A/N: Very vague mentions of abortion. Storytelling, light angst and lots of touching.
The world outside seems to be plunging further into gloom rather than brightening with the advancing day but, for the moment, Emma feels impervious to the thickening clouds threatening rain and thunder. The sheets are still warm and she can feel the ghost of Killian's beard on her jaw and neck and the tops of her breasts whose pinkness against the whiteness of her nightgown makes her cheeks redden as well.
She used to love storms – the sheer power and unpredictability of them made her admire each bolt of lightning with wide eyes and an awed smile. Until that night when they laid her out with her legs spread wide as the wind and the branches whipped the window behind her and let her go and curl in on herself only when the storm was already dying down, when Emma found herself a little emptier than she'd ever felt before, the water in the gutters trickling away with her tears.
She shakes her head and burrows deeper under the covers, scowling at the raised hairs on her arms. When Killian comes back with a fresh pot of tea and not a paper in sight, she can't help the incredulous climb of her eyebrow and the joyful flutters in her stomach gradually start anew.
"You're not working today?"
Killian stops a foot from their bed and his unguarded expression shifts into one of uncertainty.
"Would you like me to give you some privacy? I—"
"Oh, no, no." Emma scrambles across the bed, grabs a handful of his shirt and tugs, making him plant a knee on the bed so he doesn't topple over her. "Sorry."
He makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a cough and ducks his head before angling it to the side, obviously trying not to stare at where the laces of her gown are undone at the top.
"I thought I should attempt this… giving myself to leisure that my brother has been going on about for years."
His awkwardness makes her bolder and she slides her hands over his shoulders.
"Then perhaps I'm the one who is in the way," she teases, confident that he does not mind that she hasn't so much as set foot out of his bed.
Killian rolls his eyes, pulls away and dramatically throws himself on the pillows and his arm over his face.
"Your presence is sheer torture."
She follows suit, landing half on top of him with her head on his stomach and eliciting a rather undignified grunt from Killian.
"Then tortured you shall be, my lord."
"Not a lord, I'm afraid."
"Ah, but isn't every husband his wife's lord," she says with a touch of sarcasm, hoping he doesn't mind the disrespect.
Killian chuckles and reaches for her, his large hand almost enclosing her entire waist as he tentatively kneads her flesh through the thin cotton.
"I will gladly settle for "captain"."
"How did you become a captain? You said you always dreamt of a life at sea."
She doesn't bother to temper her curiosity, assuming that, with everything else he has shared with her, Killian will have no reservations about telling her about his career and will hopefully derive more pleasure from this than other stories.
"It's a rather ridiculous tale, if I am to tell it properly."
"I thought you were given to leisure today, captain."
He lightly pinches her side, making her squirm even as she continues to use him as a pillow.
"Why, it sounds to me like we should make a trade."
/
"A trade?" her voice is tinged with curiosity and playful suspicion and Killian finds himself grinning up at the ceiling.
"Indeed. Quid pro quo."
"What does that mean?"
He looks back at her and sees the moment the embarrassment registers and Emma ducks her head. He doesn't want her to be embarrassed. He doesn't want her to ever hesitate to ask him about anything she hasn't been taught. But he stops himself from saying anything of the sort and instead keeps his voice completely neutral, as if not at all surprised by the query.
"It means a fair exchange. I tell you something… you tell me something."
"As if we don't share enough secrets."
"It needn't be a secret. Though I dare say there is little we should be afraid to reveal at this point."
In the silence that follows he listens to the rain beating against the window and reconciles himself with how much he wants to know Emma's beginnings. He means what he said, though he can scarcely believe it. They have shared things that he knows each thought would make the other pull away and yet here they are. He can smell her all around his bed, he can feel the weight of her on his stomach and the warmth of her that is still a revelation.
"Alright."
Her hair rustles over his shirt as she nods resolutely and sends him an almost challenging look.
"Alright?"
"Yes. You've had much longer to gather stories and secrets so I think I have the advantage."
He gasps dramatically, placing his hand over his heart, and this time she shakes her head back and forth before turning over and crawling up a bit so that her lips can reach his own.
There is a softness about Emma that he wouldn't have thought possible, if she wasn't here – hovering above him, her breasts barely brushing his chest as her mouth barely brushes his, her fingers softer than the cotton of his shirt against his neck and her hair softer still where it tickles one side of his face. He is almost afraid to touch her – he has only the one rough hand to hold her with, but his head tilts up unconsciously, giving into her without protest, with pleasure.
