A/N: I hope everyone had a lovely holiday season (and happy, happy New Year!) Thanks for your patience with the last chapter and the two week break. We are back with the penultimate chapter, hang in there! And just thanks for being awesome amazing people. I appreciate the heck out of each and every one of you. xo
Always thanks to shippingtheswann for the cheering and beta work (go read her wonderful story!), imagnifika for finding the heart of the story with her art, halobxist & meanderingcaptainswanmusings for everything xo. And please keep supporting all the other CSBB authors and artists. The content everyone is bringing is truly amazing.
And now what will Emma do...
Chapter 13
Night has crept over the city, aided by the thick ashen clouds and the light mist of rain slowly dampening everything it touches. The light from the street lamps diffuse golden on the wet cobblestone streets, guiding tourists and locals alike to the overcrowded pubs and restaurants, casting spotlights on those pulling on their cigarettes and laughing with friends.
Emma doesn't register any of it, faceless people, and nameless places, all passing in a blur. She glances around but her mind is too preoccupied with conjuring up negative scenarios, each one worse than the one before.
Maybe it was his plan to disappear all along.
He'd had enough of her mess.
Or worse yet, something has happened to him and she's been too selfish, thinking only of herself. Should she check the hospitals?
She feels her heart pound, getting itself stuck somewhere in her throat and when she does try to gasp for breath, she freezes again at the sound of her own frantic sob, clamping her hand over her mouth. Her eyes dart around, hoping no one has taken notice and when she sees no adverse reactions, she forces herself to take a measured breath through her nose, and then another.
While she manages to keep breathing, it doesn't stop the traitorous hot tears from continuing to escape from the corners of her eyes, rolling silently down her cheeks.
Her knees clutch tighter at her pack between her legs, as if holding onto that will somehow help her hold herself together. Crazy, but it works, or it works sufficiently enough to make her feel like she won't shatter right then and there. When her tears begin to abate, she weakly drops her hand to her lap and sucks in a stuttered breath.
As the cooling, damp air reaches her lungs, she closes her eyes and takes a few more calming pulls. She feels the mist against her face, feels the moisture soak into her clothes and the goosebumps that spread across her skin.
For one blissful moment, her terrible thoughts fade and she sees his smile. She sees all the times Killian reached back for her, pulling her through the people, always patient, always waiting.
And she ran away.
She wipes angrily at another stray tear and forces her eyes open.
She has no idea how long she's been sitting on the bench, or where she is, or where to look first or-
Her pulse quickens and she forces her feet to push up from the ground, lifting her from the bench, a sudden need to do something because if she doesn't get up from that bench she might never find the strength to. She hoists her bag onto her back and groans at the weight, and it's a weight she's not entirely sure is just from the pack on her shoulders but she doesn't dwell on it, at least not right away.
For now, she is determined to find a street name and a starting point, hostels. She'll check all of them.
She fumbles for her phone and with shaky fingers, cold fingers and pulls up a google search. How many could there possibly be?
Fifty according to hostels dot com.
Fifty according to hostelworld dot com.
At least forty-five in her guidebook.
And while many overlap, some don't, so where does that leave her? She's too tired to do the math but without any other plan, she sets off towards the closest red dot on her map, her steps slow but determined.
xo
Her head falls lower and her heart drops further in her chest every time there is no man with dark messy hair in the lobbies she searches. Each confused look from front desk clerks and each time there is no account of a tall man with a British accent her hope shrinks. There is no sign of him anywhere.
She's walked for hours, until most places were full up and closed, or quiet for the night. She walked until her clothes are soaked through and her back aches.
Some clerks are too busy or too tired to care, some clearly think she is crazy, while others who get a better look at her red rimmed eyes and hesitant questions do take more time to really think before shaking their heads.
A few offer suggestions of where she might look and promise to call if they do see him - she hesitates on what to call him. Boyfriend seemed silly, friend isn't enough, other words tie her stomach in knots and yet -
"He's just - mine. My Killian," she whispers to yet another sad 'no' but before she can step away from the counter, the older gentleman at the desk covers her chilled hand with his.
