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 SPECIFIC WARNINGS: MENTIONS OF VIOLENCE/DEATH, BRIEF MENTION OF CHILDHOOD ABUSE/SEXUAL ASSULT.
Chapter Notes: We are almost at the end, One more chapter after this one! Can't believe this experience is coming to a close. As you can probably guess we are going to be wrapping up a lot of loose ends. Just as a word of warning, the content warnings play a big role here, mainly in the flashbacks of Emma and Killian's past, so I want to give you a heads up. The mention of childhood abuse/sexual assult is in Emma's flash back, and I will mark it separately so that you could skip over that part if it really isn't something that you want to read or could be triggering. As always thanks to daveyjacobsthepotterhead for being a lovely beta reader and for princesse-swan for all the amazing art. Check out her full story artwork for this story on tumblr!
Chapter 14
The next couple of days passed in a blur to Emma.
After David had joined her that night and drank through half a bottle of rum with her, she had finally told him about what had happened to her after the battle.
How she was locked down on the ICE block, thankful again to August for leaving her without any suppression gear so that way she would survive her time there. About her fight with Killian after she had left David and Liam the other day. The horrible things he had said to her.
Thinking back on what he actually said to her wasn't actually that bad, but the fact that he insinuated that she had purposely done something to get herself thrown onto the ICE block was what had really set her off.
But David had been a true brother, holding her while she cried onto his shirt and listening to her while she poured her broken heart out to him.
She didn't think that Killian had tried to hurt her on purpose, but it didn't change the fact that he did hurt her, and she needed some time to figure herself out again before she could see him, let alone talk to him.
After that night though, she had made it her mission to go out of her way to avoid him. She made sure that she didn't hang out with her friends any longer than necessary, at least when David was with them.
She knew that David and Killian had gotten close since she introduced them, and she didn't want to be a friction point in their relationship either.
So she spent a lot of girls days with Ruby and Mary Margaret, who she was finally getting along with on better terms than before.
It was fine, having some longer girls days with her friends, she felt like she had been neglecting them since she started her relationship with Killian, until it wasn't fine.
Mary Margaret and Emma were sitting in the corner of the dining commons with their text books spread out in front of them, attempting to study for Ethics again.
None of them had done poorly on that first exam earlier in the semester, but it was a class that everyone in her little friend group seemed to be struggling with.
Mary Margaret chewed on the end of her pencil nervously, her eyes flicking to Emma every couple of seconds.
She finally couldn't take it anymore, "What?" She asked, unnecessarily harsh.
"We are just worried about you Emma." She said, like she was trying to explain something sad to a child.
"Yeah, well, you don't have to." She said, turning back to her study guide.
"Things between you and Killian weren't bad, and everything was probably blown out of proportion-" Mary Margaret started, but Emma really wasn't in the mood to be lectured.
"Look, I really don't want to talk about this." Emma said, not looking up from her study guide.
"But you won't talk to anyone about it!" Mary Margaret exclaimed, startling both herself and Emma. Emma looked at her in surprise. Seeing that she had her friends attention, Mary Margaret continued, "You won't talk to me, you won't talk to Ruby. David thinks he did something to offend you because you are avoiding him now too. And you sure as hell won't talk to Killian."
"And what would I have to talk to him about." She asked, still in a bit of shock from her friends tirad.
"I don't know, how about starting with the weather, and seeing where it goes from there." Mary Margaret said, frustration clear in her voice. "I don't know, maybe you will end up talking about your relationship, which really needs work."
Emma stared at her friend in disbelief. She had never heard the mild mannered woman speak to any of them this way.
Mary Margaret continued, "But don't listen to me, your friend who only has your best interests at heart. Oh no, don't listen to me at all, because you don't want to own up to and face what I am saying, because it hurts."
"Yes, it does hurt, because I trusted him. I don't trust people very often, you know this. But I trusted him, and he broke that trust. And I can't forgive that." Emma said.
Mary Margaret stood up and gathered her books.
"Where are you going?" Emma asked, suddenly feeling very small.
"Somewhere else. You obviously don't want to be around anyone right now. I thought I would make your life a little easier." She said, slinging her bag over her shoulders and walking out.
Emma watched her leave in open mouth shock.
A few people were looking in her direction as well, wondering what had happened to cause the outburst. They all looked away when they noticed Emma looking around.
Emma squeezed her eyes shut, feeling the tears well up unexpectedly. She wrapped her arms around the back of her head and squeezed, trying to get her emotions under control.
