CS genre: hurt/comfort, snowed in together AU

It had been a day. A terrible, no good, very bad, you've-got-to-be-kidding-me kind of day. Emma would say it couldn't get any worse, but she knew that'd just be tempting fate.

Turning up her defroster, she hunched over her steering column, trying to peer through the one spot on her windshield that was still clear in the middle of what was turning into a nor'easter of mammoth proportions. The snow fell thick and fast, the wind tossing her yellow bug as though it was a plaything. Now, at eight o'clock at night, it was so dark she could barely see ten feet in front of her car, even with her high beams on.

Why had she thought impulsively jumping in her car and driving to her brother and sister-in-law's place just before a snowstorm was a good idea?

She hadn't thought; just reacted.

This morning she'd walked into her New York apartment to find her boyfriend, Neal in a very-compromising-position with his "friend" Tamara. Things had been going downhill with Neal for some time, to such an extent that Emma had been considering breaking it off with him anyway, but the fact that he would bring Tamara to her place and parade their affair in front of her was beyond the last straw.

Neal had tried to make some lame excuse about how they'd tripped, and just happened to fall like that, but Emma wasn't an idiot. Tripping didn't make clothes magically fall off. She'd tossed him out on his ass, but not before giving him a good swift punch to the face.

Ever since she was little, there was one person who could always make her feel better even in the worst situation: her brother, David, and so she hadn't thought, hadn't planned, hadn't even tossed a change of clothes into a bag for an overnight stay. She'd simply gotten in her car and started driving.

Well it was too late to turn back now. She could sort out the should-haves later. Now, she just had to focus on staying on the road for the five miles she had left before she reached Storybrooke and the comfort of the Nolan household.

No sooner had the thought entered her mind then Emma hit a slick patch. The bug began spinning, the rear wheels heading in one direction and the front in another. Calling on all her snowy-weather driving skills, Emma tried to steer into the skid, but it was no use. There was no traction to be found on this stupid road. She could only watch helplessly as the bug hurtled into a massive snowbank.

For a moment, Emma sat still, waiting for her heart rate to return to normal, listening to her windshield wipers uselessly swipe at the swiftly falling snow. Finally, realizing she'd missed hitting anything worse than a mound of freshly fallen powder, Emma put the car in reverse.

Her wheels spun.

She tried a number of times to maneuver out of the snowbank, but there was no hope for it. She was completely and utterly stuck.

As if that wasn't bad enough, her car suddenly sputtered and died. Glancing at the dashboard, Emma saw the reason. The bug was on empty. She hit her steering wheel, the frustration making her want to scream. What else could go wrong?

Fishing her cell phone out of her pocket, she saw exactly what else could go wrong. Apparently, in her haste to leave the city, she'd not only failed to gas up her car, she'd failed to charge her phone too.

So here she was, stuck on the side of the road in the middle of literally nowhere. Her car was dead, her phone was dead, and given that she hadn't even called to tell David she was coming, no one would even be looking for her.

Fantastic.

It didn't take long for the temperature in her car to start to plummet, situated as she was in the middle of a bitterly cold snowstorm. Emma realized she didn't have a lot of options. She wouldn't last till morning out in the elements like this, and there was next to no chance another motorist would pass by to help her out.

There was no hope for it. She'd have to walk the last five miles to her brother's place.

In the middle of a freaking blizzard.

If she got out of this alive, she was going to kill Neal for getting her into this mess.

So a five mile hike in the snow. Not fun, but she could handle this, right?

Famous last words.

Emma had been walking for about a mile when her right foot landed awkwardly in a pothole covered in snow. Shooting pain radiated up her leg as her ankle twisted violently, and she landed on her ass in the middle of the road.

Eyes watering from the cold and the pain, Emma had the most absurd desire to laugh. It was just so ridiculous, all of it! She was going to freeze to death out here, less than five miles from her hometown, and probably no one would even find her until the spring thaw. At least she wouldn't have any problem finding ice to put on her rapidly ballooning ankle.

But Emma was built of stronger stuff than that. She'd be damned if Neal freaking Cassidy and his inability to keep it in his pants was the cause of her death.

Grabbing a fallen branch on the side of the road, she got awkwardly to her feet and experimentally put weight on her bad ankle.

She nearly buckled under the pain. No way she was going to be able to walk four miles on that ankle. Time for plan B. She needed to find some sort of a shelter where she could hole up and wait out the storm.

Emma swiveled her head one way then the other looking for-well, she didn't really know what she was looking for, just any indication of which direction she should head to find said shelter. In the distance, she saw a light. It was faint, hard to see through the driving snow, but it was there. Someone lived out in the woods.

With the kind of luck she was having today that someone was probably an axe murderer, but at this point, beggars couldn't be choosers. Taking a deep breath, Emma began the slow, agonizing process of hobbling off the beaten path and toward the cabin that, with any luck, would be her salvation.

Walking through deep snow on a sprained ankle was a painstaking endeavor, and by the time she reached the door of the cute, cozy log cabin in the woods, she could barely feel her fingers, toes or face in the bitter cold.

She could only hope the person inside would let her in before the frostbite set in.

She knocked, the hard wood of the door painful against her cold, tingling fingers. She heard footsteps and a moment later the door opened.

"Swan? Is that you?"

Emma groaned. Of all the luck. Of all the secluded cabins in the woods she could have stumbled upon (quite literally in this case), of course she happened to stumble upon the one belonging to her brother's idiot best friend, Killian Jones.

Given the choice, she might prefer to end up with the axe murderer.

Notes:

-Hi everyone and happy Friday! I hope you're staying warm and safe after the winter weather so much of the country has had over the last week. We got close to a foot of snow and bitterly cold temperatures early this week, but at least living in the north, I'm used to winter. My heart goes out to those of you in Texas or other places where you're less equipped to deal with it.

-But of course, just like just about anything else in the world, this very cold, snowy week was nearly begging to be turned into a CS au. This particular installment of Fluffy Fridays will have two parts (most likely; I suppose it's possible I could draw it out, but honestly, this probably could have been a one shot, except for the fact that I just wanted to get something posted without letting another Friday pass us by).

-Up next: Emma is forced to take shelter with Killian in his cabin in the woods. We find out just why it is that Emma can't stand Killian (hint: it involves pining and an embarrassing encounter after the consumption of too much rum). Hopefully the night together will force Emma and Killian to talk out their differences and move from enemies to something far more enjoyable.