Awake My Soul

by siren-lungs

After the death of her beloved soldier and true love, Killian Jones, in WWI, Emma Swan's great-great aunt made sure that she and her beloved would be reunited again. Now, almost a century later, Emma Swan is a college senior in New Orleans and trapped between a debate between fate and free will. A story of reincarnation and the power of true love as it transcends time.

10. Chapter Nine

a/n: HAPPY ALMOST CHRISTMAS HARRY! Finally an update! Thank you all for being so patient with me as I finished up with finals! To make up for being away for so long i wrote more than twice as much than I usually do—also, finally got back to some of the actual story and not just plot filler so yeah. . This chap is mostly cs (like 99%) I hope you like it don't be shy and let me know what you think.

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Chapter Nine

Killian doesn't stay.

Instead, he drives her home and drops her off, and Emma is thankful. He asked no questions as they maneuvered through the countless one-way roads that make Uptown, New Orleans somewhat of a nightmare to drive through, until they reached her apartment—which was great because she really wasn't in the mood to divulge anything. She didn't want to talk about Graham, and she didn't want to talk about the sting of his words nor the complete bleakness she felt when he walked away from her. Though Graham had been right, she hadn't the slightest idea how to be someone's girlfriend, that didn't mean she wasn't willing to try her best at it. But once again, her best had apparently not been enough.

During the drive Killian looked over at her a couple of times, his brow furrowed underneath the slopping unruly black fringe that had made its way down to his forehead again. Emma could hear the intake of his breath, the telltale sign that he planned on saying something to her but ended up thinking better of it, and staying silent instead. The rain pattered roughly against the windows and the darkened roads glittered before them as water droplets ricocheted off the pavement. Emma rested her forehead against the window, smiling sadly at the comfort the cooled glass placed on her skin. It was hard to think about anything but than the notion that she had failed again, that happiness just wasn't in her cards.

She wanted to cry, but she wouldn't.

Emma was wallowing in self-pity, she knew this, but it was hard not to. Looking out of the window, she saw the familiar mansions that lined St. Charles Avenue, all of them decked in their Halloween best—some with giant spiders crawling on the face of the building, the classic one with at least fifty different skeletons showcasing different puns (this year political), and all of them glittering in orange, purple, and green lights. She didn't know why he took St. Charles, since going straight down Freret would have taken them to Arabella much quicker than on a main avenue notorious for far too many traffic lights, but she couldn't help to think that he wanted to cheer her up with the decorations. They were, after all, as similar, as grand, and as intricate as the decorations in Celebration in the Oaks. Her thoughts were confirmed, however, when she had turned to give him an inquisitive look and was rewarded with a wink and a knowing smile.

For the first time since before they had left Barcade, Emma grinned back.

Their goodbye started out awkward and for a moment they just sat there in the car—unmoving, and silent with the unspoken agreement that she'd stay in the car until the harsh rain settled down to a drizzle. The sudden silence left Emma biting the inside of her lip anxiously, unaccustomed to the sudden surge of gratitude that flowed through her entire being. Killian was there for her, genuinely concerned about her wellbeing, and willing to do something as simple as changing routes midway to her apartment just to see if he could lift her spirits, and put a smile on her face. She found it funny how back in August she completely abhorred the man in front of her, but come November (as it had officially been for roughly two hours), she finds that he's crept up his way to her, woven into her life as the most honest man she's ever met. Annoying and a little too flirty for his own good, yes, but genuine and caring nonetheless.

"Do you need me to come up?" He asked her, blue eyes boring worrisomely into hers. "Will you be alright?"

"I'll be fine," Emma answered him, and he only relaxed his tense shoulders when she shot him a lopsided smile. "I fought with my boyfriend, it's not the end of the world."

"No, I suppose it isn't," he responded quietly, his eyes closed as he leaned back into his seat, his arms crossed behind his head as the rain made no semblance of stopping. "Just don't be afraid to message me if you need anything."

"I won't," Emma responded, her eyes trained on her phone and almost willing for Graham to text her something. But, there was nothing, just a brightly lit screen that quickly distorted into a mix of muted whites and blues as her emotions got the best of her and her eyesight blurred with tears that threatened to fall.

Emma breathed in to compose herself, but her shaky exhale betrayed her.

"Hey," Killian's soft voice started as his warm calloused hand covered her own, "everything is going to be alright, Swan."

Emma shrugged, unwilling to look at him or even blink for that matter.

"I promise," he continued with a firm squeeze of his hand around hers.

Emma rolled her eyes, and lifted her gaze toward him in exasperation. "You can't promise me that," she said thickly, "I think I really fucked up."

"You didn't," he said firmly and his free hand stretched towards her to wipe a tear that had finally rebelled and had rolled down her cheek. "It's just a petty fight, Em," he continued, a reassuring smile on his face, his pupils wide and dilated in the darkness. "You're bound to have countless more after tonight."

"I hope not," she groaned, her head resting against the headrest with a thump. "I hate fighting."

"You could've fooled me with that, lass," Killian chuckled, his wheezy laugh still as silly and endearing since the first time she had heard it.

"Shut up," she laughed with him, sobering up only when she noticed that her hand was still covered by his. Emma withdrew her hand slowly, even though she wanted nothing more than just to leave it there in his warm grasp. His hand twitched slightly, and when she turned to look at him, his blue eyes shined with unease. And perhaps it was the earlier sense of gratification that seemed to have resurged through her entire being, or perhaps it was the sudden realization that somehow Killian had been bringing down her emotional barriers slowly but surely by getting to know her, by treating her with respect, by empathizing with her, and by not shying away from her as her stubbornness—here acting as roughly patched cracks in her emotional armor—melted away to reveal raw vulnerability. And that's how you know you trust someone, right? When you take away the filters that constantly mask your persona and start to reveal your fears, your shaky confidence, and your true vulnerability with the hopes that they won't shy away. And surely, when they don't shy away, the only reasonable thing for you to do is to let them in, right?

Emma resolved to do just that. With tears still brimming and biting her lip, she surged forward in order to wrap her arms around him, her face pressed tightly against the side of his head. It took him a moment to register the fact that she was hugging him, but soon enough his own arms circled around her torso, strong, firm, and comforting.

"Thank you," she mumbled against his hair. She breathed deep in his embrace, taking in the scent of his cologne, a pleasant combination of rugged and clean.

"For what?" he asked as he pulled away from her, his black pupils so dilated in the darkness that they threatened to engulf his blue irises completely. His breath felt hot on her skin, they were altogether too close to each other and her mind traveled back to when they were in a similar situation and she was trying to gauge his character because she couldn't figure him out, couldn't read him. She still didn't know if she had been successful in gauging his character, but as her heart raced and beat thunderously against her ribcage—scared, frantic beating that responded to how raw and exposed his sincerity made her feel—she knew she was beginning to.

"Sticking around?" she asked, exhaling a nervous and shaky breath, her green eyes wide and hopeful. And there it was, her fear exposed for the world to see. Emma didn't have the heart to tell him that what she actually feared. Instead, she chose to allude to it and she did that by telling him how grateful she was that he stuck around by her, when so many hadn't. He knew she was guarded—around him, around her cousin, around her closest friends—and now she hoped that he knew why. It's not easy to let people in when you're afraid everyone is going to end up leaving you, and it's terrifying to think that those who end up staying don't care enough about you to realize you matter. No option is better than the other, either way you feel like nothing.

Killian cocked his head to the side, looking inquisitively at her, and she could basically hear the cogs turning in his mind as his jaw clenched slightly at the same time his fingers pressed faintly against the doughy skin covering her torso.

"I have no intention of leaving," he told her, eyes blazing, "unless you wish me to do so."

"Good," she said and for the second time that night, Emma grinned.

It had rained all night, and not once did the torrential downpour ease down into a drizzle. After bickering for five minutes about whether Killian should escort her to her front-door and whether Emma should take his umbrella with her if she wasn't going to let him walk her to her door, Killian ended up surrendering his gallant requests, instead thrusting a hoodie towards her.

"At least wear this so you don't get drenched," he had told her, his arms folded against his chest. Emma had taken the blue gray hoodie from his hands, throwing him an exasperated sigh and an eye-roll for good measure as she unzipped it and put it on. Much like she had had to ignore the churning in her stomach when he turned on his seat and reached far back into his back seat to grab the hoodie—leaving her struggling to avert her eyes from the way his white Henley rose up his midriff, exposing a toned lower abdomen and a prominent pelvic muscle that plunged deep into the waistline of his low-hung jeans—Emma had struggled to ignore the way his scent seemed to engulf her senses as she surrounded herself with the soft fabric.

"Is this better?" she had asked him haughtily, an eyebrow raised questioningly on her forehead as she zipped up the front of the hoodie. Killian had merely leaned back against the door, one hand draped lazily on the steering wheel and the other threading his fingers through his dark hair, and smirked at her.

"Aye, lass," he had leaned forward, grabbed the hood, and smirked, if possible, even wider as he tugged it upwards and over her head. "I rather like you in my clothing," he had said, once again dragging his tongue on his lower lip in that almost profane way Emma hated to admit prompted her to clench her thighs together and question her sanity.

"You're an idiot," she had responded and his only response is to move closer to her still, his arms going around her body and reaching behind her. Emma sat there rigid as she took him in. Killian wasn't looking at her, he was much more concerned on the task behind her, his eyebrows knit together in concentration. As Emma took in how his damp hair fell onto his face, she tried to convince herself that the mood between them hadn't shifted yet again, plunging into uncharted territory, and she sighed in relief when she heard him pull the lock on the door.

"The automatic lock is jammed," he explained, his voice strained and flustered. "I now have to resort to jimmy the bloody lock and handle every time I need to open the fucking door."

Emma nodded absentmindedly as she tried to focus on anything but how close he was to her, on anything but how his warm breath blowing close to her neck made the hairs on her skin stand on edge, and instead wondering if the reason he sounded so flustered was due to his blatant intrusion into her personal space, wondering if he was just as flummoxed by her very presence as she was by his. As he straightened up, she had to bite down a grin once she saw his eyes widen slightly, seemingly unprepared to have her face so close to his.

"Sorry, love," he mumbled gruffly, "I didn't mean to get so close."

"It's okay," Emma breathed, her mind and judgment very much clouded. "Good night, Killian."

"Goodnight, Emma," Killian told her, a soft smile on his face as he gazed deeply into her eyes. Her mind was still clouded as she turned in her seat and made way to open the door he still held open, his arms still around her. She stilled for a second once her hand covered his in order to take hold of the door handle. Unexpectedly, she found herself unable—no, better yet, found herself not wanting—to leave his side.

"Wait, what are you doing tomorrow?" She asked, her gaze meeting Killian's quizzical brow at how quickly she had turned around. Killian's arms were still posed at either side of her, she tried not to focus on the lean muscle that jutted out of his forearm, but it was there and she wasn't blind. Emma clenched her thighs again, she was such a sucker for strong arms.

"Probably the usual," he shrugged, "going to the library with the hopes of escaping the sounds of my brother's reawakened sex life and attempting to get some work done."

"Sounds riveting," Emma teased, her green eyes alight with mirth.

"Och, aye," Killian nodded as he grinned back at her, "incredibly entertaining. Why do you ask?"

"Would you be interested in having dinner with my family tomorrow?" Emma asked tentatively. She hated how breathless she sounded, hated that she was looking up at him through her eyelashes, but it seemed that her body suddenly had a mind of its own.

