A/N: Hey everyone! We are back with another chapter of Wedded Bliss and Asterisks, and though it is a shorter chapter than usual, I couldn't pass up the chance to write it. It will be the last chapter before the wedding. It includes a glimpse into Emma's bachelorette party festivities and then ends with a fluffy moment that has been in my head since I first started writing this fic. I hope you guys enjoy and let me know what you think!
"Emma are you sure you couldn't wear it for just one minute?" Mary Margaret asked for what felt like the hundredth time. "I just want one single picture with you in the tiara. Just one, I promise."
Emma couldn't tell if she wanted to sigh or laugh in the face of her friend's headstrong wish, but she sided with a simple smile and a shake of her head. Mary Margaret was a fantastic person and a wonderful friend, always there when the chips were down and Emma needed someone to lean on, but she had this knack for pushing when everyone else would let something go. It probably had to do with all that excess of hope her friend seemed to have, which had only compounded further since she'd found love again in her life.
"Mary Margaret, I love you and you know that, but I've already told you I don't want to live in a world where there is photographic evidence out there of me in that tiara."
In the face of Emma's words her slightly intoxicated (and by slightly she meant very) friend huffed out some air in a barely controlled sense of frustration and Emma couldn't help but laugh when she did. She muffled it of course, trying to keep her friend's feelings in mind, but it was a pretty funny situation all things considered. In fact the whole day had been that way, as one would expect when the drinking had started with mimosas at ten and Emma's friends had never slowed down anytime over the next twelve hours.
"Sometimes I don't understand you, Emma. You would make a beautiful princess. You really really would."
"No one is saying she wouldn't," Elsa said from her spot next to Emma in the booth, her icy blonde hair almost coming off as blue with the colored lights of the club around them. "But if Emma's going to be a princess, maybe it shouldn't be the princess of penis."
"Who said anything about that?!" Mary Margaret asked completely astonished, and that was the moment when Emma had the confirmation she'd been wondering about for the last twenty minutes. Her friend had simply missed the fact that the whole gaudy crown was encrusted with bedazzled dicks, and that was just too classic. Now it was just a matter of waiting to see which of them would break it to Mary Margaret first.
"So you're telling me you can't see them?" Elsa asked, clearly as shocked and also amused as Emma was and Mary Margaret furrowed her brow, shaking her head as she looked at the plastic crown once again. Emma would at least give her friend the benefit of saying that they were somewhat subtle, but once you saw the clearly phallic shapes making up the whole plastic bobble, there was no going back.
"They are not…" Mary Margaret countered before her eyes grew wider and she went a little red, realization setting in. "Oh my God they are! Ruby! Why would you even buy this?"
Emma found it funny that Mary Margaret would even have to ask. After years and years of friendship, Emma had totally expected Ruby to pull stunts like this for any of their bachelorette parties because that was who she was. And Emma also couldn't lie and say it wasn't entertaining because it was. Even if it wasn't exactly her cup of tea, Ruby's hijinks had created a fair many memories for Emma to remember forever, and Emma was grateful for that even if she wasn't about to play along in full.
"Oh please. Emma's just lucky I didn't have full reign on this party. I was serious about those strippers, honey, and if this was Vegas… well let's just say there's a reason they say sin stays in that city."
"Thank God for small miracles," Emma muttered, seriously glad that she'd gotten out of that whole fiasco since she vastly preferred the party she'd had instead.
After careful deliberation on the part of all of her friends, it was decided that the best way to celebrate Emma getting married was to merge two kinds of bachelorette parties. They'd started the day with something Emma had been more accepting of (but still slightly wary from) that she ended up needing desperately: a trip to the spa. To be blunt it had been a fantastic change of pace for her, and after the hectic nature of their summer season, it was lovely to take a step back from the frantic go-go-go of her life and just relax.
That being said, it wasn't all quiet mood music and restful massages. There was also a substantial amount of drinking, a bevy of good food brought from every corner of the city (thanks to Ruby's endless connections), and an almost never-ending swell of gossip and girl time. Because even if a typical spa day meant mostly silent solitude and individual pampering, that would never fly with Emma's friends. Instead every item on the agenda had been undertaken together, and Emma had found herself laughing more than she could remember doing in a long time, never mind in a spa.
From there though, the easy going (if still heavily alcohol-sponsored) 'treat yourself' day turned into dinner at some hip new restaurant and then ambled to this, a throwback to their earlier years together in the city in the middle of a swanky new club with deafening music and tons of single people on the prowl. It was nice in some ways getting to dance the night away with her best friends and leave all her cares at the door, but it was also a slightly tired situation.
It hit Emma in the midst of all of this that she might very well be over the club scene (if she was ever actually a fan of it at all), and though none of her friends had admitted it, she thought she might not be alone in that. After all, the evening had been full of stolen glances from all of them at their phones (no doubt looking to touch base with their significant others) and funny, shared looks between the friends when they observed other people here. Maybe they'd all missed something, but it felt like a night out on the town wasn't what it once was. Now everything was just a tiny bit sleazier, and a little less desirable as a result.
