Evergreen
CS secret relationship/forbidden love AU
A/N: It's my favourite trope, I just had to give it a whirl.
"You're sure no one saw you?"
It's a fair enough question to ask, she thinks, what with her back to his chest at the foot of her bed, his hands tucking the hair over her shoulder.
Being seen would null and void the point of him sneaking in here in the first place.
There are so many questions skipping through her mind and yet that's the only one she can think to say, her heart tripping with her thoughts. Tripping and faltering – the way that every thought and feeling coursing through her is a little desperate to find solid ground, a little unsure as to where exactly that might be. And each question is changed with every pound of her heart, with every touch of his lips to the corner of her jaw, the crook of her neck.
So, that's all she manages to ask. Not 'how did you get in?', not 'Killian, you shouldn't be here'.
The castle is flooded with people – diplomats and their entourages, soldiers and servants from several different kingdoms - and the likelihood that someone saw him in the corridor - in her wing, breaking into her room - is unbearably high. He hadn't even bothered with a heavy cloak like she usually does when she tip-toes across his gangplank. Nothing but his usual cloak and dagger (literally and metaphorically); clad in leather and shadow.
Killian's voice is a deep whisper behind her ear.
"Ye of such little faith, Emma."
Emma makes a noise of objection at that, something high-pitched and indignant. It isn't about faith. She's more concerned with what might happen if they're caught in this particularly compromising position (his breath puffing warmly against her neck as he smoothes his hands down the length of her back).
It comes down to two simple things: if they're caught, he'll be less reckless and she only wants him nearer; if they're caught who knows whether either of them will be safe.
(And if anyone is a little low on faith it's him.)
But despite the worry, despite the possible consequences, she's never been happier to see him in her chambers, little bits of snow still melting in his hair. And Emma's aware of how quickly she's surrendering to this tonight, of how quickly their hellos have turned into an attempt at farewelling their clothes. Almost as though they've never touched before, as though they've never done this (never met secretly in the dark, never undressed one another).
She puts it down to absence, and the things that people say about the fondness of hearts.
It's been weeks since she last saw him.
The winter came quickly, growing unpleasantly colder, settling a permanent chill into each and every flagstone of her floor, something that not even her fire seemed to be able to chase away. And he'd cropped up in her mind time and time again - while forgetting to hold her tongue in the middle of war councils and diplomatic dinners, sitting with her parents in the Great Hall and listening to the squabbling complaints of their people.
Not that it was very hard to think of him.
All it took was a passing mention of the navy, the sea, the pirate problem interfering with the trade in the east, and she thought of him. When she had a particularly good casket of wine, or glass of dark rum, or a piece of meat spiced with something from a far off distance place, she thought of him.
Only he could make her forget just how cold the stones really were beneath the pads of her feet.
Truthfully, she was more surprised than usual to see him standing by the window of her room. The last time he had nearly been caught – by her mother the queen no less, as he hid predictably underneath her bed – and he had left with a kiss to her cheek and the promise that they would meet somewhere safer next time.
Yet, here they were.
Reckless and foolish.
Foolish with their blood roaring into a fire, her forearms and her hands curled around the fourth poster of her four-poster bed. Reckless with his chest pressed against her back, fingers untucking laces.
There are other questions that form in her mind, one after the other -'I thought we agreed last time that-', 'where have you been?', 'how long do we have?' - but they quickly turn to different thoughts, like the touch of his hands over her waist, the slow nudge of his nose against her turned cheek.
They're less thoughts than they are feelings, really - the quiver of her blood against her cheeks, the urgency she feels right down to her toes; there is heat and want burning around her neck, burning everywhere (burning in the very pit of her stomach).
He is far, far more effective than the fire in the corner. Igniting and igniting, one sparkling ember after another.
Emma moves one hand over her shoulder to furl her fingers through his dark hair. It has grown a little longer in the past few weeks, the ends falling through her fingers a little slower than they had before, and Killian tastes the thrum of her pulse, lips intent upon her neck, humming her name smoothly in response.
Then he pulls again.
He pulls at the lace of her corset a little too tightly and it snags once more, yanking her further into him with a gasp. But before she has time to tease and chastise him for his frustrations, he slows his urgent tugging, his fingers untangling themselves from her laces. One hand travels behind her ear, gathering hair with it as he goes, pulling it from one side of her neck to the other.
"Sorry, love," he mumbles, before pressing a slow kiss just under her ear.
And his lips linger for just a moment, the scruff of his chin light upon her shoulder. He traces it further, running his lips, his nipping teeth, gently over the back of her shoulder. It sends a tremble down her spine, her fingers tightening on the wooden rung of her bed, her heartbeat an entirely lost cause.
Corsets were not made for breathing, let alone the long gasping sort of breathing she's doing now. Then again, corsets were made to be worn, to catch the eyes of others, to flatter the female form – decidedly not to have pirates rip them off in dark rooms of castles.
"This bloody thing has it in for me."
Emma can't help but laugh quietly at his annoyance. He is no novice at this – neither of them are – but for some reason, tonight, he cannot seem to undo them. (Perhaps it is the cold blunting the feeling in his fingertips, perhaps it's the simple need to be with her again making him stumble in his haste.
Perhaps it's just that this green dress is a new dress, one he hasn't had the pleasure of taking off before.)
Whatever the reason, Emma turns around to face him.
Killian.
His features are half-shadowed by the dark, but it somehow makes him softer rather than highlighting the sharper edges of his face, His hair an absolute mess from where she's been touching it - he is handsome nonetheless. But more than that it's his smile that does her in, the one he gives her in return for her own, the crinkles that wrinkle along the sides of both eyes –
He looks wrecked, and dazed, and they're both still fully dressed – minus their shoes.
(It's always like this at first, his eyes bright, his cheeks flushed and cheerful - as though he isn't some wanted pirate, as though they aren't reduced to kissing in shadows and meeting in secret.)
"The great Captain Jones, scourge of the seven seas, bested by a corset. I thought you liked a challenge?"
Emma leans closer towards him, bumping her nose with his, intent upon teasing him (both physically and verbally). He takes the bait, chasing her lips - but fails in catching her, or in doing much more than softly grazing with a puff of breath.
Killian's hands are around her hips again, his fingers once again becoming snarled in the chords of her clothes, nose insistently nudging in the dip between her nose and her cheek.
"I just didn't know your laces were going to be more stubborn than you."
She laughs easily against his lips, and it's the opening he's after - Killian wastes no time in kissing her smile.
His impatience is palpable. Lips hot against hers, capturing hers as though he hasn't already kissed her this evening – languid, and deep, and hungry it is, and Emma meets it with a yearning for more. Each chase of her is long and heavy, soft slides of soft lips as his tongue makes torturous swoops against her own, and each touch is desperate for the next, and the next, and the one after that, and -
Emma feels dizzy with it.
And maybe standing on her toes to kiss him is ill-advised when she's feeling off-kilter, but her arms crush him to her anyway, hands winding up to lose themselves in his hair again. But her impatience is as evident as his own, she's ridiculous antsy with it, and her hands begin to slide down, tracing the line where his leather brocaded vest meets the skin of his chest.
His clothes are much easier to discard than her own, buttons popped from their holes without a fight, all scrunched and thrown hastily over his head in between hard kisses. Emma has no idea where the clothes end up, where exactly it is she flings his belt when it clatters to the floor.
