She was sitting in the office, leaning back in his chair with her feet on the desk, flipping through a parts catalogue without really seeing it, when he stumbled in.
"There's coffee." She said in greeting, unnecessary because the scent of it was warm and heavy in the air, but it was better than waiting to see if he would mention the fact that he had woken up - just as she had several hours earlier - on the floor of the garage.
Besides that, even though it had been him she had fallen asleep talking to in a soft voice, even though it had been his hand she had found still anchored in hers when she woke up, the memory of this morning with the cold seeping through the floor but his skin warm against hers, his arm stretched out from beneath her car, was something she wanted to hold close to herself for just a bit longer.
"The coffee maker's-"
"Finicky. I know. I figured it out." She nodded her head over towards the machine and the half-full pot, turning her attention back to the catalogue to hide her smile. She realized now that she had never seen him in the morning before he'd had time to wake up even a little. It was slightly tragic, the way he shuffled around with eyes half-open, but more-than-slightly adorable, his edges softened by the early hour.
"What're you doing?"
"Ordering tires for the Ford out back, and trying to find that stupid radio-dvd-player thing he wants installed."
"'S too early for that." He said, sinking into the chair on the opposite side of the desk. Only one eye was open, as if even the soft light coming from the desk lamp was too much, and this time she couldn't hide her grin.
"That's hilarious, coming from you."
"I contain multitudes, love."
"Too early for flipping through a catalogue, but not too early for multitudes." She tossed the catalogue on the desk and arched an eyebrow in his direction. "You're something, you know that?"
"Mmmm." His eyes drifted shut and he was silent so long that she wondered if he had actually fallen back asleep. But then his eyes flashed open and they were almost bluer than they had been a moment before, and they were soft but insistent on her face, and he didn't look asleep anymore. "You stayed. Last night. Why?"
She felt a blush creep up her neck but just met his gaze and mumbled, "Well, I couldn't very well leave you there lying on the floor."
"You could have." He said. "But you didn't."
"I think I fell asleep first anyways so you're the one who could have-"
"Emma." He reached across the desk to grab her hand, and her words trailed off as he did. It felt like it had last night, and she could still feel the ghost of his lips against her knuckles. "I'm trying to say thank you."
"I haven't done anything." She said quietly, and she could hear the waver in her own voice because this, somehow above everything else, made her chest feel tight. Nobody in her life had thanked her much, even for things she had tried hard to do, much less things that came so naturally she didn't even need to think about them.
"You've done more than I have words for." His voice was rough as he said it and as he did, his hand tightened on hers, and something in his eyes was reverent.
"Killian..." She looked at him helplessly, saying-without-saying that he was going somewhere she didn't know how to follow, and even though he offered her a gentle, understanding smile, she could see him pull back into himself a fraction as he realized what she meant.
"How about you and I go to Granny's for some breakfast, then? Would that be adequate thanks?"
An answering smile broke from her face, pure relief. "That would be great."
The morning was crisp but beautiful so when he suggested they walk into town, she agreed. Emma was still wearing her pajama bottoms and a hoodie that she knew had a stripe of grease up the back after her night on the floor, and he was in a t-shirt and a truly unfortunate pair of sweatpants that had maybe been grey, once, but were now too holes-and-dirt to tell. But something about the magic of this town and the gentle, early hour had them walking down the driveway regardless, even though the house - and a change of clothes - was only a hundred feet behind them.
"I should have asked before, but you're not boycotting Granny's, are you?" He asked casually, but the gaze that cut over to her was slightly troubled.
"I bought onion rings there literallylast night." She said. "And frankly, if our roles were reversed, I'd rather kick out a random stranger than have Gold breathing down my neck, too."
"She's not usually that kind of woman, for the record - she'd sooner fire a crossbow at someone threatening her than let them have their way, but..."
"The Diner's her home and her business, Killian. I get it." She drifted into him, nudging him with her shoulder, and he flashed her a grin.
"You're getting to know quite a lot about this town, Swan. And the people in it."
"Just a few of the people." She chanced a small smile at him, and if his face didn't just light up...