"Okay, can I just say thank God none of us are single anymore?" Elsa asked, perfectly mirroring Emma's thoughts on the matter as she looked around the club. "I mean is it just me or have the pickings seriously dried up since we were last out like this?"
"Maybe," Emma said noncommittally. "Or maybe you're just so taken with your own fiancé no one else compares."
The mention of her very recent engagement made Elsa flush a happy shade of pink, and inadvertently her gaze as well as everyone else's went back to the ring that Liam had given her. It was a beautiful design, one that Elsa had sincerely loved and taken to immediately, but Emma also knew it wasn't the first one Liam had considered. No, that monstrosity was ginormous, totally unrealistic for anyone never mind a baker, and had thankfully not been purchased thanks to some helpful interference from Killian.
"You might be on to something there," Elsa admitted before breaking into a full on grin.
"You did make a good point though," Mary Margaret stated cheerily, her eyes filled with the thoughts moving about in her head that Emma would just bet were romantic in nature and centered on one David Nolan (who Emma was entirely positive would be crafting a proposal of his own sometime very soon). "I would hate to go back to the way things were before. I mean obviously I loved having you guys…"
"But life's just a little sweeter when you've got someone to love," Ruby finished and the friends all agreed, largely ignoring that in their little bit of tipsiness they were all of them a touch sappier than they usually were.
For Emma especially though, the conversation with her friends just hit home something that she'd been grappling with all evening. She was truly and totally grateful to have such an amazing family and a bond with her friends that she would never let go of, but what she wanted more than a whole night wasted in a club she didn't care about was to make the most of the time she was given. Emma had spent the whole day playing the role of bachelorette with the women she considered sisters. Couldn't she maybe call it a night a little earlier than expected and salvage the rest of the evening into something more worth remembering? Emma thought so, and so she slipped her phone from her purse once more and shot a quick text to the man whose presence she was currently missing most.
E: How would you feel about cutting the night a bit shorter than our friends were thinking?
Emma honestly expected it to take a few minutes for Killian to respond at the very least since from what she'd heard Liam and the others had a pretty set plan of their own, but just as she was about to slip her phone back in her bag, she saw those tell tale dots pop up on her screen signaling he was responding already. The speed with which Killian was going to get back to her made Emma laugh to herself, but she checked to make sure none of her friends had noticed as she waited for Killian's reply.
K: The sooner I have you back with me, the better in my book, Swan.
"Perfect," Emma whispered to herself, but too late she realized the error of her ways.
"What was that, Ems?" Ruby asked from across the table and Emma looked back up, realizing she'd been caught and that all of her friends were looking at her with knowing smirks and a whole lot of amusement behind their eyes.
"Oh, nothing," Emma said, trying to play it cool, but even if she knew her poker face was top notch, Emma was also aware that her friends were not buying it. She was caught, and now she had to find a way to spin her plan in a way that didn't hurt any feelings or cause any problems.
"Okay fine you can go," Ruby acquiesced, surprising Emma not just because she'd read Emma's intentions so easily, but also because she was willingly letting Emma leave what her friend had once proclaimed would be 'a never ending bonanza of single-womanhood.'
"Wait, what?" Emma asked and Mary Margaret jumped in, picking up for Ruby without missing a beat.
"We know you want to get back to Killian, Emma, and that's good by us. To be honest we didn't even think you'd make it this far."
"I didn't think any of us would," Ruby admitted. "Hell I told Graham we'd meet up by ten, and look how that turned out. You outlasted that plan by hours."
"So you guys have been waiting for me to make my escape this whole time?" Emma asked, biting back her laughter and luxuriating in the feeling that she wasn't upsetting her friends in any way by calling it a night.
"Pretty much," Elsa agreed with a smile.
"And no one's going to feel like we didn't do this whole bachelorette thing justice?" Emma clarified, casting her gaze primarily to Ruby who was the unspoken maestro of this whole thing to begin with.
"Nah. I figure there's four of us, and with the way things are going we'll be having a lot of these over the next year. Might as well save some of the dastardly deeds for the rest of us and not blow it all in one night."
Emma totally agreed with the reasoning, and she also believed that Ruby was right and that there would be four weddings at the end of all of this. Emma was truly certain that all of her friends were with the men they were always meant to find, and marriage felt almost like a given in every single case. It was just nice to know that even if nothing had been explicitly said between Ruby and Graham, Ruby was still confident enough in her happy ending and in Mary Margaret's as well to count them all as good as tied down.
"Well alright then," Emma said, standing from the booth. "And I have to say this might just be the best bachelorette party I could have hoped for."
Her friends all came to hug Emma, acknowledging that that had been their goal, and as the four of them stepped out into the night air Emma was filled with a heady rush of possibility and love. How she'd ever gotten this lucky in her life, she didn't know, but as she hailed a cab and moved inside she thanked her lucky stars for her good fortune.