But, Killian's kiss becomes a wide toothy grin when he finally manages to get her laces unknotted.
He spins her around again to get a better look at the ties, the whirl as it loosens at his fingers vibrating along her back. Suddenly, the deep green material is gone, and Emma can breathe properly once more as his hands push the tiers of her dress off of her shoulders, down, and over her hips. All hindrances gone, save the shift of her under things.
Killian's warm hands skate over the soft material at her waist, slinking slightly over her stomach and pulling her against his bare chest, the rings upon his fingers a hard contrast to her skin and his. The soft sensation of the short material tickling against her skin is a welcome one as he continues nudging kisses into the crook of her neck, seemingly content to simply touch the shape of her without bone, and silk, and thick linen between them.
But it's not what Emma wants.
She pulls the thing off over her head and turns once again in his arms.
Killian's cheeks are pink and so are his ears in the firelight, and it doesn't make him look like the roguish captain she knows he partly is, but the other softer part that blushes when he's been kissed one too many times. The part that told her she looked stunning when she walked through the door, cutting off his own sentence with a kiss.
(Not that she's much better.
She knows she's red too, her cheeks burn with it.)
Emma traces kisses along his cheeks, small and unchaste as her hands take his, moving them from her hips - softly grazing the backs of his knuckles and his rings across her skin at the same time - to her breasts.
There's a very distinct shiver up her spine that has nothing to do with the cold.
And she feels overwhelmed with the need to touch him in return – her lips hovering gently at the corner of his mouth, stubble bristling against them, all the while her fingers travel from his hands up the muscles of his arms.
"Happy now?" she breathes against his cheek, her breath still out of beat with the skip of her heart.
Killian fingers do not instantly cup her as she half expects from his haste and his mood, he is no more rush to do anything at all. Instead, they trace the underside of her breasts, running barely there skims across the skin, the edge of Killian's fingernails etching gentle rakes around the swell of her chest.
It's worse than if he had a firmer touch. It makes her heart falter when he touches her so teasingly, it makes her limbs forget what they should be doing in favour of paying attention to the actions of his own. There's another accompanying shiver down her spine when his thumbs run over her nipples, pushing them gently and letting them rise again against the winter air.
And maybe it's a sign of how wound up she is, of how much she missed him, of how much she is as desperate as he is, because the simple second drag of his thumbs against the hard of her nipples has her biting teeth marks into her lower lip. Emma's breath hitches against his ear, their faces cheek-to-cheek as his hands widen their quiet teases further across her body.
Killian's cheek smiles against her own.
"Aye, love, very happy."
.
.
(And, so, that's how it starts. Not exactly at the beginning, but somewhere in the middle, each one of them already lost in feeling for the other, and both as helplessly unable to stay away.
But just as importantly, it starts with them lost in a winter of harsh weather and harsher realities; at the juncture of things.
It starts like this: love in the greatest sense, affection at a violent depth.
But not everything blooms in the winter.
Not everything is evergreen.)
.
.
"You don't have to leave, you know."
There is no morning light, no sun to sprinkle warmth on Emma's still bare back. No light, no twinkle of morning.
And partially that has something to do with the season, the winter sun slower to rise and rarely ever rising with anything more than a drowsy chill. Almost every wing of the castle has visitors in it at the moment, and it won't be long before all the maids and hired help begin to shuffle as quietly as they can in the corridors outside. But for now, it's long before the dawn, and her room is freezing, the remnants from the fire having fizzled out hours ago (long after she and Killian had climbed under the covers).
It is dark and it is still.
The chill had been distinctly manageable with Killian's body wrapped soundly against her own, with his hand tucked between her grasp and her chest, the flop of his fringe tickling the back of her ear; snug from ankle to chin.
However, he's not there anymore.
Killian is up and scuffling about her bedroom instead, tugging on his pants and buttoning up his cotton shirt hurriedly, the cold clearly abrasive against the bare of his skin. Emma watches him do it, lying on her stomach, her cheek squashed and no doubt forming creases with her pillow. She blinks at him, the red of his vest the same sort of maroon as the pattern of her bedding, and she knows for a fact that his eyes would match the blue of the tapestry that hangs on the wall.
And her heart sinks into the hollow of her stomach with every item of clothing he puts back on – his vest, his pants, his shoes.
Several of her questions from only hours ago find explanations she doesn't like the taste of – he's not staying, he can't, there are rumours of a dagger he is chasing and he is only a day behind them. He risked sneaking in because he was desperate to see her in the small gap of time that he had, while his men loaded up his ship with more supplies.
(Reckless and foolish.)
"All I need is for a maid to see me when they come to relight your fire, and all the sneaking around will be for naught."
Just once she wants to feel that sun on her back, the heat of him combined with the heat of the dawn, to wake themselves with thawing touches, to nestle her nose into his bristly chin to stifle her yawns.
But instead she returns his explanation with an almost sulky bite.
"Fine."
She'd be more surprised if he didn't notice the irritation in her tone, the clipped word sour in the air. Killian moves from his perch on the edge of her bed, ignoring the laces of his boots he was fiddling with to lean over to her, the bed dipping in turn.
He lies down, her legs tucked under his, the blankets of the bed in the middle of them as Killian shuffles to meet her eye-to-eye. There are hardly any inches between them as he tugs himself closer, his hair falling in his eyes a little as the backs of his fingers run along the exposure of her shoulders.
"I'm sorry, Swan."
"No, you're not."
Where Killian truly does sound apologetic, Emma only sounds a little petulant. She's not trying very hard this morning to make it easier on either of them.
"I am sorry, but less sorry if it keeps you alive," he sighs heavily, clearly not willing to revisit their bone of contention.
"You're so melodramatic," she teases him for it, but neither of them smile. It's not really that kind of a tease. It is instead a kind of empty quip, the words that she knows under a different sort of morning light would hold a lot more laughter to them. Emma's heart is in no mood to smile, too sore and tired, too heartbroken that they have to do this every single time.
(It always starts so well.
And always ends like this.
The good moments followed by the bad.)
Emma pulls one hand out from its curled place under her chin, letting it fall to his scruffy face. Gently, she thumbs at the place where she wishes a dimple would creep, but it doesn't. His fingertips trace soft lines on her back, the nails a soothing sort of scratch, his eyes dark in the dim with something bittersweet - but he does not smile.
(Not even the smile he makes when he's trying to be brave - when he's trying to pretend he's alright - makes a reluctant appearance.)
Emma knows how their secret meetings would look if anyone ever actually knew what was going on.
A scandalous pirate seducing a princess into bed, the two of them in passionate throes until he sneaks away under the still cover of night. No doubt they would assume he is taking advantage and leaving her broken-hearted. He doesn't have the greatest reputation - even for a pirate - he is one with more stories attached to him than most, and more than a few of those involve a woman of some sort – married or otherwise, royal or common.
She's heard them all. Heard that women simper all over him at the sight of his smile, that he's snuck past the watchful eyes of parents and husbands, with his belt still unbuckled, and the things stolen off shelves in his pockets. Emma knows the light she would be painted in, the way she would be reduced to base facts like the other women.
Others would see her as a conquest, as just another story in his repertoire.
But Emma is not those people.
