I've been pondering this idea for ages and finally wrote some of it for fun and then ended up getting really into it.
Please, let me know what you think and if you want this to continue.
Finding two walkie-talkies had been something of a godsend in this world, and not one that Killian Jones took likely. He'd been travelling alone after the tragedy had gone down with his last group, a run in with Gold's men leaving him alone, few on supplies and even fewer on limbs and will to live. Then he'd, quite literally, run into Tink, a petite blonde with a green triangle scarf around her neck and fire in her light eyes.
She'd been alone too, armed with nothing more than a single revolver from beneath her long since deceased father's mattress and a small knife that could honestly have come from a kitchen. But she'd survived, and she'd seemed pretty unphased as well. Killian had become very used to recognising pain in others eyes, the shared glances between broken souls that said 'I understand. I've lost people too.' But Tink didn't have that, her eyes, though exhausted, were hopeful. She was yet to lose a soul to this world and Killian was both envious of her luck and grateful that he wasn't like her. Losses made you stronger, they made you look at the world the way you were supposed to. It took away the thin guise that led you to believe everyone was safe. It showed you just how to survive.
Tink was a soft soul, Killian realised, but far from afraid to defend herself if the circumstances called for it. For the first few days of their travels, Killian had even been afraid to sleep around her, worried that her soft, cherubic face was hiding a psychopath underneath who would kill him and rob him blind at the first opportunity. She'd proven that wrong when she finally divulged to him her plans of getting to Maine, to find a town called Storybrooke where her old friend (A term that was applied very loosely) was mayor and leader of a small camp of survivors. How she'd known about this, Killian didn't know, but he also didn't care. Living on the run had lost him too much, had lost him his family and then the closest thing he'd had to it. He was ready to find somewhere he could settle, somewhere he may even be able to live and not just survive.
Then he heard the gunfire. According to Tink they were still a couple days walk outside of Storybrooke and if the gunfire was any indication, the conflict was occurring closer to them. Following the gunfire was the horde. Killian could hear them through the trees, see the stragglers as they broke off from the group and started after something else, something that he was starting to realise was them. They'd run at first, twisting through trees and branches together, refusing to let the other out of their sight as they ran back in the direction they'd come, not stopping for breath or falls or anything. They just ran. Until they hadn't. Tink had suggested they split up, that she knew more or less where Storybrooke was and she would give her map to Killian. They had their rendezvous point, all the needed was to wait it out.
That was when Killian remembered the walkies. He passed one over to her, telling her the battery wouldn't last long if they kept them on the entire time, but if they turned them on at dawn and at dusk, they should be able to communicate, and they would. Then they'd make it to Storybrooke and be safe. It was a shoddy plan, but in a world gone to shit, there wasn't any better plans.
And so they'd split up, Killian to the east and Tink to the west with Storybrooke waiting for them in the north. They had their heading, all that was left was the last long enough to make it, something Killian was determined to do.
He'd lost track of the number of days he'd been in the woods when he found the cabin. All he knew was that it was just past dawn, Tink was alive and heading towards the town and Killian was still trying to escape walkers, and that it was empty. Well, close to empty at least. Inside the heavy door Killian found a single room, one corner set with a thin mattress with a single rolled blanket thrown off of it and no pillow. Other than that there was a cupboard, the door blown wide and the contents looking rather bare. Shutting the apparently metal enforced door behind him, Killian began exploring, his gun at the ready just in case.
At the end of the mattress was a pack, not a large one by any means, but with a small amount of food, some ammo and a sheathed hunting blade, Killian assumed it was all whoever owned it needed. The mattress was cold, so whoever had been sleeping was gone and if Killian knew anything about his world, he figured they may well even be dead. He'd long stopped feeling guilty from salvaging from the dead. Slipping his gun back into his waistband and unzipping his own pack, he began transferring anything he could need, a couple of protein bars, a compass, some medical supplies and a single box of ammo before he found something else, something unusual.
Gripping tight to the paper edge, Killian withdrew what he now realised was a photograph. The back of it read 'Emma and Henry, New York'. Flipping it over, he learnt just who Emma and Henry were, or at least what they looked like. They stood before the fountain Killian recognised from his one visit to New York, the one that people threw pennies into and made wishes for a better tomorrow. The woman – Emma – was beautiful, tall and slender with curling blonde hair falling past her shoulders and a red leather jacket he wouldn't forget in a hurry. Her arm was around the shoulders of a small boy, younger than eight, if he had to guess with soft brown hair and eyes to match. He was smiling widely at the camera, as was the woman (presumably his mother). They looked so happy, a foreign concept in this world now.
