The idea of an early movie night came to Emma one day in November, primarily because it was November. Winter had well and truly set in. The weather outside was grimy, rain fell in sheets and as such she chose not to leave the confines of the house, and would refuse to even if a dragon came blustering into Storybrooke intent on incinerating the town.
As she was want to do on a crappy weather day without Henry around and a belly full of baby, she was browsing through Netflix, aimlessly pressing buttons and watching movie after movie and TV show after TV show slide by like the landscape does from the window of a car. All of a sudden though, she stopped. and gawped. She'd selected a movie which professed to be romantic, but it wasn't the genre that had caught her attention. Instead it was the images which flicked by one by one. Why, this one showed Killian! with... slightly less hair, a lot less beard and to his eternal detriment no eyeliner (his eyes looked so plain now, so, bereft of drama). He was dressed differently too, his usual figure hugging leathers replaced by silk, tweed and cotton. The corner of her mouth twitched as amusement feeling she'd absolutely got the superior model of any Killian clone which might have existed. This one looked ridiculous.
All the same Emma's heart pounded in her chest all of a sudden, piping up as the images passed. Most of them containing her turned around on the couch and tried to get a better shot at the stairs to shout "Killian! You've gotta see this"
a confused "what love?" drifted down in response.
Emma turned back to the TV to make sure it was still on the same movie when he came down "just come on!" she bellowed as she turned back "you HAVE to see this"
she heard the reluctant footsteps descending the flight of stairs and then a sigh as he got to the doorway. He'd seen what was on the screen.
"its not date night for another week." he said, exasperation obvious in his voice at seeing the picture of a couple smooching in the recommended bar. "You know I love date night Swan, but save it for another time. I'm busy with the nursery. I've just started painting."
"No! Killian..." the blonde said, frustrated too. "its not about the movie, its about who's IN the movie. Look!" she thrust the remote at the screen
he was now forced to come into the room to squint at the TV and Emma noticed he was wearing splattered in different colours of paint. They'd never quite decided or agreed upon which colour they wanted. Seeing as though Emma hardly believed in the Blue for a Boy and Pink for a Girl Philosophy, she was more into allowing people to chose their own destinies like she had. No kid deserved to be dictated to.
"Carrie... Pil...by?" he read cautiously," never heard of her Swan. Sorry" but then there was the picture again. The one of the Him who was very much not him, in a jacket and a tailored shirt. He was taken aback and blinked, disbelievingly.
"who.. wh-" he gasped, not quite forming the words in his mind. then he gulped and they came far easier.
"bloody hell. what a handsome chap. But what about those clothes? They're-" he lost his train of thought again as another screenshot of the film presented him in a vest
"don't tell me this is another Wish Realm Hook. I've only just solved one's problems without being faced with another."
"I don't know." Emma said truthfully "But this guy..." she carried on, beginning to press buttons on the remote trying to find details of actors involved in the film. "is called... Colin."
"What sort of a name is that?" he spat, miffed. "Killian's far more dashing. Colin's an awful name. Imagine being married to a Colin, Emma. Imagine a captain Colin Jones. Captain Colin would be laughed of any ship he ever set foot on. In fact he'd more likely be a cook than a captain " in all his monologue he'd lost track of what his wife was doing. She was now curled up around her phone and was starting to blush, her face flushing red. Killian turned from the image and noticed her.
"Emma?" he called and at this She looked up from her handset which was giving her a ghostly glow.
"Huh?"
"What're you doing now?"
"just googling. Finding out about him."
"Why?" He asked quizzically, peeved that she'd probably done nothing of the sort when she'd found out about HIS existence.
"because im interested." she spotted something which made her Oooh "He's irish! that means he's got an accent!"
"and?" Killian said, disinterested because he didn't seem to know what the significance of an accent was "I can talk about pots 'o gold at the end of rainbows if you want me to... in fact I have."
"yeah" Emma said, grinning from ear to ear now, suddenly remembering "but the poor guy was offended. The rainbow was a coincidence, so was his top hat."
"okay so he wasn't a leprechaun" Killian began to giggle in response. "but it was an honest mistake. Right." he said finally "I've got a bucket of paint drying out upstairs. can I?"
She nodded "sure" not waiting to press the play button.