She didn't like feeling this out of control.
It didn't work, because the sobbs boiled up anyway. So Emma laid her head down on the table and wept.
.o.O.o.
Killian was wandering around campus, seeing if he could stumbleupon Emma along the way.
He wouldn't go so far as to say that he was actively looking for her, but he wanted to run into her all the same.
He just didn't know how he was going to face her after the horrible things he had said to her.
And if David had gone so far as to punch him in response to what words he so carelessly threw at her the last time they spoke, when all she was trying to do was comfort him, he deserved her avoiding him and never agreeing to talk to him ever again.
But if Killian was anything, he was still a gentleman, and he felt the need to apologize to Emma, even if it wouldn't fix everything.
As he made his way through the library to the third floor to find a book that he needed to read for his literature class next week, his luck seemed to turn in his favor.
Emma was sitting at one of the back tables, her back to him and headphones on, drawing.
Killian took a deep breath to steady himself before he pushed through the doors leading to that section.
Deciding to forgo looking for his book first, he slowly made his way over to where she was sitting.
As he got closer, he caught a glimpse of what she was drawing over her shoulder, and it stopped him short.
It was a picture of him. Well, both of them actually.
The only spot of color on the page was a small flame in Emma's hands, lighting up the two of them. It looked like the male figure in the painting was crouched over, with tendrils of darkness seeming to pour out of him and surround the two of them. The male's face was turned up towards the female figure, who was bending down to shine her light on his face.
Emma's hair, as it was clearly her in the rendering, was blowing around her on an unseen wind, the darkness weaving amongst the tresses. A small smile was gracing her face as she reached down and touched a hand to the male's shoulder.
The darkness had moved away from that hand, pushed away by Emma's light.
He shook his head to clear it. The drawing was messmerizing indeed, but he needed to try and get his thoughts into order before he said something to her again that he would regret. Again.
He moved around her, giving her enough space so that she would see him around and he wouldn't startle her.
Emma looked up at him in a bit of surprise, moving to take the headphones off her ears.
He spoke before she could say anything. "Is it alright if I join you?"
"Yeah, sure." She said, tucking her headphones around her neck.
Killian pulled the chair out across from her and sat down.
Now that he was sitting in front of her, all of the words that he wanted to say to her evaporated from his mind. He clenched his hand around his blunted wrist and stared down at the table.
His legs began bouncing under the table with nervous energy.
He could feel Emma's eyes on him for a long minute before she sighed and Killian heard her pull her headphones over her ears again.
He listened to the rhythmic scratch of the pencil against the paper as she drew and hummed under her breath to herself for a few minutes, before she stopped where she was at and sighed.
"Can I say something?" She asked.
He looked up to see her folding the notebook shut and setting it aside.
"I wanted to say I was sorry." She said, looking him in the eyes.
He could feel the confusion written on his face. If anyone should have apologized it was him. He said as much.
"I won't argue with you there, but we both said stuff that we didn't mean and I overreacted, both times." She said, alluding to the first time they had an argument when he forced her to try and tell him what had happened to her.
Curious, he asked "What do you mean?"
"I think it's time I finally told you about how I started at Greenwood."
o.O.o
Emma watched as Killian's eyebrows shot up his forehead.
"Swan, you don't have to-"
"Yes, I do. You told me enough about what happened to you, and so much has happened between us that I, I think I do."
He watched her expectantly.
"So, this isn't any easy story for me to tell." She said, wringing her hands together nervously. "Only David knows this whole story, not Mary Margaret, not Ruby. So you are going to have to give me a minute."
"Okay. So. Um, I first discovered my powers when I was 12." She said, closing her eyes.
She could still remember that day in such vivid details.
The curtains in her bedroom were swaying gently in the breeze coming through the windows. It was finally getting warm enough out that her mother had said they could finally start keeping the windows open and Emma had pressed the full advantage, throwing all of the windows as far open as she could.
She was sitting at her desk, practicing drawing the figurine that the art teacher at her school had given her to practice drawing people's bodies when she first started hearing it.
It sounded like someone was stumbling through the house. Cabinets were being opened and shut, and it sounded like someone had bumped into the table in the hallway leading to her mother and stepfather's room and knocked the picture over.
Her Mother and brother were out at his baseball game, but they had mentioned that her stepfather would be home before they were able to make it.
She had never been fond of the man who had married her free-spirited mother and chained her to his side.
It seemed to Emma like something in her mother died after she had married him.
