The wedding took place at Marco's house eight months later. Emma and Killian exchanged their vows outside in the flower garden under a wooden arbor lovingly made for them by her father. Surrounding them was their wedding party of Ruby, Ashley, August and Will, with Mary Margaret as Matron of Honor and David as Best Man.
As they planned their wedding together, the couple discovered more little facts about each other.
"Do you want to wear a tuxedo, a suit, or a button down shirt with dress slacks?" Emma asked her fiance' one day.
"A tux, of course! I'm only planning on getting married once, so I want to do it right!"
Emma giggled, a sound that never failed to make Killian smile. "This better be your only wedding, Buddy!" she teased. "Do you have a color preference?"
His smile faded a bit, and of course, his perceptive wife-to-be noticed. "What is it, Babe?"
"Would it be okay if I wore blue?"
"Of course it would. Why wouldn't it be?"
"Aren't tuxedos usually black or gray for a wedding?"
"Your tux can be any color we want it to be. Personally, I would love for it to be blue, since it would bring out the color of your eyes. They were one of the first things I noticed when I met you," she said, playing with the soft hair at the nape of his neck.
"My mum always called me her 'Little Boy Blue' because my eyes were bright blue when I was born. I guess that's why I tend to choose a lot of blue clothing."
"Then I'd say you wearing that color can serve as a tribute to your mother."
"Thank you, Love. How, um...how would you like to pay tribute to your mother?"
"I don't know. I would like to do that somehow, though."
"Did she have a particular song she liked, or a color, like my mum? Maybe she had a special flower?"
"Buttercups," she said thoughtfully.
"Pardon me?"
"Buttercups were her favorite flower. I used to pick them for her from the field behind our house. When she got sick, I always tried to keep a bouquet of them by her bed while they were in bloom."
And so it was that when Marco walked Emma from the house and down the garden path to the arbor, she carried a bouquet of buttercups to meet her handsome groom, who was dressed in a navy blue tuxedo. He teared up when he saw her approaching in a romantic white sheath gown with spaghetti straps and a split sweetheart neckline, embellished with intricate lace detailing. Her curls were pulled back into a loose bun, accented with a pearl and rhinestone encrusted headband, with wispy tendrils framing her face. She looked absolutely angelic.
After the ceremony, Will Scarlett couldn't resist calling her "Pwincess Buhuh-cwup", which earned him a sharp jab to the ribs from his girlfriend, who was trying not to laugh, but he ignored her and went on to add, "Mawwiage. Mawwiage is what bwings us togevvuh...today." He had the whole wedding party in stitches as he kept quoting lines from "The Princess Bride" while they were trying to take pictures.
Emma had purposely chosen a date for the wedding in the same month that she had been attacked. Her reasoning was that she wanted to have a wonderful anniversary to remember that month, instead of it reminding them of a tragic one. She told Killian that she would've liked to have had something happy to counteract the anniversary of his injuries too, but it wasn't really possible to plan a wedding in less than two months.
Three years later, that month was the date for another event, and the happiness created by it far outweighed the bad memories of the IED explosion.
Penny Liann Jones, named after her grandmother and uncle, came screaming into the world on a Wednesday afternoon, and immediately had both parents wrapped around her little finger. By the time she was 18 months old, she refused to answer to Penny, preferring to be called Liann or Lee. Emma attributed this to being persistent, like her mother; August said the word he would use was stubborn.
"Just wait," Emma told him, pointing to Claire's rounded belly. "If your kid turns out to be anything like you, you're in trouble!"
About a year before Liann was born, they bought a house on the same block as Mary Margaret, David, and their growing family. It had a fenced-in backyard, which Evie loved to explore, and was much larger than the house they'd been renting for years.
Killian had earned his bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, and worked for a company which designed and produced modified tools and equipment for people to use with their artificial limbs. Ruby was a consultant for him, and often tried out his prototypes with her patients. Once Lee was born, he requested and was granted the opportunity to do his job online from home the majority of the time, except when he had to attend occasional meetings, go out on field visits to troubleshoot problems, or meet with clients.
Emma continued to work at the Physical Therapy center, though she cut back on hours in order to be home earlier in the afternoon three days a week. They rarely needed a babysitter, but when they did, Belle was happy to watch Lee since she was now a stay-at-home mom to the twin boys she and her husband Will had together.
Emma had always loved being close to the same age as her brother, so even though it was impossible to be as close as the two of them, she and Killian decided they wouldn't do anything to prevent another pregnancy once the recommended three months were up after Liann was born.
Months turned into years without them conceiving another child. Both of them were tested for fertility issues, but they received no answers. Liann was almost four years old, and they adored their precocious blond-haired, blue-eyed beauty, but they yearned to give her a sibling.
One day, after being disappointed by yet another negative pregnancy test, Killian held his tearful wife in his arms. "Sweetheart," he said softly, "Maybe we should think seriously about adoption. After all, it worked out pretty well for Marco and Penny Swan."
