After less than an hour on the plane, Killian could honestly say that this had been the worst flight of his life – and he'd flown in military carriers before.

When he'd realized his mistake, he'd rushed straight back out of the airport to see if he could catch Emma's car before it left for Nice's city center, but of course, traffic was flowing easily that day, and there was no sign of the car at all. He'd trudged back inside and through all the security measures again before he'd thrown himself back down into the seat he'd left only minutes before, silently fuming. The thought of calling Carlos's father and asking for Emma's number occurred to him on more than one occasion, but every time it did, Killian dismissed the notion. He knew that deep down, no matter how well he'd clicked with Emma, Carlos's father would never hand out someone else's phone number – at least, not without their consent. Given that she was headed into the city for the day, Killian assumed that consent, if it was even granted, wouldn't come in time for him to follow through on his promise to let Emma know when his flight had landed.

He tried so hard to push thoughts of disappointing Emma from his mind as he logged into his email account and began downloading the reports his team had sent to him while he'd been away. At least they would give him something else to do during his flight. But concerns for Emma still plagued his mind.

The moment the plane had taken off, Killian's feelings of unease had begun to rise. The further he seemed to get from Emma, the more he began to worry that he'd just left behind the best friend he could have asked for – the kind of friend he'd never really known his life had been missing, even though she seemed to compliment it so perfectly.

As he read through his reports, Killian wondered what would happen on Monday evening. Would Emma even bother tuning in to his show when she realized that he wasn't going to contact her? How would she feel seeing him alive and well, sitting in his studio, delivering the day's news while believing that he couldn't be bothered to contact her? Or worse – would she feel that he'd simply used her for sex? The thoughts seemed to twist their way deep down into his gut until they left his breakfast feeling just as heavy as his head.

How could he have been so stupid?

Killian knew he wasn't exactly the best planner in the world. News happened at the drop of a hat; there was never any time to prepare for it. Given that his friends and family had always seemed rather impulsive in most aspects of their lives, he'd learned to roll with it years ago. But he'd never made a mistake like this before - and no matter how hard he tried, he simply couldn't think of a way to fix it in time to minimize the damage it would do to his friendship with Emma.

When his plane finally touched down at Newark airport, Killian had never been more disappointed to be home than he was right then. He was almost four thousand miles away from Emma, and with every step he took, he could feel the distance between them growing. Even with what he knew about her, Killian knew that finding her again would be tough. If Carlos's father refused to give out her details, he had no hope of sweet-talking them out of the administrators at Cambridge University. He'd probably just end up adding himself to some sort of government watch list that would effectively end his career when ATSL found out that he'd been banned from ever entering Europe again. And yet, giving up on their friendship didn't feel like a viable option either.

Maybe he could put out some sort of message for her on the air…

"Hello? Earth to Killian?" a familiar voice called out as a hand waved suddenly in front of his face. "Jesus, I've been trying to get your attention for like thirty minutes now. What the hell's wrong with you?"

"I haven't been in the country that long," Killian argued as he turned to face his oldest friend, August Booth.

"Wow! The jet lag is strong this time," August teased, pulling his friend in for an awkward hug. "How was your trip?" he asked when he finally let go after what Killian personally felt was a socially unacceptable amount of time.

"It was, uh… it was good," he said, because even with regret laying heavy in his heart, it had still been one of the best vacations of his entire life.

"Did you get a lot of work done?" August pressed, leading the way through the airport and out to the parking lot. "I Googled that little village you were staying in, and it looked really boring, so… it must have been right up your alley."

"It was," Killian chuckled, "And it wasn't boring. It was… peaceful."

"Peaceful, boring – same thing." August waved away any potential protests his friend could make as he unlocked the car and pulled open the driver's side door. "I still don't understand why you didn't just spend the time in Paris," he eventually added, once they were both inside the vehicle and fiddling with their safety belts. "You can get peace in Paris."