The owner to the picture, Killian assumed, was the boy's father, perhaps the woman's husband as well. These tokens of pasts lives were common, Killian knew, he had two of his own, two rings hanging form chains around his neck, tokens of the people he'd lost. This picture was just that, a memory of two people he – or maybe even she – had lost after the world went to shit, a wife and a son, gone in an instant. He knew how at least half of that felt. Folding it back up, he placed the photograph back inside the pack. If the owner truly was still alive and simply had no issues leaving his supplies behind then Killian would not take the only connection he had to his likely dead family.
No sooner had he zipped up the pack, he felt a very harsh, very sharp tug of a fist gripping his hair, yanking his head back as a cool blade settled just above his Adams apple.
Emma had only gone to scout the road, to check if the way to Storybrooke was empty enough for her to even attempt making her way home. As usual, luck wasn't on her side and the road still seemed swarmed by the horde she'd brought along with her, the walkers not having found anything worth following as they scuffed their feet across the tarmac.
The road was at least a half an hours walk from the cabin, deep enough that Emma could make it back there without too much fear of being followed, but close enough she could make the trip daily without worry of leaving her pack and being trapped without it.
It had worked previously, her pack rubbed against her shoulder painfully anyway, a place where a stray bullet had caught her as she ran, no doubt aimed at a walker that got too close, but catching her instead. It seemed leaving her pack behind wasn't an option anymore. The door to the cabin was ajar when she returned, not enough for a walker infestation, but enough for a person to have snuck inside. Emma knew what people were capable of in the world before this, nights she spent crying alone in a closest in a foster home, clutching cigarette burns on her arms and praying for her parents to return. The people in this world were worse, and she wasn't taking any chances, not if it meant her not getting back to her son. She was glad Graham had put so much work into this cabin, the hinges not even squeaking as she prised it open and slipped inside.
Emma saw nothing but a silhouette, not enough daylight penetrating the room for her to make out any defining features, only a head of scruffy dark hair above broad, hunched shoulders as the man rifled through her open pack on the floor. Old Emma would have asked first and acted later, she'd have listened to reason and not shot a man in the back. Lucky for whoever this was, a little bit of the old Emma was left. Instead, she gently placed the solar lantern she'd been charging onto the floor before grabbing a handful of the man's hair, tugging his head back harshly as her primary blade found its place a little too naturally as his throat.
"Easy, mate," The man said, but Emma didn't let up, only gripped his hair tighter, a groan escaping his throat as he fought against crying out. Emma was no expert, but she was sure that this hurt like a bitch, especially when pulling forward meant falling right onto a blade. "Ah, alright. I'm not here to hurt you. Easy!" He called as she tugged again. "You're not giving me much to go on here, mate." He said, a lot harsher this time.
"What are you doing here?" Emma said, her voice far quieter than his and she felt his shoulders tense slightly as she spoke. Either he hadn't expected a woman to be his 'attacker' or Emma sounded worse than she felt. She was expecting it to be a little bit of both. "And who are you?"
"Killian Jones." He said and even raised his hands as though in surrender, well, one of them at least, as the other seemed to end beneath his jacket sleeve. "And I'm scavenging is all. I found the cabin and assumed the owner to be dead." It wasn't unreasonable, Emma had scavenged most of her belongings from people long dead in the past months, it was hardly a crime anymore. The only problem being that Emma was very much alive.
"Your hand," She said and, if it was possible, he tensed more, his present hand closing into a fist. Clearly it was a sore topic. "How'd you lose it?"
"Had it amputated. Is the knife necessary, Love? I promise you I'm not armed." He said and Emma noted how he skirted around the topic, but not as much as she noticed the lie that fell off of his tongue.
"Listen, buddy," She said, mouth close to his ear and her words biting as she spoke. "I'm pretty good at telling when somebody is lying to me. Now," She said, slacking her grip just a tiny bit to cease the haggard breathing coming from him. "Do you mind telling me where your weapon is."
