This chapter is the calm before the storm, and the next few bring a lot of angst your way, so brace yourself. Thank you for reading, and enjoy!
Emma is alone in the drawing room because her father has taken her mother riding and Emma did not feel up to being the third wheel. She loves her parents but they are so disgustingly in love and it gets tiring watching them exchanging private smiles, especially when she has no more hope left of ever finding her other half.
Her thoughts stray to Lord Neal and she wonders briefly if the preparations for his wedding are underway yet, then shakes her head and plops back on the sofa with a huff.
She does not care about Lord Neal.
She does not care about men in general.
Except maybe Killian, but in a purely platonic way.
As if on cue, there is a knock on the door and Burns comes in, announcing the Duke of Storybrooke and stepping aside to let Killian enter.
Emma scrambles to sit up straight but she's too slow and Killian's lips quirk into a smile as he bows to her, while Burns leaves quietly, looking positively horrified with her behaviour.
"Good day, Swan", Killian says and hesitates when she remains sitting. "You will not send for your parents?"
"They are from home", Emma tells him and she knows what he is going to say before he says it.
"I should take my leave, then."
"How about a turn in the garden instead?" Emma suggests and walks out on the patio, pausing by the stone rail and hoping he joins her.
A minute passes and he finally comes out, offering her his arm, but she ignores it and walks beside him with her hands clasped behind her back.
They might be on the way to being friends again, but that is all.
"I've come to apologize for my abominable behaviour yesterday", Killian says and she could just scream because he insists on being so damn proper all the time.
"I'm the one who should apologize. I abandoned you quite abruptly", she tells him and stares at her feet because she knows that seeing his eyes would only jumble her thoughts and she would never be able to tell him what she needs him to know.
"You just removed yourself from an awkward situation. If anyone had seen us, your reputation would suffer quite a blow and I would be forced to offer for you."
Emma laughs, the sound ringing in the quiet of the garden and startling a couple of blackbirds from the bush they pass by.
"My reputation is already ruined. You need not fear that I would force you into marriage", she adds and grits her teeth, hating the bitter tone of her voice and refusing to look at Killian when he stops walking and lays his hand on her arm.
"What do you mean, love?" He asks, and he sounds so concerned about her, the gentle endearment falling from his lips so naturally that she lets herself hope he will not share the view of the ton and blame her like everybody else but her friends did.
"Let's sit", she says and he looks like he might argue, but when she moves away he follows her to the bench deep in the heart of the garden where they cannot be seen from the house.
"You seem intent on being alone with me, Swan", he says with an easy grin that is supposed to lighten up the atmosphere but it only makes her more acutely aware of him sitting next to her on the narrow bench. "Why is that?"
"I have always enjoyed your company", Emma tells him and feels her cheeks burn. "It is funny how easy it is to fall back into old habits, is it not? So much has happened in our lives but when we are together like this, it seems that we are still the same."
"In my experience, people do not really change", Killian says and she chances a glance at his face, her eyes lingering on his full lips and fine jaw before she wrenches them up and their gazes lock, making her feel too hot to keep looking at him.
"Maybe not when they have already grown and became the people they were meant to be", Emma tells him and entwines her fingers together, looking at Killian's hand resting on his knee out of the corner of her eye and realizing that he somehow always manages to sit her on his good side.
She wonders if he does it on purpose of is it just by instinct that he keeps her well away from his hook.
"Who has ruined you, Swan?" Killian asks her softly and she shrugs, thinking how surreal it is that she is about to open her heart to him the way she had not done even with her closest friends.
He is so easy to talk to and he used to mean the world to her, so she supposes it is quite alright for her to be so open with him.
"Some would say I ruined myself."
"I would not", he tells her and she suddenly feels overwhelmed, the scars she had been denying revealing themselves in all their painful glory because of Killian's kindness. "You can tell me, love. I will not judge you or share your confidence with another soul."
Emma sighs and Killian holds out his hand palm up, her eyes darting to his in surprise because he is breaching the borders of propriety once more and this time he is doing it with a reassuring smile and challenging lift of his dark eyebrow.
"We were friends once upon a time, were we not?" He says and despite the vow she had made in the darkness of her bedroom that she would never again trust a man, she cannot help trusting him.
"Then you will not feel the urge to apologize for this tomorrow", she tells him and lays her hand in his, palm to palm, their fingers entwining together as if they have a will of their own.
"I promise not to."
"Very well", Emma says and when she next opens her mouth, a torrent of words comes out and she tells Killian everything. She tells him about the first time she had danced with Lord Neal and how charming he was, how she fell for him easily and how she did not care if people thought that they were spending too much together because she had always expected he would eventually offer for her and they would be happy together.
But he never did, announcing his engagement to Lady Regina Mills instead, and then rubbing salt in the wound by telling her he never had the intention to marry her because his father would disinherit him if he tried marrying below his station.
