On the first day of spring after the end of the world, Emma Swan made herself coffee. It was the old-fashioned way, really- roasting the beans with water heated from a crackling fire.
Electricity wasn't really common on her end of the woods, and Emma didn't really know the cabin as well as was necessary to generate electric heat. It tasted entirely acrid and was too hot, but Emma found a little comfort in the fact that no one else was there to try the bitter drink.
That comfort turned into a frown on her pale face, thinned from harsh nights and brutal days, as she heard the growl of another biter outside the cabin. No one but the dead, apparently.
It had been Summer when Emma first got visitors. She had heard the screeches of the metal fence she had set around the perimeter, and tipped back the last of her whiskey without hesitation. The intruders were a couple of teenage girls, insisting they were much tougher than they looked. They had just needed a shelter for the night, while they coordinated their supplies and prepared to go back into the heat of Maine's expansive forest, but Emma was reluctant to oblige.
After all, she'd been on her own for god knows how long- since this whole mess started. It wasn't until she caught a glimpse of the trembling in the taller girl's hands that Emma lowered her weapon and let them in. She knew their type: resilient sisters who'd take on the world for each other. At the time, Emma's mouth had dried up as she shook her head, telling them, "there's no world left to be against you."
The older one was blonde and icy, protective of the younger redhead, and sure to keep a hunting knife on her at all times. It made Emma ache a little, because she used to be that blonde, but she'd never had a sister to protect.
Though, Emma supposed, her crappy childhood didn't really matter in the face of a hoard of zombies. She told them they could stay for a night.
They stayed for a week.
At some point, Emma woke to a thank-you breakfast of old rations, and the girls were nowhere to be found.
When Autumn rolled around, Emma began to think about her friends back home. There weren't many, sure, but by the end of the world, she didn't have as many reservations about using the term loosely. There was always her bail-bondsman partner, Graham, a tall irishman with curls of red hair and looks that brought their female bail-jumpers to their knees. Emma, though she hated to admit it, had been bait for the slimier bastards who'd skipped town but had just enough time for dinner with a hot blonde.
The two had eaten one too many containers of chinese food on stakeouts than was strictly necessary between coworkers, but Emma had never let her walls fall down enough to let him in.
Now, though, Emma wondered how different things might have been if she had. Maybe she wouldn't have gone on that damn camping trip with Ruby right when the end hit- she might have heeded his warnings about the disease being rumored to spread quicker in the more rural areas. Maybe she'd have taken him up on his offer to help her pack.
Each time a biter got too close to the fence and Emma had to take it down with the old bowie knife he had given her, she wondered if Graham would have plastered that lopsided smile of his on his face, or maybe pat her on the back for a solid slash. His was the only touch she hadn't flinched at.
But Graham was gone now, likely crawling around the streets of Boston as a walking corpse. Ruby hadn't lasted much longer than a few days, falling victim to a nasty bite on the shoulder, before Emma put her out of her misery. Now she had nothing but her friend's cabin and a lifetime supply of whiskey. Not a bad way to go, she thought.
That was, until Killian Jones showed up at her gate. He was of average height and build, with dark hair falling around his face and blue eyes staring at Emma and her raised gun. His hands were in the air, gloved and scratched from prying at the fence.
Emma raised an eyebrow, her fingers on the trigger not wavering for a minute.
"Give me a reason not to kill you right here." She commanded, and he barked out a strangled laugh. If she thought about it for too long, Emma thought she might learn to like the sound. He spoke, then, in a hearty British-Irish accent that sent a bit of rumbling to the pit of her stomach in a way that scared her more than the dead ever could.
"I'd think that you already have one, considering I'm not sitting here with a hole in my chest." He leaned forward, as if bowing, "The name's Killian, Killian Jones."
Emma almost felt the trace of a smile, before she squashed it with a shrug of indifference. After all, his ridiculous bow had given her a glimpse of the heavy rifle that lay on his shoulder.
"Drop it." She motioned to his weapon, but he winked and gave a tug to his belt. Emma cocked her gun in response. "The rifle, jackass."
He huffed and, despite heavy reluctance, pulled the strap from his shoulder and tossed it over the fence, letting it hit the ground with a thud.
"And here I thought you'd have an appetite for robbing me of other protections." Emma ignored his compulsive flirtations and kept her gun trained on him the whole time, picking up the rifle he had dropped.
"You got a knife in there?" She asked him, pointing to his faded and dusty jeans.
"Anxious to get into my trousers, are you?" His lilted the words reached her just as he leaned forward, tracing his bottom lip with his tongue.
"There's no room for jokesters in this world, Jones. Just the dead and the soon-to-be." He tilted his chin up at her, lowering his hands to the lock of the fence.
"If I open this, will you end my plight where I stand?"
"Give it a try and find out for yourself."
He did just that.