"Papa?" She called out, opening her bedroom door and peering out towards the main house. Emma had never wanted to call him dad, he could never replace the kind hearted man who had helped raise her until he passed away 4 years ago when she was 8.
The loud, lurching steps picked up again and her stepfather appeared at the end of the hallway, leading to where hers and Sean's rooms were.
"There's the little bitch." Her step-father said. Something wasn't right.
"Your step father was an alcoholic." Killian said, jolting her from the memory.
"A horrible one," She responded, "but no one but Sean will acknowledge it in the family."
He lurched unsteadily down the hallway towards her, and she stumbled back into her room. He had shown some odd behaviors towards her before, like watching her and her friends playing a little too closely while they were over at the house to the point of where mother had yelled at him to knock it off, but nothing like what was happening now.
"You always have to disrespect me in front of my friends, don't you? Can never show me any respect or acknowledge the fact that i run this household." He said, leaning in towards her, his reeking breath in her nose, in her mouth.
"What?" She stammered out, pushing further away from him and against her bed.
MENTION OCCURS BELOW THIS POINT
"It's time I teach you some manners." He said, grabbing the front of her shirt and pulling her into him.
She frantically moved to push away from him, pushing at his chest and stomach with her fists.
He was too strong though, and his fist tore through her shirt. "There you are." He said.
Sobbing.
Emma was sobbing.
His body loomed over her as he pushed her down onto her bed, and his hands were everywhere. All over her chest, and legs and pulling at the waist of her pants.
The tears were beginning to fade as she was becoming more and more numb to what was happening to her.
But all of a sudden she felt all of the weight of his body on top of her and she was angry, she was mad that this was happening to her.
MENTION OVER, CONTINUE READING HERE.
The rage barreled through her like a storm, and she wanted to explode into a white hot ball of flame.
Then he was screaming, terrible horrible screams as flames clung to him as he lept off of her.
They burned through his clothes and his skin started to blacken as the flames that wouldn't go out began to consume him.
Emma was watching him in shock. She couldn't process what was happening. She reached out for him on instinct and she noticed the flames burning around her hands. They didn't burn her, but she could feel the heat rolling off of them.
She looked away from her hands as she heard a crash.
He was still trying to put the flames out as they continued to burn him.
He grabbed onto those beautiful curtains still swaying in the breeze and in an instant they went up in flames as her step fathers charred body slumped to the floor before the window.
Emma screamed as her entire room began to get engulfed in flames. She couldn't make the fire in her hands stop, it just kept burning. Hot, steaming tears poured down her face. She couldn't make it stop.
The flames began to roar around her louder.
"Emma! EMMA!" She heard someone yell from somewhere else in the house.
Her mother came barreling into the room, but stopped and stood back when she saw the flames burning at her daughter's hands. The charred remains of her second husband on the floor in front of the window where the curtains had been blowing in the breeze. Now ashes just floated on the wind.
Emma's mother screamed in horror.
Horror at what she had done.
It was her brother who had inevitably pulled her from the house when her mother turned and ran from her.
"Emma." Killian said as she came back to the present.
"I was taken to juvie the next day after they had released me from the hospital. They released me into protective custody a month later, since they didn't know how to handle someone with my particular gifts at jail. I wasn't volatile, I had no problem with flares, right from the start, but they didn't know what to do with a 12 year old who had just burned her step father alive."
Emma thought back to those days with her custody family. The father had a gift to manipulate wind, giving him the ability to smother any flames she could have possibly produced. He was a corrections officer at the prison as well, which made him the best possible match for her. He took her under her wing and they actually became fast friends during the time they spent together. The courts had relieved him of his duty at the prison to stay home and care for her. He helped her learn a bit about her powers, because no one had explained what had happened to her yet, and after getting over her fear of him in the beginning, she grew to trust and care for him. She cried when she was taken away from him. He cried watching her get dragged away from him too.
"And after a long trial, where my mother essentially disowned me from the family, I was sent here." She finished. They figured it was the best place for her, because while she showed stunning control over such violent powers at such a young age, she had killed someone, even in self defense. And they couldn't get around the fact that it made her High Risk, no matter what they did to try and figure something else. She was stuck until Riggans said she wasn't.
And that would never happen.
Killian was just staring at her, an expression she couldn't identify on his face, and it was starting to freak her out a bit.
"You don't have to say anything." She said, "I know it's all kinds of fucked up, but it's my story. And one of these days I just have to own that."
