Summary: Ever since Emma was 13, she knew she had the ability to destroy people if she wanted to, and some days, she really wanted to. After being forced to go to Greenwood Academy following a traumatizing event in her childhood that brought to the surface her ability to manipulate fire, she never thought she would be free of the place. So for nearly 10 years, she lived a solitary existence with the exception of her best friends, but that was all about to change. Killian Jones had just been sentenced to attend the university campus at Greenwood Academy after an accident at sea caused him to be dishonorably discharged from Her Majesty's royal Navy and lose his hand. He doesn't know what to think about these newfound powers and what they spell for the rest of his now not-so-normal life. But a chance encounter one day has the ability to change all of that. A story about love and redemption between two people that shows, if you have the right person beside you, you can find a light in the darkness. Rating: M Content Warnings: Mentions of Violence/Death, Brief mention of Childhood Abuse/Sexual Assault, Mild Sexual Content
Chapter Notes: Chapter 5 is here folks! This is actually one of my favorite chapters in this entire work so I am excited for you to read it as well!
Check out the amazing art work that my artist princesse-swan did for both chapter 3 an this one on tumblr. Thanks again as always to my beta daveyjacobsthepotterhead for taking this work and helping me turn it into something great. You are the literal best.
Chapter 5
Emma sat down on the edge of the wall surrounding the plant beds at the entrance to campus from the dorms. Unwrapping her grilled cheese and tomato sandwich, she looked out at the rows of dorm buildings lining the main walk onto the academic campus.
The sidewalks were abandoned, with nary a soul on campus to be found. Many of the students went home during the fall break about halfway through the term, and Emma took advantage of some time just to herself that she didn't have to spend in her room.
While she enjoyed time with her friends while they were on campus, she did enjoy having the campus pretty much to herself during the breaks where everyone who wasn't high risk got to go home. If she remembered correctly, after Elsa moved into a community in Alaska last summer, there were about 17 other students that had a full run of the campus to themselves.
Losing Elsa as a friend had been hard. She had arrived at the academy after Emma had, and could have been considered her polar opposite in every way. While Emma burned hot, Elsa burned cold, with extensive gifts of ice and snow, she proved quite the challenge for the staff to contain, considering that she could freeze off her suppression gear and not be affected by them at all. She was someone that Emma could relate to, someone who could understand the beast that prowled beneath her skin, and losing that confidant last semester had been something that she truly hadn't fully bounced back from yet.
Taking a bite out of her sandwich, Emma just sat and watched the leaves fall from the trees.
o.O.o
Killian didn't know what to think about how quiet the campus had become once fall break had begun.
Yes, he had been told that all the students who weren't high risk students would be allowed to visit home for the two weeks that classes were on break, but he hadn't realized how truly empty the campus would feel.
He spent the first two days of the break wandering around campus to see who was around.
A few of the administration members were lingering around with the multitude of security officers watching the campus, but he had only run into a handful of other students.
There was one gentleman named Eric, who had the power to create storms out of thin air. He was a perfectly nice guy, but after living 6 years of his life on a boat, he decided not to trust anyone who could sink a ship on a whim.
Another woman named Cruella had the ability to control people with her voice. How they regulated that power, Killian couldn't fathom, but it was probably for the best.
On the third day, it seemed as though he was in luck.
While wandering through the abandoned floors of the library, he stumbled upon Emma bent over another drawing book sketching.
Thankfully she didn't have any headphones over her ears this time, so he didn't have any chance of ruining her artwork, but he still made the effort to make a bit of noise against the door as he walked in.
Emma looked up at him in shock.
"Killian, what are you doing here?" She asked.
"Wandering through the library, but I don't suppose that is what you meant by the question." He stated. He had never mentioned to her that he was a high risk student before and Killian had to imagine that this was a bit of a shock.
"I am so sorry, that completely came out wrong. However, that was what I had meant by the poorly phrased question." Emma said, tucking her hair behind her ear as she flushed in what Killian presumed was embarrassment.