"Your family?" Killian asked, his eyebrows raised further up behind his slopping fringe.

"Yeah, my grandparents usually have David and me over for dinner on Sundays. You don't have to come if you don't want to," Emma began, her voice both flustered and apologetic as she tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "I just thought I'd do something nice for you since you tend to be there for me when I need you, even if I'm too stubborn to notice it."

"Surely, you must know that I don't expect anything in return," Killian tells her, his hand going up to nervously scratch his ear.

"I know, I just—," she broke off, suddenly nervous about what she was going to say. "I don't want to push you away anymore. You don't deserve that," Emma admitted, her voice quiet with thinly veiled apprehension at his possible reaction. Killian stared at her dumfounded. His mouth hung slightly open in surprise, until he shook himself out of it, biting his lip to keep his smile on the smaller side.

"I'd love to go, Swan," he said, and she tried not to let her mind linger on how blood seemed to rush through the capillaries on the side of his neck and all the way up to the tips of his ears tinting his skin a flushed pink.

"Good," Emma grinned again. "I'll pick you up around four thirty."

Sunday goes by, as quickly as any Sunday tends to go, with the new dawn filtering through her closed blinds and streaming into her room. Killian and she have been messaging all night and day long, after quickly falling into a conversation earlier that morning once he had messaged her that he had gotten home safe. Unsurprisingly, their conversation last night had sparked a sense of approval in Killian's mind and he started messaging Emma as a way to show her that he wanted to be a part of her life. As a way of showing her that he gets it, that he understands that pushing people away becomes second nature when they get too close to you, because when no one attempts to get too close to you in the first place it makes it inexplicably hard to trust that those that attempt a connection think that you're worth it.

He makes her laugh a lot, makes her forget that her phone is still silent when it comes to Graham. It's been weeks since she can say that she has started out her day with laughter. This morning he sent a video of himself, his face paralyzed with fear as he told her "this was [his] alarm clock now." Emma listened intently at the steady thumps against the wall, the unmistakable rhythmic bounce of mattress springs, and barely noticeable breathy moans. Taking in the sounds in connection with the look on his face and his message asking her whether she thought his house was haunted, was enough to make Emma actually laugh out loud and not just respond to his message without a smile gracing her face and just saying that she had indeed "lol-ed."

Her morning passes faster than she has time to process, and she's down at the Marigny again getting ready to run through the show one last time. Her grandparents and uncles are in the audience and she really hopes her seventy-six year old grandfather doesn't have a stroke during her performance. The acts go by seamlessly, her performance fueled by Graham's doubts about her decision. She can't help but mutter that no one tells her what to do, nobody tells her how to act. Killian was right, this was just a petty fight and there would be more, but if Graham didn't respect the things she loved then she has no reason to stay in the relationship if she doesn't want to.

Once the show is over, Emma greets her family, who as always congratulates her and commends her on her performance. Her grandmother, Adele Nolan, makes a comment about the lack of clothing on that main character but that other than that she was highly entertained by the show. Emma's grandfather, Reginald "Reggie" Nolan, rolls his eyes at her, saying that he commended the man for being able to put on such a show stopping performance wearing those heels. Emma laughs, feeling at home with them already. She tells them that she's picking up a friend before heading over to Mandeville for dinner.

"Oh, is this the young man David said you've met?" Her grandmother asks wistfully, making her grandfather scowl and a faint blush to quickly spread on Emma's chest.

"No, Killian is just a friend," Emma tells them, not wanting to bring up Graham just in case there wasn't a Graham to bring up anymore.

On her way over to MidCity, Emma is giddy for some reason. She wants to say it's because she's still running on the adrenaline from the show, but deep inside she knows why, or rather who, is the reason behind her giddiness.

But, can you blame her?

Certainly, this kind of feels like a one-eighty on her character, the fact that she's just letting him in no questions asked. Surely, one night couldn't be enough for her to completely disregard her disdain towards Killian and actually consider giving into the friendship he had asked for weeks ago. They were well on their way back then, weren't they? Back before she fucked everything up, stormed up to his house and pounded on his door, and then when he came out started berating him for doing something she was entirely to blame for. Back before she messed things up even further by blatantly and childishly ignoring him for well over a week and a half when he tried to apologize for something he never should have apologized for. And sure, an argument could be made that he was no different than Graham, that Killian too seemed to have a say on how Emma should do things, the little speech he made when she was arguing with him about her term paper grade and the way he insisted she stopped pushing him away and let her drive her home come to mind.

However, Emma doesn't see it that way. There is a difference between telling someone to do something because it goes against what you want and not being afraid to tell someone what they don't want to hear because they're too stubborn to see that it's what is best for them. Killian didn't argue about her grade because he didn't like the way she wrote it. No, he argued with her because he knew she could have done so much better than what she handed in, if she actually applied herself. And that's the key difference, the fact that Killian wasn't afraid to tell it to her like it is, whether she likes it or not, that is what she values as true friendship. Tiptoeing around the line just to make sure you stay on your friend's good side, isn't the mark of true friendship, it's not being afraid to tell your friend when they're wrong just as much as you're not afraid to tell them when they're right. And the fact that he's not afraid to tell her when she's in the wrong doesn't mean that she won't get mad at him for it, because knowing her own temper it's more likely that she will more often than when she'll be appreciative for it. It's the fact that he's wiling do it at all, to give her a real friendship, that has her feeling giddy.

Her giddiness is short-lived, though, and her happy demeanor fizzles out altogether once she reaches his apartment, it's almost as if she felt the emotion escape her body as fast as the last amount of air escapes the bottle of a carbonated drink once you unscrew the top and realize that it's gone flat. Emma tries not to let the sight in front of her bother her, after all as Killian's friend she doesn't have any claim to him past platonic, just like she wanted in the first place. Nonetheless the plummet of her heart into her stomach is evident and clear as day when she pulls up and she's greeted by the sight of one Christine Bell with her legs draped above Killian's lap as they both sit on the porch, waiting for Emma's arrival with his hands high on Christine's thighs and infatuated looks on both of their faces.

Emma doesn't get out of the car. Instead she waits inside the yellow bug with her eyes trained on her phone so as to not have to look at the exchange outside the car. She's glad that the temperature has dropped to the fifties, because that means she had no reason to have her windows down and also because she really doesn't know how she would have reacted to hearing Killian making out with his…person.

She meets his snarky smirk with raised eyebrows as he slides into her car.

"Hey," he says simply as he reaches over to wrap his arms around her in a hug. To say that she fights tooth and nail to quell the swooping sensation in her stomach is an understatement.

"Hey yourself," Emma greets back, hoping against hope that her voice doesn't sound as flustered and high-pitched as she swears it does.

"So, where are we off to?" Killian grins, easing back into the leather passenger seat, and crossing his arms lazily underneath his head.

I swear to god Emma, she thinks to herself threateningly, if you look to see if his shirt has risen up I will kill you.

"Mandeville," she tells him, driving her car off her parking spot and down the road, "my grandparents live just off Lake Pontchartrain."

"Brilliant, I've never been," Killian tells her.

"I think you'll find it rather posh," Emma quips, trying—and failing—to imitate his accent. Killian stares back at her in mock horror. At least, she hopes it's mock horror and not actual horror.

"Please, lass, do the world a favor and never attempt the British accent ever again."

"Is it not to your liking, mate?" Emma smirks again, and she slaps him hard in the arm when he shudders in response.

Her nerves ease down considerably during the drive, quelling themselves fairly quickly into the comfort she's come to associate with being in Killian's presence. The drive to Mandeville is long by New Orleanian's standards. The ride out the city, from MidCity to the Lakefront, is really just ten minutes or so and that's fine. The real burden is crossing the bridge that connects one shore of Lake Pontchartrain to the other—a thirty-minute drive on a four-lane bridge paralleled by another bridge going in the opposite direction.

The sun was setting quickly over the horizon and the New Orleans skyline had been continuously shrinking away the closer they got to Mandeville, the Superdome and the skyscrapers getting smaller and smaller until they completely vanished from view. It's dusk when they arrive, the purplish sky still holding streaks of reds and pinks as the sun continued to set, spreading splashes of gold over the inky blue water.

David's black Mercedes is already parked on the driveway, which not only meant that he would give her hell for being late, but he would also give her crap for bringing Killian without telling him about it. Though he doesn't completely abhor the thought of Graham being her boyfriend, David, bless his heart, seems to be convinced that she'd be better off with his best friend. So convinced, in fact, that when Emma refused to speak to Killian last week, David had the nerve to go over to her apartment and tell her off about it, and saying how she and Killian would get extraordinarily well if she just gave him a chance.

It is important to note that the aforementioned memory serves to establish the fact that it now makes two men that David approves of to be with Emma, and also the possibility that hell has frozen over.

Emma and Killian shuffle awkwardly on the threshold of the imposing (read: registered historic) lakefront home. She takes a look around, smiling ruefully at the fact that the house hasn't seen any major changes since she was little. The wooden walls and cement arches that hold the three-story building up are still white and gas lanterns still flicker idly on every other pillar. Spanish moss still hangs from the towering oak trees that surround the house, including the one that held a tire swing that was older than she was, and small lights illuminate the path of the terra cotta cobblestones that surround the house and all the way out to the pier.

Memories flit through her mind, memories of her and her cousins running through the tall grass during the summers they got to spend together, the grass blades tickling her bare feet, her laughter swirling with the summer breeze. Emma is smiling as she takes in the boat that sits unused in the garage. She'd spent so many lazy summer days on that boat, she remembers how it bobbed on the water and she can almost feel the warmth of the sun that caressed her skin during those outings.

Her grandmother ends up opening the door, her short blonde hair coiffed up in a hairdo that makes Emma think of both Rose Nylund in the Golden Girls and of Bozo the Clown. Her grandmother's dark brown eyes widen slightly as she takes in Killian, but she says nothing embarrassing and instead turns on her sickly, sweet southern charm as she welcomes them into the house. As she steps through the antique wooden flooring of the grand foyer, Emma can hear the unmistakable sounds of Sunday Night Football streaming in from the living room. She forgot the Saints played today, usually whenever they have dinner on Sunday it's because football season hasn't started or the Saints are playing an away game and her grandfather and David prefer to watch it together.

Sure enough, as she steps into the living room with Killian shuffling silently behind her, she sees her cousin and grandfather on opposite ends of the leather sectional with their eyes glued onto the screen. Emma walks over to her grandfather, leaning down to kiss his temple.

"Stop being rude, I want to introduce you to someone," Emma chastises him good-naturedly. Her grandfather looks over to her and as his gaze falls on Killian with his mouth curving into a weathered smirk, Emma instantly regrets bringing him over with her. Reggie Nolan tends to be a bit overbearing when it comes to his teasing, this is partly why Emma and David's entire relationship is built on an unspoken agreement to see which one of them can rile the other up the fastest.

"Is this your boyfriend, Emma?" her grandfather asks with a grin and a mischievous glint in his clear blue eyes. Emma eyes the combination of the couple of Abita Amber bottles that litter the TV table in front of him and her grandfather's rosy pink cheeks warily. She shoots a glare at David, who still sits on the couch looking like the cat that ate the fucking canary, enjoying the torment her grandfather plans to inflict all too much.

"Gramps," Emma groans, rolling her eyes as she walks over to grab the Abita Purple Haze that David already has stretched out towards her. She motions for another one, and hands it over to Killian after walking back across the living room.