She knows with him which bits are true and which aren't, knows he amps up the stories intentionally with his own bravado. He does leave her broken-hearted, but he also leaves with his own in splintered pieces in his chest, fragments that prick and sting when he goes, when he breathes.
The look in his eyes never lies.
He wants to see her in the hazy light of the morning too, to take her hands in his as their bodies sweat and flush against each other, with lazy limbs and lazier lips. To walk with her in the city streets without fear that someone might see his fingers clasping hers. He wants to walk with her through the halls of her castle, following her to her council meetings, rather than hearing about it afterwards in the dark whisper of some room.
Instead, they lie there in the quiet limbo between night and day, waiting for one of them to leave.
"I love you."
Emma whispers it first, the words feeling as heavy as her heart, and not because the words are a burden: the words are heavy because she means them too much. They come out from the lurch in her stomach that fears she will never see him again, that this morning when he leaves for another perilous gambit, he might not make it back.
His eyes still soften every time she says them. They soften as if he knows the twofold meaning behind her confession, and why it is she only says it when he's leaving.
(His eyes never lie.)
"I love you, too. More than anything – that's why I have to do this."
There's a little wisp to his 'why', his accent pushing the w and the h together in a tiny puff. Normally, she likes the sound, normally the sound is gentle and somehow wistful, a reminder of the distance he's travelled to get here. But she never likes it when he's saying goodbye.
Something which he seems to do an awful lot, a word she can never quite bring herself to say.
"Just, be careful, okay?"
There are winters, and then there are winters.
And this one is shaping up to very much be the latter of the two.
Sometimes the chill of the wind outside only makes Emma appreciate the crackling warmth of her fire more, the nights spent laughing at her parents' antics with a warm drink settled in her stomach and her cheeks. And the snow falling outside the castle windows, covering the rooftops of the town below until each building looks wrapped up and warm in a white, soft blanket – those are the kinds of winters she likes. The winding streets that wheedle themselves through their slope-side city, from the castle to the water's edge, seem softer and gentler with the warm lights flickering against snowy streets.
Emma met Killian in the winter.
It was only last winter, in a tavern on the far side of the harbour, gambling with loaded dice and swapping them for real ones every time someone accused him of cheating – at least, that's where she saw him first. He was clever about it - very, very clever about it – and Emma sat in a quiet corner, hood hanging low over her face, watching the dice slip into his sleeve when the other players became suspicious.
But it was not Emma's first time in a tavern, not her first time watching pirates lie and drunks swindle things from one another. So, she ignored it.
The winter night markets were another reason to love the season.
Produce was always low the moment the frost began to kill almost everything – fewer fruits, fewer vegetables – but those who could, still brought their wares. And in return, Emma lit the streets with little magical lights, tiny sparks that moved and darted away when children tried to touch them.
(She was their saviour after all, the one who chased away the darkness – the lights seemed like a fitting touch.)
However, it was the smell that she loved the most, it was that that usually stuck in her memory when she thought about it - the deep scent of honey-roasted almonds, the cinnamon ginger biscuits coated with cloves and sugar. It was worth untucking her hands from her warm blue cloak just to nibble on one of them.
But that very same winter, only a few nights later, she had not expected to see the cheating pirate behind a stall of jewellery, his leather clothes long gone in favour of woollen winter ones. And she would have thought nothing of it if she hadn't recognised him as he was playing pretend and sweet-talking some woman. Emma spotted him long before he spotted her, and as she drew nearer, she tried to figure out just what kind of fast one he was trying to pull this time.
"Your Highness," his bow is low, an almost convincingly innocent grin upon his face.
Emma was used to not being able to go anywhere without people recognising her - her parents were well loved, and she had been encouraged to know her people the moment she could walk and talk. (Plus, no one forgets the face of someone who overturned a dictator). Hence, walking through the markets often resulted in hearing her title called out to her over and over again – in greeting, in respect, in supplication.
But she doesn't always stop.
She does this time.
He keeps hold of the sweep of his bow until she stops in front of him. Two other men stand at the far side of the stall, so tall that their heads almost hit the red and gold awning above their shop, arms crossed haughtily around themselves in the cold. They look more like henchmen than craftsmen or collectors of fine goods.
They look far more like pirates than their accompanying merchant, that's for sure.
Emma, more curious as to the charade than anything else, browses their display – gaudy rings and ostentatious necklaces, silver and gold and all manner of colours no doubt meant to catch the eye of passers-by. Although, it was clear by the way he had buttered up his previous client, and the smooth way that he talked, that the pirate thought he was as big a draw as the jewels themselves.
"Might I interest you in this bracelet, milady, or this ring perhaps? Pure silver, mined by dwarves from the hills of the Cartolian Mountains; rubies and gemstones from far across the seas, this necklace was hand-crafted off the coast of Arendelle. And is only seven gold pieces."
Emma has to bite her tongue from laughing at the price he quotes her, so high that she has to wonder if anyone would fall for it at all. His tone is charming enough, the deep cadence of his sales pitch is certainly sure to enchant the listener into believing he has brought them from miles away. She wants to blame his foreign accent for that.
And she's not really surprised he thinks he's getting away with it – he is very, very clever about it.
Unfortunately for him, Emma knows better – even without the tingle that trickles up her spine.
Lie.
"So, you can vouch for the authenticity of each and every one of these items?" Emma asks, her own tone not even bothering to hide her dryness or her disbelief. She may live high behind castle walls, but she hasn't always, and she's not an idiot. And she is certainly not about to be ripped-off by a pirate.
He's not put off in the slightest by her tone.
"You have my word, Your Highness."
Emma steps a little closer to him at that, less than a metre or so between them, for no other reason than to get a better read on him and intimidate him. Not that he looks worried, smiling at her like the cat who got the cream. But at this distance she can see the cold red tips of his nose and his pointed ears, can see how completely unflustered he is.
"I'll let you in on a little secret – I'm pretty good at knowing when someone is lying to me."
He at least has the decency to look faux-affronted that someone would think he would lie to royalty.
"And why would I lie to you?"
"Probably, for the same reason you would use loaded dice."
A look of surprise sweeps across his face at that, his eyes locked instantly with hers. She expects him to flounder, to backtrack, to bluff his way out of the lie. Instead, his eyes search hers, squinting a little as though running through his memories to remember a time he might have gambled with a princess.
What she doesn't expect is the wry smirk that sneaks across his face. He almost looks impressed that she's caught him out, when indeed anyone else would begin to look over their shoulders, worried that they might get arrested or thrown in the dungeons.
(He looks more like the cat who keeps eating the cream after he's been caught red-handed just to antagonise the cook.)
The merchant persona is long gone and discarded in an instant as he saunters a little further into her space, a playful look creeping there instead, one eyebrow higher than the other.
"There are many items here, love, can you blame a man if he forgets exactly where one or two of them came from?"
Emma scoffs aloud at that, looking from him to the other two surly men who suddenly look far more panicked than their companion. She didn't expect him to be so blatantly unrepentant, but she's also not really surprised, hardly seeming the meek and cowardly type; infinitely more content to keep goading her. There's a gleam in his eyes that is more than the fire lights she has conjured – only she's not really sure what that gleam really is.
Mischief, probably.
"Let me guess, they're either stolen and you have no idea where they come from, or they're copper plated or something cheaper that will discolour five seconds after someone buys it?"
