Oh no! Oh no, no, no, no, no! This could not be happening!

Emma Swan, twenty-two year old senior at Misthaven University stared in horrified disbelief at the last document accessed on her laptop. How was she ever going to live this down? How was she ever going to show her face in Music History 101 again? Oh gods, if there was any justice in the world, any justice at all, the earth would open up and swallow her whole; at least that way she'd never have to face Killian Jones again.

20 hours earlier

Emma sat at her desk in the cute little off-campus apartment she shared with her best friend Mary Margaret Blanchard and stared at the open Word document on her computer. Her end-of-term analysis paper on Mozart's symphonies for her music history class was due tomorrow, and she simply could not focus.

How was anyone supposed to focus on silly things like sonata allegro form or the composers of the Classical era when it was being explained by hot-as-hell twenty-five year old graduate student Killian Jones?

When professor Belle French had been forced to abandon their class mid-semester for her maternity leave when her son Gideon decided to make his appearance a month earlier than expected, her grad assistant Killian had taken over the class, and somehow music history suddenly became simultaneously Emma's favorite…and most dreaded subject.

You see, Emma Swan had a problem. She'd been drawn to Mr. Jones from the first moment she stepped into the classroom. Saying she was "drawn to him" honestly felt like a massive understatement. That first day, when she took her seat and her eyes met his across the room, it was like…it was like magic, as stupid and cliche as that sounded.

There was something about Killian, something she couldn't explain. It was more than just his good looks (and gods did he look good with his tousled inky black hair, his sea-blue eyes, his artful reddish scruff and his penchant for leather). It was as though they understood each other; as though they were kindred spirits or something.

How she knew all of this before the man even opened his mouth and nearly made her swoon with his sexy accent, she couldn't say. Was this what love at first sight felt like?

Emma had hardly led a happy, pampered life. She'd had to fight and claw for every single thing she'd ever had in life, and she understood reality. She lived in the real world, a real world where fairy tales didn't come true, where things like love at first sight were not a thing.

And yet as the semester wore on, Emma's infatuation didn't fade. If anything it grew the more she got to know Killian.

If she didn't know better, she'd swear he felt it too. It was not at all unusual for her to look up from the notes she was taking during one of Professor French's lectures to find his eyes on her. As soon as he saw her looking, he colored and glanced aside, but she couldn't help but wonder just how long he'd been staring before she noticed his attention.

He'd always been professional; he'd never made any advances or otherwise acknowledged the connection between them, but still it was there, and Emma couldn't help wondering what would happen when the semester was over and he was no longer her teacher–when there was no professional barrier between them.

All of this swirled through her head and her heart as she sat down at her laptop, knowing that she simply had to finish her analysis paper. It was due tomorrow, and she barely had a start on it.

Still, how was she to concentrate on Mozart when all she could think about was the grad assistant who'd lectured about him the day before?

Maybe if she just…wrote it all out, got it down on paper, she could finally put it from her mind and actually get to the business of finishing her term paper.

Why not?

Emma simply began typing, waxing poetic about his luscious hair, and the way she wanted to run her hands through it as she pulled him in for a kiss. The way she could get lost in the cerulean depths of his eyes. The way her heart rate spiked when he turned toward the blackboard and she saw just how snugly his black jeans hugged his perfect backside. She spent a full three paragraphs attempting to put into words the way the butterflies danced in her stomach when he looked at her and the way her breath caught whenever he began speaking. She went on and on about how much she longed to taste those perfect lips, to determine if they were as soft as they looked, to find out if the brush of his scruff against her cheek as he deepened the kiss would be as sensual as she expected. She described in detail the way his deep, accented voice shot straight through her and made her feel as though she were melting into her seat as she listened.

By the time she'd gotten it all out of her system, Emma was half convinced she'd missed her calling. Maybe she should have become a poet.

Still, after just north of an hour of providing a very detailed analysis of Killian Jones, his many perfections, and all the things his very presence did to her on a daily basis, Emma knew she couldn't put it off anymore. She simply had to get serious and actually write the paper she was supposed to write.

And so, she dutifully highlighted her analysis of her graduate assistant and deleted it, replacing it with a rather dry, uninspired analysis of Mozart's use of instrumentation and form within his many symphonies.

By the time Emma put a period on her final sentence, she was satisfied with what she'd written. She was no musicologist, and she was sure she hadn't made any observations that hundreds of music students before her hadn't made countless times, but it was a solid essay. It ought to be enough to earn her a decent grade in music history this semester.

After a quick proof-read, Emma emailed her analysis to Mr. Jones and then closed her laptop before hopping in the shower to prepare for another exciting day of classes.

Her music history class was the final class of the day, and Emma felt her cheeks redden as she stepped into the classroom that afternoon, remembering all the things she'd written about Killian. If he ever found out the half of what she thought about him, she'd probably die of embarrassment. Thank the gods for the delete key.

As class progressed, Emma noticed Killian's eyes on her more than normal, and if she wasn't mistaken the looks he was giving her were…more intense, more heated, the color staining his cheeks as she glanced up to see him looking even deeper. It was odd…and it certainly did nothing to quench the fire within her every time she looked at him.

His unusual behavior puzzled Emma, and she was distracted as she had dinner with Mary Margaret later that night. What had gotten into him? Was she so transparent that he knew what she'd been writing about him? Was she that much of an open book to him?

Oh gods, she hoped not!

After dinner, Emma booted up her computer, determined to put her hot grad assistant from her mind and actually get some homework done before tomorrow.

It was then that she saw it; the last document she'd worked on, her music history analysis paper.

Emma didn't know what possessed her to glance over it before moving on, but when she did, her stomach dropped to her toes. Something must have gone wrong. Maybe she hadn't saved her final draft. Maybe the document had reverted to an autosaved earlier form. She didn't know; all she knew for sure is that somehow her (kind of mediocre; Emma had no illusions of grandeur) paper on Mozart's symphonies was gone.

In its place was her epic ode to the many perfections of Graduate Assistant Killian Jones, an ode that had evidently been submitted to the man himself.

She'd never be able to show her face in class again.

Notes:

–I really didn't intend to write another fluffy addition to this anthology yet. My story Until the Stars Are All Alight, badly needs to be finished, and I was determined to turn all my writing attention to that next, but the muse wants what the muse wants.

–This story (which will, of course, be continued in the next chapter. We can't just leave it with Emma's embarrassed realization of what happened!) was inspired by a conversation in Discord the other night about a Tumblr post about how much easier it is to write fanfic than scholarly papers–and the fact that you can't just write gratuitous smut scenes in scholarly papers. The discussion was about what it would be like if someone did–namely, if Emma wrote an explicit scene about her professor Killian. Now, as you know, I almost never write smut, so I didn't quite go in that direction (although I didn't go into specifics about what exactly Emma typed, so if you want to imagine she wrote a thoroughly detailed sex scene between them, I won't stop you), but the general concept made my muse wake up and sniff the air.

–Further note: I really did have to write a paper on Mozart and his symphonies for one of my music history (I think it was music history? I can't really remember now) classes for my music degree. It was brutal because 1. It had to be 20 pages long. 2. In it we needed to analyze the symphonies, but there were only a limited number of copies in the university library which resulted in me not getting the materials I needed until really close to the due date…which in turn resulted in my one and only true all-nighter as a college student as I ended up having to write the entire paper in one night; and 3. My professor was very definitely NOT Killian Jones (although that might be a good thing. I definitely did NOT have a crush on my very demanding music history prof, so there was no chance I'd write something like that to her and submit it by mistake).

–Up next: the aftermath of the accidental assignment submission.