"Are you her boyfriend, son?" Her grandfather asks again, the weathered smirk still in place and directed at Killian.

"I'm afraid another has beat me to it, sir," Killian replies seemingly unfazed, but Emma catches the pink tinge of embarrassment betraying him as it reddens his ears. "Unfortunately, I'll just have to be happy with being her friend," Killian makes a motion with his arms, lifting it as if the fact that Emma had a boyfriend was something beyond his control and he'd just learned to deal with it. Which, in hindsight, wasn't too far from the truth, Emma thought.

"Unfortunately, is it?" Her grandfather asks Killian slowly, and if Emma wasn't so far away from David, she'd punch the smirk right off the bastard's face. "But if fortune favored you, I take it you wouldn't hesitate?"

Oh, God, this conversation was a nightmare. She never should have brought Killian over, not after they'd been asking her incessantly to bring her boyfriend over so they could meet him. Emma had declined over and over again, feeling like she and Graham hadn't reached the "Meet the Grandparents" stage in their relationship and wouldn't be for quite some while. Nonetheless, here she was watching as her grandfather interrogated Killian like he was on trial and her grandfather was still a big-shot appellate lawyer. Honestly, he and David are so alike, it's scary.

"Okay! This conversation has to end, Reggie," Emma cries out, embarrassed even further at the rasping cackles that stemmed from the bottom of her grandfather's chest. "You've had your fun and I am going to see if Nana needs any help in the kitchen, and I'm taking my friend with me," Emma scowls, wrapping her hand around Killian's arm and yanking him towards the direction of the kitchen.

"Sorry about that," Emma mumbles as she walks down the long corridor and down to the kitchen. She notices that her hand is still wrapped tightly around his arm and the realization adds more humiliation to the already present mortification and she lets go of his arm hastily.

"It's nothing, Swan, truly I think it vexed you much more than it bothered me," Killian murmurs quietly behind her. "Not that it bothered me at all, I thought it was rather amusing to see how riled up you got." She turns towards him and shoots him a glare, the last thing she needs is for Killian to join the ranks of Reginald and David Nolan by making a habit of aggravating her.

Emma is surprised, pleasantly so, to see Mary Margaret in the kitchen, looking at home in the company of her grandmother as they made the final touches on dinner. She finds that there's not much to do in the kitchen, since dinner is almost done and they'll be eating soon, so Emma just sits on a kitchen stool and takes methodical swigs of her beer while she waits. In contrast, Killian keeps hovering around her grandmother and Mary Margaret, eager to fulfill his proper guest duties and help out with dinner. Emma isn't sure if her grandma concedes to his charms or if she's just tired of him looming anxiously over her shoulder when she tells him he can start setting the table with Emma if he wishes to keep himself occupied.

Dinner goes by relatively smoothly, her grandfather behaves and David doesn't poke too much fun at her expense so Emma counts that as a win. Her grandmother had prepared braised short ribs with a side of herbed mashed potatoes topped with Gorgonzola, and a kale Caesar salad. Mary Margaret had brought a bottle of sweet red wine and they switched from beer to the chilled, fruity wine instead. The large dining room was quiet as they began to eat, the only sounds coming from the rustling wind outside the house and the faint noise coming from the living room where the football game still played.

"Em, dear, your mother called. She wants you to remember that you're running out of time to get a gown," her grandmother says halfway through dinner as she passes the salad bowl towards her.

"What does Em need a gown for?" David asks, a scowl etched deep in his forehead.

"Nothing," Emma mumbles behind the rim of her wine glass.

"Em, didn't tell you?"

"Adele, of course Emma didn't tell him about it," her grandfather counters gruffly at his wife, but as he looks back at Emma with a smirk, there's a twinkle in his blue eyes. Emma hides her smile behind her wine glass again. Her grandfather was always in her corner no matter whom she was up against, and more often than not Emma was up against her own mother. "I'd be surprised if she told anyone about it."

"Well, David, Emma is going to be part of the court in Prometheus this year," her grandmother says kindly, and Emma is relieved to hear that the hint of reverence in her tone was not nearly as excited as her mother's had been.

"I thought you were never going to do that," David states matter-of-fact while shooting her an inquisitive brow, his voice muffled by the dinner roll he had previously stuffed his mouth with.

"I wasn't planning on doing it," Emma shrugs and takes a swig of her wine, the chilled liquid burning welcomingly in her navel as it reaches her stomach. "Ava gave me no choice," she says as if that explained everything, and between her and her cousin, it did. Between them, saying that her mother gave Emma no choice resonated in David understanding the feeling completely, seeing as his father seldom gave him any choice either. That's the reason Emma is weary about him dating Mary Margaret, not because she doesn't think they make a great couple because they do. Where David is quick and fiery witted, Mary Margaret is levelheaded and rational, and together they make a pretty unstoppable team. But it would be that unstoppability that would rub her uncle the wrong way and would make him want to force David to leave Mary Margaret. Emma knows that her uncle would not like that Mary Margaret is not easily malleable and not easy to manipulate, and while he can control David's twin brother James—an ass hat and a fucking leech that Emma has never been able to stomach. David, on the other hand, had completely inherited his mother's character—her aunt Ruth was just, compassionate, and kind—and was not one to want to give in to the greed her uncle tended to strive on. Jack, James's girlfriend, was just as greedy as him and far easier to manipulate to make sure that James's did his father's bidding. Mary Margaret, though, with her character mirroring David's? Well, it just wasn't going to go over well with her uncle at all.

"Typical Ava," David nods and shoots an eye-roll in Emma's direction.

"David, it's not your aunt's fault that Emma doesn't like the same frilly activities that she does," her grandmother chastises half-heartedly, and Emma doesn't understand why her grandmother is even defending her mother against David since it's not like they've had a picture-perfect relationship since they had moved to New York.

"Though, surely, it would be her fault if she didn't, at least, try to give importance to those interests Emma was fond of, however adverse they were to her own," Killian offers besides her, much to the surprise of the entire table. David sports a smirk that matches her grandfather's, Mary Margaret carries a knowing smile that brightens up her light green eyes, her grandmother has been rendered speechless for what Emma thinks is the first time ever since she learned how to string words together, and Emma can feel the heat travel up around her chest and towards her cheeks, and she knows that surely her face is flushed with an undeniable blush once she turns to look at him.

Wide blue eyes meet her green gaze, chagrined.

"Sorry," he says, his eyes wide and the tips of his ears flushed a deep scarlet. "I seem to let my mouth run away with me. It's gotten me into trouble in the past and I can't seem to fix the habit."

"Don't be," her grandfather quips from the head of the table, his face split in a toothy grin. "We could use more honest people in this family."

Emma senses Killian tense next to her, as the word 'family' hangs heavily around the room. She does the first thing that comes to mind, her instinct taking over and wanting Killian to feel as comfortable around her and her family, as he makes her feel around him. Emma's hand rests on his thigh, squeezing lightly in reassurance, and she thinks that she probably shouldn't have done something so blatantly intimate but she finds that she doesn't care. All she wants is for him to know that she appreciates him coming in her defense like that, coming to her aid when she didn't know she needed it once again. His warm hand finds its way to hers, only this time he turns it around and covers her palm with his own, his fingers interlocking with hers, and she feels her heart throbbing in her throat.

"Thank you," Emma mouths silently at Killian, and he grips her hand even tighter, even more reassuring than before. She watches as a blush spreads throughout his cheeks, staining his freckled skin like watercolors on parchment, contrasting with the brilliant smile that he gives her and making her realize that she wants nothing more than to make sure she's the only source and the only person that smile is directed at.

God, she has it bad.

"Are your parents going to be at the ball, Em?" Mary Margaret asks, her tinkling voice breaking the spell that Emma seemed to be under. She avoids the raised eyebrow her grandfather shooting at her, knowing that he's wondering why they both, Emma and Killian, insisted on not being together when that's exactly the way they're acting.

"I guess my mom will," Emma shrugs as she reaches in front of her to grab the wine decanter and refill her glass. "I find it hard to believe that after twisting my arm into doing this she wouldn't show up, but she's a mystery to me so maybe she won't and I'll get to count my blessings."

"Emma!" her grandmother calls out her name in a reprimanding tone, her blonde eyebrows scowling in Emma's direction.

Emma rolls her eyes.

"What?" she asks. "You know it's true, we have nothing in common," she states and the room gets swallowed up into silence again.

"I wish we did have something though," Emma mutters after a few moments, the wine and beer swirling contentedly in her stomach—a miracle if there ever was one—resulting in a lowering of her inhibitions. "I know she tries in her own way and I do too, I just…we're too different. I don't know why we can't ever be on the same side."

"That's because she doesn't understand you," her grandfather nods somberly from the other side. "You take after your dad's side of the family much more than you take after ours."

"I'm fairly sure I do not take after the Swans, gramps," Emma scoffs as she pushes the remnants of her dinner around her plate. She focuses on the intricate pattern around the border rather than on the weight the estrangement from her mother places on her shoulders, the royal blue trim swirling against white china in sophisticated swirls that make up different flowers of all shapes and sizes until it all blurs away after staring at it for so long.

"You don't," he assents. "You have LaBoeuf in you more so than you have Nolan or Swan."

Emma's entire being runs cold. Was her grandfather referring to the Lousiana LaBoeufs, the family that she was currently researching for and the family that she was not at all aware that she formed part of?

"LaBoeufs?" Killian asks for her. "As in the family that owned the big mansion on the Quarter and the sugar cane plantation up north?"

"Mhm," her grandfather nods. "The very same."

"Dad's family has always been from Long Island," Emma starts shaking her head. "I've never heard dad or anyone mention the LaBoeufs at all."

Her grandmother comes back into the room with a tin of apple crumble pie on one hand and a tub vanilla ice cream on the other. Her lips are pursed at the fact that they were still discussing private family matters in front of guests. Adele Nolan was a very firm supporter of the notion that one should never air out dirty laundry for everyone to see, yet in this case Emma had told Killian all about her estrangement with her mother weeks ago and she's more than sure that David did not spare Mary Margaret any details on his relationship with his father. Figuratively speaking, both Mary Margaret and Killian had seen the dirty laundry and had even helped both Emma and David to fold it up and try to move past it.

"That's because most of your arrogant father's arrogant family were ashamed of your great-great uncle and he married one of the LaBoeufs from Louisiana," he huffs, slicing off a piece of apple crumble pie and vanilla ice cream with his spoon.

"Please, gramps, tell me how you really feel about my father's side of the family," Emma laughs, her teeth nibbling her lower lip to try and restrain her smile from grinning any wider at the deadpan look her grandfather directed at her. It was no secret that Reginald Nolan could not stomach Tripp Swan, and that delicate piece of dirty laundry was aired and hung on a pillar like a flag that waged war against her father's side of the family ever since the darling Nolan girl came back from a trip to New York with a fetus in her uterus only weeks past gestation. "Who was this uncle I've never heard of?"

"I think his name was Theodore, but rumor has it he was a bit of a poof."

"Your homophobia is showing, Reggie," David snickers from across the table, earning him a steely glare from their grandfather.

"That was the rumor that was spread for decades and I'm just setting the stage for the story but if you wish to correct a seventy-six year old, southern conservative white man's political incorrectness, be my guest. You'll have to answer to your cousin when I get too irritated to finish the story," her grandfather snaps and Emma has to bite her lips again as she's trying to control the nervous giggle that tends to slip from her mouth whenever David gets reprimanded instead of her.

