The Rest of Their Lives
CS Genre: Deleted Scene (6x13)
*Note: This story was originally posted as the fulfillment of a prompt on Tumblr.
Emma transferred an arm-full of clean, wet clothes into the dryer, turned the dial, and pushed the start button. Then, reaching for the basket of dry clothes, she headed up to her bedroom.
Her and Killian's bedroom.
At the thought love and joy bubbled up again, and she smiled with abandon as she pulled a bath towel from the basket and set about folding it. Seemed like the giddy smile never left her face anymore. She was happy, really, really happy. She was pretty sure she'd never been this happy, this in love before in her life, and it was almost overwhelming sometimes.
She'd always made fun of musicals—people walking around and just randomly breaking into song—but in the last few weeks they suddenly seemed much more realistic than before. Whenever she thought of what her life was like now she wanted to sing. Must be her fairy tale heritage coming out.
Pulling out a pair of Killian's jeans, she folded it neatly, and set it on the stack she'd started for him and then reached for one of Henry's plaid shirts. It was starting to get worn at the elbows and tight across the chest. She'd have to take Henry shopping soon. The kid was growing like a weed; growing out of everything.
There was something so domestic and normal about all of this. Her clothes mixed with Killian's and Henry's. Laundry and cleaning and general housework had never been her thing. Truth be told she'd spent as little time at her apartment back in Boston as she could. It was a nice place, but there was always something missing. It was lonely.
This house…it was nice too, but what made it nicest was the chaos. Henry bounding down the stairs in the morning, running late for school. Killian singing as he made dinner. Snuggling on the couch as they slowly but surely made their way through the list of movies Henry insisted Killian had to see. Killian gently chiding her for leaving her shoes or her coat laying around. (You could take the pirate out of the navy, but you could never take the navy out of the pirate.)
They were a family. This place was home.
Oh, things weren't perfect, of course. Never were in this town. Belle and Rumple's psycho 28-year-old newborn was still determined to kill her, but somehow that problem felt far less insurmountable now than it had when she was plagued with her visions. The Evil Queen's wish world had been messed up, but it had shown her one thing: she was done bowing down to fate.
She made her own fate.
Fate said Gideon was going to kill her? Yeah, she didn't think so. She'd fight like hell before she simply laid down, played dead and let it happen. She had too much to live for now. Too many people to love. A bright, rosy Happy Ending (with a capital H and E) spread out before her, and she was going to live it.
Emma matched up the last pair of socks, placed them on her pile, and then walked the kid's clothes to his room. She finally understood what her dad meant that time he'd stopped to talk to her about holding on to the good moments. So much had happened in the last year or so; so many moments when she almost lost it all. She'd seen how fragile life could be; held Killian as his life bled from him. Felt like her whole world shattered and would never be put back together.
But Zeus had given her True Love back to her, and she was going to make the most of every single moment she had with him from now until the day (hopefully many, many, many years in the future) that they died. She was done with walls, done with secrets, done with protecting her heart. Every fiber of it was his—as his was hers—and she would be completely open with him from here on out.
Speaking of Killian…he'd been acting strange since yesterday when she stopped by the house to get Henry's life jacket. He'd been so…quiet and distant when he got home last night. She knew he'd been hanging out with her dad. She hoped they hadn't had a fight or something. The bromance was strong between them, but every relationship had its ups and downs.
He'd stayed out on the front porch for a long time. Emma was on the point of giving up on the movie and heading to bed, when he finally came in, shrugged out of his coat, placed it neatly on the coatrack, and came to sit beside her.
"Everything okay?" She'd asked as he slid his arm around her, and she rested her head against his shoulder.
"Aye, Swan," he'd said wearily. "Merely tired I suppose."
There was something in his voice, something in his very demeanor…it was like a rain cloud had taken up residence over him. She sat up and looked carefully into his eyes. "I love you, Killian," she said slowly.
He smiled then, but the smiled seemed almost sad. Even so, he leaned forward and kissed her slow and deep. "And I love you, Swan. Always and forever."
They'd gone up to bed not long after, and she'd almost forgotten his weird mood with the tenderness of his loving.
But when she'd awoken this morning, he was already gone, having left her breakfast warming in the oven and a note saying he had errands he needed to run and he might be away most of the day.
She'd have to pry it out of him, just what was on his mind, but there was nothing she could do about it until he came back. If he needed his space for a few hours, she'd give it to him.
