EMMA
She woke slowly, her limbs feeling heavy from the after effects of the tranquiller, slower. It clouded her senses, including her vision and combined with the dimness of the light in the sewer, it took her far longer than usual to catch her bearing.
She became conscious of her surroundings only one sense, one thing at a time.
The feel of a hard chair she was now sitting on. The rough scrape of the ropes tying her ankles and her hands behind her back.
The pounding of her head, the cool dampness of the space, the smell, the pungent smell of ...peanut butter? WTF?
She looked down in horror to find it spread, liberally and disgustingly down both of her legs, generously around her ankles ... realizing suddenly with white rage, gooped over the top and soaking into the soft leather of her brand new freaken shoes. She immediately flicked of one of the shoes, furiously, only seconds later looking speculatively at the poor sanitary condition of the sewer floor and her now bare (peanut butter clad) foot and regretting the decision. She was going to have to bleach her tootsies when all this was over...after she kicked these guys asses with them first...
Gross. Like really gross. She eyed some unidentifiable dead rodent only a few feet away. Make that really, really, really gross.
Just to add to her torment, despite her revulsion, her stomach growled in hunger, recognizing the familiar smell of Jiffy. She (very) briefly considered trying to lick some of it off her leg, disregarding it as well, as there were children watching.
And she was tied into position.
Why the hell had they coated her in peanut butter? These kids looked like they could use these calories.
Crap, she was hungry... but as she contemplated her legs again, she realized suddenly she was mildly hurt, that they had cut her down both legs, superficial, but enough for blood to be seeping out of the wounds and mixing with the sticky temptation. Well, so much for a quick snack out of this ridiculousness.
She realized that the evil shit she was determined to call Peter was talking on her phone, and she caught enough of it to register he intended to ransom her for an embarrassingly low $10,000.00 (Okay- now she was really getting pissed off, because she was god damn priceless, and the least they could do is ask for something more reasonable, like a million dollars). She also heard the cackle and the promise of a peanut butter torture.
She knew peanut butter went straight to her thighs, but come on people...this was a little too literal.
She glanced down at her legs again, unamused... but torture? Hardly. She felt more comfortable now than she had waiting for that restaurant to break into song, and her feet were already happier out of those shoes, sketchy floor be damned.
She flicked the knots at her wrists with her fingers, satisfied they were easily conquered, and her vision cleared and her eyes adjusted enough for her to be able to take in more fully her surrounding and prepare.
She stopped staring at her food coated limbs enough to look up right in front of her, her chest aching in sudden panic, pain.
Little terrified her...but this sight did. Her stomach sank, taking her appetite with her.
They had the poor kid sitting on a chair, right across the room from her, fear in his eyes, a gun to his temple, held firmly by a youth with enough face paint still on, and costume partly on to be the bozo clown that tranquillized her earlier. (Maybe she was imagining it, but the poor boy was afraid not for himself...rather her...)
His eyes, wide and innocent shed tears for her, full of sorrow.
"You scream, he dies... He moves to help you... He dies...Felix, set the example, that this RAT boy does not get away with trying to help the enemy." Peter said, gesturing the other boys to leave the room, through the only access door shutting it behind him with a manical little laugh. The other children, she took note, looked more scared, than devious.
The bad ones clearly the leaders, Peter crazy eyes and the clown. They were demanding obidence through fear, and whatever was about to happen to her...those teens looked terrified.
Hmmmm... But now it was just three... This child who had tried bravely to save her and this other joker.
Emma worked the knots secretively behind her back while she tried to plan out how to make a move without this Felix pulling the trigger, killing this innocent.
She did not doubt his intent. She had already seen blood in his hands and doubted he would hestitate.
She would have to wait it out, until he was momentarily distracted. I mean, he'd need a pee break eventually, or sneeze or whatever... of course, she did have a proposal to get back to...
She stared at the clown, and realized he was staring back, patient, silent, smirking, gleefully waiting... For what exactly?
My God this peanut butter smelt good...stop it... focus...
"Hey kid... It will be okay" She said softly to the boy, and the older one pressed the gun harder into his temple, hissing..."Silence...you will scare them away"
Them?
