chapter twelve ~ when the smoke clears
The following morning, after the dust had settled so to speak, found Emma waking early, not having rested terribly well between worry for Henry, attempting to process all that had happened the day before, and missing her wolf man's warmth beside her in bed to help her rest peacefully, after growing used to the solid comfort of his presence over the past few nights spent in their temporary hideaway. She had returned to her parents' loft and the bedroom she'd occupied as Mary Margaret's roommate before the curse had broken - feeling she needed to provide Henry with as much stability and family around him as possible after the painful upheaval and loss he had just endured. However, she could already tell that lingering in a bedroom of her parents' like an errant teenager while Killian slept alone on his ship was only going to work for her for so long; now that she had found the One meant to lie beside her for the rest of her life, remaining apart seemed a needless trial that held no appeal.
The sun hadn't even fully risen, but she needed to see that her son was okay. Emma's heart was troubled for Henry as she crawled out from under her covers and padded barefoot across the floor and down the hall toward the bedroom that had been set aside for her son once he had moved in as well once the extent of Regina's villainy came to light. Pushing at the door lightly, and momentarily relieved to find it unlocked and not even fully latched, Emma meant only to peek in and see that her baby was still resting as she hoped. After losing the woman who had raised him yesterday - and in a genuinely stunning moment of selfless sacrifice at that - Emma would have understood if he hadn't been able to sleep at all. She wouldn't have even been shocked if Henry had needed to scream and shout, tear this room apart and rail at the unfairness of his adoptive mother seeming to finally realize just how much Henry meant to her, right before traumatically leaving him forever. Instead, however, the room was perfectly neat (as uncharacteristic for an 11-year-old boy as it ever was); the only things not tidily in order his storybook open on his desk with a notebook and pencil and some blank white drawing paper beside it, where Henry usually kept them, and the rumpled sheets and covers atop his bed.
However, once Emma fully set foot in the room, her "mom" radar went off almost immediately. The room was completely empty; her son wasn't there, and hadn't been for some time, if the cool sheets beneath that mound of tangled bedding were any indication. Her heart was immediately thrumming against her larynx as she tried to remain calm. Maybe he hadn't been able to sleep and had snuck downstairs for a snack or to curl up on the couch with tv or a book, and had simply been quiet enough not to wake her as he did. She tried to tell herself that panic wouldn't do her any good, even as she was already whirling to rush back out of the bedroom and down the stairs in search of her son, exerting nearly all the control she had not to cry out his name and wake the whole house prematurely.
Henry's wasn't on the couch curled up with Pop Tarts and blankets, nor was he sprawled on the floor in front of his game console, as Emma had hoped. After all that had happened in the last week, and the generally unpredictable nature of magic, she was not at all convinced that Cora, nor her seemingly repentant daughter, or any other pressing threat to Henry's safety was permanently gone, and her hands were genuinely shaking as she checked the kitchen next, nearly darting back out again before she glimpsed the scrap of paper sitting noticeably on the kitchen island. Two steps brought her close enough to snatch it up and see that the note was scrawled in Henry's distinctively angular hand. 'Mom, don't worry, okay? I'm alright. I just couldn't sleep. Thought maybe I'd sit at the docks for a while. If you wake up before I'm back, that's where I'll be. Love, Henry,' she murmured as she read the note aloud to herself. A large part of her wanted to rush right down to the docks and shake some sense into her eleven-year-old for scaring her so badly, yet the smaller, and marginally more logical, part of her cautioned that he had actually thought to leave her a note explaining where he had gone, and to have even realized she might be concerned to begin with.
Anxious to check on him all the same, and though his note said he was, see for herself that her boy was alright, Emma turned the paper over, hastily dashing off a note of her own to her parents that she'd gone to talk with Henry and watch the sunrise and not to wait on the two of them for breakfast, she donned her own jacket over her thermal sleepshirt and shoved her feet and the hems of her flannel pajama pants into her boots, not caring how silly it looked in her haste, and was out the door mere moments from finding Henry's note.