"I have no idea what you mean, Your Highness."
He does, he knows exactly what she means, it's present in the glimmer of his eyes, but he doesn't seem to care. Instead, he glances over their stall until he finds what he is looking for, picking it up in one hand and grabbing her cold right hand in the other.
"However, I fear there has been a misunderstanding, and I therefore seek your clemency." Emma doesn't even bother to hide the cynical knit on her face, even though it just makes his smile wider. He bows his head low, lingering with a kiss to the back of the hand he holds before slipping a ring onto her fourth finger. "Consider this a gesture of good will."
The ring is beautiful, really. A gentle twine of silver branches where a deep emerald is set in the centre (at least it looks like silver, and it looks like an emerald). It isn't gaudy, but it isn't simple and she wonders almost instantly who it previously belonged to, which ship he pillaged to get it, who he intimidated into handing it over.
She slips her hand from his a little forcefully.
"Really? You're trying to bribe my silence?"
"I wouldn't dream of it," but he punctuates his gesture with a wink.
She's only turned away from their stall for a minute at the most, intent upon informing the guards before they can swindle from less discerning citizens, and knowing she can't take all three of them on her own, but when she turns back they are long gone. Their stall empty of trinkets and tablecloths, deserted of everything and looking as though they were never there at all.
But she knows they were, the little green ring still sitting upon her finger.
Any one else caught by the princess selling stolen goods, and for an unreasonable price, would have fled the kingdom the moment they were suspected, let alone when they were caught out in the lie.
Well, anyone with a skerrick of sense.
(Anyone with enough sense to fear for their life.)
Emma sees him a few weeks later, in a different tavern, in a different part of town, laughing and drinking and gambling with two girls draped over him and his winnings. She's still not entirely sure what makes her do it, why she pulls off her hood to lean over his table. It's probably for the same reason she stopped by his stall.
(Curiosity, scepticism.)
"What are we playing?"
The sparkle in his eye almost suggests that he was hoping she'd turn up again.
"And here I would have thought your first question would be 'which set of dice are we using?'"
.
.
Remembering how she met him is not a moment she forgets easily.
(At the time it was neither a good nor a bad moment.)
She finds it stays with her more the longer she knows him - the more she comes to actually know who he is - and each little part of him she uncovers makes her remember it with something new.
Months later, in the early spring, she realises with a mollifying sort of feeling, that aside from that day, he has never once lied to her. A few weeks after that she decides that the press of his lips to the back of her hand is an altogether different feeling to the touch of his lips against her own. The reckless care for his own safety (or lack thereof) – just as he didn't care that she'd caught him out that day – is entirely different to the care he takes in defending her (sometimes from herself).
Not to mention the little emerald ring that she one day, late in the heat of a muggy summer's night, slips back onto her hand that becomes something more like a token, a talisman more than a trinket.
(It becomes a good one. A good moment that started the rest of them.)
And this winter, when all the that sea brings is a cold front from the south and not him, Emma finds herself trapped in the memories of the last.
.
.
Stolen moments, unlike stolen jewellery, have this way of trickling up her spine.
They are white hot, as though when she sees him each nerve of anxiety, of relief, is set alight. The fire makes it harder to breathe, scorching every inch of her and making her crave his lips against hers, bare skin upon skin.
Maybe that's the reason why one of the first things they often do when they see each other is tear off their clothes.
(Maybe they are desperate to free themselves from the confines of their clothes if they cannot free themselves from the confines of their circumstances.)
He has been gone for weeks, off on another risky idea in one of the bleakest winters she can remember. She'd call them hair-brained schemes but they're far too calculated, largely reconnaissance, largely under the radar. But he sets off to desperately fix the things that stand between them, and she stays behind to deal with other important matters.
All in all, he leaves her to watch the break walls of the harbour from her bedroom window and wonder if he will make it back before the spring.
He does.
Emma's skirts lie on the floor near the ladder, Killian's shirts and coat thrown haphazardly upon his table, narrowly missing their empty plates of food; his legs tangled with hers, her head upon his pillow.
She likes it better on his ship.
It's easier to meet under the guise of just another girl from just another tavern. She can stay there for hours with no one to disturb them, no need to panic about being overheard. Not to mention that anyone who questions her presence on board (even if they don't know who she is under her cloak) gets a growl and a barked order to mind their own business from Killian.
The only problem is that his quarters are freezing. Which would generally be more of a problem if his skin wasn't flush against her own under a mountain of blankets – and if he wasn't hot, thick and hard against her thigh, his fingers curled between her legs and drawing her down from her high.
"Forgive the cliché, love, but you're a sight for sore eyes, particularly like this."
(In fact, like this, it is easy to think they don't have many problems at all.)
Emma barely hears him, her mind still trapped in the fuzzy haze of her orgasm, eyes shut firmly against the world, one hand in his hair and the other scrunched in her own. It's a blinding sort of peace buzzing in her ears (buzzing everywhere for that matter) and it takes her a moment to readjust her senses. Not that she is totally out of it, she can still feel her leg tremble a little at the way his fingers withdraw.
She hones in instead on the way Killian's lips graze aimlessly over her shoulder, back and forth, soft and warm on her skin, and then bristly when she feels his stubbled beard follow suit.
"Forgiven. Only because I'm too content right now to care."
Emma opens her eyes, and blearily blinks herself back to him. He looks content too, his features soft in the steady lamplight, even though he is still straining and hard beside her. But he does, he looks so calm and unburdened, smiling peacefully against her skin before leaning away from her shoulder to clean his fingers briefly with lips and teeth.
"Granting me clemency?"
A slow smirk creeps upon his face at his words, knowing she'll think of the memory just as he does. Emma can't help the laugh that comes out, loving that she can laugh so loudly with him here, on his ship, in the first place.
And like this, it's so easy to forget the pain ever existed at all. And not in a bad way, not in the sense that she feels tricked into something or manipulated or fooled by the pounding of her heart. Love has blinded many people.
(Love has blinded her before.)
But it serves as a reminder that the bad moments can't take this from them. The winter can't take the love he wears in his unlying eyes, can't steal the terrifying sensation of affection she feels when her hand slips from his hair to his cheek, and he bites playfully at the heel of her palm.
Emma uses that very same heel of her palm on his shoulder to push him over onto his back instead, before gracefully clambering over to straddle him, not even checking to make sure her head doesn't hit the exposed beams above his bed. Killian makes a little 'oof' sound, pretending her weight is of discomfort to him as she sits straight, his hands coming to rest on her splayed thighs.
"What are you trying to bribe me with this time?" Emma asks, shuffling back a little to trap the length of him underneath her.
She should be cold, exposed as she is with the blankets pooling somewhere behind her, but she's not. She's warm and flushed as she rocks over him, sliding over the hardness of him with where she is still wet and tingling, not even thinking about the snow that's falling on the deck of his ship.
Emma splays her legs a little wider, resting on him with more force, grinding down and feeling her heart rate pick up in turn.
She's not entirely surprised when Killian sits up, his fingers threading through her hair to pull her into a heady kiss.