Then his smile dimmed a fraction and his eyes were suddenly everywhere but on her face.
"What?" She looked uncomfortable, like she wasn't meant to have seen the look on his face, almost screaming that there were words behind that expression that he wasn't going to say. He chewed his lip a moment, then his gaze was back on her and the gravity of it was almost too much.
"What are we doing here, Emma? This?"
"I..." She was going to say I don't know what you mean but that was a lie neither of them would believe, at this point. "I don't know."
"I'm not complaining, but..." He scrubbed a hand through his hair. "How honest do you want me to be about this?"
"Honest." She said in a small voice.
"I've not..." He laughed a bit, incredulously, like he was regretting this whole line of conversation but also like he was surprising himself with his own words. "I've not felt...this...for a long while, and I feel like I have to tell you that the last time ended...poorly. For me. And I'm not saying you feel the same way or-"
"Killian, I..." She let two fingers brush against the back of his hand to stop the words that were flowing faster from his mouth - so fast she knew he would lose track of them - and he grabbed onto her hand like a lifeline, and when he finally glanced up at her he looked terrified. "There are...probably things I should say, and if I were a different person in a different life..." She let out the same breathy laugh he had a moment ago. "But things like...this...never end well for me, either, and I'm meant to be alone, and..."
And we both know how this ends.
"I know, Emma. I know." He sighed, and she let her eyes drift shut for a long moment, his hand a gentle guide as they walked slowly. "I just..." She opened her eyes to look up at him, and he held their linked hands up between them helplessly.
It was selfish and more than she deserved to ask him for, and her voice was almost not-there as she said it, but still she whispered, "I like this."
"I like it too, love." He brought their linked hands up a few inches so he could press his lips to her knuckles for the second time in as many days.
"Then why does anything have to change?"
"It doesn't." He said, and though she cut her gaze to the shape of the town now only a few hundred feet away, she could feel the blue of his eyes deliberate and insistent studying her. She knew what he was thinking, because the same thoughts were running through her own head.
Things only had to change because she was making them.
Even so, he held her hand all the way to Granny's.
They spent nearly two hours tucked into a corner booth, Killian poking fun at her for her plate of waffles while he made the "healthy" choice of eggs and toast - which didn't stop him from trying to steal bites off her plate every other minute. Between endless cups of coffee and good conversation that never faltered and, more often than not, had their laughter filling the quiet diner, by the time they got back to the garage it was an hour past the time they were scheduled to open. She was well past the point of needing to ask him for something to do, and he trusted enough not to have to tell her, so with an unspoken agreement he disappeared into the office and she slid her coveralls over her pajamas, getting to work on a Ford that had been dropped off before they closed last night. It was an older model but so well maintained it looked almost brand new, so the tune-up was simple and practically mindless.
It left a lot of opportunity, when Killian came back into the garage bay, to watch him duck smoothly under the hood of her car, humming softly to the soft strains of the radio drifting out from the office. Her hands stilled as she looked, and her gaze tracked over the simple line of his body curved just so to reach into the depths of the car, the way his hand darted out every so often to switch a tool out for one on the rolling rack beside him, the sheer ease of his posture that betrayed how comfortable he was. And beyond all that, he was so...competent. His hands were steady and deliberate as they moved beneath the hood, his soft grin betraying his pride in his work, and even though he was across the garage from her, something in the gentle way he handled the bright new pieces of the car that was her as much as it was hersfelt strikingly similar to having her hand curled in his.
They worked in comfortable silence long into the afternoon, lunch a forgotten concept as Killian got deeper into his work on the Bug and as Emma let the Ford and a junky Buick dominate her time, until later that afternoon, from beneath the hood of an ancient Chevy K-Series, she asked,
"If you could have your dream car, what would it be?"
The question hadn't necessarily been nagging at her, but the more she saw the obvious care and even love he had for cars that weren't his, the more she remembered the curve of his hand against the sleek roof of his GTO, the more she wondered what filled his dreams at night - whether he thought of outlandish futures when he was in here in the weak hours of the morning. And more than that, it was about knowing him. Even just this small detail.
