Quick note: Thank you for reviews and following love and everything and UGH so excited. You're all da realest. I have no schedule, this has no schedule, sorry. Happy happy Friday, friends :)


Emma returned later in the evening and it seemed as though nothing in the apartment had been touched. The plate of pancakes still sat as she had left it and the keys were still on the edge of the counter. A slight feeling of familiar panic coursed through her and settled as a tightness in her chest and a numbness in her fingers. He wouldn't just leave, she assured herself. Not without a note at least.

She tentatively walked to the door that was straight across the living room from her bedroom door and knocked quietly. "Killian?" she breathed, her words still holding a slight tinge of useless hope under the surface. Slowly and cautiously, she turned the doorknob, a total and complete sense of dread washing over her. Somehow, she knew what was behind the door before she opened it. Her eyes confirmed her suspicion she had hoped was untrue: he was gone.

The room had once been covered in magazine articles and posters of his favorite bands and authors, maps of his travels, and the places he hoped to go were represented with travel brochures tacked to the wall above his desk. The walls were now eerily bare, and apparently had been painted blue at some point. The desk was usually covered in some mix of empty coffee cups, notebooks, CD cases, and more pens than one ever actually needed to own. All that remained were the bare bones of the room, and her instincts told her they were all the things he couldn't fit in the two suitcases he owned: his bed, desk, dresser, and extensive collection of knick-knacks he had managed to collect throughout the years. It was like being in the room of someone who had recently died. She felt as though she was intruding on something, but she couldn't help but walk further in. There were a few distinct things she noticed were definitely missing: a picture of them that was once on his desk, his two favorite pens (the rest were shoved into broken coffee mugs), and the moleskin he took with him everywhere, as though it were his favorite religious text. She let her fingers trace over the beautifully grained wood of the massive roll-top desk, which was one of his prized possessions that he had found on Craigslist. He had discovered it in a stroke of luck, and had also managed to bribe her into helping him lug it up the three flights of stairs to their apartment.

There is no way he has left for good if he left the desk here, she rationalized. It must be temporary. Just a visit back to his home, see his brother, his old friends… He wouldn't leave for good... Maybe he's at David's.

David. He would be at David's house. She turned on her heel and went to find her phone in the purse she had discarded on the barstool.

Somewhere in her mind, she knew that the other night was a breaking point for him, she just couldn't put her finger on why. There were a few clues, and all she wanted was to be able to remember everything that had happened in the past months that led to that moment, every conversation they had, every look he had given her, every kind gesture he went out of his way to perform. But the human memory is frail and unreliable. She only could conjure up a few examples, most of her memory was set on replaying the other night over and over in her head, rationalizing and considering every word he said and did not say. She was missing something, and it wasn't just his presence. There was a missing piece to why he had gone, and she couldn't quite put her finger on it yet.

She found David's number in her phone and pressed send. It rang three times before he answered.

"Hello?"

"David?"

"Emma?"

"Yes, I don't know where Killian is."

"You've…you've lost him?"

She took a deep breath. It was supposed to be a joke, a long time joke, that went back to when he would get into his writing mode and hide away at the 24 hour coffee shop a few blocks from the apartment. He would go into a place that he described to her once as being a sphere where neither time nor space existed. Just the screen and the keys and the words that flow from an unknown part of the brain. He would go into this headspace and David would call if he didn't show up to work and ask the same question: "You've lost him again, haven't you?" Lost, in this case, meaning he's delved deep into the inner workings of his own mind and needs to be pulled out and reminded to eat.

It wasn't a time for joking, though. He wasn't in the coffee shop, she had already checked for him there two days ago.

A choked sob came out as she started to realize the severity of the situation. David didn't know where he was.

"Hey, hey, none of that," David said urgently on the other line. "He's really not… there?"

"Almost all of his stuff is gone, David. We had a fight and he said he was leaving at the end of the week but I didn't think he was serious and—"

"Whoa, slow down," David seemed flustered now, too, "Tell me what happened."

She spent the next five minutes recounting what all had gone on, and at the end of it, she found herself once again in his bedroom, looking around at all that was missing. The tears started to peacefully roll down her cheeks. David's words did very little to reassure her. He said he would call Killian and see what he could find out. Her question was answered: he wasn't at David's. The call ended without much resolution.

Right now, all she wanted and needed was Killian. It's funny how that works, that, at some point in time, the one who would know exactly what to say and do, is the one who left you in such a state of disarray. She sat down on his neatly made bed, put her head in her hands, and let herself cry over the loneliness, the fear, and the regret that infected every inch of her heart.

The room still smelled of him.