"Okay, okay," Emma starts, "So there's a rumor that my great-great uncle was most likely gay and that's why he was shunned from the family. What's the rest of the story?"

Her grandfather tells her the story of her great-great grandfather and her cousin's namesake, David Nolan. Before being a prominent family in society, the Nolans had been farmers up in southern Louisiana—near the boot, he said, farther down by Plaquemines Parish—and they made transactions with the big families in New Orleans and the surrounding plantations for cattle, livestock, and the horses they bred. David had become close friends with the LaBoeuf girls, Charlotte, Elsa, and Emmeline, as he was often brought along for these transactions with his father. Her grandfather keeps talking about how his grandfather had told him that he had a mild-infatuation with Charlotte but she wouldn't look twice at him for being a shepherd—she was determined to marry a prince at whatever cost—but that Elsa and Emmeline had never given second thought to the chasm between their social classes and were cordial and well mannered to him whenever they were together. He and Emmeline had become confidants the summer she turned fifteen and they proceeded to getting into all sorts of trouble together, whether it was losing themselves in the French Market when their families travelled down to the Quarter, running along the acreage of the plantation barefoot or racing each other on horseback. She was a sad little girl but mischievous—an imp, her mother would call her since the day she was born—her temper was fiery, resembling the flares that stem from the surface of the sun every so often, but her heart was kind and a great friend. When Charlotte refused him, Emmeline saw it to introduce him to her maternal cousin Marie, a raven-haired young girl with light green eyes, who had lost both her parents during a hurricane that hit the French colony of Saint Martin in the Caribbean. Marie had been sent over to live with her aunt in Louisiana, she struggled to learn English, but David—at Emmeline's matchmaking insistence—taught her, Marie had been well-mannered and kind, and his match in every way. They were married the following spring.

David saw Emmeline debut and fall in love with the English lieutenant that she grew up with, and he saw her devastation when he had been lost in the war. Saw her filled with silent resilience in the months after his funeral, but she had hardened considerably with the loss of her true love, and closing herself off to any sort of comfort. After losing her lieutenant, Emmeline suffered loss after loss, what with her older sister Elsa dying from influenza and then her brother-in-law, the only connection she had left to her lieutenant, died weeks after his wife, when he raised a gun to his head when he couldn't take the demons that swirled in his mind after the war alongside the irrevocable loss of his sweet young bride and the child she had been carrying.

David witnessed as Emmeline was determined to stay strong despite all that happened but the loss weathered her, whittling her body down nearly to the bare bones that held her up. Salvation seemed to come down years after the loss of her lieutenant, in the form of the courting of one Theodore Swan from New York, a wealthy but rather eccentric young man that became enthralled with her when he saw her with her very pregnant cousin Marie, both of them walking down the French Quarter when Emmeline was twenty years old. Emmeline did not love him, maybe she grew to at one point, but she was persuaded by her father, her mother, and her friends to let him in if not for love, then for the financial protection her parents weren't able to provide anymore since during those years they had suffered physical losses as well. A hurricane had struck the southern region of Louisiana and the crops had been flooded by the overflowing Mississippi, leaving her family to lose profits till the next harvesting season. Emmeline ended up marrying Theodore and moving to Paris till she moved stateside in the late thirties, taking up residence in Long Island.

"And that's why we live in the manor now, don't we?" Emma voices, recalling something that Xiomara, the Puerto Rican housemaid that raised her, had told her once. Xo had caught an eight-year-old Emma trying to get into parts of the house that she was forbidden to explore. It was dangerous, Xo had told her, since most of the house was still being renovated because nobody had lived in it in years. When Emma asked why nobody lived in it beforehand, Xo explained that her father had been waiting for a girl to be born into the family so they could move in.

Her grandfather nods.

"We used to live in Manhattan but when I was born my dad inherited this huge manor in Long Island from his great-aunt, I just never thought about it," Emma explains and she hopes against hope that the reason they inherited the house from Emmeline LaBoeuf and the reason that a female Swan child hadn't been born in nearly four generations had nothing to do with her or anything Ursula had told her.

Her name wasn't Harry James Potter, she thought, and she refuses to be part of any century-old prophecy.

"That was intense," Killian mutters next to her, the lights of oncoming traffic illuminating his face. He's driving them back now, his eyes focused intently on the causeway ahead of them, and the streetlights illuminating the inky black abyss that hung between the night sky and the darkened lake. You still couldn't see the skyline on the other shore, and the bridge seemed to go on for years, it seemed endless.

"Yeah," Emma agrees with him. "I'm sorry about that, it's usually pretty chill and less like The Maury Show."

Killian laughs at that, tells her that it was nothing like The Maury Show, and once again Emma is filled with the satisfaction of bringing joy to his face. The drive is less stressful on the way back, there's less traffic and they don't talk as much. Emma finds herself sneaking a handful of looks at him, taking in the way he mumbles the words to the songs the radio plays, singing under his breath as his eyes flit expertly throughout every rearview mirror, his focus entirely at his task at hand.

She's about to go down her little fuck-struck rabbit hole when he speaks out,

"Any word from Graham?"

"Radio silence," she mutters back, and looks out to the dark view that surrounds them, unable to distinguish where land commenced, water ended, and the night sky began. She focuses on the stars around them, brighter out here in the middle of nowhere than they ever will be as they compete with the false illumination of the city.

Graham, she thinks as she starts to see the faint outline of the New Orleans skyline from the bridge, she still has him.

Yes, she still has him and she owes it to him to be respectful of their relationship until they don't have one anymore.

"Well, he's crazy about you," Killian ensures, shooting a reassuring grin her way. "I'm sure he'll call soon."

'Are you crazy about me?' Emma finds herself thinking, her throat dry and eyes enlarged in surprise, the destination that her thoughts brought her rendering her speechless.

"Maybe I'll call him," Emma muses, and she hopes that the darkness that flits through Killian's features is due to his unease with the thought of her and Graham together again, and not a shadow caused by the unlit streetlight they had just passed.

They spend the rest of the drive to MidCity in silence, the soft rock whirling around them as unnoticed as the slight chill that came in from the outside wind. Emma drops him off at his apartment, and he leaves not without placing another kiss on her cheek. She shakes her head at the way the warmth spreads low in her belly, choosing to deny the feelings and blame the warmth on the mixture of beer and wine she ingested earlier.

She lies on her bed hours later, feeling confused, panicky, and uneasy for three different reasons. The first, because Graham had called, had apologized to her, and had asked her out to dinner this week to clear the air. The second, because a strong part of her wished that Killian had called her and asked her out to dinner instead. The third, because for the past two hours she had been scouring the deep corners of Google for pictures of Emmeline LaBoeuf and had only found something when she searched for Theodore Swan, who had been a prominent member of the Surrealist movement in Paris in the 1920s. Listed as his spouse was one Elsa Swan, an heiress from New Orleans turned silver-screen actress in Paris. Emma had clicked on the link, and she scrolled through the limited information provided until a photograph stopped her in her tracks, a photograph she'd recognize anywhere. Emma felt faint as she took in the same wedding picture she had seen back in September, and as she took in her own resilient green eyes staring back at her from her computer screen.

Emma has dinner with Graham the following Wednesday, and it's awkward to say the least—"Hella-fucking-awkward," as Ruby would so aptly put it. He's tentative around her, treating her like a ticking time bomb, which Emma thinks is curious seeing as he was the one that lashed out at her last time they were together. Still, part of her still wants to make this work between them, prove to herself that she can be a decent girlfriend, that she can make herself as infatuated with him as she was back in August. They go out to a local pizzeria on Magazine Street, it's low-key, casual, and a clear invitation back to normalcy.

"I've missed you," he tells her anxiously toying with the napkin next to his plate, his hand outstretched and twitching slightly, almost as if he's desperate to take her hand into his. Emma, though, doesn't have that same inclination and keeps her hands on her lap instead.

"I've missed you too," she answers him and it wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the truth either. It was a sentence that fell somewhere in the middle in the spectrum of the truth/lie hybrid, or in Emma's case the acceptance/stubbornness hybrid. She hasn't touched her food and she's desperate to keep the anxiety down her throat, keep the feeling of wanting desperately to be anywhere but here out of her mind. He clearly wants to fix this—whatever this is between them—and she should let him. It's only fair.

The conversation is limited throughout dinner, sporadic and clipped, and long silences tend to stretch uncomfortably between them. What was once filled with such promise, seemed to had fizzled out overnight, at least where Emma is concerned. She looks at him and finds that butterflies no longer swirl around the confines of her stomach, no swooping sensations, no goose bumps, no genuine happiness.

She looks at him and she feels nothing, no overwhelming attraction, no familiarity, and no genuine connection with him. Elsa's words ring in the back of her mind as she recalls the conversation they had had over brunch last week. Her limited experience with monogamous, serious relationships, hadn't given her any real insight on how a relationship should feel and Emma wonders whether what Elsa had with Liam—this apparent deeper level of understanding and love shared with a significant other—was a normal feature of every relationship, or if Elsa's connection with Liam was just a blip, the smaller, slimmer number in the ratio of love and understanding contrasted to a relationship based solely on attraction. And if that was the case, was Emma ever going to make the jump from the bigger number to the smaller one? Would she ever feel that connection that Elsa gushed about over lox and mimosas with Graham or was she kidding herself?

Throughout the night, Emma's mind flits back to the conversation she had with Mary Margaret last Sunday. After dinner at her grandparents, Emma needed air and walked out towards the pier. Thankfully, Killian didn't follow her, but Mary Margaret had caught her sitting on the wooden pier, watching the water slosh lazily against the shore and taking a much-needed drag out of a cigarette. Yes, Emma had quit well over a year ago but sometimes when she felt too anxious and the situation merited seeking solace in a pack of Marlboro Golds, she did just that. Mary Margaret didn't chastise her, instead she voiced her concerns about Emma's new relationship. She mentioned how she did not think Emma seemed happy, how Graham seemed controlling, and she wanted Emma to know that she was there for Emma, if she was so needed. Emma knew that Mary Margaret had a point, she wasn't happy in this relationship, but she wasn't about to give up on it either. Emma blames her pride, the pride that didn't want to admit that she had picked wrong, made the wrong choice. Emma doesn't make wrong choices, every decision she takes is carefully deliberated, the pros and cons weighed against each other. Emma Swan doesn't jump into anything without thinking through it, much less into a committed relationship.

Unless she was running from something.

And she had been running, hadn't she? Yes she had weighed the pros and cons, she had carefully deliberated the differences between Graham and Killian. She chose the safe option rather than the reckless one. She chose warm, hunter green eyes over tempestuous, blue ones. She chose earth over ocean, the stable over the unfathomable, Graham over Killian. Had that been the right choice? Would she feel the same way Elsa feels about Liam if she hadn't pushed Killian away because he frightened her and hadn't chosen Graham because he felt safe, when in reality the they had both turned out to be the opposite that she thought at first glance?

The ride home has her mind filled with thoughts she shouldn't be having. She shouldn't be thinking about how Killian was different than Graham, she shouldn't feel regret about the choice she made, she shouldn't wish to go back and kiss Killian that night he dropped her off at her apartment, or when he stayed with her at the hospital, both times where the attraction between them crackled like haywire electricity between two loose wires, and she definitely shouldn't be imagining kissing Killian in both those scenarios.