"Anything?" He was silent a moment, and she could hear him tapping a finger against the metal of her car as he thought. "A Honda CR-V, probably - they're dependable, great lines, and I prefer a bit of space in a car. And I could tow something if I had to, if the truck broke down."
"Not like that." She paused a moment and stood up, arching her eyebrow so dramatically that he had to see it, even from across the garage - and if his wide smile was any indication, he did. "Like…if Gold had to give you every penny of the money he's bullied out of the people in this town, on top of paying them all back, and you could buy anything, what would it be?"
"McLaren." He said in the next breath, and his whole face lit up as he did. "675lt. All black, with carbon side intakes."
"Jesus." She breathed. "Dream big, why don't you."
"You did say anything." He grinned. "Have you ever seen one?"
"No."
"I did. Once. We took a trip to New York, my brother and I, and it was parked along one of the side roads like it was just...normal." His laugh was incredulous but his face still shone with a wistful admiration of a car that fit a life neither of them could ever dream of having. "If you could have seen it, Swan - bright red, huge wheels, not a scratch on it, and it had these carbon fiber details...the most beautiful I've ever seen, absolutely perfect. And the lines..." He traced a sleek shape in the air with his hand, and there was something in his eyes that made her want so completely and so suddenly she felt like she couldn't breathe.
"Sounds beautiful." She managed, and he just looked at her like she put both feet in her mouth.
"It was flawless, Swan. Even the brake calipers..."
"You may want to rein it in before I have to mop a pool of drool off the floor." She said drily, recovering. He just gave her a look, that raw awe for a car he had seen once, years ago, still so plain.
"What about you, then? If you could have anything, what?"
His words caught her short - stupidly so, because of course he would ask her the same question in return - but she realized even as she opened her mouth to reply that she didn't have an answer. She had never courted grand dreams of anything - a home, a family, love...anything more than the little she already had was firmly out of the question, and dreaming just left her sad.
"I...that." She gestured lamely at her own car - her own car sitting on the jack, half apart, not even working.
"Of all the cars in the world? This is the one?" He rested a hand on it - the same hand that moments before had been tracing sleek supercar shapes in the air - and though he was looking at her with a touch of mirth, he also looked like something in him understood.
"That's..." There were words she could have said - something about it being vintage, about the history of it, about the spaciousness of the interior or the way it felt solid in a way no new cars ever did - but they weren't true words. Not for her. What was true for her was the way a road looked at night, stretching past the glow of her headlights; it was the sigh of relief when she saw the bright yellow of the paint and the faintly bulbous shape of the hood after a long day; it was the warm smell of leather and the whine of the engine when she pushed it and the back seat that was big enough for a person when they had nowhere else to go. It was the way the curve of the steering wheel made her feel like she could breathe even when her chest felt tight and the world felt too small. It was the way when she said faster the car always said yes.
"It's all I've ever had." She said finally, quiet enough that she would have thought he hadn't heard her if he hadn't stilled and looked over at her like his heart was breaking and filling with something too real all at once. She couldn't look at him, turning instead back to the Chevy, as she murmured, "It's all I want."
The silence that followed was nearly too much, and though she kept her eyes absolutely fixed on the car before her, she could feel him still watching her. The way it felt like he was seeing more than she knew should have felt uncomfortable, but she knew that there wasn't anything he could learn about her now that he didn't, probably, already know.
"I'd better get to work then, hadn't I?" He said finally, and after another long, silent moment, she heard him turn back around.
The words he hadn't said were almost louder than if he had screamed them, and all she could think of as the sounds of him working slowly filled the space back up was how fitting it was that the thing that meant most in the world to her had ended up in this garage.
They closed an hour later than usual to compensate for the late start, and Emma made a hasty dinner afterwards - something that started as scraps of fish left over from his chowder but ended up as a very passable stir fry. It was late by the time they finished, and she could tell even from the long lulls in their conversation at the table that they were both feeling yesterday's long night. Still, Killian insisted on doing the dishes afterwards, even when she told him to leave them.