"I do not know the man personally, but he seems like a colossal ass. Pardon my language", Killian adds and Emma chuckles, only then realizing that there are tears rolling down her cheeks; she feels like a great weight has been lifted off her shoulders, and Killian keeps holding her hand, his thumb caressing her knuckles and soothing her better than words ever could.
Killian is lost for words, desperately searching for something to say that would bring back the smile on Emma's face and wishing his left hand was still there so that he can keep holding Emma's and wipe away her tears at the same time.
He looks at her and he is not even surprised to find that she looks beautiful even when she cries, her green eyes brighter than usual and so very vulnerable when she lifts them to his and asks him if he thinks she is a fool.
"No, Swan, I do not", he says calmly and squeezes her hand, losing himself in her eyes and marvelling at the fact that anyone would chose fortune over her.
"I was so looking forward to finally waltzing with him", Emma tells him so quietly that he can barely hear her, and it seems like that simple admission means more to her than all the ones that came before it.
"You have never waltzed?"
"Not even once", Emma says sadly and looks at him with her steady green eyes. "I am sorry if I have caused you pain."
"Pain?" Killian asks, completely thrown for a loop because even though pain has been his constant companion for the past six months, it seems to ease somewhat every time he is in Emma's presence.
"Would you be able to dance, if the opportunity presented itself?" She asks and wipes her cheeks with her knuckles, brightening up a little bit and looking so hopeful that he does not have the heart to disappoint her.
"Perhaps I would, if I had an understanding partner", he tells her and realizes that he suddenly wishes he could, but only if she would be the one dancing with him.
"Liar", Emma says and gives him a sad smile before she explains. "I can tell when people are lying to me."
"I was not lying per se", he assures her and looks down at his knees, thinking how unfair it is that they look the same hidden with the material of his trousers, but the left one is much weaker than the right. "I wish I could waltz with you, Swan."
Killian ducks his head in shame because he did not intend to tell her that. He did not intent to talk to her quietly in the deepest part of the garden either, or coax her into telling him about the hurt that made her run from London, but he cannot seem to think too clearly when she is around.
She just needs a friend and a shoulder to cry on, not another suitor who would only end up disappointing her.
"We would have to return to the City in order to find out, would we not?" Emma asks and slips her hand from his, gazing off into the distance and looking so forlorn he feels his frozen heart crack a little bit more.
"Unless the Duke of Storybrooke were to hold a ball for all his tenants and acquaintances", Killian says before he can think through his haphazardly assembled plan.
"And the Duke would do such a thing? Just to find out if he is indeed still capable of dancing?" Emma asks and shifts her eyes to his, and he realizes that he should thread carefully lest he disappoint her too.
"He would do it because Lady Emma Nolan wishes to waltz", he tells her and she looks pleasantly surprised, which makes him feel like the worst fraud in the history of England.
"But I could never ask him to do so just to make an old friend feel better", Emma says and offers him the perfect opportunity to back away.
But he had always appreciated a challenge.
"You did not ask", Killian tells her and feels a pang of guilt because he had only found out that Liam is dead a week ago and here he is already planning a ball.
"It could be a ball to celebrate the harvest", Emma says more to herself than him, as if she is trying to convince herself that such a ball would not hold a deeper meaning for either of them. "The year of mourning for Liam is going to be over and not even the most proper persons would be able to object to the ball."
"Then I shall hold a ball in six months", Killian says and it feels like something fateful has just happened, like some small piece that has been missing finally slid into place.
"A lot can happen in six months", Emma tells him and thoughtfully traces the pattern of her dress with her fingers before she tips her head back and looks up at the rapidly darkening sky. "It is going to rain."
"I am a man of my word, Swan. There is going to be a ball, and regardless of where you will be, the invitation will reach you. And your parents, of course."
"How do you know that you are going to be here?"
"Where else would I go?"
"You had missed your childhood home while you were away", Emma says and looks at him from under her eyelashes, and he wants to tell her that he did not miss the house or the surrounding property, and that he had only recently realized that it was his innocence he was missing, and by extension, his friend.
But he does not because he does not have anything to offer her beyond that revelation.
Emma has had her heart broken already, and the last thing she needs right now is his misplaced affections; she was already made so unhappy because someone failed to offer for her, and Killian would rather die that have her forced into marriage with somebody who is simply too broken to be anybody's husband.
Much less the husband of the woman who deserves the greatest love story of all time.
"You are quite perceptive. You always have been, Lady Emma", Killian says and slowly gets to his feet, then takes her hand and kisses her knuckles, savouring the smell of her skin and wishing he did not have to go.
But for both their sakes, he has to.
She wants only his friendship and he knows now that he cannot offer her even that.
"Am I going to see you again?" Emma asks, looking at him as if she understands what has just happened, and it breaks his heart that he is leaving her like this but he simply does not see another way.
"Of course you will, Swan. I promised you a ball, did I not?" He asks and forces himself to release her hand, gives her a curt nod and slowly limps away.
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