"Wouldn't you like to know," He purred and Emma fought really hard not to roll her eyes. The men of this world, she'd noticed, or at least the ones she didn't know, had a very annoying habit of flirting with anything female. He'd not even seen her face and yet, here he was, making innuendos like the world was as it should be. "Lower back and a knife at my hip," He said reluctantly. Emma wasn't about to disarm him; it wasn't really worth it. Gun or not, she'd handled worse than him, - and that was before the outbreak – and hopefully, she was getting the message across. "What? No wandering hands?" He asked and Emma was about ready to hit his temple with the butt of her gun, but she didn't, that wouldn't solve anything. Mainly because all she'd have to deal with then would be dead weight, and she didn't need the distraction
"Now, tell me why you're really here." Emma said, releasing his hair and pushing him forward slightly. She by no means trusted this man, but if she held onto him any longer, she knew he'd try to break free by himself, and that would likely be far more chaotic than it was worth.
"I told you, Love," He said, standing up and rubbing the back of his head where her hands had gripped his hair. He was a lot taller than she'd expected, and in the dim light his pale eyes glowed. It was unnerving, like a fox's eyes glowing in oncoming headlights. She could barely see the rest of him, only that he seemed clad in nothing but black, a stark contrast to grimy, yet pale, skin. "I'm merely –"
"Scavening, I heard you. I also know that's not it," She said, clicking the 'T' as he looked down at her. By the sunlight breaking through the boards, she imagined he could see more of her than she did of him, and it wasn't a very settling thought. Her red jacket was far from conspicuous and her blonde hair made her easy to spot. If he remembered enough of this, it wouldn't take him five minutes to organise a bounty on her head, if he was that kind of survivor. The kind who took what they could from the living and weren't afraid to hunt down those who did them wrong. They'd crossed pathed with one before, a man by the name of Blackbeard who'd wanted what they had – Storybrooke. "You're leaving something out."
"I thought your superpower was lie detecting?" He asked and Emma could hear the smugness in his voice and even if his face was still clothed in shadow, she just knew he was smirking at her proudly. He seemed like that kind of ass-hole, of that, she was certain.
"Lying by omission is still lying," Emma said, the grip on her knife tightening as she held it high enough for the sunlight to catch.
"Now, few people have held a knife to my throat and lived to tell about it," He said, his voice lowering from smugness to an almost threat, but it sounded empty. Emma had a sneaking suspicion he wasn't looking to hurt her, not unless she did some damage to him first. It was a somewhat comforting thought. "So why don't you put that down and we can talk like the civilised adults we are." She scoffed at that. The world was anything but civilised nowadays. Emma couldn't even count on both hands how many times she'd been held at gunpoint as a greeting, or how many times she had done the same. It was a harsh world, a world no one was prepared for, but she was surviving, and that was all that really mattered.
"Tell me what you're doing here," Emma said once more. Killian, thankfully, was silent for a moment, possibly weighing up whether or not Emma could be trusted knowing whatever the hell it was that he was keeping quiet.
"Trying to find a camp north of here." He said and Emma felt her blood running cold as he spoke. North of here, Emma knew, was Storybrooke, the place where her friends were, were her son was, and she'd be damned if she let this man get there without knowing him. Trust wasn't important, no one trusted people nowadays, but so long as he wasn't a spy for BlackBeard or some other power hungry zealot, Emma imagined they could manage just find. Besides, after the loss of Jefferson, they needed all the men they could get. But if he took one step against her or her camp, Emma wouldn't hesitate in disposing of him. The thought terrified what humanity Emma had left dwelling in the pit of her heart. This world may still house humans, but humanity was wearing thin.
"What camp?" She asked, figuring playing dumb would work far more to her advantage than spilling her guts out to him would. Besides, she was the one with the weapon on him, not the other way around.
"Goes by the name of Stroybrooke," Any hopes she had of it being a different camp, or a misunderstanding was gone and the chill settled in once more. "My friend and I were on our way when we were caught up in a herd. It was a matter of splitting up or dying and if there is one thing I value, it's my life."