Nonetheless, that's what she did. She couldn't help but think about how Killian hadn't embarrassed her in front of her friends and questioned her acting choices. How Killian wasn't possessive, wanted her to put her studies before their friendship, and didn't show up at her apartment unannounced with plans made for both of them without consulting her beforehand. He didn't give her the silent treatment when he was upset with her, instead he let her know so they could move past it. Killian didn't suffocate her.

Denial surges through her the entire night, she doesn't want to think about Killian like that. They're friends nothing more than that and she had ensured that relationship status. And even if she hadn't, he's with Christine, so the fact that she's realizing that she has deep, saturated feelings for him doesn't matter. He's just as unavailable as she is.

Emma lets denial manifest in the best way she knows how. She has to feel something for Graham again, but as she lays bare in his bed that night she still doesn't feel anything. She had made the right sounds at the appropriate times, she had even half-enjoyed the feeling of him inside of her, but it had been just that: just sex. There was no attachment on her part, no reciprocal enthusiasm, there had only been an irrevocable void, an emptiness of feeling.

Graham's fingers swirl lazily across her freckled back, switching between toying with her hair and drawing faint patterns across her back. The seconds stretch between them in silence, his arm snaking its way across her stomach, pulling her closer.

"Emma?" he says after God knows how many minutes of silence.

"Hmm?" she offers sleepily next to him.

"I love you," he breathes next to her ear and her eyes, which seconds ago had almost drenched been completely in impending sleep, jerk wide open. Graham must feel her back, which had been relaxed mere seconds ago, go suddenly rigid against his chest because he mutters, "You don't have to say it back, I just wanted you to know."

Emma barely sleeps that night. Instead, she spends the rest of the night watching as the lights that stream from the window change as the hours progress, and fighting the undeniable, desperate urge that claws inside her body, the desire that begs for her to run.

Emma spends the rest of the month focusing on her studies, and most importantly on researching her great-great-aunt, Emmeline. After Graham threw the three little words bomb on her, she avoided him in the only way she knew how: schoolwork. She didn't love him that was for sure. Funny how life is, isn't it? How you become the one thing you fear the most, here Graham had put his heart on the line for her and she was going to have to be the one to crush it into dust. Nonetheless, with finals coming up for both of them, breaking up with Graham was the last thing she wanted to do. She needed to focus on writing an incredible paper for Mills' History of New Orleans in order to level out her grade, she needed to start preparing her topics for her Sociology of Gender test, write an essay for her philosophy class, study for two extra finals on top of needing to go to her advisor to give him a topic for her capstone presentation, and picking a date to take the GRE. Dealing with the unrequited love between her and Graham wasn't of utmost importance. If Graham didn't snap at her before finals were done, she'd deal with him after. Emma kind of hopes that he does snap at her before though, that way she can act as Pontius Pilate and wash her hands from the gory crucifixion of Graham Humbert's love.

Emma spends most of her time in the library, with Killian and her taking turns on separating study rooms for each other. On top of working planning lessons for the school he works for, he needs to fine tune planning the stay at Oak Ridge Plantation for Mills' class, still has to turn in a rough draft of his thesis, which he presents at the end of next spring semester, by December 18th. The next three Sundays, even the one following Thanksgiving, Killian works on his draft while Emma takes practice tests for the GRE in the mornings and researches for her term paper after lunch. Most nights she's beat and ready to go home by eight o'clock, but there are some days that they stay until ten or eleven. Late nights like those involve her and Killian stopping by Granny's Diner on their way home and eating their second meal of the day in the form of lasagna for Killian and grilled cheese with onion rings for Emma.

During their study sessions they grew even closer if possible. Emma grew fond of his company, and he did instill a sense of dedication to her studies that none of her friends had before. Usually, she and Ruby would end up in the library for hours but half of the time was used to gossip and the other half was used to studying for twenty minutes and then taking a two hour Netflix break because 1) they deserved it, and 2) the Wi-Fi at school was much better than the one at their apartment. With Killian though, they worked for hours at a time, took breaks by talking to and getting to know each other during lunch or walks to stretch their legs out. Not once did they mention Christine or Graham. From the looks of it—because Killian was reserved when it came to her—he was also having some issues with Christine, the words "smothered" and "overwhelmed" were the only ones Emma could get out of him about the whole ordeal. Those words were enough to paint a decent picture of what was going on between them.

Emma wished that the fact that he was having trouble with Christine didn't make her feel all sorts of smug and complacent on the inside, but they did. Every time she felt this way she tried to bury the feelings under a mountain of paperwork. If she didn't have the time to deal with Graham, then she definitely shouldn't be making time to become increasingly infatuated with Killian either.

The fact that there was a department policy against students messing around with graduate assistants was a contributing factor to her stance against wanting to give into her infatuation. But even more controlling was the fact that they were friends, and that was all they would be. Shehad the opportunity to choose him months ago, but she convinced herself that she needed whatever relationship she had with him to be platonic and only platonic. Plus, what they had right now was so good, she didn't want to ruin it by telling him that she was into him. Well, "into him" was kind of an understatement, but she doesn't want to give more weight to her affections than needed, the fact that she has them is bad enough.

The fieldtrip to Oak Ridge Plantation was scheduled for the first weekend of December. It was a little late for the trip but with the amount of rain that had hit Louisiana during the fall, Mills had to push back the date to the earliest convenience, which of course was the only free weekend of December students had before finals. Still, the trip was mandatory, and though most of them were grumbling they drove out towards the plantation. Most of the students, except the sophomores infatuated with Killian, had decided against of the optional overnight stay.

As chaperones, though, Killian and Emma were expected to greet the students along with Professor Mills the next morning in the plantation, and though neither of them were too keen on driving almost two hours to the plantation on a Friday afternoon, they preferred it to meeting up with the rest of the class at six on a Saturday morning and then driving almost two hours.

Emma meets Killian in the school parking lot Friday afternoon around five, the sun had already set so they were both looking forward to a grim two hour drive through Bumfuck, Louisiana, as Emma was disdainfully calling it. Emma waits on the benches on the quad nearest to the garage with a duffel bag filled with clothes, shoes, and toiletries and another bag with food for the two-hour drive ahead of them, lying at her feet.

She rolls her eyes as she hear a wolf-whistle directed at her, nearly five months later and Killian is just as insufferable as the first day she met him. Her heart still beats erratically when he is in her presence and her stomach still does a little swooping motion whenever he looks at her, the only difference now is that Emma wouldn't mind waking up with his head between her legs whereas five months ago she would've punched him in the face if he got too close to her. Lately, he hasn't been close enough.

"You're late," Emma tells him derisively and Killian meets her deadpan look with his own.

"Och, something I'm very aware of, lass," he says contemptuously. "I tried to get here as fast as I could," he tells her. "I was attempting to do something nice for you, but with this attitude I think I'll let you suffer for a bit."

"Sorry, you know how I get when—,"

"When you're cold and hungry? Aye, which is why I stopped by Granny's to get us dinner," he tells her pulling a brown grease-stained bag from his backpack and waving it towards her, "before I subject myself to a two hour car ride with you," Killian finishes with a smirk in her direction.

"Is that a grilled cheese with onion rings?" Emma asks wistfully, her mouth watering and her stomach grumbling in response.

"What the buggering fuck else would it be?" Killian asks bewildered, "Aside from the short ribs we had at your grandparents' house, this is the only thing I've only seen you eat." Emma stares at him and he grins back at her, "Come on Swan, we can eat it on the ride over, I don't want to be on the road any longer than I need to be."

Killian thrusts the bag with their dinner into Emma's hands and grabs her duffel bag before she is able to get to it. "Ah, ah, bad form, Swan," he reprimands her when she opens the bag and takes out an onion ring. "Put it back," he says and Emma glares at him but obliges.

"You're a sadistic ass," Emma grumbles.

"And you're being a child," Killian counters with a smirk and Emma has to bite back an exasperated scream. He's taken to calling her that lately, mostly to make fun of their two-year age difference, but partly because of how stubborn she was. It's ridiculous really, but every time it riles her up like crazy.

"Stop calling me that!" Emma cries out, wanting to curl up and die after realizing that he's laughing at her for stomping her foot in protest, much like a child. "Can we just go? I'd like to get our pilgrimage to Bumfuck started."

"I do love how crass you are," Killian grins as he opens up the massive white van.

"I do love how we need to drive this pedophile van," Emma counters, helping him to put the bags in the backseat before sitting on the front seat.

"Aye, university policy, I'm afraid," he shrugs as he slides into the driver's seat, slipping the key into the ignition, and turning the van on. As they let the van warm up, Killian hands over the auxiliary cord, telling her that she's in charge of music while he starts setting up the GPS. After she picks a decent album selection—A Night at the Opera by Queen—and he sets the GPS, they pull out of the parking garage and make their way to Vacherie, Lousiana.

They get lost, and what according to the GPS should have taken a little over an hour due to the lack of traffic, takes nearly four hours through back roads and questionable routes next to dirt levees and a turn down a street called Blood River Road. When they thought they were almost to the plantation, their GPS went haywire, rerouting the route fifteen different times, and their smartphones had lost all signal.

"We're going to die in the swamp," Emma told him at one point, as the clock neared nine and their car was enveloped in a thick fog down a back road.

"I'm not going to let you die in the swamp," Killian mumbled back, irritated.

"We could've asked for direc—,"

"Don't, Swan, we don't need bloody directions. This is a state of the art GPS and we should be able to find our way to this bloody place without needing to ask for directions."

"Fine, but that state of the art GPS isn't working. I give you half an hour, if not we're turning around and going to the gas station we passed five minutes ago and asking for directions," Emma huffed back, crossing her arms against her chest. Killian doesn't respond, and Emma smiles at the deep furrowed scowl on his features. She doesn't want to think about how handsome she finds him, how undeniably attracted she is to him, but somehow as her eyes start to get heavy-lidded and she feels herself get drowsy, the last thought she has centers around what would have happened she hadn't been so scared and she had chosen Killian over Graham all those months ago. Would they have worked? Would they have fizzled out? Would they have had something strictly physical or could it have been the greatest love she had ever encountered? They were both so similar, and as friends he was quickly becoming the best one she's ever had, and when she closes her eyes she finds herself wishing that they would've ended up being the latter.

"Wake up, Swan," Killian's voice rouses her from sleep. Emma mumbles, turning in her seat and away from him. "Emma, come on, we're here, we're tired, and there are beds waiting for us upstairs lass."

"Leavemealone," she grumbles, feeling the undeniable urge to punch him in the face.

"Fine, stay here and keep drooling on yourself. I'm sure Mills will find this to be a remarkable sight tomorrow morning," she hears Killian tell her, and she can just picture the smirk on his face. Wait, did he say she was drooling on herself?

Emma sits up quickly, her sudden movements reminding her of that one time during sophomore year when she slept through her alarm and woke up fifteen minutes before her biology final.

"What time is it?" she asks groggily, rolling her eyes in response his snickering once she wiped the drool off the side of her mouth.

Great Emma, she thinks, way to make sure he is completely turned off from you for the rest of eternity.

"S'nearly ten thirty," he says through a yawn, stretching his arms above him making his shirt rise up with the movement and exposing the toned lower abdomen that has been driving Emma wild since she saw it back at the hospital all those months ago.

"How did we get here so fast?" Emma asked, taking her duffel bag and the snack bag out of the van and swinging it over her shoulder, a yawn raking through her body as well.

"I may or may not have stopped for directions shortly after you passed out," he shrugs nonchalant, but Emma sees the telltale sign of embarrassment in the reddening of the tips of his ears. Emma grins and follows him through threshold on the massive porch and inside to the front desk.