She heard it then, softly at first, from the sidelines, initally just a few, but then suddenly more, emboldened by numbers, the light in the tunneled room to dim to reach into the shadows. She saw the flash of eyes first, reddish, as the first emerged cautious from the shadows.
Sewer rats. Large, hairy, mean looking sewer rats. Hungry looking vermin. She shuddered at the sight of them.
As Killian would say... bloodly hell...
They were sniffing the air, lured by the aroma of crushed nuts, contemplating her, and her potential defences. The braver ones moving closer... Rats loved peanut butter...this was NOT good. She shed her hand restraints, but kept her hands behind her back until she could plot her way around the gun pressed to the kids temple.
Emmas purse had been emptied, pilfered of money and valuables, the rejected items scattered across the floor. She looked at her smoke bomb lipstick and tazer mascara longingly, but they were too far away, out of reach.
How could she distract him long enough for him not to shoot the child and for her to get to them...
The first rat reached her foot, and she flicked it off instinctively, but it landed softly and she woule swear later the creature appeared to grin at her...( She could see the "Is that the best you got" in its beady eyes.,.) and it was replaced suddenly by three this time, and when she tried to flick them off the first one learned from last time and clapped down with his teeth, biting into her flesh, clawing with his nails and holding on against her efforts. Shit that hurt...
From across the room, the quite sobs of horror from the innocent, she could see in his eyes his desperation to help, to untie her. His pain at his helpless. His focus on her, not the gun to his own head.
And then they were everywhere. Consuming the peanut butter right off her skin... Her spine shuddering instinctively at the feel of their thick tails against her bare flesh, the filth of their hair against her thigh.
Other than the small nibble of flesh, (for now) they were focused on the peanut butter, uninterested in taking a bite of Emma for any other purpose but maintaining a grip, but Emma grip on sanity weakened a little as she fought against her overwhelming need to shake them off her.
It took all the strength inside of her not to scream, but to look up at this Felix, waiting almost breathless in cruel anticipation for the cry from her that would allow him the excuse to shoot this small boy.
So she unnerved him by channelling it all and smiling. Just grinning right back at the psycho.
He blinked and hesitated suddenly, confused at her reaction, and she sprung into action at the momentary doubt that flashed across his features.
"Kid, get down" she cried out, moving her hands from behind her back and buying precious time grabbing the largest two rats off her, squeezing them hard to enrage them and flinging them, with her now (thanks David) excellent aim, right into the face of Felix, who let out a screen so high pitched, she had no doubt those on the outside would believe it was coming from her. His gun clattered to the floor as he used his arms to wildly protect his face against attack.
The kid, from his position where he had dropped as instructed to the floor, snatched up the weapon, bolting backwards. He shot a couple times, a little poorly at the clowns feet, in warning that the tables had turned.
The ropes on her legs were off in seconds, the rats scrambling away with her sudden return of defenses, but she managed to snatch at two more rats and toss them at him as well, overkill perhaps, but she had about eight rat bites on her legs now and was not necessary thinking at her most rational manner.
If she got rabies from this...
She dived across the room for her gear, grabbing and deploying the smoke bomb at the entrance, just as it flung open for the other to investigate the scream and the shots.
Luckily, freed from her previously nutty situation, she could take them on blindfolded, now with the kid safe, so she did, closing her eyes against the smoke and using her senses to find them, crippiling them with the tazer and knocking them out as she found them.
She stepped in two different globs she would rather not contemplate in the process, and was dispatching number three when another door from the ajoining room was flung open and she heard two others join the fight, clearly on her side, the smoke clearing from the new ventalation until she opened her eyes to the sight of the men in full action, securing but trying not to permanently hurt them. She turned, leaving the rest to them, heading back to the kid and Felix, and (accidently on purpose) throat chopped the bastard. Then tazered him. Then wiped as much of the remaining peanut butter she could off of him and onto him, contemplating a good kick to his ribs when she remembered her audience.
"You okay kid?"
"Yeah, thanks ( and then with awe) Are you a superhero if something?"
Emma smiled a little, but then asked concerned,
"Is there anywhere, anyone we can take you to?"
"No, I have no home, I am an orphan"
Emma heart lurched at the sad brown eyes and the loneliness she saw in them... A feeling she had felt for so long, before Killian texted his way into her life and into her heart.
