In true Friends fashion, I styled this after the episode when Rachel finds out exactly how long Ross has been in love with her. Thank you, o-u-a-timer for the prompt, and I hope you enjoy the end result!
"Happy birthday, Emma!"
The cry came up from around the apartment she shared with Mary Margaret, and she was in no way expecting it. For so long, she had been alone. Now, she was surrounded by people who she loved and who loved her in return.
After her disastrous engagement to Neal, which ended in her climbing through a bathroom window in her wedding gown, she sought out her best friend from high school, Mary Margaret Blanchard. Through her, she had made a new family in her old, sleepy town of Storybrooke.
There was Mary Margaret herself, who acted as a mom to the rest of the group and was a bit of a control freak when it came to their apartment. As a fourth grade teacher, she had a certain way things needed to be organized, and gods forbid it if you put the tea spoons in with the soup spoons. Emma had made that mistake once, and would never do it again.
Then, there was Ruby. Ruby was a bit out there, and tended to march by the beat of her own drum. She didn't care what people thought of her, dressed to impress (and to turn the eye of everyone on the street), and had the real world experience that no one else in their group could claim. She grew up, like Emma, without parents. However, she was raised by a loving, but stern, grandmother that had taken their entire little group in at one time or another. Emma swore that half of what Ruby did with her life was to get a rise out of Granny; it was amusing, and Emma felt herself longing for that sort of relationship at times.
David, the town sheriff, had started out with their group because of his relationship with Mary Margaret, and had ended up forming a close bond with Emma. He told dad jokes, had a tendency to make sarcastic remarks instead of soothing ones (that was more Mary Margaret's department, anyway), and generally held their group together.
August joined their group almost accidentally; he had rode into town just before Emma on the back of a vintage motorcycle, carrying a beat up typewriter with barely two cents to his name. He was an author, so he claimed, and was struggling between short bouts of employment where he acted as a freelancer. He was convinced that his big break was right around the corner, and spent most of his time acting as a stand-in deputy when Graham couldn't make it in to the station.
Finally, there was Killian. Killian Jones was Mary Margaret's distant cousin – he found her after he had lost his brother in a boating accident and had had no one else in the world to turn to. He packed up everything and moved from England to Maine, just to be close to his last living relative. He was a sailor by trade, but since there wasn't really a big need for that, even in Maine, he acted as harbormaster and was in charge of all of the shipping lines coming in and going out of Storybrooke. Only a few years older than Emma and Mary Margaret, he had come to America just before Emma had left town for Boston. After returning to Storybrooke, he had become one of her closest friends.
Which made her wonder why he was the only one of their little group who wasn't here today.
"Guys, you shouldn't have," Emma gushed. "Really, it's just a birthday. You guys didn't have to go through all of this trouble."
Mary Margaret rolled her eyes and reached for Emma, pulling her into a warm hug. "Of course we needed to, Emma," she insisted. "What are friends for?"
Emma wasn't allowed to wallow when her friends were around; they knew where her thoughts could take her and tried their best to keep a more positive spin in her life.
"Thank you," she said, emotion welling up even as the smile broke out on her face. "I love you guys so much!"
"Killian wishes he could be here," said David, "but he was called to port to deal with an issue with some of the ships coming in for the fall trade. Apparently there was an issue with crewmen stealing merchandise."
Emma smiled and shrugged before sitting down next to August, who gave her a side hug and a bottle of her favorite beer. "I get it. I almost had to stay over and deal with a few families who want to send back the kids that are fostering with them."
"I'm sorry, Emma." Ruby frowned for a moment; no one liked to think of Emma dealing with her past, even if in doing so she got to help other children in the system like she was. "Well, why don't we dig in? We can't let Granny's burgers and grilled cheese go to waste!"
The party was simple; just a few friends eating good food, drinking decent beer, and playing a few epic rounds of Cards Against Humanity. Surprisingly enough, Mary Margaret had the most black cards at the end of the game, and Emma ended up owing Ruby twenty dollars because of it.
Especially since she managed to incorporate "two midgets shitting in a bucket", "the biggest blackest dick", and "a super soaker full of cat pee" all into the same round; Emma thought she had died for a moment, she was laughing so hard.
When the laughter died down, August got everyone's attention and prompted them into the living room so that Emma could open her presents.
"Mine first!" Ruby said, excited. She handed over a long, thin package that had Emma's eyes narrowing in distrust.
"Ruby…" she started, the warning clear in her tone.
"Oh, relax." Ruby rolled her eyes, following where Emma's mind went. "I promise you that it's nothing mom-" she gestured sharply at Mary Margaret "- would be offended by. Even though I really like what you were thinking there!"
Smiling, Emma shook her head at her eccentric friend. She shook the package, and upon Emma hearing nothing, Ruby quirked an eyebrow. Emma hastily started to tear open the package before Ruby could get another comment in. Inside was a gorgeous gray cashmere sweater, one that Emma had her eye on for weeks now.
"You shouldn't have, Ruby!" Emma protested. "This is way too much!"
Ruby just shrugged and ignored her protests, handing her another present.
"That one's from me," August said with a smile.
It was a thin, flat package; Emma had a feeling that it was going to be another one of August's manuscripts. She tore through the wrapping paper, took a look at the cover, and shook her head.