Killian handles the check-in, what with Emma still half asleep on her feet. The lanky teenager at the front desk hands them a key to their room and the itinerary for tomorrow's activities. There's talk about horse riding, traditional southern buffet for lunch, a tour of the Big House, a historical background to the LaBoeuf Estate, a tour of the cemetery, and the sugar cane fields, and for those over twenty-one, a tasting of the house liqueur. Emma only half listens to everything, her body still tired from sleeping only a little less than a normal sleep cycle.

She's fallen asleep again, her head rested on her arm that lay against the front desk, when he nudges her and says, "Come on Sleeping Beauty, let's get you to bed."

"Don't call me that," Emma mumbles groggily.

"Tell me, Emma, am I allowed any endearments?" He asks her, regarding her warily as she takes the stair steps at a glacial pace.

"You may call me, 'love,'" she mumbles, managing to sound imperiously despite being half asleep, and grinning like a fool when she extends her hand towards him and he indulges her by giving her a little bow.

"I'd like that," he says quietly, and if Emma were a little more alert, she would've noticed how flustered he sounded. "Room 302," he announces, grinning at her as she rests her head against the wall and stumbling a bit with the key as he notices the look she gives him. The term "bedroom eyes" would not be too far-fetched here.

"After you, love. I'll be right back, going to fetch us something to drink," he says and Emma nods grabbing her bags and stepping inside the room and straight towards the bathroom, suddenly aware of the desperate urge she had to use the facilities. Once she relieves her bladder, she splashes water on her face to wake herself up a bit.

"Oh, bloody hell," she hears Killian say from outside.

"What's up?" Emma asks as she pokes her head from the bathroom door. He shakes his head at her and pointing at the bed, the single marital bed in the room. "I thought we ordered two separate beds," Emma says, feeling undeniably awake again.

"We did," Killian mutters, "don't get to comfortable I'm going to see if we can get a change of rooms."

"Okay," she mumbles softly, unable to deny that part of her did not mind the accommodations at all.

She really needs to break up with Graham.

Still, as she waits for Killian—the friend who she has ever-increasing feelings for—she swipes through her phone to message Graham—the boyfriend that she has ever-decreasing interest in—that they had gotten lost but had made it to the plantation in one piece and were already in the room.

"Separate rooms?" Graham messaged back with far too many question marks and Emma groaned, letting herself collapse on the soft king bed.

"Yes," she messaged back, a lie but one that was necessary to get him off her back. He messages her again, signing off with another "I love you," and Emma had never had a stronger urge to hurl her phone outside the window.

"Everything is booked, of-fucking-course!" Killian cries exasperatedly once he's back inside the room.

"What about the ones booked for the students' tomorrow?"

"There's people in them, they check out tomorrow morning."

"Ah," Emma responds.

"You take the bed," Killian says gruffly, taking a couple of pillows from the bed, "I'll sleep on the floor."

"Like hell you are," Emma snaps at him, "You drove all the way out here for hours, I'm not letting you sleep on the floor."

"It's not right," Killian starts but whatever protest he was going to continue with, is silenced by the glare Emma directed at him.

"Killian," she starts, "This bed is huge, we're friends, we're both involved with other people, and my reputation will not be besmirched because we share a bed for two nights. It's fine."

"You're sure?" He asks, clutching the pillow to his chest.

"Positive," Emma smiles at him and pats the mattress next to her. "Now, do you want to shower first or should I?"

"You go ahead," he answers.

Once she's done with the shower, Emma finds Killian thumbing through his smartphone, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration as he's scrolling down whatever he's reading. He's still in the same clothes he was wearing earlier, the dark wash jeans hanging low on his hips—the band of his underwear peeking over them—his leather jacket is still on but it's open wide at the bottom, falling loosely on either side of his torso and allowing the shirt he wears—a navy one with Keith Richard's face and the words "Keith Richards for President" emblazoned on the front. As she stands across from him, she feels strangely naked in her pajamas. She had only brought her comfiest, and also flimsiest, white oversized sweatshirt that almost completely covered an obscenely tiny pair of shorts but in her defense, her longer fleece pajama pants were dirty and she didn't foresee having to share a bed with him.

"Bathroom is all yours," Emma says brightly, trying to cover-up just how nervous she had started to feel once she realized that she had offered to share a bed with Killian. Killian, her friend whom she was undeniably and increasingly infatuated with.

Awesome, she thought sarcastically, job well done, Emma.

Killian simply stares at her, momentarily taken aback by her attire, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallows thickly.

"Somehow I don't think this will go over well with your Irishman," he says thickly, his eyebrows raised and his hand doing a sweeping gesture at her.

"I have pants," Emma offers defensively, rolling her eyes as she lifts the hem of her sweatshirt. Killian shakes his head, but acquiesces and bends down to rummage through his backpack for his pajamas and his toiletries. "Look if it bothers you that much, we can order a cot tomorrow. It's too late for any of that tonight, so we're sharing the bed whether you like it or not." She feels her head cock at the sight of him bending over in front of her and she can't help but think that she's the one who should be made to sleep in the cot.

"Has any one ever told you that you're incredibly bossy?" He taunts as he straightens up. Toiletries and clothes in hand, he makes his way to where she stands with her hands crossed against her chest and her face pursed in a scowl. "I have to say I kind of like it," he grins cheekily at her, his hand outstretched towards her and threading the end of her braid through his thumb and forefinger before tugging at it roughly and scampering off to the bathroom to escape her retaliation.

She takes it back, she hates him—loathes entirely.

Exhaustion overwhelmed her completely once she slid into the cool sheets and the comfort of the mattress, making Emma fall asleep almost instantly as her head fell on the pillow. She slept like a rock, unable to feel the moment Killian slipped into the bed next to her, and completely unaware that they had gravitated towards each other during the night.

The alarm clock on both their phones go off simultaneously, startling both Killian and Emma awake at the same time. In a split second she notices the strange, but not unwelcome, position they awoke in. Her mind tries to memorize the sensation of his arms around her and the feeling of the coarse hair and the warm skin of his chest underneath the splayed fingers that had somehow found their way underneath his shirt. She was tucked against his warm chest, his chin resting on the crown of her head, and his legs trapping one of her own between his.

There's a light squeeze between them—miniscule and barely noticeable, but still there—before they both scatter off each other as if electrocuted. Unruly desire surges through her as she takes him in—the way his hair stood up in every direction, the scruff that was a slightly darker shade this morning, the way his blue eyes were blown out in amazement, (scared amazement, but still). She finds herself unfathomably attracted to the fact that he woke up next to her in bed, her mind only thinking about how she wanted to straddle his lap, make out with him and let him make her his.

"Sorry," she mumbles, shaking her head.

"S'quite alright," he says as he waves his hand dismissively. "It was a rather cold night."

"Yeah," Emma nods as she tugs at her braid nervously, wishing that the mortification she felt—or the sudden arousal that she felt coating her folds—didn't show up on her face. "Did you want to use the bathroom first?" she asks him, stepping out of the bed and unable to look at him.

"Nah, you go ahead," he says, his voice flustered. At the tone of his voice, Emma turns around to look at him inquisitively, and finds him sitting up against the headrest, his phone in his hand and a cushion covering his lap.

Well, she thinks, at least I wasn't the only one.

Who would have thought that spending time in a plantation would be so exhausting? Seriously, this place was marketed to be relaxing, and Emma guesses it would be if they had just gone to stay at the plantation and not taken advantage of every little tour the place had to offer.

Save for their little mishap once they woke up, the day had started out leisurely. Awkwardly they scuffled around each other, not quite avoiding each other, but definitely embarrassed of waking up tangled in each other's arms. They had breakfast in near silence, ordered a cot to be sent to the room, and waited on the porch till Professor Mills and the students arrived at the location.

Chaperoning had turned out to be busy work, as it turned out that Professor Mills was only planning on going on the general tours of the Big House, cemetery, and sugar cane fields, but had no intention of riding a horse through the estate's acreage. Emma wanted desperately to take a nap after the buffet but they were ushered out of the Big House by their tour-guide and taken out to the sugar cane field.

They walk through a maze made out of the tall stalks of sugarcane, Killian by her side but still not saying much.

You had to go and make it weird, Emma chastises herself.

Except he was the one with the boner, her Ruby conscience countered.

This is true.

It's only when they're back in their room that she feels like the air has cleared between them. They shared jokes as they made the rounds through all of the student's rooms—it was mostly Emma commenting that that was how being a Prefect at Hogwarts must have felt like—checking to see if they were adhering to the rules and in the rooms they were supposed to be in.

"Have you ever felt so tired that you can't sleep?" Emma sighs, as she lies on the bed her head propped on her hand as she looks over at Killian who sits on the very uncomfortably looking cot. "Like, you're exhausted but you're too wired from the events of the day to just sit still and relax?"

"I take it that's how you're feeling right now?" Killian asks, his voice tired but amused.

"A little bit," she sighs as she plops down on the bed.

"What would you like me to do about it?" He asks her, as he starts folding his clothes and packing them back into his bag.

"Just talk to me," Emma sighs. She feels so tired that her eyes feel almost as heavy as her limbs.

"About what?"

Emma sighs again, and decides to roll off the bed. She walks slowly towards the cot, the fluffy sucks she wears skidding slightly on the hardwood floors beneath her feet.

"Let's play Twenty Questions," she states before siting on the cot. She scowls as a spring digs uncomfortably into her ass, but she doesn't move.

"You get three questions," he mutters, his voice slightly aggravated. "I, unlike you, am feeling incredibly knackered and I'm certain that I'm five seconds from passing out." Killian lifts his feet onto the cot, flinching slightly as a spring undoubtedly digs into his own ass when he moves on the three-inch thick slab of fabric that is a poor excuse for a mattress.

"Are you really going to sleep on this tonight?" Emma asks.

"Yes, and I'm counting that as your first question."

Emma glares at him.

"We're playing on the bed," she demands.

"Fine, but I'm not sleeping on it. We don't need a repeat of this morning," he grumbles, following her and throwing himself unceremoniously onto the bed.

"Oh come on," Emma teases, flicking him on the shoulder. "You know you liked it."

"Emma," he warns.

"Fine, fine," she laughs. "You'll sleep on the cot, but I'm not driving tomorrow just because you had a shitty night because you chose to sleep on that bed of springs rather than risk waking up to find yourself spooning me."

"Ask your question," he deadpans, and Emma knows that he's trying to seem unfazed by her comment, but she can see a smirk forming on his full lips.

"What's your favorite color?" she asks. It's the first question that comes to mind, a stupid question by all intents and purposes, but it's the first one that she thinks of and she blurts it out.

"Really? That's the best you've got?" he asks incredulous, and this time he does smirk.

"Yes," Emma snaps. "Now answer the question, Jones."

"Oh, Jones, is it now?" he laughs.

"Answer it."

"Red," he answers without skipping a beat, tucking his knees up to his chest and resting his chin on them. "What's yours?" he asks, his blue eyes twinkling.

"Blue," she answers confidently, and no, it's not because his eyes are that color. As a matter of fact, she's always been fond of the color and every shade in its spectrum.

"You always have to go against me, don't you?" He asks as he plops down on the mattress and his arms shoot up to rest his head on his hands.

"It's my life's mission," Emma nods, as she looks down at him.

"Last question Swan," he grins, "You better make it a good one."