Emma hiccuped a laugh and nodded. "Yeah, maybe we should."
They filled out the paperwork, went through the background checks, and had all the home visits before they were finally approved. Because they weren't requesting an infant, the opportunity to adopt presented itself more quickly than they expected, much to their delight.
Charles joined their family six months after Liann turned five. He was a little less than seven months younger than his sister, which his parents knew would be a source of comical confusion for anyone who asked their ages, just like it had been for August and Emma.
When the adoption was finalized, Killian and Emma gave their little boy the middle name Brennan, after Killian's father.
Their sandy-haired, brown-eyed son was sweet, but very shy and wary of people. Emma and Killian had been told that he was abandoned when he was almost two years old and had been a ward of the state ever since. The couple realized they would need to be patient, and consistently show him love and care to help him overcome his insecurities, which they did abundantly. They longed for the day that he would finally be comfortable enough to call them 'Mommy' and 'Daddy'.
Early in October, a little over three months after they adopted Charles, two events happened which reduced Emma and Killian to tears. The first took place in a department store where the family was searching for Halloween costumes. They were helping Lee decide between being a fairy or a cowgirl, when they realized Charles had disappeared. As they began to search frantically, the little boy popped out from behind a wall of costume props, proudly waving a plastic hook that he'd slipped onto his hand.
"I wanna be just wike Daddy for Howwoween!" he crowed.
Killian whipped his head around to look at his wife, whose eyes were filling with tears. Then he ran to scoop up Charles, relief at having found him mixing with joy at being called 'Daddy' for the first time by his adopted son.
"And so you shall be, my boy!" Killian assured him, blinking back tears of his own.
The family trick-or-treated together, with Charles dressed as Captain Hook, Lee as Tinkerbell, Emma as Peter Pan and Killian portraying Smee, with a crocodile puppet covering his prosthesis.
"After all, there can only be one Captain Hook," he reasoned.
The second event took place following another scare, just a week after the episode in the store. This time it involved Emma, who suddenly fainted at work one day. Ashley called Killian and, after reassuring him that his wife was going to be fine, asked him to make a quick stop on his way over to the Physical Therapy center.
By the time he arrived, Emma was sitting up and had regained her color. She rolled her eyes when she saw her husband practically sprinting through the door to check on her.
"I'm fine, Babe. I just got a little light-headed. I probably stood up too quickly, or something."
Killian was busy running his eyes over her face and body to convince himself that she was indeed speaking the truth. When he was satisfied she was okay, he held out the white paper pharmacy bag in his hand.
"What's this?" Emma asked, reaching to take it from him.
"Ashley asked me to pick these up. She has a suspicion about what happened, because of some other things she's been noticing lately, too."
Emma pulled out two pregnancy test boxes and stared at them for long moments, before blinking hard and looking up at him.
"What if I'm not?" she whispered hoarsely.
"What if you are?" he answered. "It won't matter, Emma. I'm going to love you even more after we find out, regardless of the results."
She got to her feet, shaking not so much from the fainting spell, as from the prospect of what they would find out in a few minutes. Her husband walked back to the restroom with her and waited outside until she unlocked the door and ushered him in. He pulled her into his arms and she molded herself to him, awed, as usual, at how perfectly they fit together.
When the timer on her watch went off, she took a step back and looked at him with her lip pulled between her teeth. They had taken so many pregnancy tests over the last several years, and had been disappointed every time.
Killian plucked the tests off of the sink and held one out to his wife, while he kept the other one. "Together?"
She nodded. "Together."
Each of them looked at the stick in their hands, then their eyes shot up to meet one another's. "Pregnant!" they both gasped at the same time.
Henry Marco Jones was born seven months later. His dark hair was curly, just as his Grandma Alice's had been, and he had his mother's green eyes.
Emma and Killian had been concerned about how Evie would react to having an infant in the house since she was now over ten years old, and the other two children nearly wore her out every day. From the minute they brought Henry home, Evie became his caretaker. She lay right beside his cradle whenever he was sleeping, and let his parents know the second he started to wake up. The two were constant companions until Evie became his guardian angel when Henry was nearly seven.
On his birthday, Henry found a puppy in one of the boxes; a female Springer Spaniel with big brown eyes and an energetic spirit. His 'Uncle Davey' had called Henry's parents as soon as she was brought into the shelter, knowing she'd be a perfect match for their son. The puppy was immediately dubbed Sophie by her new master, and his parents saw the sparkle back in his eyes that had been missing for a few weeks.
Their lives were full and happy, with the usual ups and downs that married couples have. Every evening, when the children were in bed and the house was quiet, Killian and Emma would find time to cuddle together on the couch or in their bed. They often reminisced about when and how they first met and events that had happened in the years since then.
Time had helped heal their wounds, both physically and emotionally, but they would always carry some scars. They realized that even though they'd suffered injury and loss, they wouldn't change a thing, because it all resulted in the two of them falling in love, and that was something for which they'd always be grateful.
They'd experienced devastation, and in the end, they had healed...together.
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