She did not have a chance to speak before Killian jogged towards her, the boy scrambling into the shadows at his presence, and Emma was suddenly in his warm embrace, as David rounded up the remainder of the teens, securing them with miscellaneous parts of a vehicle kit. David the hero, would take care of the details...
He retrieved the chair, and guided her into it, ripping off both sleeves of his dress shirt and kneeling at her feet with a first aid kit, removing the remaining peanut butter, cleaning her the best he could and dumping the hydrogen peroxide from the case on her wounds.
"I'm sorry..." She said softly, relieved when Killian just looked up at her and grinned, laughing softly "It was a blood soaked, gun toting clown my love, I totally understand the temptation..."
He had pulled flats (my god she loved this man) out of who knows where, and having cleaned her foot the best he could, was slipping it on her foot, kinda Cinderella style (well they were leather, not glass and she was in a sewer, but semantics). when he looked up at her again she wiggled her eyebrows a little, tapping her hand to her ring finger tellingly, and he chuckled softly, "as you wish my love"
He surprised her by pulling out a gorgeous ring, that was not his mothers, kissing her hand and looking into her eyes saying simply
"From even when you were nothing but a text, a hope, a thought, I knew that for me, from then on, there would never be anyone else for me but you. Please do me the honour of giving me a lifetime to become the same for you..."
Emma smiled, tears in her eyes, stroking her hand down the side of his face lovingly (shit, he had not yet cleaned off that hand) kissing him softly and saying "You already are"
He slipped the ring on her finger, and they kissed lovingly, and damned if he didn't look a little misty eyed himself.
"I had a beautiful prospal planned, I hope you are satisfied..." But there was no malice in his tone, only humour.
She nodded gleefully, looking around at the madness and mess... "Well it certainly is memorable...life together is still an adventure"
"Just us, against the world...together" he added, and Emma frowned at that a little, her mind wandering away from her love coma back to the boy in the shadows, alone.
"Killian, what if it wasn't just us... What if I wanted to add another?"
Killian looked confused, saying jokingly "No Victor"
Emma laughed, wondering suddenly about that pink thong, sobering at the thought of him rejecting this idea, saying seriously "No, from right here..."
"Emma I don't care how cute those rats were, they make terrible pets..."
She would have rolled her eyes, but she was too busy begging him with them instead.
"Kid, come out" she requested, watching the child enter into the light, his eyes wary, but he would had heard her request, and maybe even understood it, because his face was full of this look of raw...hope.
She looked at Killian, who just stared at her, scratching the side of his head a little, his tongue poking around in thought. A thousand things were communicated between them through only their looks, and deep understanding of the other. The silence seemed to stretch a little with Emma saying
"He tried to save my life, and it almost cost him his own"
From Killian, only "Are you sure?"
"He is an orphan, alone"
Again simply "Are you sure?"
She grabbed his hand, struggling for the words to explain the massive, impulsive thing she was asking him with her silent words to do.
"I haven't been as sure of anything since I first kissed you..."
"Well then, I'm in." And for him, it was really that simple, and she loved him even more because of it. Just when she thought her heart could not be any fuller, or happier, it proved her wrong again, as Killian gained to his feet, gestured David, who had been cleaning up behind them over, and smiled at the kid saying,
"What's your name?"
The answer came out, shaking with emotion
"Henry"
"Your full name?"
"I don't have one.."
She watched Killian smile again, reassuringly at the youth
"How does Henry Swan- Jones sound?" he asked, and the child let out a little sob, bubbling over with happy tears and likely nerves.
Killian reached out his hand, pulling the child in, as Henry said his little voice breaking with the vibrancy of his emotion,
"It sounds like a home"
It was a bit early for a hug, so he shook his hand instead: " Hope you have a high tolerance for ridiculous adventure kid...welcome to the family"
Which was how Emma chased a clown down a sewer and came out with a fiancé and a son.
For her it was the perfect proposal, because it had the happiest ending.
Thanks for reading, I love you all for taking the time. I will eventually write two more sequels, the wedding day and the baby, both obvious in their title, but I promise something unpredictable will happen...
If you have any ideas or suggestions, please let me know...