After tossing her own clothes in their appropriate drawers and closet space, Emma placed Killian's pile on top of his side of the drawer, and then started to turn away, when her eye suddenly fell on Killian's old sea chest.
When he'd gone to his ship to pack up his stuff and move in with her, he'd returned with nothing but this chest and a few assorted clothing items. It surprised her that he'd pack so lightly. She'd teased him about expecting a sentimental guy like him to have more loot. He'd blushed, scratched behind his ear and told her he'd only brought his most treasured possessions, the things he couldn't bear to be parted from.
He'd quickly changed the subject (to how desperate he wanted to kiss her…a topic that it took them many, many hours to exhaust), and she hadn't pried farther. She'd determined that she'd wait for him to share his past with her; she wouldn't pry.
Still, standing here in the twilight, thinking about how easily their lives had blended together…well, curiosity got the better of her. She listened carefully, making sure he hadn't returned home while she worked, and then she crouched down, picked the ancient lock, and pushed the lid up.
Emma's eyes immediately zeroed in on a small, square black box. It was odd. It looked far too modern to be in a chest of Killian's prized possessions. Her hand shook as she grasped the box, a sudden excitement taking over her as a premonition of what she might find flitted through her mind. Flipping the lid open she found…a ring.
A diamond ring.
Tears filled her eyes as she gazed on the beautiful stone set in a silver band. There was no mistaking what this was, what this signified. Killian wanted to marry her; planned to pop the question.
Emma waited a beat and then two, expecting the panic to rise up like it had that day in Camelot when he'd given her Liam's ring, but the panic never came. Only a joy like she'd never before felt. She let the tears stream from her eyes as she reverently pulled the ring from its cushion and slid it onto the third finger of her left hand.
It fit perfectly, like it had been made for her.
Emma held her hand out in front of her, turning it this way and that as the last rays of the sun made it sparkle with all the colors of the rainbow. It was beautiful, absolutely gorgeous, but it wasn't the style and beauty of the ring that had her feeling as though she might die of happiness. It was the meaning behind it, the sentiment it expressed.
Killian wanted to marry her. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with her wanted to make a commitment to never leave, never stop loving her. She'd never thought she'd have this; never thought it would happen.
Visions of long years, decades as Killian's wife flashed before her eyes. She saw them living together, sharing the hopes and dreams, the good times and bad, being the other half of each other's heart. Maybe they'd have another kid or two, a kid who'd have the happiest childhood known to man or woman, a kid who'd have two parents who would never leave, who would love him or her with every fiber of their beings. She imagined the two of them old and gray sitting out on a swing on the front porch, holding hands while they watched their grandkids, maybe even great-grandkids running around on the lawn.
There was nothing she wanted more, and she literally couldn't wait for Killian to ask her; couldn't wait to say yes!
And suddenly with that thought, all clicked into focus. No wonder her ridiculous boyfriend had been acting weird the last few days. He was nervous! He thought she might turn him down. (Silly pirate!) She laughed joyously, thinking about how utterly ridiculous the very idea was. Her turning him down!
"Emma? You home?" He suddenly called just as she heard the front door close.
Emma twisted the ring off and put it in her pocket, the smile still covering her face. Maybe it was time to reassure her pirate that she was ready for his proposal. Maybe it was time to begin the rest of their lives.
Notes: I'm baaaack! Did you miss me? It's still Lent, so I'm not back full time yet. I'll be away for the rest of April (even after Easter comes, I have back-to-back weddings two weekends in a row, so I probably won't have time to write), but May I'll be back to my normal schedule.
-This fic is a deleted scene from 6x13. We saw the proposal and we saw all of Killian's angsting about what was REALLY bothering him, but we didn't get to see Emma snooping around Killian's things and finding the ring. I thought that was a fluffy scene we very much needed!
-Up next: I don't know. We'll see what strikes my fancy as we get closer to the 1st Friday of May. A quick scheduling note. During my hiatus over the last few weeks I've been mulling over the future of this (now HUGE) anthology. I've decided if the show is NOT renewed for a season 7, I'll continue writing until I hit 100 chapters. That should take us to mid-June or so, a good month after the show ends. If OUAT is renewed, I'll keep writing through that end of the season (which I think will probably be the end of the series; I just don't see them getting more than one more season), and then end at 150 (or whatever the nearest seems-like-a-good-number-to-end-things-on is.)
-That all being said, if you have prompts you want me to write (or requests for genres—deleted scenes, canon divergence, future fics, lieutenant duckling, AU, etc.) don't hesitate to send them my way!