna help or not?"
The sounds died away as Killian registered Will's voice behind him. He turned around, "Bloody hell, Scarlet, you didn't hear that?!" he asked in disbelief.
"Hear wot, mate?" Will raised a bushy eyebrow.
"Will, I thought I told you to man the sails, we gotta head back or we don't make home for supper," called Liam, Killian's older brother, from the head of the ship. "Little brother do something useful and help Will out, will you?"
"Younger brother," Killian muttered, walking over to the mast from the side of the ship.
"You know, we wouldn't have to man no sail if you two hadn't just bought one of them motor boats instead of this-"
"Shut up, we already told you. There is no art in owning a vessel that can operate itself and-"
"Yeah, yeah, bloody hell, mate. I'm just sayin'... it's easier and much cheaper. Not everyone's got bundles to spend like you lot."
But Killian wasn't listening again. As he raised the sails, all he could think about was the noises he heard only a moment ago. Where did they come from?
Emma
She'd been in her car for an hour already, watching the large white house at the end of the street for any sign of activity. She'd been hired by a woman, Belle Gold, to find out where her husband went when he was suppose to be at work. Mrs. Gold was sure he was cheating, but just one day on the case and Emma had already begun to suspect it wasn't that simple. She saw him carrying a large, suspicious looking bag into the house she was looking at now, which, incidentally, was not where Rumpel Gold lived.
The radio had begun to play what sounded like relaxing ocean ambiance. As calming as it was, she couldn't risk falling asleep in the middle of a stakeout. Reluctantly, she reached over to the radio and turned it off. However, instead of turning off, the radio began playing an ad for concert tickets as if it had just turned on. She pressed the button again, and the radio quieted. But she could still hear the ocean and the cry of seagulls. Yet she was in the Bronx, nowhere near a harbor.
Then, looking up from the radio, she saw the woman in blue standing a few feet in front of the car, staring at her with her long blue dress strangely still despite the windy night. Her brown hair tied up in a tight bun; her older face tired and concerned. Emma's eyes widened in shock. How did she find her? Emma turned to unlock her door, but by the time she looked back at the street, the woman was gone.
Killian
Liam refused to live in their house after realizing where their money was coming from. When the Jones' brother found out their beloved father did not get his money from selling bonds, but by selling cocaine, their entire family had collapsed. Liam was furious, yelling on about being ashamed to be his son and running off to live with his girlfriend. Though Liam had invited Killian to come with him, Killian felt he had no choice but to stay at father's house, despite the risks that steadily amounted from being near his father. Brennan had stopped his "good father" pretense around his sons, now that they knew what he did. Every time Killian came home, he'd find strange men brandishing guns they no longer felt the need to conceal in his house and backpacks he had a feeling did not contain anything legal.
Nonetheless, living with Liam and his girlfriend was not an option. Not only did he not fancy the idea of being the third wheel in his brother's relationship, but he didn't need reminding that he was the only one in the family without a job. Liam was in the Irish Navy and had only been living in their father's house to save up for an apartment he wanted by the sea. Killian had no choice but to live in their father's house after being dishonorably discharged from the navy. Liam was the only one who believed Killian when he was found with a large bag of cocaine in his bag that belonged to his ex, Milah. As it turns out, Milah began helping Brennan with the drug trade and was using Killian to smuggle cocaine into a port they were assigned to in England. If it wasn't enough that Killian's heart was broken beyond repair and he lost his job, this happenstance led them to discover their father's real job and destroyed Killian's life more than it already was. He reflected on this with much anguish on the drive home, completely forgetting what happened on the ship and the city noises he had heard.
As Killian came home, he heard distant shouting before he had even reached the doorsteps of his father's enormous house. He hesitated. As he began unlocking the door, the shouting stopped.
A large bearded man was looking at him from the side of the kitchen entrance across the room. "It's just the kid," he muttered, as if Killian wasn't already in his thirties, and returned to the kitchen.
Brennan and his group of dealers resumed their urgent chatter as Killian went up the stairs to his room. It was big - a fourth of the size of the small house in which they lived when he was a toddler and his mother was still alive. He grabbed his laptop from his bed and went to go to the desk by his balcony when all of a sudden he stopped. The appearance that had made his stomach lurch in shock was a woman standing by his balcony, clad in a long blue dress.
Emma
"Mom." Henry said, a tone of confusion and worry in his voice, "Mom!"
"What?" Emma was thrown out of her stupor by her son's urgent voice and looked over to him with concern.
"The cake is burning!" He said with wide eyes, pointing at the oven. Indeed, a bit of smoke was coming from the edges of the oven's door. Emma gasped and dropped the icing she was absentmindedly mixing to rush to the oven and open it. She coughed as the thick smoke hit her. With one hand she reached for the ruined cake inside the oven and with the other she tried to wave away the smoke overwhelming her senses.