"Honestly, they're not going anywhere." She had said, and was awarded by a very self-satisfied smirk from him.
"Wasn't it you who told me that only heathens leave their dishes on the table?"
It had been her, that first morning when they had eaten pancakes among a sea of days-old dishes. Of course it would be tonight he would take it to heart, so after a beat she gave him a grudging nod and let him shoo her out of the kitchen.
She toyed with the idea of going out to the porch, but it was getting colder in the evenings - she could feel, already, tendrils of cool air seeping in around the old windows - and there was something about the faded plaid couch in the living room with its floral wallpaper and gentle curtains that felt...
Well, it felt like exactly what she needed, but that wasn't something she was prepared to let herself think.
Instead, she snagged the remote off of the coffee table as she sank onto the couch, flicking on the TV and cycling through the channels until she found an old movie. The volume was already low, the hum of voices blending easily into the hush of the evening wind outside and the faint sounds of Killian moving around in the kitchen. She had seen the movie before, more than once, so as Gene Kelly pranced around in the background she let her eyes wander over the walls and the solid, beautiful furniture. She had been here long enough, now, that the house felt familiar, but she couldn't help but catalogue the small details of this house whenever she got the chance. The dark wooden shelf tucked in the corner, the sheer white curtains on all the windows, the delicate china in a cabinet by the stairs...they seemed so unlike dirty sweatpants, grease-still-on-his-hands Killian, but she would still catch him, sometimes, running his fingers over the gentle curves of a teapot painted with birch trees, or letting the curtains flutter through his hands softly as he pulled them back to check the weather in the mornings, and in those moments she felt like these pieces that had no solid purpose in his life that seemed geared towards function told her something about him that he might not have intended for her to see. Looking at those small details again now, she could see that they had been loved for a long time and she wondered, again, if it was he who had given it.
She let her mind wander between the movie and the gentle but undeniable presence of the house around her, the soft music of the voices and the wind and Killian all warm and close and comfortable, especially after the long night before. So it wasn't much of a shock that, when she felt something soft settle on her shoulders, she had to snap her eyes open to look at him - frankly, she was surprised she hadn't fallen asleep completely.
"You know I won't judge you for going to bed at 9, if you'd like." He said, though the twinkle in his eyes said differently.
"Just...thinking." She returned, shuffling over to give him a space to sit down between her feet drawn up beside her and the opposite arm of the couch.
"At this hour?"
"What did you say this morning? I contain multitudes."
"Touche." He flashed her that familiar half-smile and sank down beside her. As he settled into the cushions, she glanced at her shoulder to see what he had draped over her. It was his flannel bathrobe - the same one she was almost positive she had left on the hook in the upstairs bathroom yesterday morning.
"It's an old house with drafty windows." He said, his eyes tracking hers as she studied the worn plaid. "It gets cold."
"It is yours,though. You should get to wear it, if anyone does."
"I'm alright." He cut his gaze over to the screen, but she didn't miss the way his cheeks coloured slightly. Then a sudden smile bloomed. "You're not honestly watching Singing in the Rain, Swan?"
"I like it." She muttered.
"I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on this one, especially since the remote is all the way over there." He looked so mournfully at the other end of the couch where she had the remote balanced on the arm that she couldn't help but laugh at him.
"You're ridiculous, you know that?"
"Aye. But you love it." He just shrugged, and if he saw the way she froze for a moment at those words, he was kind enough not to mention it. Instead, he gathered her feet into his lap - casually, easily, like it was so familiar and such a non-issue that he didn't even have to think about it - and settled in for the rest of the movie.
Not that, between the weight of his hands warm on her feet and you love it still in the air, she saw much of it.