"This friend, where are they now?" Emma pressed, knowing she was coming across as more than just cautious for herself, but concerned about the people she could be endangering. Chances are if Killian knew of Storybrooke, then he knew how to get there, and any amount of playing dumb with him wasn't going to change that. So, Emma had two choices. She could leave him to find his own way, or she could join him. The extra firepower would sure come in handy, and with how she'd been feeling lately the company wouldn't do her any harm. The longer she was left alone to her own thoughts, the more they tried to consume her, the darkness creeping in like smoke, ready to suffocate the light out of her. There was of course option three. She could kill him. Emma had her own gun in a thigh holster and another at her waistband, that and more than enough ammo to last her the journey back, one bullet wouldn't be missed
"She went West," Killian said and began reaching towards his waistband. Emma raised her blade once more, knowing it wasn't half as threating as her gun would be, but she didn't want to show that off just yet – the element of surprise could come in handy later if he didn't know it was there. "We keep in touch," he said, revealing the walkie-talkie that had been clipped to his belt and holding it between them, enough that she could see it, but not take it. "She'll call again around dusk, that was the arrangement. If you stick around long enough, you'll see that I'm not lying," He said and Emma could see how he raised an eyebrow in the darkness, goading her into telling him he's lying. He wasn't, and that annoyed her possibly even more.
"Fine." She said, lowering her knife back into the sheath at her belt. "We'll stay here until then." She said before making her way further into the cabin, snagging her pack from the floor in front of him as she passed. "Don't touch my stuff." She knew she sounded petty, probably because she was petty, but after a childhood of having any material possessions taken from her and, on occasion, destroyed, Emma far from cared.
"I'll be sure to keep my hand where you can see it." He said, innuendo dripping off of his tongue. She allowed herself this eye roll, knowing that he wouldn't spot it in the dark, especially not when she was placing down the solar lantern she'd picked up after lowering her blade from his throat and settling it on the floor in front of the mat. "That's much better," He said as the white light filled the room. It was bright, freshly charged, but not all encompassing, the corners of the room still shrouded in darkness.
Killian was looking at her, his pale eyes bright in the light as he studied her like a student would a book, trying to read every page of her in as little time as he could manage.
"Do you have a camp?" Killian asked, watching as she sat down on the mat, rolling her shoulders in obvious discomfort. "Friends?"
"No," She said, looking up at him where he was still standing, only the lower half of his body illuminated fully in the solar lantern. Emma noted, with slight amusement, that he was wearing both a leather jacket and leather biker trousers. It was tough material, she knew, hard to bite through, but she didn't know if it would be worth the constant discomfort. That and leather was loud, loud enough to draw a walkers attention. "I'm kind of a loner."
"And you don't like your family," It was open ended on purpose, his question, and she knew it. There were few people with family left these days, and it was never a very good conversation starter to ask. Sure, Emma had Henry, but that was all she had by means of family. And she'd be damned if she let anyone who could be a threat know about him.
"No family to like," She said before unzipping her jacket, ready to peel it away from the still painful wound at her shoulder. She heard him laugh, not harshly and not at her expense, but in the way someone laughs when they understand, the quiet breath out through the nose that says 'Yeah, don't I know it.'. It wasn't an unwelcome sound. Kindred spirits were not too hard to come by anymore, but Emma had yet to find one of her own, someone who was broken long before the world. Someone who was born to rise from the ashes, not be reduced to them. If this man was truly who he said he was, then perhaps he could be that spirit, if only for a little while.
She peeled off her jacket, ready to check her shoulder and the bloody bandage surrounding it beneath her thin grey tank-top, but froze at the sound of a guns safety clicking off.
"Were you bit?" He asked harshly, taking a few steps back and away from her as though the air she breathed was toxic. She wasn't insulted by the accusation, in fact, she was impressed that he had the forethought and self-preservation to be ready to put her down. Too few people were willing to put the living out of their misery anymore. Emma wasn't one of those few, and neither, apparently, was Killian Jones. "Were you bit?" He demanded again, cocking his gun this time for good measure.
"No," Emma said, trying to untangle the mass of bandages she'd hastily wrapped around her chest and arm to cover the wound. "I was shot," She said when he kept his gun raised at her, pointed right to her head. He knew how to kill the dead, which was another plus. Their group was low on real fighters, those who would arm themselves at the first sight of trouble and be out on the streets. With her and Jefferson gone it left David, Mary-Margret, Graham and Merida. It wasn't enough to defend a town to begin with, let alone with two of them gone.