"Open the window!" she called to Henry, her eyes tearing up from the smoke as she rushed to drop the cake in the sink. Henry obediently opened the kitchen window. To Emma's great relief, the smoke alarm did not go off.
"Granny would have panicked if the alarm went off." Henry said, his eyebrow raised as he watched his mother frown at the cake in the sink. Ms. Lucas was their apartment tenant, but she loved Henry and Emma so much she asked them to call her Granny like her granddaughter, Ruby, that lived a floor below them. Granny surely would have ran up to their room immediately if she heard the alarm.
"Mom, are you alright?" Henry asked tentatively, "You've been out of it since last night."
"I killed the cake," Emma sighed, dropping it in the trash.
"Mom." He said more impatiently.
"I'm sorry, Henry. I'm sorry. I'm just tired from the stakeout last night," She sighed. Truthfully, she couldn't stop dwelling over her new stalker; the woman in blue. "What am I going to do about Walsh's cake now?"
"Mom, don't try to made dessert. It's your weakness. Just ask Aunt Regina for one of those apple pies she had left over from the school bake sale."
Regina and her husband, Robin, are Emma's closest friends. Mary Margaret, Emma's mother, on the day of college freshmen orientation pointed out the young hispanic woman sitting alone. Mary Margaret and David (her father) eventually convinced her to try and make friends before they both had to leave. Emma never had an easy time making friends, but eventually her and Regina became close. She was especially a good friend during Emma's lowest point in her life: going to jail after being scammed by her boyfriend at the time, Neal, and dealing with an unexpected pregnancy. Regina considered Henry like a son to her, since she helped Emma so often before and after he was born. Then Regina met Robin, and Emma was her bridesmaid at the wedding. Regina and Robin's daughter goes to the same school as Henry, though she's many grades below him. Regina always had apple pies to contribute to the bake sales and they were always a hit. Emma brought mediocre cookies that never came out the way she wanted them to. Henry was right, baking was her weakness.
"You're a genius, kid," Emma said happily, kissing Henry's forehead and rushing to change out of her T-shirt baggy sweats. Regina's apple pie would be perfect for dessert tonight when Walsh came over. It was his birthday, and Emma was determined to make a nice dinner for them.
"Does that mean I can sleep over at Phillip's house tonight? I know Aunt Regina said I could stay at her house for your date but I wanna go to Phillip's." Henry called after her. Phillip Spindle was the son of a lovely couple, Phillip (senior) and his wife Aurora. But since Henry was barely ten years old, she'd have to drive him to Phillip's house because there was no way in hell she was going to let him walk around New York city at night.
"Ms. Spindle says she can pick me up," Henry added, as if reading Emma's mind.
"As long as she says it's okay to have you over!" Emma called back, getting into her red leather jacket.
She heard a distant 'yes!' of triumph that made her grin as she walked back to the kitchen.
"Listen, I gotta head out to grab that pie from Regina, tell her you're not staying the night after all and then I got business," In other words, she had to keep tailing that strange man she was hired to investigate before her date, "Grandma and Grandpa are coming in 20 minutes, alright? Until then, Granny is downstairs and you have my phone number so call me for anything, right?" She gave Henry a very serious look that made him roll his eyes.
"I think I can survive twenty minutes, mom." He said. Emma smirked and cupped his cheek to plant another kiss on his forehead.
"I love you, kid."
"I love you too, mom." Emma stood up again and grabbed her bag from the kitchen table.
"Call me before you go to bed, alright? I don't care if I'm in the middle of my date with Walsh. Got it?"
"Yeah, mom," Henry drawled, waving her out the door.
Killian
Sensate. It sounded ridiculous in his head and even more so when he whispered it to himself as he stared up at the ceiling, lying down on his bed. She has left as quickly as she came. The woman in blue vanished after telling him about his psychic link to a woman named "Emma," and the other six "cluster" members who were murdered. He had looked away for half a second when he heard a particularly loud shout downstairs, and she was gone. He had laid down to process all the information, especially the fact that the nightmares he's been having of people dying actually happened. The last thing the blue woman said before she disappeared is "protect each other." Protect who? Emma? He didn't even know who this "Emma" lass was. Was this even real? It seemed more likely that his father spiked his water bottle with cocaine and he was having some sort of hallucination. He didn't really believe that he hallucinated the woman, though at the same time he was hesitant to believe any other explanation as well.
Suddenly, his bedroom door opened. He was so focused on his thoughts he didn't even hear his father coming up the stairs. Killian
"Killian, we need to talk." He said. Brennan looked very anxious, his eyes were narrow and his brow creased. He kept clenching and unclenching his hand at his side.