Killian reached out with his hand and wrapped his fingers around where her left ones were drumming on the table.
He squeezed her fingers and looked at her with a soft smile on his face. "I Love You."
o.O.o
The look on Emma's face when he said that was something he won't ever forget. The way her face lit up and all traces of sadness from her story drained away.
"What?" She asked, a bit of a disbelieving laugh in her voice.
"You don't have to say anything back, in fact, I don't expect you to say anything back. But I just thought you should know that." He said, still holding onto her left hand.
Emma's lips pinched together in the way that surely meant that she was going to say something, but he cut her off.
"Besides, it's time I finally told you what happened to me as well." He looked right into her eyes, "Fair's fair and all."
Emma nodded, turning her hand around so that they could better hold hands on top of the table.
He thought back, not really sure how to begin his tale.
Emma squeezed his hand and gave him an encouraging smile.
"So, you will remember I said I was a Lieutenant in Her Majesty's Royal Navy? Right?"
She nodded in response.
"Well, at the start of last year, my ship was deployed out into the Pacific, the area around the Hawaiian Islands. We were to be doing military drills and partols with this group of ships from America's Navy.
"A majority of the deployment went fine. Only a month or two before I arrived here, we were doing some drills out near some of the more remote Islands when we were attacked." The day was coming back to him a bit more clearly now that he was thinking about it.
Killian was laying down in his bunk, reading a book Liam had left for him before he went on his own deployment five months before he had been shipped out here, when the first impact hit.
It had felt like some benevolent sea god had come up from the great blue deep and slammed his hands into the side of the ship, lurching starboard before righting herself quickly.
Killian had been tossed from his bunk, landing soundly on the floor in a heap of blankets as the sirens began going off, signaling the attack.
He scrambled to his feet, grabbing his rifle and handgun from where they were tucked into the corner of his room and bolted out the door. There hadn't been any comm as to where the attack was occuring, so he followed the outflux of other officers towards the upper decks of the ship. He was one of the few who didn't have to participate in the current drill since he had been on deck for the previous three. His commanding officer had taken notice of it and given him a leave for the rest of the week, stating that he didn't need to over do it. They were just drills anyway.
Not anymore, he thought bitterly.
Another blast struck the ship, causing him and the few officers still on this level to stumble back into the wall as the ship rolled ominously again.
Whoever was attacking them had a lot of firepower with them.
He was up on steady feet before a majority of the others, and he pressed his advantage as he began storming through the halls, grabbing the top of the ladder with both hands and pulling himself up to the next level.
He made it up onto the main deck and took in the chaos happening in front of him.
And then they were on him. He barely ducked out of the way of someone swinging the butt of a gun towards his head and turned around, swinging his own weapon around and knocking his attacker out cold. But where one went down it seemed like 3 more appeared in his place.
Killian had never seen any kind of attack like this, not even in his lessons in the academy.
After dispatching his next 4 attackers, he pushed his way out and further onto the deck, looking to find a way to get to his post at the long guns on the far side of the deck from where he had emerged.
The fighting was too packed together for him to properly fire the rifle, so he kept it strapped over his back to try and keep it out of his way while he was fighting his way through the throng of people on the deck.
That proved to be a bit of a downfall, however when someone grabbed the rifle and used it to yank him back, forcing him onto his back onto the deck.
Killian didn't even think, he just reacted, putting his handgun up and firing.
The body of one of the attackers collapsed next to him, apparent from his lack of proper uniform.
Scrambling up to try and avoid another such attack, he pushed past a few more officers before making it to the rail, where the fighting was a little thinner.
"That sounds like it was horrible." Emma said, making him jump a bit.
"Yeah, it was horrible. The fighting here hadn't been near as confusing as it had been on the deck of that ship." He commented, grateful that she had spoken, grounding him back in the present. He squeezed her hand in thanks and continued.
Making it as best he could, he started making his way towards the bow of the boat, hoping to figure out where the attack had originated and helping in any capacity possible. Pausing his flight as two uniformed soldiers shoved an attacker overboard in front of him, he looked down the railing and out to the horizon to see if he could find any sign of the vessel that had attacked them. Seeing none, he pressed forward again.
The attacking vessel must be located on the other side of the ship, he thought to himself.
He made it around the front of the ship where the wheel was located, finally making it to his destination of one of the long guns stationed on the starboard side of the ship.
It seemed that his trip was going to be in vain though, as the metal around him in the deck gave an ominous groan.
