They were back on the path, headed down into town, with only 15 minutes to go until their scheduled check-in time after patrol. They didn't want the family to fear that something terrible had happened if they were late. If Killian looked so distracted that he could hardly re-tie her dress, Emma chalked it up to impending fatherhood. A weight had settled on him over the last few hours, but she found herself dismissing it easily. It was a lot for her to take in, and she'd been down this road before, though much younger and much less prepared. And without a man who had just spent hours kissing her perfectly flat belly and whispering assurances to a child who was hardly more than a meeting of sperm and egg at this point.
Emma spent much of the walk explaining modern biology to a pirate: the X chromosome of the egg and how the X or Y of the sperm would determine gender (he found this fascinating, that on some level he was the deciding factor in whether they had a son or daughter), how the baby would still likely be in the Fallopian tubes (she stopped to draw a basic anatomy picture into the dirt path with a stick), how the baby would implant into the uterus in the next day or so.
"It's common in my world not to make any sort of announcement until the 12th week, because… "
"No," Killian stopped her, shaking his head. "We don't have that long."
Emma gave him an odd look. "It's honestly quite usual that couples keep this to themselves until the 3rd month. Though I grant you that usually you don't find out until half that time or more has passed already. I wouldn't want to rush…"
He cut in again, speaking firmly: "We need to make public announcement." Emma could see his mind working; he was plotting to himself. "It's no coincidence that we know this early. The fairies are trying to protect you. We need to make sure that everyone knows about this pregnancy, and that the baby is mine."
"Whoa, pirate, that is some possessive macho bullshit you have going on there," Emma put her hand into his chest and shoved him away from her. "You are not putting me up on a platform in the square and bragging to the townfolk about your fertility."
Killian caught her hands in his and shook his head. Then he cocked his head to one side and gave it some thought. "First, I think you must have expected a certain amount of 'macho bullshit' when you took up with a 200-year-old pirate. Second, to be honest, we pretty much do need to do the town-square announcement, although we don't need to get into the details of our sex life in front of everyone. Unless you want to, of course. I know how you like that kind…"
"Killian!"
"No, listen, I have a reason other than my ego," and here Killian felt backed into a corner. He didn't want to worry her, but he knew he couldn't keep the news from her, either. And now he was doubly concerned about causing her any undue stress. He knew Emma; she would always want the harsh truth over a pretty wallpapering of half-statements and omissions.
"That prisoner last night explained what that break-in was meant to accomplish. Arthur wants me dead, but he wanted the men to," Killian hesitated for a moment, not wanting to say the word out loud, but rushing on, "he wanted the attackers to rape you."
Emma froze. She was immediately back in that alleyway off the market, with the man's fingers digging into her thighs and pressing against her breasts.
"Why?" she stuttered. "Why would he want that?"
Killian held her shoulders. "I don't quite know the whole story. But Arthur seems to fear my family, or at least my mother's immediate line. He wants me dead and he wants to make sure you don't have any children by me who would be considered legitimate heirs. If other men had you… Arthur could deny paternity."
"But we're not married…" she began.
"That wouldn't matter. He knows… I don't know how… but he knows were are committed to each other, or True Love, or… I don't know quite what he based the decision on. But he knows I would claim any child you have as mine. Your child would be my legitimate heir; others would see it that way."
"Others?"
"I assume Arthur stole us out of Storybrooke so he could kill us where it mattered, either in the Enchanted Forest or in Camelot, so that people who mattered would know that I and all my line were dead or deniable."
"And who would matter?"
Killian shrugged. "I don't know. I had no idea I held any claim at all over Camelot. I guess he's been keeping me on his radar all this time. But none of the women I was with mattered to his plans, until you."
"So if we don't announce this pregnancy publicly, he will be sending men to rape me, knowing it has to happen soon? And once he does know, he'll just want me dead?"
Killian nodded. "Yes, I expect so."
Emma took a step back from him and ran this all through her mind. "Well, this is all several kinds of fucked up." He could feel the magic-fuelled anger bubbling up in her. Killian noted with relief that she didn't seem angry with him. "Now I want to kill him, too."
Killian beamed at her. "That's my g…" He stopped short when she glared at him. "… Swan. Although you're not mine, really, you're your own person, and relationships only work when both partners can freely…"
"Shut up, Killian. I don't need whatever regurgitated Oprah you managed to pick up off daytime television. I am yours and I have the goddamn glowing True Love fairytale to prove it. That also means that you're mine," she gave him a hard stare.
"Only yours, my love," he agreed quickly.
"So I'll agree to this announcement," she shuddered, "but I'm not going to be paraded about like a brood mare."