"Why don't you sit down and warm up a little?"
Emma eyes the front door, knowing only rain and darkness await her. And the overwhelming feeling she is no closer to finding Killian that she had been at the start begins to creep back in. For all she knows, they've been going in opposite directions, or he could be fast asleep somewhere warm, or on a bus travelling further away from her as the seconds tick by.
A shiver racks her body.
"I'll fetch you some tea and you can just rest a moment. If he hasn't been in yet, I'm sure he'll be by soon. You wouldn't want to miss him and I can imagine how frantically he must be looking for you."
A weathered hand squeezes hers.
"I don't know."
"I'll be but a moment. I promise."
Emma spots an overstuffed chair in the corner, faded red plaid material, a thick blanket draped across the back. She can see herself curling up in it and sleeping for days, sleeping until this nightmare is over.
"Have a seat."
Emma finally relents, her pack a burden she can no longer hold up. She drags her wet sneakered feet to the corner of the room, and unceremoniously dumps her bag on the floor but hesitates before sitting down.
"Don't worry about your wet clothes, it's only water after all."
She turns to find the man watching her patiently before leaving her with a wink.
It's only another beat before she finally collapses into the chair, feeling swallowed up by the plush material. She feels small and alone. She kicks her shoes off and draws her feet up, resting her forehead against her knees.
It's only when she hears the tea cup settle on the coffee table beside her that she looks up.
He's brought her tea and a slice of coffee cake and she could very well cry at the kindness.
"Just remember, while there is tea, there is hope."
She doesn't know what to say. She doesn't know if she can find the right words and she doesn't know how much hope she has left. The man seems to sense that, so his next move seems more cautious. He hesitates but finally moves slowly to reach into his back pocket and produces a postcard. He holds it close while he searches for his words.
"I think some might think the act of writing love letters is silly or outdated but I still think it's the best way to say something we might be afraid of saying out loud. Perhaps while you wait for your young man to show up, you can write him a note?"
Emma blinks at him, wondering how he could know her so well. How he could have found exactly what she needed.
She reaches out for the postcard and holds it to her heart long after the man has retreated back to his perch behind the desk. She closes her eyes and knows, if her heart could press the words onto the card, what they would be, she just needs to take that next step and write them herself.
She takes a moment to test them in her mind, to feel the sureness of them before opening her eyes and reaching into her pack. It's while she is searching for her pen that her fingers brush against the envelope tucked deep inside her bag.
And somehow, for some reason, this time she doesn't feel the swift paralyzing panic. This time it whispers of hope, of finding lost things, which is something she could really cling to right now, and so she doesn't push it further down into her pack. No, this time she grips it hard with both hands and abruptly tugs it loose.
It falls into her lap, while her pen flies out, sliding across the floor, taking a lone white sock and a hair tie along for the ride. She scrambles to pick them up, shoving the items back in her bag but keeps the envelope and pen close.
She huffs out a breath and lays the envelope flat on her lap, along with the postcard, her emotions warring on what she wants to attempt first. She knows the words she wants to write, feels them, wishes she could could say them to him right now and yet, her hand trembles when she picks up the pen. So she tucks the card between her and the chair and flips the envelope over. And as she did when she first received the package, she draws her fingers across her handwritten name, trying to imagine the woman with the hopeful eyes write it out as carefully as can be, knowing her daughter was going to see it one day. She wonders if the woman herself had drawn a finger over the cursive. She wonders if there is a resemblance to her own writing.
She looks at each letter carefully. Maybe the letter m, perhaps the a.
She shakes her head at her wandering thoughts and reaches a trembling hand out for her tea, savouring the rich flavour as it warms her from the inside out. Her breathing comes easier after another sip and she thinks for a moment that the old man might be right, maybe there is a little bit of hope infused in every cup of tea.
She rests the cup back in the saucer, and with determination finally flips the envelope over, fingers slowly and carefully breaking the seal. There is a part of her that knows that she won't find all the answers or the peace she is looking for inside that envelope, probably far from it. But if two people, who claim to be her parents, can find her after all this time, want to find her. Maybe there is hope for her yet.