She wasn't quite sure when she fell asleep, but when she woke up hours later, an infomercial was casting a pale light on the couch, and her feet were still in Killian's lap - Killian, who was fast asleep. She took a moment just to watch him, staying absolutely still as his chest rose and fell gently. There was a certain tightness to his expression, even now, but he looked...peaceful. And with everything stripped away - no soft humour on his face as he teased her from across the garage, no weary lines around his eyes when he came into the kitchen early in the morning, no echo of the past on every feature as he told her about his family - she could see something so young and so...lost in the shape of his mouth and the way the arm that wasn't draped over her legs was angled protectively into his chest, close to his heart.
And it was then that she had to stop looking, because when her car was finished she needed to leave - for his sake, because she had ruined everything she had ever been a part of, and for hers, because she was dangerously close to hoping for something she knew could never happen.
She pulled her feet gently from his lap, and he stirred as she knew he would, eyes fluttering open and so hopelessly blue that she almost broke her rule about hoping for things.
"Hey." She whispered, flicking off the TV and standing in the sudden darkness.
"What time is it?"
"Late. Time for bed."
"I missed the end of the movie." He said, rubbing a hand over his face. "I didn't mean to fall asleep."
"It's been out for like fifty years - I'm sure you can catch the rest of it another time." Emma held out a hand, and she knew her smile was something like she might have put on for a tired child. "Come on."
"You go on." He scrubbed a hand through his hair this time, and she could see his eyes dart towards the door. "I wanted to finish a few things up in the shop before tomorrow."
"Killian..." Her smile fell from her face, and it wasn't just that he had been down there every night since she had been here, wasn't just that she could see his hollow eyes and the circles beneath them even in the dark, but it was that he had held her hand like a lifeline the night before, and the thought of him down there withouther... "No. It's late, and we both know you're as tired as I am."
"I've had plenty of nights longer than this one, love. And it's only down the driveway."
"That's not the point." She grabbed his wrist and pulled him behind her towards the stairs - which he allowed despite dragging his feet - gesturing for him to head up in front of her and nudging him between his shoulder blades when he didn't. "It's late, and it's not just thislong night but a bunch of them, and night is for sleeping, Killian. Not work."
"Sometimes it's not your choice, what night is for." He said quietly, but relented and started up the stairs without her having to poke him again. "I know you know, Emma. I've heard you awake at hours, according to you, you shouldn't be."
"That's..." Different, she wanted to say. But it wasn't. It was nightmares and memories and too many nights in unfamiliar houses to sleep comfortably, even in a house that felt like home. "We're not talking about me."
"All I'm saying," He said, reaching the second floor and pausing in the doorway of his room, steps from their stairway. "Is that you and I, we're cut from the same cloth."
It struck her how simple those words were but how deep they ran - how much he knew her from their short time together, and how much of it was because he already knew himself.
"I know." She said after a beat, and a soft smile flickered on his face.
"Goodnight, then." His hand drifted up to rub behind his ear as he leaned against the door frame. "I really did enjoy the movie tonight, love. Even if I didn't get to see the whole thing."
"Me too." Emma wrapped her arms around herself, pulling his bathrobe tighter, and she would have turned towards her own room if he hadn't looked so restless, still, shifting from foot to foot even in his deliberately casual pose.
It was almost painfully clear that the moment she left, he was going to be right back downstairs and out the door.
"Get in the bed." She said with a sigh, pointing into the room.
"What?"
"You. In the bed."
"Swan, really."
"Tell me you're not going to go down to the garage the minute I go to bed."
"I'm not..."
"Look me in the eye," She said, her tone heavy and firm. "and promise me."
"I..." His gaze drifted up and caught hers, and he looked so resolute that for a moment she thought that he was going to lie to her and tell her he wouldn't go. But after a long, silent moment, he sighed deeply and pulled a hand through his mess of hair. "Emma...you don't know what it's like."
"You'd be surprised." She stepped closer, forcing him back and into the room. He let her, backing up slowly until his knees hit the corner of the mattress, then sinking down to sit on the edge of the bed. She waited, looking at him expectantly until, with a sigh, he lay down on his back and settled his head on the pillow.
"Is this satisfactory?"
"As long as you promise that when I go, you'll stay here. All night."