"Shot?" He asked, but let his gun lower hesitantly.
"See?" She said, peeling the bandage from the wound with a very visible (And audible) wince. She could hear the board creak beneath him as he leant, rather than stepped closer, something Emma knew would make sound, but didn't question. "Even has an exit wound," She said, turning her shoulder for him to see the bloody mess the bullet had left behind. It wasn't healing overly well, blood still oozing from it every few hours, but it wasn't infected either, at least not yet. Emma was learning how to count her wins over her losses nowadays.
"How long ago?" He asked, returning his gun to his waistband as moving to have a closer look at the mess of blood and torn flesh.
"About a week," She said, reaching for her pack, knowing inside it that she still had a bit of bandage left on the roll and at least one fresh gauze.
"I'm not an expert in the ways of medicine," He said, his head tilting as he watched her arm lay in her lap, reaching awkwardly over it to fish through her bag. "But should it still be bleeding like that?" noting the slight concern in his voice, Emma looked to her shoulder, seeing in the white light how the blood was soaking the already stained material of her vest, the blood trailing over her skin.
"I must have broken it open when I grabbed you," She said and felt a laugh rising in her throat. She'd barely even noticed at the time, too busy gripping his hair and trying to keep her feet steady to know about a reopened wound. "I guess we're even," She said, finally getting a handle on the bandage and gauze, wiping the blood from her skin before attempting to redress it.
"Need a hand, Love?" He asked and Emma couldn't help but snort at the irony.
"Is that supposed to be funny?" She asked, holding the bandage beneath her chin as she worked on placing the gauze over the wound. It needed stitching, Emma knew, but she was sure Dr. Whale could fix it up properly when she returned, that or she was going to have another battle wound for Henry to marvel at in a way that both made her proud and broke her heart. Her son was supposed to be fascinated by comic books and celebrities he'd never meet, not battle scars and how to hold a gun.
"No," He said, reaching to take the bandage from under her chin. "I was being sincere." And after shedding his own jacket, leaving him in a ripped, blue plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a black waistcoat she wasn't sure she wanted to ask about, he held the gauze in place with his bandaged wrist and began looping the bandage both around her shoulder, across her chest where she'd slipped her arm free of her bloodied vest. If he was at all distracted by the expanses of her bare skin, he didn't show it. Yet another box ticked for Mr. Killian Jones. "You're heading to Storybrooke too?" He asked and Emma felt her eyes widening at his assumption and the accuracy of it. "Or you're heading back."
"How did you –" She began, but he cut her off, tying off the bandage atop her shoulder with his teeth.
"You're somewhat of an open book to me, Love." He said, patting her arm to let her know he was finished, allowing her to slip her vest back on properly. "Your silence after I mentioned the town gave you away. That and you seem like someone who's got somewhere to be." He was already getting under Emma's skin, and not in a pleasant way, more like a chill that settled into her bones and made her shiver.
"You're right." Was all she said, knowing there was no point in trying to weed her way out of it. It was hardly a lie worth telling anyway. She was both wounded and currently didn't have many accessible weapons from where she was sat. If he wanted to hurt her, he would have, not helped wrap her bandage.
"I also know you lied before, about not having family to like," He said and Emma felt her eyes sharpen, her hand ready to wander to whichever weapon would be the most necessary.
"What makes you say that?" she asked hesitantly, her eyes following him as he planted himself beside her on the thin mattress.
"I saw the picture in your pack," He said and Emma mentally berated herself for it. "Of you and a boy. I assumed it was taken by the father, a token of a family he'd lost or needed to get back to, but it wasn't," She could feel as he began to smirk, the gentle chuckle leaving his throat as he looked at her appraisingly. "I must say, Love. The camera does you no justice," And he winked, he actually fucking winked at her.
"That boy could be anyone." She said, a little colder than before. She didn't like how apparently easy she was to read, especially with how much she'd been told otherwise by those in Storybrooke.
"But he's not,"
"And what makes you so sure?" She asked, her temper betraying her calm demeanour and her voice coming out hot. She didn't want him knowing about Henry, she didn't want something he could use against. She didn't want to not make it home to her boy.
