I always wondered why Killian specifically referred to Emma's speed dial as the Emma button. Here's my idea of how that could have come to be.
Warning: this is the tackiest story I've ever written. lol
~cosette141
"I think it's time you had one of your own."
Killian raised a brow from where he sat at the bar at Granny's diner. Emma sat down on a stool next to him, and she held out a small, black rectangular box.
Killian has seen these magic boxes before. He's seen people staring at them for quite long periods of time, and he knew there was some sort of… way… to speak to other people who also had a box of their own.
He'd been careful not to ask questions, never being one to show uncertainty or ignorance to the natives of an unfamiliar land.
And if he were being honest with himself, he wasn't quite comfortable with the device.
Killian regarded it the same way he would an empty flask. He looked at Emma. "And why, pray tell, do you believe I need one of these devices?"
Emma's face shifted, like she was trying to hide a smile or a laugh. And Killian would have been offended if it wasn't such a rare, beautiful sight. "Because," she said, rolling her eyes. "Yesterday was the fourth time I had to track you down."
"I only go from here to the docks, love."
"Well I don't want to have to walk all the way to one to find out you're at the other," she said, brows lifted with the tell-tale this is not up for debate look that Killian recognized from Milah. Scratch that—from women.
That look was not up for debate.
Emma gestured with the phone again for him to take it. Warily, he did, holding it between his forefinger and thumb, eyeing it like it might explode.
"It's not going to explode."
Killian lifted his brow. Perhaps she was not the only open book.
"It's called a cell phone," she said, amusedly watching him inspect it. "You can use it to call people."
"Call people?" echoed Killian, finally giving up his reluctance to get to know what the bloody thing does.
"Yes," said Emma. "Pretty much, you can contact anyone who also has a cell phone. It doesn't matter how far away you are from them." She reached over, using her thumb to open the device up. "You flip it open like this," she explained, "and you put this to your ear to listen, and there's a microphone at the bottom that you speak into and it allows the other person to hear what you say."
Killian blinked.
He didn't know what a microphone was—perhaps a smaller version of this phone?—but if it allowed people to hear him speak from miles away, that was magic if he's ever seen it.
"And before you ask," said Emma, when Killian opened his mouth, "no, it isn't magic, and no, I don't know exactly how a cell phone works. Just know it's science and it works."
Science.
That was a word Killian now knew, since any time he's been confused by something, science was Emma's explanation.
And he was quickly learning that she had no idea how this science worked, either.
"Aside from making calls," said Emma, "you can send texts, which…" She hesitated, trying to piece together how to explain it to him. "It's like writing someone a letter, but it's a really short letter, and you don't need paper or ink." Emma pressed on the bottom half of the device, and the top half glowed, displaying numbers and symbols. Emma pointed to them. "It also tells you what time it is, what day it is, and you can play some games and take pictures with it."
"This does all that?" asked Killian, turning it over in his hand. For something that wasn't magical, and so small…
"Yeah," she said. "Sometimes I forget how impressive it actually is. It's practically a tiny computer."
"A tiny what?"
"Nevermind." Emma pulled out her own device, holding it up. "Now that you have a phone, you can call someone. I'll show you." Emma took his device, and pressed several things, then waited, and her device started to play a jingle. "See?" she said, gesturing with her phone. She opened it, then handed Killian his phone back. "If you hold it up…" she gestured for him to do so, and he warily did, only to hear her voice crackle through the device as she finished, "…you can hear my voice." She smiled when she saw his brows shoot up. "And if you talk, I can hear you," said Emma.
Killian pulled the phone down to speak into the bottom half, but Emma grabbed his wrist, keeping his arm where it was, sending a tingle down his whole body. "No," she said with a giggle, "you can leave it here; I'll hear you just fine." Emma closed her device and Killian pulled his down. "All you have to do to talk to someone is dial their phone number."
Killian gave her a lift of his brow. "Swan, the only person I will be contacting with this device is yourself."
Emma rolled her eyes. "Fine. All you have to do to talk to me is dial my phone number."
"And a phone number is…?"
Emma took his phone. "See all these numbers? Every phone has a unique set of numbers. Like… how we have unique names to go by." Killian blinked. Emma sighed. "I can put me on your speed dial."
He didn't even want to try to decipher what that meant.
Emma pressed more things on his device, and then handed it back to him. She pointed at one of the little squares. "This button," she pointed to a second one, "will call me. So, to talk to me, you just press that."
"This?" asked Killian, trying it.
"Yep," said Emma, nodding. "That button is me."
Killian pressed it, and her phone started to play music.
Emma smiled. "Look at you. Twenty-first century man."
Killian smiled too, because whether or not he liked this strange device, having it made Emma smile, and he was learning that he'd do pretty much anything to elicit one from her.
She wasn't smiling, however, the next day when she found him wandering the docks, Killian claiming that the infernal device would not stop making noises, and gesturing to the ground where the cell phone lay shattered in pieces.
As Emma grabbed his coat to drag him to the nearest electronics store for a new phone, she concluded that he did press Emma's buttons.
Just not the ones on the phone.