Instead of hesitating any further, Emma lifts the envelope high and dumps the contents onto her lap.
Legal documents, handwritten letters, newspaper clippings, and pictures, dozens of pictures, scatter across her lap. Emma carefully moves the papers around, catching a few words here; confidential adoption, dozens of Dear Emmas, but it's the pictures that give her pause.
She recognizes the same couple in all of them, it seems to be a timeline of their life, from their adolescent years to some as recent as they looked in the diner that day.
Emma gasps as a small picture slips from the others.
She only has a handful of pictures of herself as a child, never staying with a family long enough to fill an album, uninterested in keeping many mementoes of those years. She certainly had no pictures of herself as a baby.
But.
But one thing has stayed with her all these years, a blanket. A carefully knit, wool, baby blanket, white as snow, a purple ribbon around the edges, the simply trimming, along with her name stitched across the top.
The same blanket she is looking at in an old weathered picture, wrapped tightly around a crying baby.
Impossible.
And yet she is looking at it with her own eyes. Looking at herself.
She fumbles through the papers, frantically searching for an explanation.
She finds it in the form of the most recent 'Dear Emma'.
Emma's eyes blur with tears as she tries to read, tries to understand an insane story of two young people falling in love against their parents' wishes, of finding out they were pregnant and only wanting to give their daughter her best chance. A deceitful father promising to find the perfect family for their newborn, a family that promised to visit and send pictures and let them see at least a glimpse of their daughter growing up. Only to have been lying all along, selling the baby to the highest desperate bidders.
Emma can't begin to understand the impossible story, the heartbreak, all those words on the pages but she does keep coming back to a certain few.
We never stopped looking for you.
We never stopped loving you.
We always had hope we would find you again.
Her chest tightens. It's all so much, maybe too much? And she is not sure if she wants to jump in with both feet and brave the unknown, or stuff it all back in the envelope and pretend like she never read any of it.
Killian would know what to do, she thinks. He would take her hand and tell her how strong and brave and capable she is. He would believe in her when she can't find it in herself to do it.
Are they angry she hasn't answered them? No, I'm sure they would understand, she remembers him telling her.
What if they don't like me? Impossible, he would press into her skin, whispered words against her forehead, calming her worries and racing heart.
She looks down at the spread of papers in her lap and a thought so strong comes to her, nearly knocking the breath from her lungs. It's not the why, or the heartbreaking story of how she was pulled away from her parents, it's not the proof in the pictures either. It's that, these two people never gave up, that they deemed her, Emma Swan, important enough to look for, to hope for, to love. That she was never really alone.
Her emotions bubble back up at that thought, and she thinks, she's not alone now. That Killian is out there, she just needs to find him, to not give up, because she lo-
She presses the heels of her hands into her eyes until she see stars.
Think, Emma.
Her mind races through where she's already been, she thinks of the hostels she hasn't checked yet.
She could call, she could try and retrace her steps once more, she could put an ad on Craigslist. Her heart picks up at the possibilities, and she feels a little foolish having not gone through her options earlier, ruled purely by her heart and panic.
But first…
She pulls the postcard out again, more determined than ever and takes in the photograph on the front. The card carries a standard beautiful shot of the Cliffs of Moher but there's a text overlay, relaying an assortment of random facts about Ireland.
84,421 square kilometres.
4,726,000 people.
5,500,000 sheep.
Emma finds a brief moment to smile, thinking back to the sheep and flips the card over, her words flowing with surprising ease.
How many miles have we traveled?
How many people and places have we seen?
How many stories will remain with us when this is through?
I'm not sure, save for one.
I love you. I do, I do.
She drops the pen and leans her head back against the chair, eyes on her messy handwriting. She presses a kiss to her fingers and then brings them to her words.
"Emma!"
Thanks for reading!
Who do you think is there? ;)
Getting any good gifts at Christmas?
One more to go! AHH! xoxo