She loves him. The thought sneaks in uninvited and he shrinks away from it – has been trying not to examine it too closely all morning as he focused on her and her pleasure, as he shooed away Mrs Lucas and busied himself with breakfast, as he gave into his melancholy and longing for his daughter and memories that he has kept locked away for years.
He tells himself he was hearing things, early in the morning, half-awake and dazed by her presence. Knows he is lying to himself.
But, as unusual as it is for him, Killian was not without his hopes – he hoped that he could earn her affection eventually, gradually, with a great deal of effort which couldn't be more worth it. But this – this feels like too much and too soon and he hasn't done enough to have it. He hasn't done much of anything, hasn't given her much of value, he didn't even truly try to be amiable and indulgent at first. He has just… been.
His breath stalls in his chest as Emma's lips trail up his nose and press against his forehead before she blessedly pulls away and resumes her previous position, pillowing her head on his stomach and letting her knees drop to the sides.
He has now seen her in the throes of passion but he has never seen her so relaxed.
"So why did you want to sail?"
Her voice snaps him out of his musings and he blinks at her in confusion for a few seconds much to Emma's obvious enjoyment.
"I beg your pardon?"
"You said when you were young all you wanted to do was sail."
"Ah, yes. Well, I—" he clears his throat and wonders how to preface this. "As I said, my initial pursuits and ideas were childish, to put it mildly."
"Killian, you are allowed to have been a child. And, thus, childish."
He laughs and nods.
"If you say so, love. Well, you could say I was more or less raised for it. Though never for anything so glamourous as a captaincy. My father was a common fisherman. Or so I thought. I never could get my mother to tell me, if she knew of his less than reputable activities before they were brought into the light proper."
Emma stays quiet and he settles his hand on her hip again, lightly tracing the protruding bone.
"He went out with our boat one day and just never came back. We thought he'd drowned and, mind you, he might have, but when the debtors came calling it seemed like there were other possibilities as well."
"He left you behind."
The shock of the blunt statement is less than that of her matter-of-fact voice and Emma must have sensed that because her hand takes his own and she looks up with contrition.
"I'm sorry, I did not mean—"
"No, you— you are not wrong. For some reason, the longer he was gone, the more likely it seemed that he'd gone willingly. Which makes little sense, of course, because if he were dead… But resentment seemed incapable of sticking to my young heart for a few years and all I could think about was how if I were to sail all the seas there were, it was inevitable that eventually…"
She runs her index finger over each of his own and then over the lines on his palm and over the ones on top of his hand. It's hypnotizing and he almost feels like he is just telling her a story, not his own stupid heart's desires.
"By the time resentment started sticking and – if I didn't think it, at least I claimed that I didn't care about finding my father – I'd been helping Liam at the docks long enough to develop a fascination with the sea simply for its own sake, rather than the living it afforded us or the pathway to my father it could provide."
"And you dreamt of being captain of a glorious ship?"
He chuckles and shakes his head, enclosing her whole hand in his for a moment before he opens it again and lets her continue playing.
"I did not actually. That was always Liam. He dreamt of being a Lieutenant and, as soon as he was made one, he was striving to be a Commander. Must've climbed the ranks faster than any man before him. And yet, no one could resent him for it – he was much too liked among common sailors and officers alike, among men and women and most of everyone with ears to listen to him talk."
/
The pride in his voice is almost a physical thing and Emma smiles as she fits her pinkie between his knuckles but it is not Liam's dreams that she wants to know.
"And you?"
"Ah, I still had rather childish ambitions. I…"
She watches in amusement and adoration as he fights his blush.
"I wanted to find an island."
Emma is careful not to laugh but she can't help the way her eyes widen.
"You wanted to have an island?"
"Not to have it. Just to find it. You know, the way centuries ago seafaring men would set out on a voyage and find lands which they didn't even know existed. The way they got to add a piece to a puzzle that was thought completed. I wanted to traverse it with my own feet and shape it on a map that didn't have a place for it before."
"That sounds thrilling."
Killian shrugs and focuses his gaze on their hands, locking and unlocking their fingers.
"The kind of thing any man aboard a ship but with his head in the clouds might come up with."
"I don't think so."
"No?"
She shakes her head confidently.
"Most people can barely conceive of the world as it is, need to break it into pieces, narrow it down and squeeze it into… different countries and towns and specific rooms and drawers and corsets. And you thought of enlarging it."
