a/n: For cs au week day one — crossover. Emma's life has been broadcast as entertainment to the masses since the day she was born. Killian aims to end the show for good. Or, The Truman Show cs-style.
Killian taps his fork against the edge of his plate and lets his gaze drift back to the television playing in the Nolans' living room. Emma's eating by herself tonight — it's Neal's night off, not that she knows it — and she's opted for her usual grilled cheese comfort food. Her own TV is off-screen, playing one of Storybrooke's many made-up programs that tout the beauty of staying home. It's just one of Gold's numerous ploys to keep her from leaving Storybrooke and even thinking about it sets his teeth on edge.
Interview after interview have made it clear that Welcome to Storybrooke's creator and director savours his power more than anything else. The ability that he has to completely shape someone's life according to his own whims. Killian's not sure he's ever hated anyone more.
Mary Margaret covers his hand to stop his tapping and Killian jolts, realizing that he's gripped the fork in a fist as he watched.
"We're going to get her out, you know," she says, prying the fork from his hand and clearing his plate.
"Aye."
Killian's been campaigning to end the show for years, but he's never made much progress — just one lone, angry voice shouting into the void of millions of loyal viewers — until the last year or so when Mary Margaret and her husband David tracked him down. The sweet, caring half-sister that Emma might never meet opened doors and swayed minds that he — the disgruntled former cast member, or so Gold claimed — could not.
Their success had still been limited, however. Despite the rallies, interviews, and letter campaigns they all knew that the only sure-fire way to get Emma out would be to somehow make her realize the truth of the world that had been constructed for her. But Gold and the network were not only powerful, they were also paranoid and infiltrating the cast and crew had proven an almost impossible feat. Oh, they'd had some 'Free Emma' supporters who'd gotten hired but they had all either been sniffed out before they could win her trust or their attempts to draw Emma's attention to the truth had been colossal, embarrassing failures that were quickly explained away.
That could change soon though, with any luck.
The phone rings and all three of them turn to it, steeling themselves for what might be on the other line. David gets up after the second ring and Mary Margaret mutes the TV so that it's just the two of them waiting with anxious, bated breath.
"Alright. We'll see you soon then, I guess. Good luck."
He hangs up and turns back to them and Mary Margaret's fingers dig into Killian's shoulder at her husband's silence.
"Well?"
"Deputy Emma Swan will meet Storybrooke's newest suspicious character sometime next week."
"August got the job," she breathes from behind him.
David smiles. "August got the job."
Mary Margaret squeals and runs over to be lifted up in what's clearly a well-practiced display of glee. Killian can't help but smile a bit himself, even as his eyes flick back over to where Emma's taking the last bite of her grilled cheese, brushing the crumbs off her fingers and onto her plate.
Their first cast member with a planned Emma storyline, he marvels. Maybe August will be able to get their message through where others — himself included — had failed.
"I told you," Mary Margaret says, slipping from her husband's arms to come back over and put a hand on his shoulder.
"Aye, that you did."
Welcome to Storybrooke is always on at his place. Killian's not sure the TV has been set to a different channel since he bought damn the thing and the mess of research and materials from the Free Emma campaign don't exactly help the ambience. It's gotten so bad that Liam refuses to even come by anymore. His brother thinks that his obsession with ending the show is just self-inflicted penance for how his time as Emma's boyfriend ended. He's not wrong of course, but there's so much more to it than that.
He still loves her. Maybe it's crazy — she's dating someone else, after all. Gold made sure of that when he sent his own son in to pick up the pieces after Killian's tragic 'death.' But every time he gets to see her smile, gets to watch her be grumpy in the mornings or dig into a bear claw on her lunch break at the station he falls a little bit more in love with her. And he knows he's not the only one. It's not the pre-arranged storylines that make people tune in. Emma is good TV because she's real even when the town built around her is not.
The penance... the penance comes on nights like tonight when she goes down to the beach on her own and sits practicing the sailing knots he'd taught her. It's a cruel bit of irony that when he'd tried to break her out, tried to take her to the edge of the dome right under Gold's nose, he'd not only failed spectacularly but also given her a crippling fear of the water. He'd practically gifted Gold with another way to keep Emma in Storybrooke.
He should have told her. Should have told the truth regardless of the consequences from on high. Emma's smart and tough. She would have gotten herself out, would have found out the truth even if they'd torn him away from her if only he'd given her the tools to do so. Instead, he'd tried to do it on his own and left the woman he loves to pay the price for his foolishness.
Liam and his disapproval have one thing right — Killian can't save her. His years of repeated failure have made that spectacularly clear. The only one who can save Emma is her.
When the day comes, it comes with the sound of static waking him up in the middle of the night.
August had done his part in planting the seeds and they got a bit of luck in the form of a technical error when it started to snow only on her on one of her beach visits. Emma's solution to August's riddles and the strange happenings in town was to tell Neal that she wanted to travel, wanted to leave Storybrooke that very night. Killian's gut had roiled as he watched Neal panic and then get down on one knee to propose, trying to convince her that they shouldn't spend their honeymoon money before they'd even set a date for the wedding.
But then, the miracle. Emma had gone to talk to her mother — actually an actress named Ingrid Fisher — and she told her to go. To leave Storybrooke and not let anyone stop her. He calls in sick when it happens, spends an anxious two days watching the fall out, only for Emma to make her move when he finally thinks it's safe to sleep.
Killian's not sure how he makes it through her escape. David and Mary Margaret come over when the feed cuts out and the latter sits in the middle on his tiny couch, squeezing each of their hands so tight he's not sure he'll ever regain the use of his left. She's out on the water when Gold finally finds her and his heart leaps into his throat to see Emma in his old sailboat. She's a bloody natural out on the water, always has been, and she weathers everything that Gold throws at her including a desperate, manipulative, last-ditch attempt to get her to turn back. Killian almost doesn't believe it's actually even when she steps through the door and the screen goes black.
Next to him, Mary Margaret wipes her tears with the edge of her sleeve and stands up as he reaches for the remote to turn the TV off.
"Well," she says. "Let's go find her."
"Was it all fake?" she asks when they finally have a minute alone.
She'd been hiding with August when they found her, and while she might have thought that escaping the confines of Storybrooke would be the most eventful part of her day she certainly hadn't expected the media to descend on the dome, all determined to invent their own stories of whatever comes next.
Then, of course, she'd been introduced to her half-sister and discovered that Killian was not as dead as she'd been led to believe.
Killian's heart nearly breaks in half at the question and he shakes his head, not quite daring to close the space between them just yet. "No. No, it was real. Too real for Gold's liking. He didn't approve of my ignoring his story suggestions. And then he really didn't approve of my trying to break you out. If I'd known what he was going to do... if I'd known about the storm... I would have warned you, I swear."
"You... you were trying to get me out?"
Emma takes a step towards him and he ducks his head to scratch behind his ear. "Aye. I should have just told you the truth. But I was afraid you'd think me crazy and I knew Gold would pick up the audio. I'm sorry, love. I made a bloody mess trying to save you. But you — you were brilliant out there."
"You think so?"
His lip quirks into a quick grin. "I know it. Got it all on tape too."
She breathes out a laugh — like she still can't wrap her head around her life being broadcasted for all to see — and reaches out to take his hand, offering him a small, mischievous smile. "So... what happens now?"
"Now? Anything you'd like."