Once her feet had carried her down to Storybrooke's small harbor, Emma's sharp eyes were already busily scanning the docks and shoreline for Henry's form, sight peeled for his distinctive red and grey striped scarf over his dark winter peacoat and the unruly brown mop of hair that she was almost certain he would have forgotten to bring a hat to cover, though the crisp air had more than a hint of a bite to it. After several tense seconds, she located him, sitting on a bench near the end of the docks - not at all far from where Killian's ship was berthed - looking out over the water. Finally, feeling able to let out a breath of relief, Emma headed toward him, noticing with an affectionate chuckle that his chin was tucked into his collar and hands shoved deep in his pockets, clearly cold, but too stubborn to leave his vantage point, and was glad she'd thought to bring along the toboggan and gloves she'd shoved into her jacket pockets for him.
Henry glanced up and over at her with a tiny smile as she drew near, her booted footsteps echoing with solid "thunks" on the creaking wood planks of the dock. He scooted over a bit, wordlessly making room for her to sit beside him, and Emma's heart swelled warmly at the gesture, and that, whatever was going on in his mind, he wasn't shutting her out.
Plopping herself down beside Henry, Emma offered the gloves while then reaching out to pull the toboggan down over his ears until it very much replicated that way she wore her own and had to be greatly reducing his risk of ear infection, cough and cold at the same time.
In response, her son merely cut his eyes at her with the sort of fond exasperation only a near-teen can manage for a parent he feels is being overprotective. He left the knit woolen hat on though, and pulled the gloves onto his cold-reddened hands, so Emma happily counted it a win.
They sat side-by-side on the bench, arms pressed together against the chill, looking out over the choppy waves that rolled in before them, breaking against the supports of the pier below, without speaking for several languid moments. Neither of them seem discomfited by the quiet however, and Emma couldn't help thrilling (at least a little) on the inside to the idea that Henry had inherited this little quirk from her. He might only be eleven, but he didn't appear to need to fill every quiet moment with chatter just to keep back awkwardness. Certainly Henry was an animated storyteller and prone to boisterous enthusiasm and chatter when the occasion suited him, but he also could be silently introspective and honestly deeper than Emma had realized a child his age could be until meeting her long lost son.
Eventually though, Henry let out a sigh that sounded more than a bit morose, leaning against her side and laying his head on her shoulder. The action made Emma crane her neck to look down at his face without disturbing him, wondering if she had misread his apparent calm. "Hey," she spoke gently, her voice lowered as she leaned into him in return to bump her shoulder against his own. "I got your note, kid. Thanks for letting me know where you were."
He shrugged noncommittally, but didn't look up at her and blinked several times quickly, giving away a hint of his inner emotions. Emma left her words hanging, but when Henry didn't offer any audible response, she tried again. "Still, you were up and out pretty early… you sure you're alright?"
"Dunno," Henry finally muttered, face rising enough not to be staring down at his hands in his lap, but also not really meeting his mom's gaze. His shrug and lack of words on the subject pretty much told Emma all she needed to know, even if her kid did keep his eyes trained on the undulating waves before them with a squinted focus she knew the view didn't truly require. Her heart ached for Henry, even if she couldn't help being personally relieved that there were no longer three powerful magic wielders wreaking havoc throughout town - two of which had been after Henry, whatever their reasons.
She determinedly set that line of thinking aside and tentatively reached out to take Henry's hand in one of her own. She didn't want to smother him, and he was pretty obviously still trying to work out for himself some of how he felt. However when he didn't argue or pull his hand out of her grip, Emma gave his fingers what she hoped was a reassuring squeeze and rested her chin atop his head for a moment while leaning over to speak softly, "It's okay, you know… to be hurt and confused… and even angry… but to still miss her. You don't have to be afraid to talk to me, or your grandparents, about it if you need to either. You get that, right? Yes, we were at odds with Regina a lot, but that doesn't change the fact that you grew up with her as your mother and that you cared for her. In the end, she must have loved you as well as she knew how."