He is so cheerful tonight, so playful, and she can feel it in the way that he kisses her – warm and eager. Content. Emma rises in his lap a little to kiss him harder, her tongue teasing the edge of his lip. But she's not the only one teasing as Killian nips and pulls her lips firmly into his, slowly nudging her away again with his bottom lip and the tip of his nose. When Emma reattempts to kiss him, he tilts away, forehead still to hers, and a smile growing wider in his cheeks.
She'd be more frustrated if her heart didn't skip a beat when he does it (if the way he is messing around wasn't sending tender jolts through her heart).
Emma moves instead to drag needy kisses along his jaw, the slightest touch of bristles against her tongue, holding the back of his neck with both hands so that this time he can't move away.
And then she resumes her ministrations in his lap.
Killian hums when her kisses move to his neck, feeling the vibrations tremble under her lips as he moves his hands to the small of her waist. Palms resting, thumbs brushing along her ribcage, his hands simply trying to hold her as close as they possibly can. Planting a heavy, open kiss to his pulse point, drawing a pink mark from the skin, Emma delights in the stutter of his breath as she rocks slowly and kisses deeply.
(At least, it could be his breath, it could be hers – Emma's breath is stuttering just as much, almost puffing like steam in the cold.)
She loses herself without any difficulty in the motions, her face buried in his neck, heart thrumming in her chest, the bump of him against her clit when she bucks just so – it's not enough to get either of them off, but it feels too good to stop, and for once, they're allowing themselves the luxury of time.
It all easily distracts her.
(Time. That thing that the more of it they have together, the more of it that seems to slip through their fingers. Like a history of days and minutes, weeks and months, falling like grains of sand from a shoddy hourglass before they've even turned it over. It counts without them.)
But then Killian begins to recline, his hands winding round to her back suddenly to try to pull her down with him.
Emma knows what he's trying to do.
With her hands firmly planted on his chest, she pushes him down on his back again, keeping herself sitting upright. This time, when he makes the 'oof' sound, Emma chuckles.
This winter does not compare to the last.
Despite the fact that last year she did not have his body to warm up hers (it would be months until that happened), and despite the fact they're stronger and surer with one another in general, she finds it's been harder (much harder). Weirdly enough, the weather had been harsher the winter before, keeping almost all of the merchants and sailors in port, freezing the rivers and turning the sea into a bitter creature.
It kept Killian around, even though she didn't yet know she wanted him to be.
(It's how they came to meet, after all.)
This year, he comes and goes as he and the tides please, leaving every so often with words of a plant, of a poison, of a bean – the stratagem changes, the contingencies build one upon the other. Possessed by plans. All Emma knows is that each one is meant to solve their problem; each one is meant to help them get to a place where their meetings are no longer secrets.
Emma doesn't tell him (although he probably already knows), but she catalogues every detail, ready and rearing to chase after him if she needs to.
She wishes he'd let her go with him – but his answer is always no.
His answer is always fear and worry - 'he is my bloody demon to conquer, Emma' and 'you can't leave your parents'. In truth, he is partly right - she can't really leave now, not when foreign politics and conflict demand her attention at home, not when her parents are so nervous to lose her again. More often than not his reply is 'it is too dangerous'. It makes her furious though, to know that if she could just show him she is right, they'd never need to think about it again.
She respects his wishes even though they are not her own.
So Emma stays. She gathers information (keeping an ear out, researching more books, questioning foreign dignitaries) and feeds it back to Killian when, at last, she sees him again.
And it's a horrible winter.
And it is all so easy to forget when he's back again, and the one thing on Emma's mind is getting as close to Killian as humanly possible.
The quiet noise he makes when she finally sinks down onto him is borderline indecent, a deep rumble she can feel under her hands as his muscles tense beneath her. Emma would laugh at the noise if she could, if the twitching of him inside her walls wasn't making her so restless, but her body isn't quite telling her what to do yet. So, she braces herself, fingertips lost in his chest hair.
"I would happily bribe you with this," Killian suggests, his jaw twitching as Emma sits there doing absolutely nothing except breathing deeply and clenching around him.
It takes her a moment to recall the initial question Killian is responding to because her pulse is running her ragged, her skin is alight, and to be honest, she'd entirely forgotten she'd said anything at all.
Emma takes a deep breath, and then another, calming herself down a bit and sliding her hands further down Killian's stomach to lean on. Her touch meets a familiar old scar just below his rib, and she thumbs it gently out of habit. Her heart is absolutely pounding, but she ignores it as best she can as she begins to move in little figure eight swivels, testing the feel of him against each side of her walls, front and back, side to side.
In between little sighs, her chuckle stuttered with her breathing, she laughs at him again.
"I can't believe you just tried to bribe me with sex."
Killian's hands skim over her sides, curving behind to cup her rear cheeks softly before holding onto her hips. His hands are so warm across her skin, soft even though they are worn with shipwork and rigging. The edges of his rings provide a muted sort of scratch as he follows her movements – the back and forth of a steady swoop – before he pulls her further down onto him, pushing himself that little bit deeper, her legs falling further apart.
Emma practically whimpers, sighing loudly once again – she doesn't know what he's done, Killian isn't entirely controlling the motion, but he is controlling the height at which she lifts herself, stopping her from rising too high, stopping her from rocking properly –
And it's absolute torture.
It has her trying to grind her thrusts a little more, increasing her frustration because he's moving less within her, but dragging in just the right place as she inches backwards and forwards. He can't be getting much out of it with no rise and fall to take him with, but the tension in her stomach has her sinking her nails a little into his chest.
She would be embarrassed by her reaction, but Killian sounds just as wrecked when he rasps back at her -
"Can you truly blame me?"
Emma can't think to verbalise her response, shaking her head a little and leaning forward a tad to find a different way to manoeuvre, to keep the drag but change the mobility.
Which is exactly what Killian wants - one of his hands threads through her hair as it cascades towards him, leaning up off the bed to kiss her.
His lips are so soft against her own, so warm and affectionate that she lets him drag her down until they are chest-to-chest against the sheets of his bed. She could happily kiss him for days, his chin nudging against hers, his knees rising in turn to thrust almost lazily, peacefully inside her. And, god, Emma feels like a mess, caught between the way his fingernails trail over her scalp, and the way he kisses back harder, and longer, and messier after she nips at his lip with her teeth.
(And it is so easy to forget like this, when everything around her is him, and everything is blissfully perfect. It is so easy to forget just how sombre it ends up being every single time.)
(Just how much it hurts in the mornings when one of them has to leave.)
And she's so far gone that she's forgotten just what she's suddenly fallen for - Killian flips her onto her back, his hair in his eyes and a bright blush to his cheeks. He grins at her in victory.
"So, when you said to me 'lady's choice'…?"
He smiles softly at her question, mischievously, still breathing heavily and gliding a hand down her left side. Killian hitches one thigh up higher than the other, his fingers following the bend of her knee and the length of her calf. One heel now sits upon his lower back, and Killian readjusts himself so that he slides back into her easily.
It's a subtle sound, but he groans as he does it.
And he begins almost instantly, pushing in and dragging out at the pace that she had set, an easy tempo. And somehow he manages to magically keep that drag, that touch, she needed with the thrust he strategically stopped her from getting. She'd be madder at him for it if it didn't feel so stupidly good, if they weren't both wearing stupidly ruined expressions across their faces –
If his thrusts weren't so consistently in the right spot that she wasn't feeling her stomach muscles coiling beneath the heat of their skin.