"I'm sure Oona will know how to handle this tactfully," he said, knowing that Emma would acquiesce to his cousin's wife.
"And we need to start taking this fight to Arthur. We can't keep waiting defensively while he attacks again and again, until he succeeds."
Killian made a tentative move to pull her into his arms. "Also agreed," he said.
Emma kissed him as he pulled her in. "Let's get back before your crazed family forms a search party and tears the town apart looking for us." She threaded her fingers through his and they continued on towards the house on the square.
…
David hit the ground first, followed by Belle, Snow and finally Will. They all lay temporarily winded and disorientated in a land none of them had seen outside of books. The air in Camelot felt thinner, perhaps like it sat at high elevation, and seemed to have a slight shimmer to it.
Belle gained her feet and then pulled up Will and Snow, while David hauled himself up on the low branches of a tree. They swayed uncertainly.
"So, who's got a map then?" Will asked with forced cheerfulness. "No one, eh?" He spun around in a dramatic little circle, then pointed downhill. "Shall we try that-a-way for starters?"
Snow gave him a hard look. "Don't be dense," she said. "The air suggests this is a mountain kingdom, and we won't find the castle of a mountain kingdom downhill. Let's find a stream and follow it uphill until we find civilisation." "
No one argued with her tracking skills. They found a good-sized stream of icy water fairly quickly, and started a long hike through virgin woods, David and Will hacking through the underbrush with David's sword when their path was blocked. By nightfall, they found a cabin close on the stream.
Belle knocked on the door and explained their situation to a confused old couple. They waved the strangers inside, however, and made tea, and listened as Belle told them they needed a warm place to sleep for the night. Belle felt odd, in her modern clothes and hiking boots and parka, inside a cabin that looked ancient even by Enchanted Forest standards.
"We're looking for Camelot," David put in. "How far away is it?"
"You're heading the right direction, so," said the old woman. "The castle town is still another day's walk."
The old man added: "You can sleep here tonight. We've no beds for ye, but you can sleep here by the hearth and stay warm." He paused, hoping to ask the obvious questions of these oddly-dressed people. "Where are ye from?"
David smiled. "We've come from a Land Without Magic," he said. "My daughter and her… friend… fell through a portal in our world, and we believe they may have come here. We're hoping to find someone who has news of them."
The couple shook their heads. "Not heard of any strangers around here. Arthur keeps a tight rein on Camelot," the man said. "Even when he's not here, like now, his knights keep things in order for him."
"What are the names of your daughter and her friend? I can send for our neighbours, too, see if anyone has heard of them," the old woman said kindly.
"Emma Swan and Hook… Killian Jones," Snow answered.
The old couples' eyes went wide and they looked at each other in shock. "Jones is a common enough name," said the woman. "But Killian…"
"It's not possible. It's been too long," snapped her husband. "Don't dredge all that up. He was a legend when you were but a girl."
"There's plenty alive who remember the boy," the woman retorted. "Arthur survived this long and the boy had similar magic on 'im."
Will looked at his friends, then butt in unceremoniously. "Sorry, what are you on about? Do you know of Killian?"
"We don't know him," the man said quickly, "or even of him. There's a legend says Arthur feared that two children, a boy and a girl, could take his throne from him. Kerry and Killian Jones. So Arthur had the girl killed. The boy, though, disappeared. Unaccounted for to this day. Can't be in Camelot, Arthur has searched every household time and again. But even he stopped searching before I was born."
"The boy's auntie still lives," the woman said. "She never knew what happened to the little boy. She's been kept in the castle for the rest of her days, where Arthur can make sure she's no threat either. Arthur made sure Guinevere never had any children to rival his throne. So if that boy still lives… he's a threat to Arthur."
Snow sucked in her breath. "What happened to the boy's mother?"
"I don't know," the old woman confessed.
"Where can we find this aunt?" Belle questioned gently.
"She lives inside the castle walls, never allowed out," said the man. "Her name is Mairead."
…
Few things in life made the Jones clann happier than planning a party, especially after the wartime stance the family had had to adopt recently. So when Killian followed up the news of Emma's pregnancy with the fact that they needed word of it to spread, quickly and officially, Mac and Oona said that they should throw a party to celebrate the news publicly. The word 'celebration' seemed to soothe Emma's hackles back down a bit, and she agreed as long as were to no embarrassing speeches or announcements. The sisters-in-law sighed and soothed, no certainly not, how course, no one would think of it. Word would simply filter out, and the party would be a public observance of the fact, much like a wedding reception without the wedding. One of the brothers made pointed reference to the lack of a wedding. Emma and Killian ignored him.