Pausing in shock and confusion was his undoing, as the metal gave out beneath him, taking himself and three other officers down a level and crashing them into the floor beneath them.
"What in the Bloody fuck just happened." One of the other officers next to him groaned.
Killian himself was wondering the same thing. He did a quick stock of himself to make sure he didn't get injured in the fall.
While his head was spinning, he didn't think that he had actually hurt himself anywhere else. As he moved to push himself up, he felt an acute twinge in his back and laid himself back down.
Damn. He thought to himself, hoping he hadn't sustained a back injury.
What had Liam always told him about possible neck and back injuries?
Killian moved his toes in his boots experimentally, then his feet and ankles. After doing a quick check up of his legs and arms, he suspected that all he had done was pull a muscle, as everything else seemed to be functioning properly.
He opened his eyes and looked around him.
The other officers that had fallen with him were all in various states. Two were already working to push themselves up and get themselves oriented as to what was happening around them.
The other, another lieutenant that he recognized from down the hall from him wasn't moving.
Killian pushed himself up with a groan, ignoring the twinge in his back and reached his hand out towards the other officer.
"Jenkins?" He asked, shoving on his shoulder. The other two officers turned to watch what he was doing.
Killian pushed on Jenkins shoulder again, this time with more success. He was rewarded with a groan.
One of the officers already standing rushed over, Killian noted the name and rank on his shirt. Commander Williams.
Williams stood over Jenkins and began to assess him quickly. Killian got himself fully up to his feet and pulled the rifle, which had thankfully survived the fall and was likely the cause of the twinge in his back, over his shoulder and into the crook of his arm.
He lined up with the other officer, Lieutenant-Commander Ronen, and they both began advancing down the hall, looking for whatever caused the cave in.
"Do you know what could have caused that?" He whispered to his companion.
"No clue, it almost seemed like it could have been one of those gifted blokes." Ronen responded, turning slowly to cover Killian's back as he cleared both directions of the fork in the hall.
"I didn't think they allowed anyone with a gift to enlist in the Navy." He said, letting the Lieutenant-Commander take the lead in clearing rooms.
He turned slowly to check at their back again, a strange feeling skittering down his spine.
"They don't." was Ronen's response.
The hairs on the back of Killian's neck rose.
He reached out and tapped on Ronen's shoulder, signaling him to stop in his checking of the rooms. Something didn't feel right. Ronen looked over his shoulder at Killian, wondering what had caused him to stop in his tracks.
Before either of them had any time to blink, the floor under them groaned and collapsed, dropping them down not one but two levels through the ship's decks again.
The landing this time around wasn't any better than the first time around, but Killian managed to get his feet under him when they collided with the second deck on their way down, and was able to stand and point his rifle at the mysterious man who appeared just outside the destruction.
Though, pointing a gun at someone who appeared to have the ability to manipulate metal wasn't his brightest idea, and he dropped the rifle as soon as he noticed the barrel began warping it's way around back to face him.
"Who are you?" Killian demanded.
The man didn't answer him, only moving around the rubble to advance on him and Lt. Com. Ronen, who still hadn't stirred form his place on the ground.
"Stay BACK!" He shouted, yielding a step as he moved back towards Ronen, knocking him in the shoulder purposely with his foot.
"DON'T COME ANY CLOSER." He demanded, holding his ground as Ronen sturred beneath him.
Good.
Good that he wasn't seriously injured.
The man stopped a distance from them, cocking his head at them and looking at both of them with an intensity that was unsettling.
Another chill skittered it's way down Killian's spine, but he made every effort to not show that fear to the man across from him.
"And just what can you do?" The man asked, his voice like gravel, like he hadn't used it in a while.
Ronen's hand wrapped around Killian's ankle. He did his best to suppress his surprise at the sudden contact. He held as still as possible as Ronen began feeling his way around his ankle and calf, looking for the handgun that he had strapped there.
"What are you talking about?" He asked, trying to keep the man's attention on him and off what Ronen was trying to do.
"Just what kind of gift are you hiding underneath your skin?" the man asked, his voice catching and hissing on the word skin.
Killian grew more confused, he didn't have any idea what this madman was talking about.
He cocked his head back at him, ignoring the way that spot on his back twinged.
The man grinned, exposing a mouth full of brown, rotted out teeth. "You have no idea what you can do, can you?"
Killian felt the gun come loose from his calf, and suddenly a multitude of things happened in rapid succession.
Ronen rolled over next to him, extending the gun out in front of him.