"Sorry, love - pirate. Besides," he pauses his words to breathe deeply, his chest expanding on top of hers, hair rasping against her nipples. "You were too far away."
(Emma's heart jolts again, feeling the other meaning to his words when her brain doesn't want to listen.)
To punctuate his point, Killian bumps them forehead to forehead so he can brush his lips lazily across hers, each buck of his hips sure and unfaltering at the same time, drawing and drawing against nerves. Emma finds his cheeks with her palms, kissing him back with dragging lips, with kisses that feel more like she is trying to memorise every tiny touch, to kiss away the things that usually worry her.
(Her parents, her kingdom, her pirate.)
He shuffles a little further up his bed, the fores of his arms braced around her shoulders, his muscles taut and steady around her. The movement only shifts her hips and curves her back, the angle of his thrusts – now coming a little bit faster – are a little different.
But there's a lot in that little difference.
Emma can feel that little difference in her toes, in the way the muscles in her shins begin to tense and tremble.
"So– ah— so much for being a gentleman."
"I'm always a gentleman. Clemency?"
A giggle breaks out from her chest at the familiar plea for mercy, one that dissolves hopelessly into a gasp of breath and a whimper across his lips. Killian's hips falter a little at her breathless stumble, hips stopping and starting and his arms shaking a little at her sides. He's definitely on the edge, definitely holding back from letting go, and then he's suddenly redoubling his efforts by speeding up a little as he leaves kisses to her collarbone, his tongue hot across her skin.
Emma keeps a hand on his back, fingernails resting and making tiny grooves somewhere between his shoulder blades, each thrust and sweep of his hips against hers shaking the muscles beneath her finger tips.
And the unbearable tension in her gut begins quivering in earnest. It makes Emma arch up with no where to go but into Killian, his skin hot and sweaty just as hers is, but he just keeps pushing in and out, the swing of his pace faster and faster.
(Building her up, higher, tighter, hotter.)
(Making her forget where this will end up.)
There's a hand on her breast, thumb dragging over her nipple but moving down, over her stomach, and further down to thumb roughly shaped circles over the cluster of her nerves. She's burning up too much, there is too much heat in her cheeks as though she has caught a winter fever, as though she has actually been sick with missing him. There are too many nerves being stimulated at once that she's smothering cries into the palm of her right hand.
And here, in the chill of his ship, it's all too much.
Vaguely, she thinks, Killian is laughing at her attempts to muffle her cries, is muttering some sort of encouragement ("Emma"), but she has no real idea. She can only feel, her heart bruising in its cage, pounding with too much of everything. He shuffles a little, rocking her from side to side, hands moving so that he can grab the hand that's covering her mouth. Killian's hands move hers to the pillow beside her head instead, each of his fingers between each of hers, two pairs of hands on either side of her head.
She doesn't last, her legs feeling tight and restless curled up against his waist, her head falling to the side to bite the hand of (what she thinks is) hers next to her. The bite of her teeth is meant to ground her, but all it does is add tautness to her jaw, add tension to her body, and make her focus in more on the tensity being drawn from inside her.
She can't see anything, Emma's eyes losing focus long before she closes them, her body suddenly overwhelmed with something white and hot that drenches her entire body head to curling toe –
And all she can do is cry out.
Until, everything is not white, but black.
Until, everything stops moving.
Emma has no intention of opening her eyes just yet, too busy feeling as though she's floating in some undisclosed location with no worries and no cares to think of. And that wonderful buzz is back again, only much, much stronger this time. She slowly begins to realise that Killian has also stopped moving, his body warm and pleasantly heavy on top of hers, his length still buried inside.
His nose is bumping soft touches to the apple of her cheek.
Both of them are panting loudly.
When she does open her eyes, she is met with his own, his eyelashes fluttering and eyelids droopy. Then he flashes a weary but toothy smile, puffing out whispered words.
"Did you just bite my finger?"
(It always starts so well…)
.
.
(…and always ends like this.)
It truly is a bleak winter, the snow growing surprisingly more foul outside the longer she stays. And the worse the weather gets, the more she argues she should stay.
Not that Killian suggests otherwise.
He makes absolutely no move to get her to leave, doesn't even hint that maybe she should head back home to where her maids are probably about to discover a very empty and very unused bed. It's hardly even discernible that it's morning outside, very little light streaming in through his windows at all, although the fact that they've frosted over may have something to do with that.
(It makes it much easier to pretend that they have no where else they should be when they can still make-believe that it's some dawn limbo.)
Emma lies draped across his torso, with her head tucked between his chest and his chin while one of his arms holds her tightly to him. There are no words for the peace she feels, his bare chest rising and falling beneath hers, much like the rhythm of the waves that nudges them quietly up and down. The quiet creak of the wooden vessel around her, the wind hissing outside - none of it seems to really touch her.
Not like this.
There may not be so much sunlight with the midst of a snow storm blustering outside, but this is how she always wanted their mornings to end up - with no one making any move to leave.
"Do you remember who you stole it from?"
His left hand is playing gently with the fingers of her right, twisting the little emerald ring that sits there. Emma has often wondered where the ring came from and whether it was worth more than the sentimental currency she attached to it. Not that it really mattered, but she was still curious.
"'Fraid not, love."
His voice doesn't sound right.
There's a sudden sadness in his tone that surprises her, so she leans back on her elbow to see his face.
Killian's brow is crinkled, some shadowed look in his eyes as he watches himself spin the ring with a slightly calloused thumb. She's never seen his mood slip so quickly overnight, from the playful man she rolled around with the night before, to the sombre one lying beneath her now. From the man who dragged sated bites across her cheek in retaliation for biting him, from teasing her until she giggled – to the loud darkness in his eyes that tells her he is far from laughter now.
Emma's free hand is within reach so she combs her fingers through his hair, curling her fingers though the longer bits that flick out from his neck. She tries to use the quiet touch to ease the tension that's crept onto his face.
When it doesn't work, she prods a little harder.
"Hey, what is it?"
Killian turns his head towards her, but his gaze does not meet her own, flickering here and then there, as though following the wooden beams of his ceiling. All matched with the clench of his jaw.
"Just an old superstition." His chest sighs deeply beneath her with the whisper of his words, all just giving him the courage to say what's on his mind. The hand resting on her back moves to cup her cheek, but Emma is not reassured by the touch - his eyes are as stormy, as harried, as the weather outside.
"Sailor's are a gullible lot, and try as I might to not give irrational things credence... Green is an ill omen. Not a single member of my crew has worn it in two hundred years and I should never have given you an emerald, Emma. Stolen moments, stolen rings... I don't want that to be all I am to you – a villain you have no future with. But it seems I have cursed myself."
Emma's heart sinks.
He has always been more stoic about their secrecy than she has, always far more concerned about what would happen if their tryst became public knowledge. She knows it weighs him down as it does her, but he rarely shows it, preferring to mask it in conviction. Killian Jones is not one for voicing the things he really feels.
Not like this, anyhow. There are things he wears on his sleeve, but this sort of thing – his perceived shortcomings – they are usually tucked beneath a smile. It's usually present instead in the way he determinedly leaves to plan and avenge, to remove the reason for their secrecy single-handedly, in the anger he fuses towards the Dark One, in the soft way his fingers travel down her arms. His love for her, that he keeps in plain sight where she can see it, but the true hatred for himself is another matter.
