After their dinner together spent catching up on everything that had happened in their lives since they'd last seen each other, the two couples split once again for the drive to the Opera House.

"Isn't this a little unnecessary?" Killian asked, as he slid into the back seat of the Range Rover where his wife was already waiting. "We're all coming from the same place and going to the same location. Sharing a car seems easier – not to mention more economical."

"It's considered too high of a security risk," Emma explained patiently. "It's why I haven't been allowed to travel anywhere with my grandmother since my father passed away."

Killian sat in silence for a moment as his brain began to process the full implications of that statement. He knew that Emma and Ruth had completed a number of engagements together before he'd become a part of Emma's life. He'd found those pictures online, and a couple even decorated one of the walls in his trailer at work. While Ruth didn't live with Emma, she didn't live far from her granddaughter either. Letting them travel together made so much more sense. Not to mention that it would probably save time and money too.

"So… are they gonna stop us travelling together when you become Queen?" he wondered, as he tried to absorb yet another of the rules that would probably govern the rest of his life.

"No. You're my husband. You're not in the line of succession. But…" Emma hesitated for a moment as she tried to think of how to delicately break the next piece of information she had to Killian. "But I won't be able to travel with our eldest child when he or she reaches their teenage years."

Killian's face dropped with his shock. Emma would have laughed at his expression if the topic of their conversation hadn't been so serious.

"So… we're supposed to just leave our child behind? Or send him or her on a separate plane?"

"No. You'll travel with our children when they get to that age. I'll travel with Anton, or whoever he's hired to replace himself. That's what my grandmother always used to do. Dad would travel with grandpa; his sisters; and their nanny, and Grandma would travel with her team of aides. That way, she could work while she was on a train or a flight or whatever the situation called for."

Killian's expression evened out a little as he reached for Emma's hand. "That's still not fair on you," he said, sweeping his thumb back and forth over her knuckles. "Maybe this could be something we change for future generations," he suggested hopefully.

Emma leaned forward to press her lips briefly to his before she pulled back once more. "I think this might be the one thing we have to keep for future generations," she argued. "Unless you want my Aunt Anne to take the throne if something terrible happened to us all."

Killian shuddered a little as he imagined the old hag finally getting to call herself Queen. That was something the world didn't deserve to see. But he also couldn't imagine a world where he'd have to watch his child reign because their mother was gone.

He opened his mouth to voice that exact sentiment before snapping it shut again as he realised that was precisely what Mary was currently living through. His mother-in-law had never even had the chance to see her husband's coronation before he was cruelly taken from her. And now, she'd have to watch as her daughter stepped up to the throne, always wondering what life could have been like if it had been David in Emma's position.

Something dark passed behind Emma's eyes and Killian unbuckled his seatbelt to slide across the black leather and tug his wife into his arms. He wasn't entirely sure what he could say at that moment, so he said nothing. Instead, he squeezed her a little tighter as he dropped his lips down to the top of her head.

Emma let herself be held for a moment, until she felt like she had her emotions back under control, before pulling away just in time for Anton to call out, "You make my job to protect you much harder if you're not wearing a seatbelt in a moving vehicle."

Killian rolled his eyes a little in her direction, more to elicit a laugh from his wife than to protest what their Chief of Security had said. But he did move back to his own seat and draw the belt around himself once again.

In no time at all, the car was rolling to a stop outside the Opera House and Killian could already see the flashes of cameras through the tinted windows of their car. If he was being completely honest with himself, he wasn't looking forward to their final engagement of the night. While he knew their presence at the performance would help to generate positive press and awareness for the causes being championed that evening, opera was really not his thing. And to make matters worse, he knew that he would be spending the performance surrounded by the same politicians he'd met earlier that day, who only really cared about being photographed with his wife. As far as he was concerned, the one good thing to come from the evening was that he got to see Emma dressed up for the occasion. The jumpsuit she'd picked for the night was one he'd never seen before, and one he hoped she'd wear again soon.

"Are you okay?" Emma asked, as she slipped her arm around his waist to smile for the gathered photographers.

"Yeah. Just… make sure I look somewhat interested on a regular basis, will ya?" he chuckled, only half-joking. The last thing Killian needed was for someone to photograph him looking utterly fed-up during a charity event. The press had been relatively kind to him since he'd met Emma, but he was under no illusions that they would change their tune the moment he gave them a reason to complain about his behaviour while he was working.

"Don't worry," Emma giggled, as she turned him ever-so-slightly for one last set of photo ops. "From what Ariel told me earlier today, you won't be the only person struggling through this performance. Stick close to Phillip."

"Will do," Killian noted, as he turned back to offer the gathered press his full attention.

Thanks for reading and reviewing.

For those of you who don't know, I'm going through some difficult times personally at the moment both with my health and in my private life, so I'm afraid updates will remain sporadic for the time being because I just don't have the time or energy to dedicate to my fandom life right now.