"I could get peace here if you stopped letting yourself into my apartment every weekend," Killian argued, shooting his friend a pointed look – which was promptly ignored. "There's nothing wrong with Paris. I just felt like a change of scenery."

"And you got it?" August asked, starting the engine and throwing the car into reverse.

"I got it," Killian agreed.

"Then, I'm glad you had a good vacation," his friend told him, offering him a small genuine smile before he turned his attention to his mirrors.

"Thanks, me too." Killian allowed a comfortable silence to settle between the two of them for a moment before he asked, "What did I miss while I was gone?"

"So much," August declared dramatically.

He then proceeded to spend the rest of the drive back to the city, explaining, in great detail, everything that had happened in the entertainment industry over the past ten days, while Killian zoned out in the passenger's seat beside him.

Killian was jolted out of his daze as the car rolled to a gentle stop in a familiar location. It was only as he reached for his seat belt that he realized things were deathly silent inside the vehicle, and he turned to see his friend staring over at him in concern.

"Are you sure everything's okay?" August asked. "You didn't eat some dodgy frogs legs or something while you were in France, did you?"

Killian raised a brow, and August snorted out a laugh. They both knew he wasn't the kind of person who would ever think to order frogs legs on a menu – but Killian knew someone who probably would.

"I'm fine," he assured his friend. "I just, uh… I didn't get much sleep last night. You know me, always worried I'm gonna miss my flight. I'll be okay when I can sleep off the jet lag."

"Alright, well… let me know if you need anything."

"You're not coming up?" Killian asked because usually, August was the first person out of the car.

"Not today, no. I've got that big reunion thing we're filming tonight, remember? Gotta go home and shower before I head to rehearsals."

"Oh, God, yeah. I completely forgot about that." Killian scrubbed a harsh hand down his face as he tried to will his brain to leave vacation mode and return to its usual default settings. "Are you coming for dinner Sunday night?"

"Of course," August snorted, because they both knew there was no way he'd miss out on that.

"Okay, well, thanks for the ride - and good luck tonight."

"Go get Lily and then get some rest," August instructed, sounding oddly serious for what might have been the very first time in his life.

Killian offered his friend a sharp bob of the head, then pulled on the handle to open the car door.

The claustrophobic warmth of the underground parking structure at his mother's apartment building was oddly refreshing. As he retrieved his luggage and waved goodbye to his friend, Killian could feel some of that haze finally starting to lift from his mind. In hindsight, his lack of sleep for the past two days probably hadn't been his wisest move when combined with a nine-hour flight, but he knew that once he was back on New York time, he'd start to slip into his old routines with ease.

Killian checked the watch on his wrist as he made his way over to the elevators. It was almost ten pm in France. He wondered what Emma was doing at that precise moment as he pulled out his cell phone and turned it back on.

Stepping out on his mother's floor was always like stepping back into his childhood. Alice Jones had loved and lost so much in this apartment, and yet, she'd never once dreamed of selling up and starting fresh. In fact, his mother seemed to believe that the best way to hold on to the ones she'd lost was to keep their memories alive in the place they'd lived their lives. Killian still wasn't entirely sure if she was brilliant or a little insane, but he'd learned years ago that his mother was unlike any other.

The moment he had the front door open, Lily came rushing out of the lounge to greet him with a look of pure happiness on her face.

"Hi, Sweetheart," he greeted, dropping down to a crouch as he gathered her into his arms. "Did you miss me?"

"She whined for two days when you first left before claiming your old bed as her own again," Alice chuckled, from her place somewhere down the hall.

"So what you're saying is she forgot me quickly," Killian clarified, burying his face in his beloved dog's fur and inhaling deeply.

Lily had been his very first companion when he'd decided that living alone wasn't as much fun as he'd always thought it would be. At sixteen years old, she wasn't as playful as she had once been, but she was still fiercely loyal and loving, and Killian hated being away from her. The pair had developed a bond quite unlike anything else he'd experienced before. Leaving her behind whenever he left the country always felt like he was leaving behind a small piece of himself. He'd tried taking her with him, of course, but Lily didn't enjoy the process of flying, and quarantines in some countries made it pointless to bring her along. In the end, he'd realized that leaving her with his mother was the best option for them both.