And his exhaustion is unmistakable now. He looks so overwhelmed with it, with not getting anywhere.
Exhausted with himself.
"That's not who you are to me, Killian," Emma whispers the words firmly. "Weren't you the one who told me emeralds are supposed to reveal truth and inspire hope? You said they're meant to secure love and loyalty."
The meaning in her words is clear: she will not accept his superstition, not over this. And he stares at her thoughtfully as a strong gust of wind whistles past his windows, mulling over her determination. However, she can tell he doesn't quite believe her, not this morning.
The first time she mentioned their future it could easily have been misconstrued for an off-hand comment, but he knew her all too well. All it took was a remark that he owed her a dance at their next ball as he spun her slowly in the dark of her bedroom; dancing with her dress swishing around his heels, her arms around his shoulders. A promise he agreed to readily, even if he was still yet to fulfil it.
("And what, you'll be there holding my hand and waltzing in front of hundreds of people? Not too much of an idyllic 'castle in the air' sort of picture for you?" "I'll fight for any future you'll have me in, Emma.")
And, of course, Emma was frightened at first.
The kingdom liked to pretend that nothing ever happened, that the fifteen years of Emma's youth where she was ripped from her family, when they all lived in fear that the Evil Queen would torment every village in the kingdom for the rest of their miserable lives, was a bad dream.
Emma can't pretend.
She can't forget the people she lost, and the very, very few that came back. The way she was torn from her parents; her life and hope and world scattering like tears on young cheeks.
There's a heartache that sits in the very capillaries of her that fears that good things can be taken, that loved ones can be there one minute and not the next. She had not wanted to plan for the future, she didn't like to set her heart on anything in case it starts, the future arrives, and it lets her down.
After all, it has before.
But it's definitely not his fault that theirs hasn't yet worked out - not in any way she can really blame him.
And the moment they agreed, still swaying quietly to no music, to nothing but the crackle of her fire, it seemed silly to think they weren't going to end up here in the end. There had been a future taking root every time they met, every time they kissed (every time they stitched their hearts together in the shadows). They wanted more. Every time she dragged him into her politics and her crusades, long before they dragged one another into bed.
The moment he stopped swindling and pirating, sacrificing his vengeance to spend time with her instead, and the moment she truly began to let him and want him and need him there, they should have seen where it was all headed.
(Of course, life had a cruel irony about it, the way it seemed to circle back to his vendetta even as he'd finally seen a reason to leave it.)
Somehow, he made that future less terrifying.
And somehow, as time with him went by, the further away it seemed the more Emma was desperate to have it (to not have to keep the thing between them to just themselves).
And this morning, he's upset enough that maybe (just maybe), this time he might see reason.
She holds the hand in hers a little firmer.
"Killian, come back with me to the castle, speak to my parents. They won't care about anything except that you love me, I promise. It doesn't have to be all this sneaking in the shadows stuff and you know it."
"Emma-"
"Let Rumplestiltskin try," she's still trying to be soft, but it's clear she's pleading desperately with him, letting frustration and her own exhaustion tinge her words. She is tired of arguing the point, tired of leaving in the mornings, tired of letting it drag them both down. "I don't care what you think he'll do to me if he finds out. If my parents have taught me anything it's that we're stronger if we fight together, that way we will survive."
"There are hundreds of bloody people living and working in that castle, not to mention the constant flow of diplomats, any number of them could be working for him wilfully or otherwise. All they'd have to do would be to poison your food, sneak into your chambers when you're sleeping…"
"Then we won't sit around and wait for him, we'll go after him together."
"Emma, I know that your magic is strong, and there's nobody I believe in more than you, but this whole bloody thing started because the man thought I stole his wife from him. He thinks I took Milah and he won't hesitate for a moment to take you from me."
"It's a risk I'm willing to take."
"And I am not. I'll risk my life for yours, love, but not the other way around. I can't lose you."
Emma pulls away from him then, sitting up without untwining their fingers, dragging the blankets around her bare shoulders at the same time. She feels the cold bitterly now that she's pulling away from the heat of Killian's body, and the chill stings all the more knowing that she's not getting through to him after all.
"How can you say that and not let me say the same thing?"
Killian goes back to avoiding her gaze as he reaches underneath the covers she's drawn around herself. His thumb begins tracing patterns on the inside edge of her forearms, of her elbow, and she knows he's trying to soothe her. It won't work though, she can already feel tears trying to trickle from her eyes.
"I just… I wish you could see that you are worth it, but it doesn't matter how many times I tell you. Killian, you have to believe it yourself."
This is why she could never quite break his wishes and just kiss him in broad daylight, accidentally get them caught with their hands all over one another in the castle corridors, just coming out and mentioning it to her parents. It was never about her, never about whether he loved her enough to come forward or fight for her. It was always about his fears, his past mistakes, and the fact that those mistakes seemed to be ever present at his heels, threatening to take the future.
It was about him.
And he is now very quiet.
Killian has nothing else to say, running a hand through his hair, an apologetic guilt welling in his kohl smeared eyes. But Emma has no intention of drawing out this argument, knowing that her words will sink in more if she leaves. She's not running away, not really, but she does get out of bed, scouring the freezing room for her clothes and mumbling -
"Then, I guess, we're back to where we started."
.
.
The book in her lap is useless.
She's read it dozens of times, scoured it for anything resembling a half-clue of the Dark One's weakness that might be lingering in the footnotes, and so Emma isn't really sure why she's reading it again in her parents' library. She could have picked anything off the shelves – A Misthaven History of Botany, Fairies and Foothills, Soup for Beginners – and it would have yielded the same results.
Yielded absolutely nothing.
It's still dark and gloomy outside despite it being well past midday, and so the floor to ceiling shelves, and the warm, light décor of her mother's choosing is a pleasant contrast to the gloom outside. Only, part of her wishes this time that the room was dark in tone and not light at all, Emma preferring the room to reflect some of her own misery.
(Misery loves company.)
The book is riddled with riddles and runes, stories of gems and legends surrounding weaponry, so you'd think that there's be something in there of some use. And yet, there is nothing. Not that she's paying too much attention, and if she hadn't scoured it so exhaustively before she'd be more concerned she was missing something.
All she can think of is the ring on her finger.
Killian is wrong, she knows he is; they are not cursed. But she knows he feels trapped between a rock and an even less forgiving place (himself). She needs him to see that the green, if it truly means anything at all, means that they are evergreen: that their love is strong, and true, and can bloom through this dreadful winter they've found themselves in.
Stronger than the well of self-loathing he's found himself in. (Found is probably the wrong word, Emma knows he's been there for far longer than she's known him.)
But she barely knows how to articulate that thought to herself without sounding stupid, and flowery, and overly saccharine. It doesn't matter what the green means, it shouldn't mean anything. Nothing should matter but how they feel about each other, Emma is firm on that.
Emma just throws the book to the floor, feeling a little more satisfied with the loud thud it makes as it clatters against the leg of a table. She's not going to find any answers today, not when she's now so prickly and distracted.
"There you are, I've been looking for you all morning."
Her mother's voice is cheerful as she makes her way towards her, her shoes clicking before becoming muffled on the rugs across the room. The rustle of Snow's dress is audible in the quiet too as she flops carefully onto the edge of the light blue chaise Emma is sitting on.