"No, I still have two," Emma counters, directing a glare at him and poking him just below the fourth rib. Killian winces before he rolls his eyes at her and outstretches his right hand to flick her on her earlobe.

"No. I told you I was counting the other one as a question and you agreed to it."

"Fine," Emma nearly snarls, her earlobe still tender from where he had flicked her. She mulls over a good question, one that might get them talking past one word answers and an insurmountable amount of teasing. She lets herself fall back onto the plushy mattress, the sheets are still cool against her worn-out muscles. Closing her eyes she wonders if he'd answer something personal, something like what she ends up asking. "What's your biggest fear?"

"Now there's a question!" He grins enthusiastically, before looking up at the ceiling to mull over his answer. Emma watches him intently, waiting for his answer, as he threads his left hand through his hair. She notices a jagged scar that stems from his wrist to his forearm, it's a deep pink and most likely years old or so—she makes a mental note to ask him about it some other time.

"Yeah, okay. So, answer it," Emma prods impatiently.

"Death," he answers confidently, still looking up at the ceiling. "Not the act itself, I'm not really afraid of dying. I'm afraid of what comes after that."

"How so?" She asks him, turning her body and attention completely towards him as she tucks her knees up to her stomach and her hands underneath her chin.

"Well, I don't quite fancy the idea of living this incredible life for decades and then dying and then just becoming nothing, you know?" He answers as he turns towards her and mirrors her position.

"Yeah, that makes sense," she breathes. She's so close to him that if she were to scoot forward an inch, her face would be parallel to his and their lips mere centimeters apart.

"Does it?" Killian asks her just as softly, his black pupils dilated wide.

"I mean…you won't know till you get there but, yeah," Emma nods and her voice is still low and breathy. "Like, who tells your story? What is the point of living and achieving all these great things during your lifetime if you're just going to be nothing at the end of it?"

"Exactly," Killian grins and once again she is elated that she's the reason behind the smile.

"A valid fear." Emma tells him proudly.

"Thank you for your validation," he chuckles, color rushing to the apples of his cheeks. "You know how strongly I seek it."

"I know," Emma teases, her green eyes bright as she reaches out to him instinctively to brush away the amount of fringe that had fallen into his line of vision and brushing it back with her fingers. "It gives you purpose, far be it from me to deprive you of it."

"What are you afraid of, Swan?" Killian asks quietly.

"Honestly?"

"No, please lie to me," he answers sarcastically, but still grinning at her.

"Shut up," Emma responds.

"Make me," he taunts, and the way his tongue slides along the length of his bottom lip is a risk that challenges the mood in the room.

"I'm afraid of not knowing," Emma answers him, deciding to play it safe rather than acquiesce to his challenge.

Killian knits his eyebrows.

"What do you mean?"

"It's just a handful of fears that kind of jumble up into one big amalgam of fear of the unknown, I guess." Emma shrugs to cover up the fact that her heart felt like beating out of her chest right now because there it was all out in the open. She had taken the lid off of the can of worms that contained her anxieties, and dumped the contents of a metaphorical purse on the couch and invited him into her problems.

"Amalgam, that's a fancy word for you," Killian says, and leave it to him to tease her when she's on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

"So says the human thesaurus," she snaps, her eye roll so thorough that her eyes threatened to roll right out of her head. "Can I finish?"

"Be my guest," he nods, grinning smugly at her.

"I don't like it when I don't have control over things. I make plans to plan things out, even though I know it's stupid to try to plan out every little detail when there's like a huge percent chance that it'll go the other way," Emma explains, her voice shaky and nervous but as she keeps talking she feels a weight being lifted off of her shoulders. "I'm afraid of not knowing what's going to happen and having no control over it. I'm afraid of letting people in because I don't know if they're being truthful. I can't trust someone's word that they won't leave, because I don't know if that's the truth." She's heaving, her breaths coming out in short breaths because even now, even as she explains her true fears to him she feels the anxiety that stems from her loss of control threatening to cripple her entirely.

"You'll drive yourself insane thinking that way, love," Killian responds, his arm stretching out towards her and pulling her close to him and lazily rubbing his hand soothingly against the middle of her back. She finds herself nuzzling her face against his neck, feeling comfortable in his embrace—feeling at home, and feeling complete.

"Trust me, I know," She mumbles, her voice muffled by his embrace and she feels his warm skin erupt in goose bumps as her breath makes contact with it. "It's why I'm on anxiety medication."

"Look, I know it's hard to let people in and feel like you're losing control over everything, but the best that you can do is take everything one day at a time, cross those bridges that frighten you when you get to them," he says, his voice warm and comforting next to her ear. "Trust me when I say that I'll not leave you." He pulls away from her, and she really shouldn't be so disappointed at the loss of contact. Emma smiles ruefully as he inches away from her, his arms stretching wide above him as a yawn rakes throughout his entire body.

"You should get back to your cot," she tells him as he turns towards her and gives her a lazy smile.

"I should," he yawns again before adding, "If only we lived in a world of 'shoulds'."

"Are you going to?"

"I'm quite comfortable here, actually," he responds, and his voice is steadily getting slower as exhaustion threatens to overcome his senses completely. Together they lift up the sheets and settle underneath the comforter, the cool textile resting against warm skin.

"What if we wake up spooning again?" she asks quietly, her own voice feeling sluggish and her eyes drooping in a steady pace.

She sees him grin.

"Then we cross that bridge when we get to it," he teases, his eyes closed and his breath starting to even out.

The room is colder tonight, for the sole reason that it's supposed to rain in a few hours. Emma wonders if she could get him to be okay with her cuddling up to him, it makes her feel so complete to be in his arms. She shouldn't feel that way at all, but it's the truth.

"Killian?"

"Hmm?"

"Can we cross that bridge now? I'm freezing and you're a human furnace." He stays quiet for what seems like an eternity and she half wants to die or make herself sleep on the cot instead.

"Come on then," he answers as he lifts up his side of the comforter, allowing her to shimmy up to him. Her back is to his front, Killian acting like the big spoon in the situation with his hand draped across her middle, but they leave about two inches between themselves. "But no funny business, and keep those icicles you call feet away from me," he mutters, his voice soft but stern against her ears.

"Goodnight, Killian," she says, her voice breathy thanks to her laughter.

"Night, Ems," he murmurs, his voice sounding as heavy as her eyelids feel. It takes a matter of seconds for both their breathing to even out and for them to fall in a deep, tired slumber.

A blinding white light starts to awaken her, pulsating brightly behind her closed eyelids. Emma feels her eyes flutter open, seemingly against her own will, and a mild panic starts to set in.

She's awake now, yes, but she cannot move.

Instead, Emma struggles to find reason in the sight that's in front of her. Maybe if she could just turn around and set her eyes on Killian she would be able to ignore the pulsating orb of light that hangs above the vanity and across the room from their shared bed.

Killian was real, the orb was not.

It couldn't be.

Her mind feels fully awake, but her body doesn't respond to her brain's commands. She's stuck, paralyzed, as she is forced to watch the orb descend towards her, beckoning, calling her towards it.

"Killian can you see this?" she hears herself say, her voice sounding muffled to her own ears.

He doesn't respond. Killian is dead asleep, and it makes her question whether she was dead asleep as well. That was the only logical explanation to all this, wasn't it? That this was one of those hyper-vivid dreams she always had, brought upon by exhaustion and her anxiety, and she was going to wake up tomorrow morning and wouldn't remember any of it. Yes, that seems like a good explanation as any, except she's been taking her Xanax religiously, and she hasn't had one of these dreams since she was released from the hospital. No, try as she might to deny it, there was no doubt in her mind that she was awake. She couldn't deny that a sudden chill had descended in the room, enveloping her in it, and making her wish that she could seek out Killian's warmth just as she had last night. The air was thick around her, making it hard to breathe, and that the room was engulfed in an eerie silence, so still that you could hear a pin drop.

Emma's chest heaves quickly and the orb seems to pulsate brightly as it notices that Emma is cognizant of its presence. That's so stupid, it's an orb of light. It can't notice that she's awake, there's no consistence to it, there's no structure to it, there's no validity. Nonetheless, Emma watches it entranced as it travels towards her, fear prickling at her skin, making the hairs on the top of her neck stand on edge. The orb, ever effervescent, keeps its path towards the bed, towards her, until it stops in the center of the bed and eerie shadows splay on the canopy above them. Mesmerized, like a cicada to a swinging porch light on a humid summer day, Emma watches the orb as it seems to ponder to which person it should go to, which is stupid considering that it's a ball of light and balls of light don't ponder. Still, the it seems to make up its mind as it travels towards Killian, circling him methodically, almost as if the orb was equally mesmerized by him as Emma was by it. The orb shines brighter now, if possible, the light illuminating the entire room. Emma, now able to at least crane her neck, watches as Killian scowls underneath the blinding light.

"Stay away from him," she hears herself say, a fierce protective reaction stemming from deep in her chest.

The orb dims slightly and turns towards her, little specks of orange light now weaved throughout the predominantly blue and white lights. If Emma had another response for it, it dies in her throat as she sees the orb move quickly towards her until it stills above her face. Emma shuts her eyes, her eyesight sensitive to the brightness of it. She doesn't know what she's expecting but whatever it is, it doesn't happen. She squints one eye open, and the orb is still stilled above her, waiting.

"What do you want from me?" Emma asks. The orb simply starts to travel away from her and towards the door. Emma shakes her head. "I'm not following you," she says. Light throbs out again, more orange and reds in the sphere, and Emma recognizes the sentiment immediately as anger. Which, again, is a stupid thing to think seeing as balls of light do not get angry.

"Get mad at me all you want, I'm not going anywhere," Emma crosses her arms against her chest, thankful that she's allowed to move again. Emma swings her legs out of her side of the bed and perches herself resolutely on the mattress. An incredulous bubble of laughter travels up and escapes from her mouth as she finds herself, strangely, in what's basically an impasse with an artificially intelligent ball of light. The orb shines bright orange again at this, apparently taking Emma's laughter as a personal offense. In a blink of an eye, the flash of light jets towards Emma and it seeps through her body.

An odd sense of peace settles in Emma's entire being as her eyes glass over. The room changes around her, the lights flickering on, Killian no longer in the bed, and outside she can see the sky changing rapidly in what looks like a time-lapse in reverse. Specters of people flit around her, their clothes becoming increasingly more outdated. It goes on for what it seems like hours, but in reality it stopped as soon as it started.

Her feet patter expertly on the floor as she exits the room. The hallways, earlier lit with bright electricity, are now lit with gas lamps their dim lighting casting shadows all around her. Emma looks without seeing, her mind muted to her disbelief and instead open to watching the scenes unravel ahead of her. She hears a ragtime jazz song. Tiger Rag it's called, and she knows she's danced it before, but her heart hurts and she never wants to dance to that tune again. Emma feels herself anxious, as she takes on the commotion downstairs. There are people, entirely too many people, downstairs and she knows they're waiting for her.

This party was for her after all.

She brings her hand up to twirl the ring she carries looped around her necklace, finding peace and solace in it but also so much pain. It had been two years since he passed, but if death wasn't enough to make her let go, then an impending marriage wouldn't be enough either. The light catches on the deep blue tanzanite, a perfect match to her midnight blue dress. She smiles ruefully at the memory. Funny, how the last time she had gotten engaged she was completely bare as the day she was born, her hair matted with sweat around her forehead and cascading loosely atop her back. But today, as she's supposed to celebrate her new engagement, she was dressed in an intricate drop-waist gown, embellished with navy and gold rhinestones, a thick gold lamé headband strapped across the finger-wave curls that covered her forehead. Funny, how she felt more complete then, than she ever will again, but perhaps that's what happens when you slice your soul in three parts and your heart is completely shattered, you never get to feel anything to it's full potential ever again.