Henry did finally look at her then, his bright eyes slanted in her direction with a look much too wise for his eleven years and a huff of consternation. "I know that!" he argued.
"Good," she said simply, a tiny curve of her lips turning the corners of her mouth up in what she hoped was a comforting smile. "Cause I wouldn't want you coming out here to sit in the cold, thinking you had to hide whatever you're thinking or feeling."
Those lanky, thin shoulders on a form that seemed to be stretching up taller and fuller from being a little boy every day - much too quickly for her as she was just getting to know the little boy she had missed a whole decade with - shrugged once more, and then on a tense breath, as if frustrated that he didn't quite know how to word what he wanted to say, he finally offered, "I know...it's not that. It's just…" he fidgeted again, the weighted silence stretching out as the wind whipped against their cheeks and the waves crashed against the rocky shore and the supports of the pier.
When he eventually turned to look her full in the face, Emma could see that Henry was searching her for the truth and the answer he needed. "Do you ever wish you could just get away?" he finally asked earnestly, biting his lower lip as he did so before continuing. "I mean, just leave it all behind and escape...at least… at least 'til you felt like yourself again? I feel like everything's falling apart around us, and I just wanted to run this morning. I needed to be outside. It felt like the walls were closing in."
It was all Emma could do not to let out a huff of air in surprise and chuckle at the realization of how much he was like her after all. She knew all too well exactly the feeling Henry described; it was something she had often felt - and heeded - all her life. Until he turned up at her door in Boston, and she returned to make a life in Storybrooke, found a job she loved and the parents she'd never known, and now forged a bond so strong she wouldn't have believed it was possible with a man she couldn't resist in Killian - until all that, getting away when the need to run and keep that safe wall up around herself had practically been her MO. Instead, she valiantly managed to keep her face neutral, only nodding gently to let Henry know she understood and urge him to go on.
A tingling wash of awareness crept along her skin as Henry admitted he wished he had known a way to get his other mother to leave town with him for a time. Maybe if Regina hadn't found Cora again, or if she'd had to be out in the non-magical world for a time and refrain from using magic herself, she could have shaken its grip. Maybe if he'd said he wanted to go somewhere with her, let her know he still loved her too…
Emma was quick to interrupt that train of thought when her son's words trailed off sadly, cautioning him not to do that to himself, none of Regina's actions were his fault, nor did dwelling on and living in "what ifs" do anyone much good.
"Still," Henry sighed, finally fully relaxing against her and welcoming it when Emma wrapped her arms around him and snuggled him to her side. "I know it's not very heroic - not like the rest of you guys - but I still can't help wishing for just a little break… a little vacation from all this."
Emma smiled, both at for once knowing what she wanted to say and how she thought she could help when so often she felt off-balance and five steps behind at instantly being the parent of a precocious pre-teen, and at also finally laying eyes on the reason for the way her hair was prickling along the back of her neck and her skin was shivering with a current of excitement. Just a bit down the dock from where they sat, Killian Jones had climbed up from the captain's quarters below deck with navy henley untucked over dark jeans and was stretching luxuriously and shaking his head of dark, shaggy hair out in an adorably canine manner as he sauntered over to his ship's rail to watch the sun rising in the rapidly lightening sky.
As if he sensed her eyes on him, Killian turned; his sharp, preternaturally blue and far-reaching gaze enveloping her even from a distance as he grinned at her knowingly, a carnivorous sort of smile lingered on his lips and warmed her insides as he moved toward the gangplank and, she had no doubt, headed their way.
A matching smile started to grow on her own lips as Emma fully realized the thrumming in her veins was her own awareness of him, and it was only strengthening as Killian drew closer. Still, she focused back on Henry to ask, "Would it help if I said I felt that way all the time when I first came here? And that sometimes I still do? When I don't know how to make something better for you? Or I start to worry that I'm not the lost princess this town expected? Or the daughter David and Mary Margaret wished for?"