Killian gives her a surprised, almost awed look that makes her want to look down and keep staring into his eyes indefinitely all in the same moment.
"And whose name would you have claimed it in?" she teases, trying to loosen her lungs again, unprepared for the way he pulls his hand away so he can wrap it around her waist.
"Why, back then, my queen's, of course. Were I to discover anything now, I think I should be much too tempted to try to curry favour with my wife."
She swallows with some difficulty and turns a little to the side, feelings Killian's fingers settle below her ribcage.
"W-wouldn't that be treason?"
"Isn't this?"
Her confused frown has barely formed when she feels Killian's fingers curl and elicit a shriek of laughter from her own lips. For a man with one hand, he is much too good at this and absolutely relentless. Emma tries to twist around, get a hold of him and retaliate but all she can really manage are desperate attempts to squirm away or curl into an impenetrable ball that make Killian's deep laughter join her own hiccupping giggles.
"Why— Why would you?" she gasps as he finally lets her escape, clutching her pillow for protection, a safe distance between them.
Killian shrugs unapologetically and Emma marvels at the fact that this man is apparently as much her husband as the one who talks in perfectly constructed sentences, with perfectly controlled emotions and spends most of his time scowling at numbers. She cannot say she minds in the least but it doesn't stop her from narrowing her eyes at him from across the large bed.
"I was just preparing to be flattered," she says as haughtily as she can manage without dissolving into laughter again.
Killian's face clears and he looks at her thoughtfully before he shuffles closer. Her muscles tense in preparation, her mouth twitches at the corners, but he moves slowly and just rests his chin on the pillow she is still clutching, his eyes boring deep into hers with that awed intensity that she doesn't think any one person could possibly deserve to be on the receiving end of.
"I, Captain Killian Jones, do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Emma and claim any islands, beaches or castles I might discover in her name and squeeze nought into countries, towns, rooms, drawers or corsets. So help me God."
She should probably laugh but, for the life of her, she can't. All she can do is bite at her lips and watch him as he moves closer to seal his pledge with a kiss.
/
"Well, starting the fire in the dining room was certainly a waste. You'd do well to bring some more wood upstairs."
"Have you completely lost your marbles? I'm not going up there."
"Ruby—"
"Trust me. If they need more firewood, they'll come and get it… I'm sure they are keeping plenty warm."
"Ruby."
"Oh, come now. As if your thoughts are any different."
"I prefer to have no thoughts on the matter… A whole day. They could've at least come down to break their fast."
"Leave them be. They've been married for bloody months. They have to make up for lost time."
"Ruby!"
/
Aside from those days and nights in the infirmary, Killian can't recall even spending an entire day in bed. Half his childhood he was much too excited about the world outside and the other half he was much too needed around the house or down at the docks. Then, in his youth, a day not spent exploring was a day wasted – Liam agreed when they were at sea and Milah agreed when they were on land.
Things changed after Eloise. Thankfully, they shared a bedroom briefly – a period in which he doesn't think he ever got more than a couple of hours of sleep throughout any one night, recalls choosing to sleep on the floor half the time rather than beside her – much to her amusement. After that, the privacy of his bedroom was all he craved, but Alice was always incentive enough to get out of bed. And after she was gone, he supposes it was habit that kept him going. Routine – the only remaining friend of those who have little to look forward to.
Even after the accident, he'd abhorred the idea of lying down for hours – it made him feel even more broken than he was. So late nights and early mornings became an indicator that he is doing fine, that there are still things to get up for. Things that are in his control.
Now, as the light cools and fades and the rain and wind come harder and harder at the house, he cannot think of a single reason to leave this bed and it doesn't make him feel guilty. It doesn't make him feel useless for not doing something with the hours that tick by. He has done something – he has made his wife smile and laugh and come and he can't really conceive of anything more worth doing right now. Aside perhaps from making her talk.
"I can't help but feel like you owe me, my queen?"
Emma presses her mouth to his left shoulder – if she feels the deep grooves in his skin, she doesn't let on – and breaths, her cheeks puffing out until he feels the gathering warmth even through his sleeve and squirms a little against her.
"Do I now?" she asks distractedly as she pulls away.
"Aye. You owe me a story."
"I don't have any good stories," she says casually and he instinctively knows she means she doesn't have stories worth telling rather than that she has only bad ones.
"How do you know if you've never told them?"
She looks up at him with surprise, as if he has said the smartest thing she has ever heard, and Killian laughs and presses a kiss to her forehead.