"Thanks, August," she deadpanned. "Another one of your books is just what I wanted this year."
"Keep this one in good condition," he advised, staring her down as if she didn't have an entire shelf just of his stories. "This one is signed; when I make it big, it's going to be worth a lot of money."
David slapped August on the back of the head. "All of our copies are signed, you dolt. And you tell us that every time you come out with a new book."
"We'll frame them when you make it big," Mary Margaret teased. Before August could retort, she handed Emma a slightly larger package. "This one's from me, Emma."
"No joint gift from you and David?" Emma asked with a raised brow. "That's unusual."
"She wouldn't let me this year," David grumbled, a pout on his lips.
Emma laughed and took the lid off of the carefully wrapped box. Inside was a variety of Keurig K-cups; there were mochas, black coffee, specialty holiday blends, and Emma's favorite cinnamon hot chocolate.
"So you don't grumble when you have to go to work without your coffee," Mary Margaret explained. "Now you can take these in and use the Keurig at work whenever you feel like having a caffeine fix."
"Thank you," Emma said earnestly. "I love it, Mary Margaret, really."
"Me next!" David jumped up and grabbed a poorly stuffed bag from the counter; the tissue paper was falling from the side and it looked like it had been sitting on the roof of their loft in a torrential downpour. "Er, sorry about the wrapping. Mary Margaret refused to help."
"Thanks, Charming," Mary Margaret said sarcastically. "So nice of you to blame me."
Emma knew that these snarky remarks meant nothing, not to this couple. They were the picture of fairy tale romance and couldn't be mad at each other for more than a nanosecond. She smiled; these two really were the mom and dad of their group and she didn't know where she would be without them in her life.
"Open it, Emma," David urged to pull the 'spotlight' off of him for a moment. "Please."
She pulled the tissue paper from the bag and threw it on the floor, not caring that it would bother her roommate.
"Is there anything aside from tissue paper?" she teased David.
He chose to glare at her in lieu of an answer.
She finally reached the bottom of the bag, and inside was a small Lego flash drive in the shape of Princess Leia.
"Thank you, David," she said sincerely. "I was needing one of these for a while now."
David smiled and held up a finger, indicating that he would be right back.
"Thank you all so much," she told the rest of her little group. "This has been one of the best birthdays that I have ever had. And that's all thanks to you guys."
Mary Margaret and Ruby came over to pull her into a tight hug when David reentered the room with a small, wrapped gift box.
"This is from Killian." He had answered Emma's question before she could even articulate it. "He told me to give it to you when he got called in to work today."
Eagerly, she took the present from David and tore open the paper, revealing a box marked with the logo of the antique shop that she and Killian had gone in a few months ago. She gingerly lifted off the lid; inside was a hand-blown glass swan, something that she couldn't take her eyes off of when they visited Gold's Antiques.
"Oh," she sighed, her fingers tracing the clean lines of the swan. "I can't believe he remembered."
"Remembered what, sweetie?" Mary Margaret asked.
Emma took a deep breath before explaining, her eyes never leaving her present. "A few months ago, Killian and I were looking for something to give Mary Margaret for her birthday and we somehow found ourselves at Gold's. You guys know how that shop is; there is no rhyme or reason to how he has everything organized and it takes hours to look through everything. Well, I had spotted a jewelry box that looked promising, and when I walked over to get a better look, I saw this swan. I couldn't take my eyes from it; I fell in love instantly, but Gold was asking way too much for it so I left it there.
"Killian must have gone back after we left that day and bought it for me," she finished, awe coloring her voice. "That is the sweetest thing that anyone has ever done for me."
"It's just like when he was in love with Milah and he got her that really old pirate ship in a bottle, do you remember?" August directed his question at Mary Margaret and David, who were both giving him looks that clearly screamed cease and desist.
"Did you just say in love?" Emma asked, finally taking her eyes from her swan. "Where are you going with this, August? Are you trying to say that this is the same situation and that Killian is in love with me?"
August gulped and nodded. "He told us a while ago, but swore us to secrecy."
"I always thought Mary Margaret was the one would end up spilling the beans," Ruby stated.
"Hold on a moment." Emma put the box with her swan in it off to the side before turning to fully face her friends. "Are you guys saying that Killian loves me? You've got to be pulling my leg."
Emma was so wound up that she didn't hear the door open and someone coming in as she was talking.
"They're not, love," she heard from behind her.
Emma spun on her heel to face Killian, disbelief written all over her face.
"Let's go see about getting some more beer and keeping this party going," August said, leading everyone out of the apartment.
"Why didn't you ever say anything?" Emma asked.
"I was afraid," Killian admitted. "I knew that you had just gotten out of a bad relationship, and I did too. I didn't want to ruin things between us."
"How long?"
"How long what, lass?"
"How long have you been in love with me?"
"I think I've loved you from the moment I first laid eyes on you," he said quietly, dropping his eyes to the floor. "I never meant for it to come out this way, Emma. I am so sorry."
Emma didn't answer; instead, she walked up to Killian and pulled him in for a deep kiss.
"No one ever asked me how I felt about you," she said before kissing him once more.
"How's that, love?" Killian asked when they pulled apart again, hope in his eyes and a dopey grin on his face.
"I love you too, Killian Jones, and this has really been the best birthday of my life."