Henry was listening very intently now, clearly already feeling better at just knowing he wasn't the only one in a family full of heroes to sometimes feel the weight of that mantle was just a bit too heavy to bear.
Killian was indeed drawing close to them now as well; his look turned to one of concern and care, letting her know that his werewolf keen hearing had given him the gist of their conversation. She sent a silent look that she hoped conveyed her welcome, that it was alright for him to join them, wordlessly before adding to Henry, "See? It's okay to feel that way sometimes. You're not the only one, and it's natural."
Her son nodded, and his face did look at least somewhat less clouded with worry.
"Besides," Emma continued, allowing a twinkle into her eyes that she knew Henry would quickly pick up on. "If that feeling ever gets too strong, to where it feels like even just a couple hours' freedom would make all the difference in the world… I think we know someone who could probably help us out."
She nodded over Henry's shoulder just as Killian reached them, and without missing a beat, when Henry turned to see him there, Killian greeted smoothly, "Did I hear someone call me?"
Henry's brow furrowed doubtfully, "We didn't say your name, Killian. Did we?" He looked to Emma, confused but not at all bothered by seeing her love there, much to Emma's delight. She gave Henry a grin, and let the playfulness in her eyes meet Killian's over his head as she looked up before responding. "Well, we did mention him, in a way. See, Killian has his ship right here - " she pointed to the Jolly practically sparkling beautifully with the morning dew still on her hull glittering in the sunrise as she rocked gently on the water. "And I'll bet," here she winked at Killian conspiratorially, hoping she was right in her slight assumption, "that he'd be willing to take you out for a sail in her if you ever got that feeling of needing to escape for a while again."
Henry's eyes widened in awe as he took in the vessel in person for the first time, rather than on the pages of his storybook. Emma had found there were very few of the many things she'd went to explain to Henry about this man who'd taken her - and her heart - by surprise that he hadn't already known from reading his book. And to her relief (and slight worry for her son's own sense of reality and self-preservation) none of it had seemed to phase Henry or put him off at all. "I read his story, Mom," Henry had concluded that conversation emphatically when Emma had broached it with him. "Yeah, he's done some bad things - but so have lots of people. He has a good heart; you can tell that all through it."
Her son's voice speaking to Killian again snapped Emma back from her reverie, and she was the one soon blinking back a swell of affection for these two men in her life as Henry asked, "You'd really do that? … For me?"
Killian nodded solemnly all seriousness in his desire to show the boy he was sincere. "Of course, lad. We're friends now, remember?"
Henry nodded enthusiastically, almost wiggling with excitement, and she shot Killian a grateful look at seeing that her son's previous guilt and sadness seemed to be at least momentarily forgotten. In the next moment, Henry was up and moving toward Killian's ship, wide-eyed and full of enthusiastic questions, pulling them both along in his wake.
"Do you live on here?" Henry asked, looking over his shoulder to Killian's face briefly, even as he trailed a reverent hand along the Jolly's side. "Have you always? How did you manage shifting into a wolf when you were out at sea?"
Emma winced slightly at the barrage of questions, and especially at the rather personal nature of that last; well-used to Henry's unquenchable curiosity, but knowing that it was new to Killian.
However, she found in the next instant that she needn't have worried. Killian chuckled fondly, the deep rumble of it seeming to shudder through her bones in a way that made them feel as if they were going to mush. She shook her head distractedly, trying to remind herself not to go to pieces with wanting him while he was speaking with her son. He patted Henry's shoulder good naturedly, seeming more entertained by his questions than bothered or upset "I do live onboard," Killian answered honestly. "It can be a bit of a tight fit at times, but I'm used to it now, and she holds all that I really need. Or…" his eyes flicked over to capture Emma's, not seeming at all worried that Henry was drinking in his every word and gesture. Her breath caught in her throat again when he clarified, "or at least until recently, she had all I needed."