"It's fine Swan, truly. I know you didn't mean anything horrible by the remark."
"I am a bit curious though, what kind of powers do you have that make you a high risk student?" Emma said, pushing her notebook to the side and leaning towards him.
He caught a glance at the notebook as it turned towards him slightly, and he grasped at the chance to change the subject. He didn't even like thinking about his powers, so he really didn't want to talk about them with someone else.
"Emma, this is amazing."
It was, truly. Drawn out on the page was the image of a woman, long black hair hanging over her shoulders, one bloody hand clutching a dagger to her chest and the other grasping a heart. There was no color to the design yet, but she had shaded in where the blood was likely soaked into the woman's hair and dress. The entire thing was hauntingly beautiful.
"I know an attempt to distract me when I hear it." Emma said.
"I wasn't trying to distract you, I genuinely like your art." He retorted.
"I also am pretty good at knowing when someone is lying to me. And while you do like peeking at my sketches, you were lying that this wasn't a distraction." Emma said, looking adorably smug when she said it.
He couldn't help but smile in response. "Fine," Killian said, rolling his eyes. "Maybe I was trying to get you off my tale, but I would prefer not to talk about this. It's not something I am truly comfortable with and, while I do enjoy your company and think of you fondly like a friend, I don't think this is something I can tell you about."
Emma stared at him for a long moment before nodding her head.
"I can accept that, there are things about myself, and events that have happened to me that I don't talk about to anyone else. I can understand needing time to process things that are traumatic before being able to open up to someone else." She said.
"Since we aren't talking about anything related to our powers or our past," She said, pausing to look up at him meaningly. "Why don't you tell me something that I probably wouldn't know about you." She said.
When Emma was smiling at him like that, He couldn't deny her anything.
"I actually am a bit artistic myself. I do the occasional doodle." Killian said.
Emma's eyebrows rose in surprise. "Really, I wasn't expecting that."
"There are a lot of things about me that you wouldn't expect Swan." He said, relishing the flush that spread across her face in response to his quirked eyebrow and tongue in cheek.
"Alright Killian, let's see what you can do." She said, pulling blank sheets from her book for the both of them and handing him a pencil.
"What do you want me to draw for you Love?" He asked, taking the pencil from her and working to move the paper into the position he wanted it in with his other wrist.
"Whatever inspires you right now." She said.
He looked up into her bright green eyes and knew exactly what he wanted to draw.
"How long are you going to give me?" Killian asked.
"Let's say, finish in an hour. Whatever you can finish by that point in time is what you've got." Emma said.
"Challenge Accepted." He said, turning to his work and beginning his attempt at replicating perfection.
o.O.o
Emma and Killian were spending the afternoon out in the courtyard between the college campus and the lower campus when they heard it.
Killian stopped mid-sentence in his retelling of how his brother got stuck by the back of his shorts in a tree when they were younger and cocked his head.
"Swan, does that sound like crying to you?" He asked.
Emma listened harder, facing further towards the lower campus where Killian was pointing towards. Sure enough, it did sound like someone was crying.
She stood, gesturing for Killian to follow, heading towards the lower campus.
Normally, students on the college campus were not allowed to venture onto the lower campus, but since it was a school break, students were allowed to roam the grounds as they pleased.
They walked past the first handful of buildings before they could finally locate the sound.
Curled into a ball between two of the buildings and crying into his hands was a boy with a mop of brown hair.
The young boy could have been no more than 12, which was incredibly young for someone to come to the academy.
But then again, Emma had arrived around that age as well.
Emma flashed back to one of her first days on the campus, reeling from being separated from her family and forced to move halfway across the country to a place she didn't know and getting surrounded by people she was unfamiliar with.
She had also spent a few nights crying from the loss. The loss of her brother, the loss of her mother, the loss of the only home she had known.
The loss of her normal life.
