Sometimes she comes into their house and smiles. It's the times when he hasn't beat her home, and everything is completely tidy (shipshape, you could call it), and she has her chance to put her stamp on this little corner of heaven they've made.
After double checking to make certain he isn't there to witness it, she removes her boots, socks and jacket, and tosses them in haphazard array throughout their living room. One boot is on its side in front of the door, so he won't miss it when he gets there, and the other is under the rocking chair. Her socks are bunched where they've landed next to the couch. That will do just fine. The coat has landed on the end table. No matter how tempting it is to leave it on the floor, she can't bring herself to do that to the expensive leather. She sees that the logs are already stacked in the fireplace, ready to go, so she retrieves one of the long matches out of the brass box that resides on the mantle next to the model of the ship, and uses it to get the fire going. Once done, she puffs out the flame and lays the extinguished sliver of wood next to the box.
The room is small enough that it doesn't take long to warm, so she shimmies out of her cable knit sweater that she's wearing over her tank and artfully piles it on the rug, just beside the couch.
It's perfect.
She heads to the kitchen to make herself some cocoa, and she starts a pot of coffee for him. He likes it with rum, of course. It isn't long until she hears his footfalls on the wooden porch steps, and the squeak of the screen door as he pulls it open.
"Swan?" he calls.
"In the kitchen," she answers. She licks her lips in anticipation, knowing that he will soon be kissing her with one of his knee weakening hellos. But she also knows he'll make a few stops along the way.
"Emma, love, it appears that you've once again left parts of yourself all around."
She leans to the right, just until she can see him as he bends over to retrieve her socks. "Have I?"
"And now you're sounding coy, my love, which isn't your nature." His voice is muffled, because he's bent over to fish her boot out from under the chair. She admires the view he's providing, and feels her skin grow warm, a reaction that has nothing to do with the hot cup of chocolate she holds.
She loves this man. She loves everything about him. She loves his voice and his hands and his hair and his blue, blue eyes. She loves his sense of humor and his broodiness and the way that he can go from teasing to intense and back again between her heartbeats. She loves that his clothes are always folded and placed in his drawers in perfect rectangles and that he makes the bed better than she does, and she loves that he picks up after her.
This is new to her. In the foster homes she was required to keep her own area neat. The only other time she's lived with a man was with Neal, so long ago, and neither of them had enough stuff to pick up. That had been existence of moving from hotel room to car and back again, with duffel bags and whatever they could steal to keep themselves dressed and fed. She's not a naturally messy person, but she's not exactly a neatnik, either. Killian, however, is almost magical in his ability to keep things in their places. In a different world this might have driven her crazy, but here and now she's cocooned by his care for her.
His hand slides around her waist, breaking her reverie. He pulls her close and nuzzles his face into her hair as she peers over his shoulder, noting that her boots are now sitting neatly on the mat just inside the door, her coat is on the hook above them and her sweater is draped over his arm. The socks are nowhere to be seen and the used matchstick has disappeared as well. She pulls back, just far enough to allow her to see his face as she smiles up at him.
"I love you," she says.
"And I, you," he tells her.
Yes, this she knows. She kisses him then, and revels in the man who is the embodiment of showing. She's learning a lot about that from him, and so, as he pulls her more firmly into his arms, she manages to dislodge the sweater from his arm, so that it quietly falls to the floor. Because while Killian Jones loves to take care of the woman he loves, she knows that he loves to be needed, and lord knows, she needs him.