"What was wrong with the book?" Snow asks with a knowing smile, not in the least chastising her for throwing a possession that is well over one hundred years old half way across the room.
"The villains won." It's far from a perfunctory answer, giving far more away than the bitter comment was really intended to.
Her mother only arches an eyebrow as she glances at the book, seeing that it's not the plot sort of book. She doesn't comment. But whatever it is Snow is not saying is painfully obvious to Emma, and she isn't in any mood to skirt around anyone, let alone her own mother.
"Just come out with it, Mum."
Snow sighs beside her, not at the blunt way that Emma speaks, but rather she is clearly warring with the best way to say whatever it is that's on her mind.
"I've been up since the crack of dawn," Snow starts, calmly and casually. "Your father has been snoring again, not that he believes me mind you. Anyway, there was a messenger bird late last night with a note telling us that the new route for the traders that you suggested ran smoothly, and there were no pirates in those waterways. But, well, when I went to see you to tell you…"
Emma's stomach churns when she finally realises where her mother is going with this. The look in her mother's eye clearly tells her that she knows Emma has realised it too, almost pausing to catalogue Emma's reaction.
"I wasn't there."
"You weren't there. I may have overreacted a bit, worrying that something had happened, but here you are, safe and sound."
There is no accusation or scandalous tinge to her mother's comment, and for that she is grateful because the feeling in her chest is too tired for a chastising conversation of that nature. Especially when she's twenty-seven. Snow smiles at her gently, patiently, clearly trying to encourage her confidence.
She could lie, of course. Pretend she'd gone out early for a walk, been through the town – any number of things could explain her absence. But something in her stops her from trying to cover her tracks.
The merchant route was Killian's idea, of course, one he'd suggested to her with a map upon his desk and their fingers entwined. For someone who claims to still be worthwhile only as a pirate, he hasn't done a whole lot of actual pirating in recent months.
Not since last spring.
Snow takes her hand between the two of hers, and it is soft like her own, if a little more wrinkled, moving their joined hands to the cushion between them. The touch is calming and more painful all at once. Her mother has a habit of doing this, of making her want to divulge more than she's realistically willing, of making Emma feel younger with the need to just crawl into her mother's hug.
Emma knows they will both happen as she stares at her hand in her mother's. And at the simple act of her mother's presence, Emma feels the overwhelming need to cry, to try and let it all out, but she also feels as though she might choke on the feeling in her chest.
Choke on the restraint it's taking not to fall apart.
On the things she cannot say, and the way they dislodge unevenly in her chest.
(There are already tears welling in her eyes, and she's sure they're the same ones that started on Killian's ship that she still hasn't managed to shake.)
"So," her mother begins again, trying to prompt something from her. "Unless you've taken to sleep walking or you can also hear your father snoring from your room, I'm guessing you've met somebody?"
The encroaching tears make the puff of laughter that comes out sound funny, but she can see the relief on Snow's face that the conversation might not be as difficult to get out of her as it could have been.
Emma says nothing in reply, though, knowing the look on her face says it all - the look that shows the heartbreak, and the embarrassment at being caught spending the night elsewhere. But the silence doesn't dissuade Snow, she leans forward a bit, the green of her eyes sparkling at her reassuringly.
Her voice isn't as light as it was though, dropping to a softer and more meaningful tone.
"Emma, honey, you can confide in us. Whoever they are. If you think it's because we won't approve- "
"Oh, I know you won't approve," Emma quips under her breath, unable to refrain from commenting. There's no way that her parents haven't heard of Captain Jones, of the brutal and terrible things he's done, the bitter rivalry between him and the Dark One. Especially, as he's been docking in their city consistently over the past year. There's also no way that if her parents knew that it was he that she had fallen for that they wouldn't blanche immediately at the thought.
But the comment did not slip with the intention of making her mother feel bad and Emma quickly hurries to correct the guilty expression that has settled on her mother's brow.
"But that's not the problem."
There's a fire on the other side of the room and Emma watches it thoughtfully, trying to find a way to explain it to her without giving Killian away. Snow begins to rub a soothing pattern over her hand, over the emerald ring she knows nothing about, waiting patiently for anything at all.
"It's just that… he's made enemies, dangerous ones, and he's worried that if they found out they'd use me against him. He's worried they'll get to me."
"And you disagree?"
She turns back to her mother, sighing at the look of dismay that she sees there. It's more compassion and sympathy than any sort of disappointment in what Emma has said. Emma couldn't really say why that's what makes her start crying, why the sad, worried look from her mother breaks her.
But it does, a gasp for air she can't hold back falls from her lips with the tears that similarly slip across her cheeks. Emma has tried so hard not to cry about this, to not let it overwhelm her façade as it does the rest of her.
But she knows she's never been particularly good at not letting her emotions get to her.
One of Snow's hands comes up to sweetly cup her cheek, wiping away the tears as they fall and smiling at her sadly to continue.
"I just can't seem to make him see that he is worth the risk. That it would be easier if we did it together, we could fight back together. He doesn't really have anyone in his life that can convince him that he's good enough - for me, for anyone."
She hates how it sounds when it all tumbles out, the pitch of her voice, the way that she feels so small in comparison to the emotions that tower around her; she feels small for the way she lets it get the better of her. She had only let a single tear slip in front of Killian as she left him, too frustrated and disheartened for both their sakes. She'd kissed him sadly and softly goodbye instead of saying the words, and he'd tucked the hood over her head - both of them swallowing down the bittersweetness as they always seemed to do.
Their strife staining the way their lips touched with a seriousness.
But now those selfsame tears fall steadily from her eyes.
"He does, Emma, he has you. If you love him, and he loves you..." Snow pauses, briefly as though waiting to clarify that he does, that she does. She takes Emma's silence as the confirmation she was after. "He will come around. I know it's hard, and I certainly can't fault him for wanting to keep you safe, but the wait will be worth it in the end. I promise you. Love is worth it."
Normally, Emma would hate this part.
Usually, her mother's tendency towards hope and everything turning out for the best grates on her nerves, with the way it sounds so often like idle stories parents tell their children.
A false sort of hope you stop believing in when you grow up.
(When an evil witch steals you from your home but good wins out anyway.)
Weirdly enough, she doesn't mind hearing it now.
Emma shuffles towards her mother, resting a cheek on her shoulder as Snow clasps her hand tighter. And there's a strange sort of relief at letting it out, at confessing to her mother – to someone – that the things between her and Killian are real. Small silent tears may continue to fall from her eyes and onto the material of her mother's sleeve, the purple turning darker with each tear, but she does feel a little bit better.
When her mother speaks again, her tone is back to the casual one she had started with, a little high-pitched as she tries to lift Emma's heart more with a lighter comment.
"Just howdangerous are his enemies?"
Emma laughs.
Confessing to her mother that she loves Killian doesn't really get them anywhere. She is still in the citadel, and he in the harbour below. And Emma knows she will go down again tonight, back down the slippery snow-covered city streets to see him again, coax Killian out into the snow if she can, or pull him into the warmth of some tavern where no one will query her guise.
Coax a smile from their eyes if she cannot talk him into anything else.
It doesn't actually get them anywhere -
But it somehow feels like a step in the right direction.