"Because you seem awfully motivated to get to a camp you're not heading to where there is apparently nobody waiting for you," If his smirk was anything to go by, he'd struck gold by her reaction. Emma didn't even look at him, staring instead into the slowly dimming white light before her, counting as the tiny flies danced in its glow. "it's more than looking for sanctuary as I am, and I don't doubt that you can handle yourself out here," he said and Emma saw in the corner of her eye how his fingers traced the small red line at his throat, not a cut, but enough of a mark that it was still visible. "So, there must be something in this Storybrooke, something precious you want to get back to." He was looking at her now, but a lot softer than she'd expected, not the shit-eating-grin she'd thought he'd be wearing. "What's his name?"
"Henry," She said, albeit reluctantly, and the smile on his face grew. He'd chipped at her armour, found a way inside and he knew it. It infuriated her.
"His father?"
"Long gone." She deadpanned, but not from sadness. She'd not even heard from Neal since the night he'd let her take the fall for her crime all those years ago. He didn't even know Henry existed and as far as she was concerned, he didn't need to, not now. There was now telling if Neal was even alive. He as in New York the last she'd known, but that had been a decade ago, besides, New York had been hit hard. Little to no one survived the outbreak there.
"I'm sorry," Killian said and Emma knew he meant well by the statement, but she didn't want to hear it. She'd loved Neal, that was true, but did she still love him? No. She could run into him now and barely bat an eyelash. This world was cold, and Emma knew if you didn't adapt you died, and so she'd become colder. The world was snow and she was ice, harder and harsher. That was what the world had done to her.
"Don't be." She said but Killian was still looking at her pityingly, like a man who knew what it meant to lose someone. "Really, don't be." She pressed and Killian seemed to let the subject lie.
They stayed like that for hours, sitting in compatible silence, only talking when they felt the need for conversation. Together they ate, Emma managing to heat two cans of what she thought were baked beans over hot embers while Killian kept watch at the perimeters. Any talk of their lives before was forgotten, along with talk of what had been lost to the world. Their seemed to be an unspoken rule that those topics were not up for discussion. Killian did ask about Storybrooke though, but not about its resources or what it had to offer him, he asked what he could do to pull his weight, if they had space for more people such as himself and his friend and if the people were welcoming. It was like a n itch, Emma thought, just waiting for him to say something wrong, to trip up and let slip that he was in fact working for a rival camp who wanted anything but peace. But nothing.
As it happened, Killian was able to tell the time by the sun positioning, something Emma had never quite gotten the hang of, along with navigating by the stars. Navy, he'd admitted, yet another thing Emma found impressive, but he didn't elaborate. Before dusk he turned on his radio, letting the static sound of a moment as he awaited his friend's greeting.
"Tink?" He asked into the walkie-talkie, shooting Emma a quick look as she scoffed at the name. Tink, as in Tinkerbell. It was too good to be true. "Tink, are you there?" Just as Emma's doubts were beginning to settle in, she heard the broken up, but clearly female and very accented voice through the device.
"Killian, you're early," The woman said and Emma was sure she sounded amused. If Emma had to guess, she'd say the woman was on the move, her voice sounding breathy through the receiver and the static to her voice told Emma she was far away. "And alive. That's a good sign,"
"Tink, I've found someone, someone who's heading to Storybrooke." Killian said and the receiver went very quiet, the kind of quiet that followed saying something stupid that usually led to awkward responses. That was in the old world, in this world, those kind of stupid comments usually meant being abandoned by whatever group you had wound up with.
"Who are they?" Was all she asked, her voice far less light than it was before. This was the voice Emma had expected to be on the other end of the walkie-talkie, the cautious and wary voice of someone who'd been hurt by this world before and wasn't willing to let it happen again.
"Her name is Emma," Killian said, sounding like a parent trying to coerce a child into meeting their friends or cousins who had come for a visit, it was almost amusing. "We don't have to worry, Tink," Killian said before looking back at Emma. With the sun outside setting below the line of the tree and the lamp beginning to run on empty, it was hard to see the expression on his face, but she was sure there was a smile there. "She's a friend." It wasn't the word Emma would have used, in fact, she found herself more irritated by Killian's company than anything else, but if that was what it took for Tink's approval, so be it.
"Do you trust her?" Tink asked after another thoughtful silence and Killian's hesitation probably didn't do her any favours.