After smothering his dog with kisses and allowing her to lick the side of his face, Killian pushed himself back to his feet. He then made his way down the hall with Lily by his side.

"Good afternoon, Mama," he said, pressing a kiss to her cheek.

"Welcome home, Darling. How was your vacation?" she asked, spinning on her heels to head through to the lounge. Before he had a chance to reply, Alice continued, "Did you manage to get lots of work done? How was the village? And the people? Do you think you'll be going back any time soon? Did you take plenty of pictures for me?"

"It was wonderful, thank you," Killian chuckled, as he took a seat on the couch and then patted the cushion beside him for Lily. "It was a beautiful little village full of beautiful people, and I will definitely be going back again soon."

Now that he'd said the words aloud, Killian knew they were true. Even if he never saw Emma again, the place would always be full of memories of their time together. Memories that he wouldn't want to lose, even if he could. And as that realization struck him, Killian suddenly saw his mother in a whole new light. It wouldn't be easy going back to a place that had been full of so much promise and potential. It wouldn't be easy to walk those streets or climb those trails alone, thinking of what could have been. But it was better than trying to forget.

"That's wonderful, Dear. Hopefully, you can take me with you next time," his mother teased, as she made herself comfortable in the chair she always favored. "Did you take some pictures for me?"

"Most of them are on the camera," Killian chuckled, slipping his hand into his pocket to grab his phone. When he finally managed to fish it out, which was made more difficult by Lily's reluctance to move her upper body from where she'd wiggled it onto his lap, Killian froze at what he saw on the screen.

The sheer volume of notifications he'd received since he'd touched down wasn't shocking. He liked to destress while he was on vacation, which meant that most of his colleagues and friends knew not to contact him with anything until he was back in the country. But the unknown number was new. Killian made a point of not giving out his number to random people he met while he was working. He had a phone he kept in his office for that. The one he'd taken on vacation with him was his private number. A number reserved only for those he thought of as friends and family.

Killian unlocked his phone and then pulled up the message thread, praying it was simply a wrong number. The moment he saw the image waiting for him, he knew it wasn't.

She was still wearing the same dress she'd been wearing when he'd left her earlier that day. Her hair was still pulled back in the braid she'd tied it in that morning, although a little of it had fallen loose to frame her face as the day had worn on. She had a small smile on her face, which was propped up on her left hand, and of course, she'd attached a small message to the image too.

As you can tell, my day was productive. How about yours?

Killian frowned down at the image as he tried to decipher the meaning of her words. And then it hit him. He'd been too busy staring at her beautiful face to pay much attention to the rest of what she'd included in her picture. He was pretty sure she was sitting at the small dressing table he'd only glanced at when he'd been in her room, as the image was one of her reflection in the mirror. The hand holding up her head was a little red, but it wasn't from sunburn.

Starting just above her wrist bone and trailing down the side of her left arm was a series of four small black birds in flight. The same little black birds that Killian had seen in a shop window in Nice just a few days earlier. Four little black birds that he instinctively knew would hold some special meaning to her – that would likely tell the story of Emma's past in a way nobody else would ever understand. Four little black birds that she'd chosen to share with him.

Killian smiled to himself as he gently eased a disgruntled Lily from his lap and then looked over to the now-empty seat his mother had previously occupied.

"Mom?" he called out, wondering where she'd gone and when she'd left.

"Yes, Dear?"

"I, um… I'm just gonna make a quick call," he told her as he tapped away at the screen on his phone, attaching a name to the unknown number that had briefly worried him only moments before.

"I gathered as much," his mother called back, from wherever it was that she'd relocated to. "You can use your old bedroom if you need some privacy. Dinner will be ready in about an hour."