The air was heavy in the silence that followed, and it should have been such an easy promise to make, but what she could see of his expression looked so conflicted, words upon words flashing behind his eyes until he said, finally, "That is not a promise I think I can make."
It was so bare and honest that for a moment she felt like she couldn't breathe, so her voice was not all there when she whispered, "Promise me you'll try."
"Alright." He said, voice as low as hers. "I'll try."
She should have left then, let the promise fill the room and give him a chance to fall asleep before he so much as thought of breaking it, but instead she lingered in the doorframe. "You know where I'll be." She said, and she really should have left but he had taken a breath that he hadn't let out, and there was something in his expression that was all unsaid words and moments still hanging between them...
"Would you stay?" He asked quietly, his breath rushing out all at once.
She just stared, and the words on her lips were both yes and no.
"Not…forever." He continued, voice slightly panicked because the look on her face was probably something like a door slamming in his, and he waved his hand in front of him as if to erase what his words could have meant. "Just…one night, Emma."
"Killian..."
"I know I'm not...this isn't..." He closed his eyes tight and a muscle in his jaw jumped as he clenched it tight.
"Killian." The almost...loathing in that expression propelled her over, and she perched on the corner of the mattress until he opened his eyes to look up at her. "It's not you. It's just..." She laughed a little, helplessly, and raked a hand through her hair. "What you're asking for...I don't...I've never been good at this. Any of it. And I can't..." She looked at him and she hoped he saw in her eyes the long hours she had spend thinking of a way this could play out that wouldn't end up breaking both of them. "We both know how this has to end."
His breath came out in a heavy rush, his teeth cutting into his lip for a fraction of a second, and then he was up on his elbows and even though he hadn't moved much he suddenly seemed so much closer.
"You know the broken window on the front of the house?"
She nodded once, remembering the errant conversation they had had the first night she stayed, something about a storm and the wind and the repairs he hadn't gotten around to. She had never been in that room, but she saw the gaping hole of the empty window frame every night when she walked up from the garage.
"There was a blizzard last winter and if I had left the house that night I would have gotten lost, and I knew it. So I stayed here, all night, and you can not imagine how quiet it gets when there is nobody around and the power's out." He cracked that half-smile and she knew he meant it to lighten the mood, but his voice was too rough and his eyes were too hollow for it to do anything other than break her heart. "Everything in this house is my family. Everything is something that was theirs and ours..but now it's all just everything I've lost..." He lifted his left hand and placed it in her lap, and after a moment she cradled it in both of hers and brought it close to her face so she could see, in the faint light, the faint lacework of silver scars across his knuckles. "I put my fist through it because I cannot be here for that long and not..." He blinked once, long and hard, and she could see him putting words together in his mind. "I made myself a deal that I wouldn't spend a full night in this house until I was sure I wouldn't do the same thing again, somewhere else, and wreck more of the only things that are left of them, and what you're asking me to promise you..." His eyes flashed open and the look in them when they locked with hers again was a bare plea. "I can't do it alone, Emma. I'm asking you not to make me. That's all."
"Okay." She whispered, because what else was there to say? It wasn't even his story - it was Killian facing Gold with her at his elbow, her maneuvering the crooked exhaust pipe while he fastened it in place, his careful prodding beneath the hood of a service car with her right beside him...it was how undeniable it was, now, that they were better as a team.
He gave her a gentle smile that was a more honest thanks than words ever could have been, and shuffled over to create a space for her beside him. It was a small bed and the scent of him overwhelmed her as she lay down, flipping onto her back on top of the covers to mirror his position. It wasn't as cold up here, a towel shoved at the base of the window to keep the draft at bay and him warm and close next to her. She tried to tell herself this was no different than laying next to him on the garage floor, but she knew it was a lie.
"You promise to stay here tonight?" She murmured, the words almost unnecessary because this close, she felt like he could pick her thoughts from her head if he wanted to. She laced her fingers with his, squeezing a gentle encouragement, and the shaky breath he let out next to her told her that he didn't miss how much this felt like their soft exchange in the garage last night.
He squeezed her hand lightly in return, and his voice was a breath when he said, "If you will."