Emma walks purposefully, opting to use the service hallways to exit the house. She will deal with everyone later, but right now she cannot trust herself to play the part of a blushing bride when she feels worse about selling her soul to a rich husband, than she did when she actually sold her soul to the Loa. She leaves her shoes on the back porch, and smiles soundly as her feet hit the damp earth, the dewy grass filtering through her toes.

Emma feels the orb pulsating warmly from inside her chest, leading her, guiding her to the truth, and so she starts walking. A quick, unmeasured stride, that Emma feels she's taken before. It's cold out, but the orb's warmth keeps her from shivering. It does not, however, keep her dry from the rain that had started to fall an hour ago. In her mind's eye, though, it's not dark, it's not winter, and it's not raining. In her mind's eye it was dusk, it was late summer, and it was humid but that had not stopped her from grabbing a jacket off the back porch and sliding it on her thin shoulders.

Emma keeps walking towards her destination, it's a long walk to the cemetery, and it gives her time to think. Killian wanted her to live life fully, to experience everything, to live enough for the both of them, so she was going to give him that. It had already been decided that after her wedding she and her husband would travel to Paris, and settle down there while he and his friends from the war would dabble in the artistic inclinations they all favored. To them, surrealists they called themselves, all roads led to Paris, and as a doting wife, Emma felt the need to follow. After all, nothing really tied her to Louisiana anymore and her father was eager for her to have a change of venue and start living.

When she arrives she counts the tombstones out of habit, not because she doesn't know where his lies. It's the third to last on the last row, but somehow counting keeps her grounded, keeps her hysteria in check, keeps her from feeling shortness of breath and a deep constriction on her chest. She tries not to let guilt rack her entire body as she presses an apologetic hand on the first tombstone she reaches, the most recent, the one of Captain Liam Jones. She does the same to the second tombstone she reaches, her steps almost faltering as she struggles to maintain her composure. Emma feels apologetic, her entire body weighed down by guilt as she says a silent prayer to the occupant of the second tomb, the one of her sister Elsa.

"I'm so sorry," she hears herself say, her voice broken. "I will make this right," she promises.

Finally, she reaches his tombstone. Emma wants to collapse, but she stays strong and resilient. At twenty years old, she's seen so much death and felt so much pain, she has had no other choice but to stay strong.

"I know what I did was selfish," she starts, "but I couldn't leave it all to chance." A tear rolls down her cheek and she wipes it away. "I don't love him. I don't know if I'll ever be able to love again, but he is a nice man and he loves to read the same books you used to read, he's adventurous and he's giving me the opportunity to see the world." Emma sinks down on her knees, grabbing the headstone for support. "That's what you wanted from me, right? 'Live and love, my darling, for in the end I know we shall be reunited at last.' I just hope you do not hate me for what I've done, but you said you'd come back for me and you never did. I told you could not promise me such things, but you did and I believed. I just…I just couldn't leave it all to chance, Killian."

A sob breaks out of her voice as she says his name, but the sound is dwarfed by the massive crackle of lightning that hits an oak tree fifty yards away from her, and the rolling sound of thunder that accompanied it seconds after. Emma jumps back in fear, her ass landing hard on the muddied ground. She looks around bewildered, cold and with absolute no idea as to how she got to the cemetery in the first place. Suddenly she remembers the orb, the blinding ball of light that had seeped itself into her chest and led her out here. Emma looks in front of her, unable to decipher the wordings on the row of tombstones in front of her. She sees a wet handprint on three of the twenty or so in the row she's in, so she goes towards the first one and attempts to rid the moss out of the name.

Her heart feels like it's about to beat out of her chest when she is able to make out the name, Captain Liam Jones, it says. She tries to convince herself that it doesn't mean anything, that it's a coincidence. How many John Smiths are there in the world? Surely, there's more than one Liam Jones. It's a coincidence, that's all.

You don't believe in coincidences.

Breathing heavily and shaking her head she makes her way to the second tombstone, that orb wanted her to follow it, and when she refused it made her go out here. There must be a reason for it. She holds her breath as she tries makes out the inscription on the tombstone, Elsa LaBoeuf-Jones, it read. Elsa LaBoeuf was Emmeline LaBoeuf's sister, and Emmeline LaBoeuf was the great-great-aunt Emma was named after. The great-great-aunt that Emma's grandfather said she took after, the Emmeline LaBoeuf who's portrait hung in the foyer of the Oak Ridge Plantation and looked just like Emma.

Had Emmeline LaBoeuf been the girl that Ursula had said made a deal with her over a century ago to be reunited with her long-lost lover? Had Emmeline LaBoeuf been the jilted girl that Emma is supposed to be the reincarnation of? And if she is, Emma thinks, then was the ball of light trying to show her who that lover was?

Emma sighs, tears streaming down her face because she wants this to be a dream, one of those dreams that she wakes up and she has no recollection of it, and just a raging migraine as a souvenir. She guesses the last tombstone, the one that she had woken up in front of, had been the most important. Had been the tombstone of the man she was apparently forced to be with, the man she had allegedly sold her soul for a century ago. Slowly, apprehensively, she reaches out to the headstone and starts to wipe away the moss that has gathered on the stone for decades. She closes her eyes, thinking that she could just walk away from this, she doesn't have to know who it is. She could just stand up, walk back up to the plantation, hope that Killian doesn't wake up as she goes into the room and see how muddy and wet she is. She could forget all of this, she either could go down to Ursula and give her anything to give her a clean slate, or down to the nearest liquor store and drink herself into oblivion until she doesn't remember why she needed to get hammered in the first place.

She doesn't have to know, but she wants to. Curiosity killed the cat and it looked like it was going to take Emma Swan right down with it.

Lieutenant Killian Jones, the stone read and Emma fell back onto her ass again before scrambling back up and running away from the cemetery as fast as her wobbly legs could take her.

Everything is distorted around her as she runs, there are shadows engulfing her eyesight, fear nearly cripples her. She misses the ball of light, she misses the warmth it brought, the comfort. She's back in time again, only this time there's only darkness, there's only fear, there's only hopelessness and guilt seeping through her entire being. She killed all of them, Liam and Elsa, they're both dead because of her. They're dead because she couldn't let go of Killian, because she had to go ahead and sell her soul, no matter what the cost was. Her blue dress flows with the late summer breeze, the hem dragging across the dirt as the humid hot wind hits her in the face. She hears her name being called out, faintly from afar, no doubt her father and fiancé out looking for her. While her legs carry her across the field, zigzagging through the tall canes, her heart races a mile a minute. A sea of dark green surrounds her, shadows loom everywhere as they're cast by the canes, Emma is engulfed by the sounds of the thudding her feet make as they rhythmically hit the ground, sounds of her shallow breaths, the sobs that escape from her lips.

Suddenly the sugar canes open up, the length of the field coming to an end, and she sees the river. She sees the small river stream that leads to the Mississippi, its water gleaming with the moon's reflection. Emma hears her name being called out again, but she shakes her head. She can't go back to that life, she has to do this. She has an undeniable feeling of resignation, the acceptance that comes with realizing you were selfish and the need to pay the price for your actions. She reaches the stream, which she's come to recognize as some sort of finish line. She starts grabbing stones and lining her pockets with them, she has to do this, the guilt is too much and she has to make amends, she had to own up to her mistakes. She killed them, her sister and her brother-in-law acted as sacrificial lambs for her selfish choice to be reunited with Killian no matter the consequences. She steps into the stream, the water almost glacial, the current gliding against and around her skin like cold daggers. Her dress is heavier in the water, the weight of the fabric acting as an embodiment of the guilt that weighs down her conscience. Emma's midriff is inside the water, and she is ready to let the heavy current overtake her when she's intercepted. When a body much larger and stronger than hers pulls her back onto the ground, hugging her fiercely so she doesn't fall.

"I've got you, Swan," the voice murmurs against her ear.

"Killian?" she asks, her voice small and unsteady. It's raining again, the dreamlike state she was in gone once more, and she's anchored to reality by the feeling of Killian's arms around her waist, his chest against her back, his legs around her own, and the wet grass they're sitting on.

"Aye, lass. I've got you," he says, his voice sounding nervous and unsteady as well. "You're safe now, I've got you." He stands up, one of his hands lingering on her arm, almost as if he's afraid she's going to jump into the stream again.

"What happened?" Emma asks as she takes his hand to pull herself up to standing position. She feels disoriented and doesn't remember how the hell she got to the stream. Killian doesn't answer her. Instead, he grabs her hand firmly in his and keeps walking back to the plantation. It's still raining and the path is dark and muddy through the sugarcanes, but it's the fastest way back. Emma can barely see anything in front of her, but every so often there's an opening through the leaves above them and the moonlight shines on his darkened face and she sees him clenching his jaw. He's angrier than she's ever seen him. "Killian," she starts, pulling back on his hand and rooting herself on the spot. She was already soaked through to her bones, and the white t-shirt she had been using as a pajama top probably left nothing to the imagination but she didn't care, she just needed to know what had happened. "What's going on? What happened?"

"I could bloody well ask you the same fucking question!" He lashes out at her, the moonlight hitting him square on his face and Emma notices that he wasn't angry at all with her, his wide eyes didn't carry anger but fear. "You almost died, Emma! Had I been a minute late, you would've been halfway towards the Gulf by now. What the fuck were you thinking?"

"I don't know! I don't remember how I got out here, I don't even remember leaving the room!" That was a lie, she remembered seeing his name, his brother's and Elsa's name on tombstones, but she wasn't about to tell him that.

"You don't remember anything at all?" he asks, incredulous.

"No, I swear. I was asleep!" She tells him and she decides that that was partly true. She had been in a dream-like state ever since she left the room, with only one instance in which she was actually aware of her surroundings. The rest, she had no idea what she had seen, what she had heard, or how she got there. All she remembers are the tombstones.

"Lass, I would have appreciated you telling me that you sleep-walk. That way, I could've preemptively bolted the door and spared myself the risk of losing you," Killian tells her, his voice still frightened, one hand rifling anxiously through his hair and the other still firmly grasping hers.

"Lose me?" Emma asks breathlessly, and she feels his hand tense around hers, inching to pull back from her grasp. Emma holds on firmly, squeezing his hand reassuringly. She should let go, but she really doesn't want to.

"Aye, lose you. I've never been more afraid in my entire life," he says as his free hand comes up to stroke her cheek, and wipe her wet hair off of her face and tuck it behind her ear. As he stares into her eyes, she sees the honesty in his statements, and looking back into his icy stare she sees the fear in his gaze and the hesitation to believe that he got to her on time. Emma gets the feeling that he wants to say more to her, or do something else, because his gaze lingers on her lips for a second too long, but instead he drops his hand from her cheek and says, "We should get you back inside, you'll need a shower and some warm clothes."

"Okay," she mumbles and she lets him lead the way back towards the plantation. He not kissing her or divulging his feelings for her shouldn't disappoint her, it was for the best. After all no matter how much she thinks she likes him, she doesn't even know if she could be able to reciprocate his feelings when all the signs and her gut told her that none of what they felt for each other was real.

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A/N: leaving me reviews are like leaving cookies for santa!