She turned to see Killian watching her with a speculative gaze. She only shook her head at him.
Turning back to the little boy, she walked slowly towards him, since he still hadn't noticed them standing there.
"Hey, are you okay?" She asked, crouching down in front of him.
The boy visibly started, looking up at her in surprise.
"What? Who are you?" He asked.
"My name is Emma, and this is Killian," She said, gesturing behind her at Killian, who was still standing back from them at a good distance.
She noted that his blunt wrist was tucked behind his back.
"Are you okay?" She asked again.
The boy sniffled, nodding his head in agreement even though a few fat tears still escaped his eyes to fall down his cheeks.
"What's your name?"
"Henry," He said, sticking his hand out in greeting.
"Well Henry, it is a pleasure to meet you. When did you start your stay here?" Emma asked. He didn't seem the type to be a new high risk student since he didn't have any suppression items on that she could see, but you never know.
"My mom dropped me off this morning." Henry said, sniffing loudly again, his lower lip quivering.
"Well, it sounds like you could use a friend, would you like to hang out with me and my friend for the rest of the day?" Emma asked.
Nodding his head, he stood up and fell into her extended arms.
He shook a little with quiet cries, and Emma rubbed his back in a soothing manner.
Killian came around in front of her, and placed his hand on the back of Henry's shoulders and rubbed slow circles as well.
"You know Henry, I remember my first night that I spent away from all my family." Killian said.
Henry pulled away from her slightly, turning to look at Killian.
"Really, I thought it was the most terrifying thing that could ever happen to me at the time." Killian admitted. "Would you like to hear about it?"
"Is it a scary story?" Henry asked, standing fully away from Emma.
"Not really, it only seemed like it at the time. Why don't you come for a walk with Emma and I, we had a lunch sitting out in the courtyard." Killian stood, extending his gloved hand for Henry to take.
Emma smiled, watching Killian lead Henry towards their impromptu picnic sight, weaving an exaggerated story of a 20 year old man sleeping away from home for the first time, and crying himself to sleep.
Killian winked over his shoulder at her once he got Henry laughing at his story.
With that wink, Emma felt something she was pretty sure would grow into love start blooming under her breast.
o.O.o
Killian was walking around campus outside.
It was pretty close to the time he went to bed, but it was fixing to storm out, lightning streaking across the sky and thunder rolling in across the campus, and it made him restless.
The barrier surrounding the campus kept out all supposed threats against their safety, but unfortunately, couldn't prevent the rain from falling on them.
His thoughts were occupied with thoughts of Henry, that young lad they had found on campus earlier.
Emma had told Killian that he was a bit of an anomaly when he mentioned that his gifts had only just manifested at 25 years, but he didn't know they could start showing that early.
The young lad hand only just turned 12 a few weeks ago, a fact the young lad had divulged to them while they were splitting ham and cheese sandwiches and cheetos in the middle of campus during the day.
He had something relatively minor as a gift, something that doesn't require him to stay on campus during school breaks like him and Emma have to.
When they revealed that fact to the lad, it seemed to turn his entire spirit around, from sniffeling and sad to bright and chipper.
Almost a bit too bright, considering the lad started glowing on them.
He was so lost in his thoughts that he was pretty spooked when he heard a voice off to his left.
"Killian?"
He whirled around, and found Emma sitting on a low wall surrounding a garden in the yard.
"Emma, what are you doing out here?" he asked, tucking his hand into his pocket as he made his way over to her.
"I could ask you the same thing." She said, watching as he came over and sat down next to her.
"Couldn't sleep, decided to go for a bit of a walk." He said, shrugging his shoulders a bit.
"Me neither." Emma said, pulling one of her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around it, resting her chin on her knee.
"Yeah, but I couldn't sleep because of the storms, I don't think that was the case for you. What's vexing you love?"
Emma turned to look at him, but once she noticed him looking at her, she turned her face away.