"Aye," Killian said, looking to Emma again, "And I believe you can too,"
"If you trust her then she must be something special," Tink said with a chuckle through the receiver and Emma couldn't help but wonder just how hard it was to earn Killian Jones' trust and most of all, how she'd managed to do so over the course of a single day. "I've found the road. I'll be arriving in Storybrooke tomorrow," Tink said through the receiver and Emma felt her chest tightening at the thought. "Once I find Regina it should all be settled. I'll let her know you're coming and that this Emma is with you."
"Okay, Tink," Killian said and Emma was sure she heard the slight concern to his voice. He cared for this girl, that was sure, and the idea of her travelling alone probably scared the crap out of him. "Stay safe," He said and was ready to turn the walkie-talkie off, but Emma snatched it from his hands before he had the chance.
"Tink?" She said, hoping the girl was still on the other end. It was an impulsive move, she knew, but she couldn't help it, the worry had been knowing at her for days now, not knowing what would be waiting for her when she returned home.
"Emma?" Tink asked, rather pointlessly. Killian was only with one another person as far as she knew and Emma was certain their voices sounded different.
"Yeah, that's me. Look, when you get to Storybrooke, I need you to do something for me," Tink was silent on the other end, something Emma took as invitation to continue. "Find someone for me, his name's Henry," She said, biting hard on her lip a she fought back the tears pricking her eyes. Henry was the only one in this pitiful world who could make Emma cry now, anyone else as she could usually pass it off without thought. She hadn't cried when Grace had turned and she'd been dry eyed as she put Jefferson out of his misery. Perhaps she was just hiding the sadness away right now, and sooner or later it would break through the dam she'd built and she'd drown in it. But that wasn't now. Her tears were for her son and her son alone. "Tell him – Tell him I'm okay, and that I'll be with him soon,"
"Who is he? A boyfriend?" Tink asked and Emma fought hard to roll her eyes. Even the face of damnation this girl was interested in gossip. Find entertainment were you can, Emma supposed.
"He's my son," Emma said blandly before a thought struck her. Graham, she needed him to know she was okay. What they had wasn't love, Emma knew, but they'd started something and Emma knew that running off into the woods with nothing like a goodbye would leave a gnawing hole in his chest. Graham was good, he hadn't let the world harden him the way Emma had, he'd held onto his compassion and honest grace in a way no one else had. He reminded Emma of what she'd lost to the world, and sometimes she needed him to remind her that brutality was not the way to go. The world made people harsh, they didn't need her to do that same by killing without thought. 'We don't kill the living', that's what Graham had said, Emma could only hope that Henry would learn from his guidance since the two seemed inseparable. "But while you're asking, find a man named Graham, tell him the same. Tell him not to come looking for me. I'll find my way back."
"Anything else?" Tink asked, but she didn't sound annoyed or even inconvenienced. She would be let into Storybrooke by simply knowing Emma's name, knowing Graham and Henry's was just going to be the tip of the iceberg.
"That's it," Emma said, smiling despite herself. They would know she was okay, something she'd been worrying herself sick over for days, horrified that they may have dug an extra grave for her in the park beside everyone else that they had lost, scared her son would cry for her when she was still breathing. "Tell them I sent you and you'll have no problem getting in."
"Thank you," Tink said and Emma wanted to laugh. Thank you was not a phrase that was heard often nowadays. 'Fuck you' and 'Kill you' were, but not thank you. It was a nice feeling to know there was still ever a glimmer of gratitude left in the world.
"And thank you," Emma returned, the words feeling odd on her tongue. "We'll keep the radio open for the next twenty-four hours, the battery should last that long, and then you let us know when you get to the gates. I'll talk to who's on watch if I have to.
"Got it. I'll see you soon, Emma. I'll see you too, Killian," She said and then the line went dead as Tink turned her radio off.
"Do you think she'll make it?" Killian said, taking the offered receiver from Emma' outstretched hand.
"Do you?" Emma countered before sitting herself down on the thin matters, barely having realised she'd been pacing as she spoke anxiously to Tink. Killian nodded and it was all Emma needed right now to let the worrisome beast in her stomach lie back down. "Then I'm open to hope." It was a long shot, and if Emma had learnt anything from her time with Mary-Margret, it was that hope was a very strong word. But if it helped her sleep at night, who was she to complain?