"Thanks, Mom," Killian called back, as he headed down the familiar hallways and towards the old wooden door standing at the end of the corridor. It still had a faded name plaque mounted to it, proudly proclaiming Killian's Room.

Lily just managed to slip inside the door before Killian shut it behind himself and hit call on the newest contact in his directory – Emmy.

He barely had time to take a seat on the edge of his bed when the line connected, and Emma's voice rang out across it.

"Hey, stranger."

"Hi," he said, as he dropped back to lay across the duvet. "I'm, uh… I'm sorry I didn't get in touch sooner. I, um… I forgot to ask for your number."

"You already have it," she chuckled, and Killian wondered where she was. Was she also sitting on her bed while she spoke to him? Was she maybe curled up in that spot on the sofa she liked so much or, was she sitting on the balcony, enjoying the warm French summer?

"I do?"

"Yes. I sent those pictures to myself from your phone, remember? The messages are still there, attached to my number."

Killian pulled the phone away from his ear for a moment to navigate back to their message thread and then scrolled up. Just as she'd said, the pictures they'd taken in Nice were sitting above the image she'd sent to him that afternoon.

"Fuck. I, uh… I –"

"Forgot?" she teased. "Didn't realize? Don't know how technology works? All of the above?"

"And just like that, I forgot why I thought I was gonna miss you," he threw back at her, and Emma's beautiful laugh rang out clearly over the line.

"How was your flight?" she eventually asked, and Killian could hear something rustling lightly in the background.

"It was good," he lied, because he didn't want to tell her he'd spent the entire nine hours worrying about how he'd ever get in touch with her again. "A nice smooth ride. Very uneventful. How about your day? What made you decide to go back for the tattoo?"

"I dunno. I just woke up this morning and felt like I needed something a little more than a handful of sand from the beach to remember this trip. As soon as I got out of the car, I knew that this was what I wanted."

Killian nodded his head in understanding, even though Emma couldn't see it. He had his pictures to look back on and treasure - small memories of larger moments captured in person and through his eyes. While Emma had been understanding of his passion for photography while they'd been together, he knew that it didn't appeal to her the same way it did to him.

"Is there, um… Is there a reason you opted for four birds instead of the three in the window?" he asked, as Lily edged her way closer to him and began nosing at his free hand.

"Do you remember me telling you about my childhood?" Emma began. Killian gave a small hum of acknowledgment, and she continued. "Well, I uh… I've been bounced between so many homes and groups that I lost count of those years ago. If I had to guess, I'd say that my left arm isn't long enough to tattoo a bird on it for every single one of those, so I decided to have them represent the different places I've lived. I was found in Greater London, but after they'd completed their initial review, I was bounced to a foster career who lived in Hertfordshire. When her husband died, I was put back into the system and ended up in Essex. I spent some more time as a teenager in Hertfordshire due to space issues in group homes, and now I'm in Cambridgeshire. I don't think the city will be my final home. I don't think I've found that place yet. So, I thought I'd get one little black bird, taking its flight to freedom, to represent each of the places I rested before I found my nest."

"That makes a beautiful piece even more stunning," he told her, because now that he knew exactly what each of those little birds represented, he knew that every time he saw them, they would be a reminder of just how much Emma had been through in her life. How many obstacles she'd overcome to get to where she was – the place where she deserved to be.

"Thanks. I noticed you were totally ink-free," she said, her tone switching back to that much more playful side of her personality that Killian had come to know so well. "Have you ever thought about getting one yourself?"

"I've, uh… I've thought about it," he admitted, because even though it always seemed to surprise his friends, it was something he'd always considered. "I just can't decide how much I want it."

Emma giggled beautifully, and Killian felt those lingering tendrils of sorrow from her story lift completely from his shoulders.

"You mean you're not sure if you want it bad enough to suffer for it."

