"Don't tell me," Killian started, "This is another one of your bloody holidays."

The diner was festooned with red, pink, and white hearts and streamers and glitter-thank you, Ruby, for that-and it would be almost nauseating if it weren't for the tenderness he also felt flowing in the air. Couples seemed closer than usual, sweeter on one another-and that was saying something, in the town where 'happily ever after' was taken to extremes.

Henry glanced up from his mathematics. "Yeah, something like that. It's called Valentine's Day. You give gifts to people you like, go on dates and stuff. Mushy love stuff."

Killian grinned. He recalled a time-so very, very long ago-when he was Henry's age and he largely felt the same about the fairer sex and anything to do with them. Henry, though he was the son of a product of true love, seemed not to be entirely immune to the same sort of feelings about romance. "Indeed. So you won't be presenting gifts to that charming girl I saw you talking to the other day?"

Henry's ears turned bright red. "She's not my girlfriend," he muttered to his notebook, and then cleared his throat and said louder, "But you're taking my mom out tonight, right?"

Killian raised an eyebrow, shifting in the booth to lay an arm across the back of his seat. "When I only learned of the thing today? I suppose I might, but given your mother's general aversion to 'mushy love stuff', as you so eloquently put it, I'm doubting she'll be expecting anything."

"Who isn't expecting anything?" Mary Margaret asked, with David and her toddler son in tow.

"Mom for Valentine's Day, apparently," Henry answered before Killian could open his mouth.

To Killian, Mary Margaret comes across as the quintessential mother he's glad he never had: the look she gave him now was such a perfect combination of horrified disappointment and disbelief would have had him begging for forgiveness if he were not a centuries-old mutineer. As it was, he fought the urge to squirm under her gaze, perhaps shifting a bit more than necessary. "You're not doing anything for Valentine's Day?" Mary Margaret hissed, looking around the diner quickly to make sure no one was listening.

"I only found out about the bloody holiday fiv-ow, bloody hell! Ow!" Killian yelped, flinching away as Mary Margaret smacked his arm several times. Henry and David tried not to laugh.

"Killian Jones, you get out there and you do something nice for my daughter for Valentine's Day, or so help me I will... I will..." She seemed at a bit of a loss as to what she would do in retribution for a moment, and then a self-satisfied smile bloomed on her face. She shifted Neal in her arms. "I will tell Granny you're passing off fake gold coins for your room."

Killian scoffed. For the mayor, she really didn't have much of an imagination for punishment. "Milady, you take me for a fool, no pirate worth his salt trades false gold. A realm that bleeds boodle is no realm worth looting at all."

With surprising strength, Mary Margaret hauled him up by the back of his jacked and shoved him towards the door. "Oh, just go do it already!" She snarled.


Finding the rabbit hole to Wonderland would have been easier than the search he went on to find a last-minute reservation at any of the town's finer eating establishments. As it was, he was laughed out of several of them, and given pitying looks in the rest. He supposed it was for the best; Emma was working all day, and she didn't like going through the trouble of getting ready for an evening out after a long day.

As it was, he supposed he should do something to mark the occasion, and stopped in the florist's shop for the handful of red roses Moe had left.

All vehicles were present when he came up to the station, and Emma was bent over her desk writing reports when he rapped on the door with his hook. She glanced up, and laughed in dismay when he presented her with the half-dozen bouquet. "Oh no, who told you?"

Killian cocked his head to the side slightly. "Henry, why?"

Emma smiled, the one that brought out her dimples and made her face light up like the moon, as she bent to smell the blossoms. "Because I knew you'd try to go all out for it, and it's not really a real holiday, and I didn't want you to go to any trouble."

He hummed in amusement as he perched himself on the corner of her desk. He knew his Swan. "Your mother may have had something to do with it as well, darling. Seemed to think she would have me evicted from my quarters if I didn't do anything."

Emma narrowed her eyes in the general direction of Granny's, and shook her head again. "Well, they're nice flowers anyway."