They planned the celebration for that weekend, in only 3 days' time. The week passed in a blur of preparations unlike anything Emma had ever seen. Most of the town was invited, and the party would be held in the square, where the Jones family could command entrances and exits and ensure security. Emma would cast a spell over the square, and only people from the town could enter. It was not a perfect solution, but it cut the chances that Arthur's agents or knights could attack from within.
It seemed to Emma that a whole farmyard of animals were slaughtered and spitted to announce her baby's existence, however tenuous. Emma could not let go of her 12-week superstition. She explained to Killian over and again how precarious pregnancies could be at this early stage, but he simply answered that it would be far more precarious if one of Arthur's thugs got hold of her. The ripple effect of this information would force Arthur's hand, he thought. Whatever threat he might pose to Arthur, it had to be based on some sort of support for his family's claim on Camelot still brewing somewhere. Otherwise why would Arthur drag them there from their innocuous life in a Storybrooke?
The sisters-in-law called back the seamstress and Emma found herself in the middle of a 2-day-long slumber party of dress-fittings and make-up and hair-styling that only paused when they all fell asleep where they lay on the floor of Oona's enormous bedroom. Emma stole away whenever she could, the full-time girlish bonding far more than her loner self could take for hours on end. She climbed up the roof the evening before the party wearing a highly detailed, embroidered, full-length black gown that the eldest sister-in-law had been 'simply desperate' to see on her. She settled down with her back against a chimney pot and watched the townspeople stringing paper lanterns across the square.
She wasn't entirely surprised to hear Killian's voice come from the nearby shadows.
"I never thought I'd appreciate having grown up with only Liam for family," he said, "but now I see that it had some advantages."
She laughed, walking over to his spot by the edge of the roof and settling herself between his spread legs. She leaned back into his chest and rested her head on his shoulder.
"I think we can't take it because we're not used to it. Maybe we would love it like they do if family was all we'd ever known," she said.
"Aye, we're too damaged to just appreciate it, I suppose," he answered. He ran his hands down her arms, taking in her dress by feel in the dim light. The skirts spread out over the flat roof top and trailed slightly over the low wall that marked the edge of the roof. "What the hell are you wearing, Swan? There's a bloody lot of it."
"I've no idea," she sighed. "They dress me up like a doll and I have little say in it."
He dropped his head and kissed down her neck, breathing her in as he went. "I like the perfume, though. Where'd that come from?"
"I'm not even sure which one of them gave it me," she said. "They're so kind. I don't want to appear ungrateful…"
"I know," he said. He fished about under her abundant skirts and his hand emerged with his spyglass. "Have a look over there, up on the ridge beyond the cliffs."
She blinked and steadied he glass as he guided it towards what he wanted her to see. "Fires," she said. "Campfires? About …. Three or four of them?"
Killian nodded. "They've all sprung up in the last hour. There may be more coming."
"Arthur?" Emma asked, her voice sounding stronger about it than she felt.
"Could be," Killian agreed. "I'm going to take a couple of the men and have a closer look later tonight. They can't be more than a couple of hours ride from here. "
Emma said nothing. He waited for her to insist that she come along, and kept waiting. When she didn't, he wasn't fool enough to move on.
"We both know this is usually where you just saddle up and come with me," he said carefully. "So why aren't you coming with me? I value my life more than telling you not to."
She turned and looked into his eyes, blue and concerned in the limited starlight. "I thought I would be the one telling you that I can still do everything I could do before, that I'm pregnant and not an invalid. But you know what? I'm scared. I'm scared of losing the baby. It is so early to know about this… there's a good reason women don't usually know for a few weeks yet. When things are more certain…"
Killian just held her and nodded. He wanted to tell her there was no need to worry, but what the fuck did he know about it really? He'd been trying to memorise her lessons about chromosomes and implantation. He had redrawn her anatomical sketches to make sure he had it all straight in his head. Everything he knew about early pregnancy was based on hope and luck, and he was sure that even Oona and the army of sisters-in-law had little more to go on than that. Emma, for all her biological knowledge, also had little more to go on. So he could do the hope speech again, or he could shut up and empathise. He chose the latter. They lay there in the starshine for a bit, Emma watching the preparations and Killian watching the distant campfires on the ridge. Killian toyed with her hair and lay his hand across her belly, hoping and wishing and trying to infuse the tiny life with luck and toughness.
When they had recuperated in the solitude, they levered themselves off the roof tiles and made their way back downstairs. He kissed her in the doorway to Oona's bedroom, all the sisters-in-law sighing and clapping at the public display of affection, and then headed off to round up some cousins to see what those fires were all about.
Just before midnight, he and Mac and Fergus saddled up and rode as silently as possible for the campfires on the ridge.