As it turns out, Emma hadn't felt like drawing biters to her shelter with the sound of gunfire (at least that was the reasoning she gave him when he sat down across from her on the porch). He had just raised an eyebrow, his jaw clenching ever so slightly. The stubble on his chin and cheeks was decorated with flecks of ginger, scratchy to the touch. Not that Emma did- or wanted to, for that matter.
"What do you want?" She asked him directly, anxiously dragging her nails against her palm, eyes darting to the knife that lay by her thigh. He scratched behind his ear, clearing his throat.
"I'm just scouting. I'm part of a group- community, rather- and my boss sent me in search of abandoned cabins. She says that it could help our resources a great deal to raid a few empty ones." Emma's gaze flickered to his canvas pack, which was bulging at the seams. He warily nodded at her silent question, continuing, "That would be the haul from last night's venture."
She couldn't tell if there was a real danger of him returning to kill her and steal her rations- or if the danger was in her (surely irrational) instinct to trust him.
Either way, Emma sat up a little stiffer.
"Well, obviously this cabin isn't abandoned. Actually, it's pretty inhabited. My husband will be back soon, too, so you should be on your way now." There's strength in numbers, she thought, even if they were lies.
Killian didn't seem to buy it. His eyebrows twitched as pointed a scarred and dirty finger at her own pale hand.
"Where's your ring?"
Her hands felt clammy all of a sudden, and the air might have gotten 10 degrees warmer.
"What?" She managed, her throat drying up.
"If you're married, then why aren't you wearing a wedding ring?"
She was about to say she had pawned it, or she had lost it, or maybe it had been stolen- but he interrupted her chances of answering.
"You don't have to lie to me, love. I'm not going to hurt you."
He seemed honest, but Emma's barriers flew up. She stood from the porch, gripping her knife tightly.
"I know you aren't, because I could kill you with ease." She narrowed her eyes, raising the weapon slightly, "So I'll repeat myself: you should be on your way now."
He didn't look the least bit intimidated. Instead, he grinned.
"Before I've gotten your name?"
She huffed.
"You're not getting my damn name, asshole. Get out of here." He stood, but made no move to leave.
He was taller than her by a few inches, maybe 6 feet, and he smelled of pine needles and smoked maple. Emma hadn't realized just how blue his eyes really were, until he was close enough that she could feel his breath on her face. He tilted his head, studying her for a minute, before letting out a low hum. He licked his lips, eyes steady on hers.
"You're not a very well mannered lass, are you? What ever happened to propriety?"
Emma swallowed hard and lowered her knife a little more, but refused to break eye contact.
"Propriety be damned, Jones, we're all gonna die."
He chuckled, Stepping down from the porch, the breeze ruffling his hair.
"With that attitude, surely."
She couldn't help but let out a small breath.
"It's Emma." She called as he took another step. He paused, turning back to her. "Emma Swan."
He offered his hand, looking up with sincerity.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Emma Swan." Their hands met briefly, and Emma was sure to pull hers away after the second had passed. "I don't suppose I might get my gun back?"
She surveyed him once more: well muscled arms, the traces of black hair showing through his low cut cotton shirt, dirtied with stains of blood, mud, and grass. He had a small scar on his cheek, and the faintest suggestion of freckles across his nose.
"Depends. Can I count on you never showing your face around my cabin again?" He just looked at her hard, as if daring her to continue. When she didn't, he did.
"Is that really what you want, Swan?"
She knew loneliness had always been in the cards for her, in this world or any other- but the thought of having someone else there, with her, made her knees weak and her heart heavy. Maybe the fact that Killian was so… something to her, made it easier to nod her head.
"I'm sure," She lied through her teeth, extending his rifle to him. "Go, Killian." He eyed it, but retracted his hand instead of grabbing it.
"I'll come around for it tomorrow. I'll expect you to be packed by then, as well." She furrowed her brows.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
He sent her a strange look that she couldn't quite put her finger on, and curled his fingers around the material of his fleece jacket, dust rising around his boots as he half-turned to go.
"Well, you're coming with me, obviously."
Emma blanched.
"No, I'm not." When he tilted his head at her with that infuriatingly consistent grin, she got angrier. "I'm staying and I'll put a bullet in the skull of anyone who tries to tell me otherwise! You don't get to make my decisions for me."
He shook his head.
"I didn't make the decision. You did."
She scoffed.
"How did you get the idea that I wanted to go with you? Was it by telling you to piss off? Or by saying that I never want to see your damn face again?"
He corrected her,
"By lying through your teeth, love. See you tomorrow, we'll leave around midday."
She stuttered, face contorted in confusion, anger, and surprise, as he walked through the dirt to the gate, sending her one last wave before throwing his bag over his shoulder and disappearing into the trees.
Emma's fingers twitched around her knife, and she eventually sighed and sheathed it. Apparently, she had packing to do.