She tilted her head up and he obliged her with a kiss. Though they were the only souls near, it remained chaste-she preferred to maintain some sort of professionalism in the office, saving all of her energy for after-hours (which he thoroughly appreciated). "Did you know, Swan, that every single eating establishment in town is booked for the night?" he asked as she got up to find something to put the roses in.

"Can't imagine why," she said dryly. "Anyway, not all of them, and I was going to invite you over tonight anyway."

"Oh really?" Killian asked, keeping his voice light. He rested his chin on his hand, watching her innocently.

She shot him a knowing look over her shoulder. "Keep your pants on, tiger. Henry will be home until around nine, and then he's spending the night at Nicky and Ava's house."

"And after that?"

She raised an eyebrow and he grinned. She dropped the flowers into an emptied pencil holder. "Just come over around seven, I have plans for you."

"I'll be there with bells on, love."


When he knocked on the door to the small apartment Emma and Henry shared, he heard Emma call, "It's open!"

"Love, what if I were a mass murderer, you can't just tell someone to come in," Killian told her, closing the door behind him.

Emma snorted from her position on the couch. He was interested to see she wore only an old shirt and pajama pants with some 'cartoon' character he couldn't remember the name of. "If you were a mass murderer, you wouldn't have knocked. It's Chinese-and-comfy-clothes night, go get changed," she informed him.

"If I were a polite mass murderer," he muttered, mostly to himself, but Henry chuckled as he passed on his way to the living room with a soda.

There was a drawer with some of his things in her bedroom-or rather, the drawer contained things Emma had bought him, like pajamas and what she called "hanging-around-the-house-all-day-and-doing-nothing clothes". He selected a shirt and pants, and changed with haste, rejoining Emma and Henry in the living room. Emma slapped the seat next to her. "Got your favorite. Sit down, movie's about to start."

After the initial struggle of figuring out how to hold the container of takeout with his hook (catch it between the wire handle and the box, it's a snug fit and it works like a charm), the next challenge was figuring out how to eat with the wooden sticks (Emma and Henry insisted it's the only proper way to eat Chinese-there were many scandalized cries when he first went after his moo goo gai pan with a fork), but he could get the majority of his meal in his mouth now if he concentrated. Emma, (unable to sit on a couch properly if her life depended on it), laid her head on his leg, her feet up on the back of the couch. That did nothing to help his concentration of eating, and she noticed. She caught his eye with a knowing smirk, and he mumbled something about minxes and improper clothing for men.

Henry's phone went off when the Muppets failed to meet their telethon goal. "Mr. Tillman is here," he said, getting up and running to his room.

Emma sat up, leaving Killian's leg cold. "Okay. You got everything?"

Henry came back, shouldering a bag. "Yeah. I can walk home in the morning, it's okay."

"I'll come by and grab you, it's ok, kid," Emma told him.

Henry threw them a cheeky grin on his way out the door. "No, it's fine. I'll walk. You kids have fun."

"Henry!" Emma called after the slamming door and then she sat back with a sigh. "Damn kid is too smart for his own good."

She settled back down against Killian as the movie rolled to credits. "And why would you say that?" he asked, running his fingers through her hair.

Her expression was pure mischief. "Well, if he hadn't been here, this was going to be no-clothes-Chinese night, but with a minor-whose life I am in charge of and don't want to scar forever-present... we had to censor."

He began to see where the evening was going to go from here. "I see. A shame, really, that seems like the kind of night I would be in favor of."

Emma rolled, lifting herself up on her forearm. "Well," she said softly, her face nearing his. "We can always do no-clothes-leftover-Chinese night."

"Indeed," Killian murmured, their lips hovering close.

"We should probably work up an appetite first..."

"An excellent idea, Swan," he said.

He leaned in for a brief kiss, and then she squealed, laughing as he lifted her up and over his shoulder, and carried her into the bedroom.

They never did get around to the leftover Chinese food.