For a moment the air was charged with the electricity crackling over the space between them. Neither spoke, and even Henry seemed unable to break the weighted silence. But then, Henry shifted on his feet impatiently, and Killian's eyes broke his hold on hers to look back at the young boy at his side before continuing. "I've lived on a ship since I was just about your age," he said to her son, and Emma sensed that the pain there was still near the surface, however he tried to mask it for Henry's benefit. She didn't know how much detail Henry's book had gone into on the circumstances of how Killian and his brother had come to be part of the ship's crew, but Killian had just told her the story of his father selling his children for the price of a rowboat mere days ago, and she knew the wound from that sort of abandonment - had believed herself abandoned just as casually for so long that she knew it well - didn't simply fade away.
"It wasn't always pleasant," she heard Killian saying to Henry. "My brother and I were basically servants for many years. But now, well…" here he reached out to gently lay his calloused hand on the ship's side himself, "I'd never imagined living anywhere else."
Henry nodded, taking the words in, then opened his mouth, to repeat his last question, no doubt.
Shaking his head, Killian laughed out loud, crinkles of mirth at the corners of his eyes, "You don't miss a beat, do you, m'boy?"
Henry beamed too and shook his head, eagerly awaiting Killian's answer.
"Well, luckily for me - as who knows what might have happened to Liam and I if I had shifted while we still belonged to Captain Silver - the changes didn't start until I reached my teen years. I've since learned that's natural, but I didn't know it then. Liam never shifted at all. I don't know why he didn't, but he was as frightened and unprepared as I when it happened. Yet, it didn't change his love for me or his protectiveness of me either." Killian's voice was far away, and his eyes had gone a bit misty, clearly seeing his beloved brother once more in his mind's eye. Emma was just moving to reach out to him in comfort, when Henry stole her breath by silently reaching out to take the man's hand himself.
Killian held it gratefully and pressed on. "I was out of my mind in that tiny bunk, my wolf needing so desperately to be free. I was climbing the walls, about to tear things apart, and Liam was frantic trying to keep me hidden…" he shook his head at the memory. "It was unbelievably fortunate that our commanding officer - we'd enlisted in the navy by then - knew of the supernatural beings in the world, and knew that my change into wolf form was possible. I've always suspected he bore the ability and its secret himself, but I never learned for certain. He helped us to hide or disguise it until I learned more control and grew into my powers. Whenever it was possible, he managed to have our ship in dock when the moon was full and I couldn't hold the shift back, so I could escape to the forest and run."
They were all three quiet for a moment then. Henry's curiosity sated for the time being and clearly mulling over all that Killian had told them. Emma had moved to Killian's side, laid her hand on his back in support as she felt a part of him was still wandering in the past, and felt a series of tremors shivering through him, despite his steady exterior. None of them moved for a bit longer, until Killian moved to wrap her in a silent hug, holding on tightly and drawing strength from her support.
He had just pulled away and asked Henry with a happier tone of voice and a renewed twinkle in his eye if he wanted to come aboard and see the rest of the vessel for himself, when they were interrupted by an urgent voice calling their names.
The sound of running footsteps pounded on the wooden boards of the dock, and they looked up to see Belle and Graham running toward them. Graham's long legs and lupine stamina could easily have passed up the much shorter strides Belle's tiny stature forced her to take, but he remained firmly at her side, loping along with a devotion directly reminiscent of his domesticated canine brethren. Belle, however, was running full tilt as fast as she could until she skidded to a stop before them.
"We found it," she panted, a hand on Emma's outstretched arm to steady herself, even as Graham's palm came to rest on her back in support as well, barely winded himself. "We figured out what dagger Cora was after. One that Rumple has been...has been hiding all this time..." She shook her head, still catching her breath and not willing to think any longer on his secretive nature and deception, all that the man had hidden from her when she had believed him to be sharing and opening himself. Belle drew another gasp into her burning lungs before finishing, "And I think I know where it is."