The man in front of them extended his hand out towards Killian, as if he were reaching for something.
Killian reached to his waist and pulled the gun there, firing off a shot at the man, not knowing what he was about.
Ronen fired his gun a second later, right as something hard slammed into the middle of Killian's back.
Killian grunted at the impact, and in an instant the world went black around him.
"It wasn't like I had blacked out, I could still hear the world happening around me." Killian said, coming back to the present again.
"I heard more gunshots ring out around me, and something blistering hit my hand after a few minutes. I think that was when I fully lost consciousness."
"What happened after that?" Emma asked him quietly. Killian looked up at her, and she smiled softly at him. He quirked his lips up at her in return.
"After that I woke up in a helicopter, on my way to the Hawaiian Islands. They had done a bit for me in terms of taking care of my hand, but the Captain had determined me to be too risky to keep aboard until we made it back to the Islands ourselves. Somehow, I had blacked out the entire vessel. Even one of the smaller vessels and one of the American ships who had finally arrived to answer our distress calls gave reports that the entire vessel had disappeared into a black cloud, seeming to have disappeared into nothing, only to reappear a few minutes later." He said, trying to think back to what the officer had told him when they landed and were able to move him to a more secure medical facility. "I had flared a few other times while I was unconscious, nothing as spectacular as the first time though. But I did succeed in darkening the infirmary several times, to the frustration of the staff working there."
A small smile spread on his face at that thought. "Luckily for me, the Naval hospital on the main island also served to treat the gifted population of the state as well, so they were able to place me on a secure ward where they were more prepared to handle my flares while they treated my hand, or lack of it at that point. The had amputated while I was unconscious in the infirmary. hat was also when I got the notice that, as soon as I was healthy enough to endure a long travel, they were shipping me back to Britain, for my court marshall."
His brows furrowed as he thought about everything that had happened after that.
"I didn't know that Lieutenant Commander Ronen had died in those few minutes when everything had gone dark, and since I was the only one around besides the other mysterious gifted bloke, they had marshalled me on the charge of killing a fellow officer. Unfortunately I couldn't prove that I hadn't done it, and the round they recovered from him during the autopsy was fired from my gun. So they dishonorably discharged me from the Navy. That was where the real problems started though. Because they didn't know where to send me after that."
"Well, maybe it's lucky they sent you here." Emma said, her thumb brushing the back of his hand.
"I suppose, as none of the communities wanted to bring me on in the UK, and I was too old to be sent to one of the academies. Then they found out that the Americans had universities on their secure campuses and found one willing to take me on. They still hadn't found a good way to suppress my powers while I was in custody for the marshall, and was still flaring every couple of days. There wasn't anything that I could do to stop it, as it would happen when I would least expect it. And you Yanks had better ways of suppressing powers until you got them on a campus, so this was one of the best and safest places for them to send me."
Killian saw her shiver, probably remember as he did the deadening power in those gloves.
"But the best thing that came out of them sending me here has to be the friends that I have made while I was here. I didn't have many friends as I was busy doing work for the Navy. So it wasn't all bad coming here." He said, giving her a smile.
"No, I suppose it wasn't," Emma said, smiling back at him. She took his hand in both of hers and leaned over the table towards him, a searching look in her eyes.
Killian leaned forward towards her, pausing just before his lip met with hers. He needed to be sure.
Emma released a shaky breath against his lips before they finally connected.
.o.O.o.
Kissing Killian again after all the time they had spent apart from one another, making their own lives miserable thinking the other hated them, was heaven.
It was everything she had been missing and more.
It was like the first bird song of the spring, or the smell of the first campfire burning in the fall, or the first rays of sunlight breaking through the endless night of winter.
She smiled into his mouth, groaning when he pressed his lips more forcefully into hers.
Oh yeah, she had definitely missed this.
Killian's wrist reached around the back of her neck, holding her in place as he thoroughly reclaimed her mouth.
He broke away first, both of them short of breath.
"I'm sorry," he whispered against her mouth.
"I'm sorry too." She whispered right back.
They both had said some horrible things to one another over the last few days, not intending to hurt one another and hurting each other all the same.
"Does this mean that we can try again?" She asked him, wanting to make sure that they hadn't both destroyed this wonderful thing between them.
"I think that can be arranged." He said, letting go of her hand to sweep her hair away from her face.
She smiled happily at him, relieved to be past this horrible bump in the road. "I love you."
The answering smile on his face was nothing short of blinding, and Emma couldn't have been happier.