"Yes. That's exactly what I mean," he conceded, as he brought his hand up to scrub over his face. "I keep hearing all this conflicting information about how much it hurts, and when people say things like, 'Oh, it's just a scratch,' I think it's fine, and I can definitely handle that, and then someone else comes along and says, 'mine burned like a bitch. Stung for days,' and I just don't think I want one enough to be willing to cause myself physical pain for it."

"You do know there are legitimate reasons for that, right?" she asked, and Killian could hear the smile that was coloring her words. "Even if you got the exact same tattoo as me in the exact same space, our levels of pain tolerance would be completely different. What hurts you might not hurt me and vice versa. And then there's the positioning issue too. Some parts of the body hurt far more than others. That's why some people don't experience any discomfort and others do."

"Did yours hurt?" he asked, "Either of them?"

Emma was silent for a moment, and in his mind's eye, Killian could see her reaching for a glass of wine, taking a sip, and setting it back down before she spoke. "This one hurt a little," she finally admitted. "The first bird was the worst. The others I didn't really feel. The one on my hip was a little worse, but I think it's because I wore jeans for the appointment, and denim is not a forgiving material. But none of them were really painful. It's not the kind of discomfort that makes you wanna scream and curse at the guy jabbing a needle in your body."

"So not as painful as childbirth," he clarified, and Emma snorted out a very un-lady-like laugh.

"You have a lot of personal experience on how painful childbirth can be, do ya?"

"No, I… I just meant… I mean… Oh, you know what I meant," he finally conceded.

Emma hummed her disbelief, and Killian sighed heavily before jumping in surprise at the loud thump on his bedroom door.

"Shit," he cursed, bolting upright.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he assured her, "It's, um… I'm at my mom's place. Just a second." He covered the received with his hand and then called out, "Yeah?"

"Dinner's on the table," Alice called back, in a tone that suggested his ass should have been in a seat around said table ten minutes ago.

"I'm coming," he assured his mother, before raising the phone back to his ear. "Sorry, Emmy, I have to go. Can I, uh… can I call you tomorrow? It must be getting late for you?" He dropped his gaze down to the watch on his wrist, still set to French time, and cursed at what the hands showed him. "Shit! It's almost midnight. I'm so sorry, Emmy. I didn't even realize. It's still daylight here."

"The joys of being in different time zones," she chuckled. "Go enjoy your very bland, vegetable-free dinner, and I'll speak to you tomorrow."

Killian chuckled at her words as he reluctantly pushed himself back up to his feet. "I will do. Sleep well, Emmy."

"You too," she replied, before disconnecting the line.

Killian stood in silence for a long moment just appreciating how easy their call had been. He'd worried that talking to her when they were no longer face-to-face would become boring or too repetitive. That maybe it would lack the kind of chemistry that had drawn them together in the first place. But in the space of a little over an hour, Emma had once again proven that she wasn't like the other people in his life. She could make the dullest of topics feel fascinating, and he couldn't wait to see what tomorrow would bring.

"Come on, Lily," he called out, as he pulled open the door and held it for the dog to walk through first. Killian followed her down the hallway and through to the dining room. His mother was already sitting at a table set for two.

"Sorry, Mama," he offered, pressing a kiss to her cheek as he passed by to take his seat. "I lost track of time."

"It's fine, Dear," she assured him, waving away his concerns as she picked up her knife and fork to begin digging into her meal. "Now, tell me more about this wonderful vacation of yours."

Killian reached out to set his phone down on the table but hesitated for a moment when he saw what Martha had prepared for dinner that evening. He took a quick picture of the meal and then slipped his phone beneath the table, under the guise of setting a napkin over his lap. While his mother was busy cutting into her chicken, Killian sent the image to Emma's number, along with the message;

I'm not sure you'd call this bland or vegetable-free.

Emma's reply came back just as Killian had opened his mouth to begin explaining a little of the village's history to his mother. When he finally got the chance to check it almost an hour later, the message simply read;

I'm not sure scientists would agree with you there. Tomatoes are fruits, not vegetables!

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