A flash of lightning across the sky lit up her face for a split second, and Killian could have sworn he saw tear tracks tracing down her cheeks.
It wasn't until after the rumble of thunder rolled over campus a couple of seconds later that she began to talk.
"I started at the academy here when I was 13, not much older than Henry is. I guess seeing him today brought back some memories of when I first arrived here."
"I can't even imagine what that would have been like." He said, when it became obvious that she wasn't going to continue. It was so unlike her to open up about anything to him when it came to how she started at the academy, so he was going to have to take it as it came.
"It was lonely." She said, still not looking at him.
Killian watched a few more bolts of lightning flash across the sky, the air becoming damp and oppressive as the storm continued its advance towards them.
Neither one of them made any move to leave and avoid getting poured on, but Killian wasn't inclined to leave her alone.
He never could leave her like this.
"I lost everything. Henry gets to keep his family, he gets to go back to his mom, see his dad, and play with his brothers and sister. I got none of that." She looked over to him, her eyes rimmed in red, and something in Killian's chest tightened.
She had obviously been out here a while before he had happened upon her.
"My mother disowned me, my father was already long gone, and I haven't seen my older brother, my best friend and partner in crime, in person in almost ten years. I didn't get to see him get married and I didn't get to see the birth of my niece. And it's not fair."
Something in her voice cracked when she said "fair", and Killian wanted desperately to pull her into his arms and give her a hug, but she was so closed off that he didn't think it would be well received.
At that moment, the heavens decided to open up and the rain came pouring down on the two of them.
Killian looked up at the sky, the rain hitting his face with wet plops that made water run into his eyes and he blinked rapidly to clear them.
Turning to look at Emma, he felt the rain continue to soak into his hair and shirt, and he wondered absently if it would ruin the mechanics in his glove getting them this wet.
Getting a good look at Emma for a second, he had to choke back on a laugh.
"What?" She said, hearing his choked off laugh and turning to face him after looking up at the storm clouds above them as well.
"Sorry, I don't mean to laugh, truly love. But you're steaming." Indeed, little wiffs of steam were rising from where the rain was splattering down onto her bare skin.
He pressed his lips together in an effort to keep himself under some measure of control.
But it seemed to be in vain as a large smile broke out on her face, wiping away the lingering sadness in her expression from their conversation.
"Did I never mention that I may run a bit warmer than a normal person?" She said, chuckling a bit as she asked him.
"No, but that might be a useful thing, considering that I am now soaking wet and cold." Killian laughed.
"Oh no you don't, that is entirely your own fault." Emma said, moving away as he leaned towards her, but it wasn't in fear of him. No, she could tell he was playing with her.
"Come here and warm me up Emma!" He said, lunging after her.
She leapt off of the wall with stunning speed, darting across the yard in a blur of damp blond hair trailing behind her.
And as he chased her around, moving after her and sliding around in the mud enough to cause them both to burst into further hysterics, something warm bloomed up in his chest.
It felt like the first ray of sunshine after a storm, and he wanted to hold onto that feeling as long as he could.
Wrapping his arms around her from behind as they both went sliding through another patch of mud, Killian pulled her close as he tried to keep them both upright.
They were both laughing as he turned her around to look at him, her arms coming around him in turn.
Something in her expression changed, some of the laughter and lightness transitioning into something curious.
His eyebrows pinched together, getting ready to ask her what she was thinking about when Emma pushed up on her toes and pressed her lips to his.
It was like that first ray of sun, and when the seas are calm and the sky is blue, and that first bite of fresh summer fruit after a long, cold and dark winter.
Her lips were soft against his, and he pressed back, tightening his arms around her and forming his lips more firmly with hers.
They broke apart with a start when a peel of thunder began right above them.
She gave him a tentative smile, and took his hand. "Come on sailor, let's get you out of the rain."
o.O.o
The rain had fried some of the electronics in his glove, and he couldn't move his fingers the next day, but he wouldn't have changed that night for anything.