"Well… alright," she concedes with a smile that is equal parts bashful and brave and makes his heart do something frightful. "Once, when I was little, I hid in Regina's carriage when she was going to visit some important lady. I can't even remember the woman's name but I can tell you her cook made the best pies in the world."
"Wait, wait. Don't rush the story, love, how did you go from hiding in the carriage to tasting the cook's pie?"
"Oh, well, once we arrived, I snuck out and followed the driver. The drivers always go straight for the kitchens, you know – to beg something sweet off the older maids and to sweet talk the young ones."
He laughs – she is already better at this than she thinks – and reaches up to comb his fingers through her tangled hair. He has some little experience but, if it's anything like Alice's, Emma will bemoan rolling around in bed all day without taking a comb to it come tomorrow morning.
"So I followed him there and when the cook asked if I were Mrs Mill's ward, I said yes. And when she asked, if I wanted a peach, I said yes. And when she asked if I wanted to watch her make her gypsy pie, I said yes."
"Is that how you learnt to make that?"
"Mhm."
"Just from that one time?"
Emma lifts her shoulder and tilts her head as if it's no big deal but Killian just beams down at her with delight.
"Your talents are wasted on being a lady, aren't they?" he jokes, smiling fondly at her.
"Oh, I was never much of a lady," she grins slyly. "The sneaking into carriages should've told you as much. As well as my atrocious behaviour around here."
Killian rolls his eyes and settles his hand at the base of her neck, rubbing slow circles into the exposed flesh.
"You do not realize how well you get on."
"Oh, no, you don't realize how exacting and demanding and judgmental most people are. Here on your hill, your island, away from the tentacles of society and its "graces"."
"Are you saying I run a loose household, Mrs Jones? Because I'll have you know you're part of it."
"And I have no complaints."
"Not a one?"
She bites her lip in a coquettish way, that he finds both surprising from her and painfully appealing, and shakes her head.
"Good lord, I must be dreadful at this, if my wife has no complaints."
Her laughter is loud and beautiful and he can hardly maintain his pained façade.
"Whatever shall you talk to the other ladies about at tea parties."
"Oh, I shall come up with something. Otherwise I would look terribly haughty and superior in my perfect happiness."
This startles him – his hand ceasing its gentle movements and the grin on his face freezing and then slowly melting as he remains staring at her.
"Killian?"
"Are you?"
"Am I what?"
"Happy?"
She looks at him as if he has asked her a terribly silly question and, for a split second, he is afraid of the answer.
"Very much so."
He exhales. Inhales again and realizes that the peaceful feeling of today, the lack of that need to constantly do and never just be, is exactly that – happiness. Happiness without the bittersweet tinge of knowing that it's going to slip away as soon as Alice or Liam leaves and he is left on his own again. Happiness bold enough to break routine.
"Me too."
/
His hand closes around her upper arm, his fingernails sink into her skin through the wet fabric of her sleeve and he pulls her roughly toward him.
"Wait. Wait I can't just leave," her voice sounds shrill and panicked even to her own ears and she doesn't know why she is trying to reason with him.
Instead she should try to plant herself into the ground but it's all slippery mud and her bare feet find no purchase and he drags her out of the stables as if she is little more than a ragdoll. Buttercup neighs after them and she feels the hot tears on her frozen cheeks. Her arms and feet are horrifyingly white and she would think she was dead, if she couldn't feel her heart hammering madly in her chest.
"Please. Don't. You don't want me and I don't want to go."
He pulls harder and she feels the burn in her shoulder but it serves to her advantage – her arm, slick with rainwater, slips out of his grasp and she falls on her backside and tries to scramble backwards toward the house she is being pulled away from. She knows that if she could just make it through the front door, she'll be safe. She'll be home and she'll be safe.
He lunges for her and she tries to kick out at him but he captures her ankle in a vice grip and starts dragging her through the mud.
"Stop it! Stop!" she scrambles for a grip but the storm has melted the world and there is nothing solid enough for her to hold onto.
She needs to hold on. She can't slip away. She can't leave. She doesn't want to leave. She doesn't want to leave him.
/
"Bloody hell!"
The sharp pain snaps Killian awake and his hand reaches under the blankets to rub at his ankle. He turns to the side, assuming she kicked him in her sleep, but the sight of Emma quickly makes him forget the dull ache in his foot.
"Emma?"
"Don't. Leave me be. I want to stay."
She whimpers and clutches the bedsheet under her, pushing herself further up the bed until her head hits the backboard but the blow doesn't seem enough to snap her out of whatever nightmare she is caught in.
"Emma, wake up, love."
He sets his hand on her arm and tries to shake her gently but her face only twists further in anguish and she tries to push herself through the solid wood and the wall behind it.
"Emma!"
The thunder muffles her next words but when her wail turns into his own name, Killian feels it pierce him like a sword and for a few long, torturous seconds he is frozen with indecision. Then he wraps his arm around her shivering body and pulls her into him before he grabs her chin firmly and tries to still her trashing head.
"Emma. Emma, wake up!"
Her eyes don't snap open and she doesn't gasp or jump, he knows she is awake when she goes completely still. Her eyelids flutter hesitantly and he lets go and lightly sets his hand on her hip over the blanket that's tangled up and twisted below her waist.
"K-Killian?" her voice sounds hoarse and so very small and uncertain and he doesn't know what to say.
He wants to tell her he is here for her, that he's got her and won't let anyone hurt her again, but he doesn't know if that will bring her relief or more fear. He doesn't know if she was calling for him or if she was running from him in her dream.
"Yeah, it's me," he settles on eventually and tentatively runs his hand up her back, barely making contact.
The sound she makes is almost inhuman and makes him freeze with worry and dread, feeling like he has heard her soul. Then her slim, trembling arms wrap around his neck and she literally climbs on top of him, her fingers and her nose feeling like icy pinpricks as she buries them in his skin and his hair, her legs tangling with his own. He lets himself hold her properly now, wrapping his left arm tight around her waist, even when he feels like there is no force on earth that can make her let go, and cups the back of her head in his hand.
He lets himself say those words now.
"It's alright, love. You're safe here. I've got you. I've got you."
She nods frantically against his neck, where he can feel the growing wetness of her tears, and he tries to smooth out her hair and kisses the top of her head.
"Emma, try to breathe with me," he deepens his breathing, trying to calm her own even as he can feel her heart beating erratically against him.
"I don't want to leave."
"You're not leaving, sweetheart. This is your home, nobody is going to make you leave."
The next bolt of lightning is bright enough to illuminate the dark room but all he can see is the empty space on her side of the bed and the riot that is her hair – tangled and a shade darker with cold sweat. Killian rubs his left arm up and down her back, trying to generate warmth, and pulls the blankets up around them.
He doesn't know how much time passes. Three smaller lightnings and buckets upon buckets of water later, Emma's breathing gradually syncs with his own and the little hiccups and sniffs disappear completely, her heart feeling like a steady force rather than an animal trying to break free.
"I'm sorry."
For the life of him, he can't decide it he hates the words or how tired and heartbroken she sounds more.
"Oh, love. Don't be sorry. Everything's going to be alright."
It must be some sort of miracle but he actually believes that.
"It's not t-this bad usually. I… It was just a-a different one."
"A different nightmare?"
She nods and finally pulls back to look at him. Her eyes are red and watery and there is a lock of hair sticking to every other tear track on her face and he doesn't know how he is ever going to talk himself into letting her out of his arms, let alone his sight.
"He… he was trying to take me away. From here."
He leans down and presses his forehead to hers as his thumb brushes away her damp hair, glad to find her a little bit warmer.
"I'm not going to let anyone take you away, my love."
"I know. I know, it's stupid but it felt so…" she swallows visibly and pushes her forehead harder against him, his shirt bunched up in her small hands.
"It's not stupid. No one can control their nightmares."
"I think it was the storm."
"The storm gave you nightmares?"
She nods and then ducks her head under his chin and he can tell that she thinks this makes the whole thing even more stupid and childish and he is not going to stand for it.
Killian tugs on the white sheet tangled and abandoned on her side of the bed until he can pull it around their blanket-wrapped forms and over their heads.
"What are you doing?"
He slides down and brings her along, tucking her against him so that every bit of her is covered and pressed to his own body.
"Storm can't get in here."
"It can't get in the room either," she replies and he swears he can almost hear the fond exasperation that must be painted on her face and under it the relief and gratitude.
"Humour me," he whispers in her ear and kisses the shell of it.
When she responds by pressing her cheek against his, he lets his mouth move to the side and slowly kisses away all the traces of her tears.
"If I go back to sleep, you'll still hold me close, won't you?"
Once again, he thinks the real trouble will be letting her go.
"Always."