"Where to, miss?" The cabby asked her, and Emma was about to respond with her and Killian's address when something on the TV screen in the chair before her caught her attention.
It was a flickering picture, nothing more than a passing ad that millions of people had likely seen and ignored before her in taxis across the city, but it inspired something in Emma, something she knew would grant her one of those lasting memories she'd been thinking of before. The next thing she knew she was telling the driver where to go and sending Killian a text of this new place for them to meet that she hoped he'd find as meaningful as she did. And in the meantime, she sat there, staring out at the city she called home as it passed by, smiling to herself and knowing that in this moment she was truly happy and that she was destined to remain so for a very long time.
…..
From the second that Emma sent Killian that message about leaving the evening's festivities, there was no doubt in his mind that he would find her. It didn't matter that he and Liam and their friends were in the midst of a thoroughly planned out evening, or that he'd been having a surprisingly good time all things considered. At the end of the day, Killian would always prefer finding his Swan over anything else, and tonight was no different.
In fact, this evening's element of secrecy was even more enticement for Killian to sneak away form everything to find Emma, for after proposing that they ditch their respective parties early, she'd sent him an address that Killian recognized but couldn't quite place. Only when he'd hopped in the cab and told his driver where to go did he get confirmation about where Emma was hoping to meet him.
"You know, pal, you can just say the Empire State Building. No need to get fancy on me," the cabby said with a typical New York attitude, but the gruffness went right over Killian's head, and he found that he couldn't help smiling the whole six block ride to their destination.
It was just too perfect an idea on Emma's part, and the thought of meeting her there brought back a whole host of memories about their first date, which in some ways felt like it happened just yesterday and in others felt like a life time ago. It was strange to think that at one point things between Emma and Killian hadn't been so certain, but recalling that night, Killian could still feel that flutter in his chest and that tingling of hope mixed with fear that Emma might not want this as much as he did. Now with the benefit of hindsight Killian knew that she had, but he'd purposefully pulled out all the stops that night to try and impress her, and in the end she had been the one to completely blow him away.
"You're kidding me, right?" Emma had asked the moment that they approached the building on that fateful night so long ago, and for a second Killian had been a little taken aback. Here he was thinking this was a guaranteed success, but Emma looked so skeptical that for a moment he'd been worried. Somehow though he'd played it cool.
"I take it you've been before," Killian acquiesced, but when he said that Emma ended up shaking her head before turning her gaze back to him and hitting him with a look that still had that edge of humor with a bit more depth and sincerity underneath.
"No actually I haven't. It always seemed a little…"
"Romantic? Idyllic? Enshrined in the stuff of Hollywood dreams?"
Now that was of course meant to be a joke and his choice in phrasing was clearly hyperbolic, but he never imagined his jest would be rewarded the way it was. Emma genuinely laughed at Killian's attempt at wit and when she did he felt his whole being flood with pride. In fact, the feeling was so sublime it couldn't even be undercut by Emma's responding jab, which likely would have taken down a less infatuated and already spell-bound man.
"I was going to say cheesy."
Ouch, that one had hurt, but even as she said that, Killian could see that Emma wasn't retreating from his idea. She was giving him the chance to prove himself and the merits of such an outing, and he was all about making the most of those opportunities when it came to his Swan…
"Hey, buddy, you just going to sit there all night or you gonna pay up and get a move on?"
Killian was jolted by the words from his driver, but even if the man lacked politeness, he wasn't wrong to get Killian's attention. Truth was Killian had no idea how long they'd been stalled at the entrance of the iconic building, and though he might have liked a slightly less jarring return to reality, he valued the push to go inside. After all, his whole reason for being here was to see Emma and to make new memories that might turn out even better than the old.
After paying the cabby and heading inside, Killian noted that there were far fewer people here this time of night than there had been when he and Emma came months ago. The journey up to tiptop of the building was easy, but as the elevator climbed up floor-by-floor, Killian found himself anxious to be there already. The anticipation was killing him, even though he and Emma had seen each other just this morning, and so when the door opened and he finally managed to step out into the cool night air at what felt like the top of the world, Killian felt a strong sense of relief. Now the only thing to do was find Emma and see what exactly it was she had in mind.
Whether it was instinct that guided him or merely a happenstance of fate, the search for Emma didn't go on very long, for as soon as he'd stepped up onto the roof Killian saw Emma's golden hair shining underneath one of the lamps at the far edge of the tower. She was looking down on the city, cutting quite the figure in the clothes she'd worn for the evening out with her friends, but as if she sensed him, Emma turned and when she did Killian could see the smile lighting up her face. The next thing he knew he was moving towards her and she was heading his way too, until she was finally in his grasp and stepping into his arms.
"Hey there stranger. Took you long enough to get here," Emma said cheekily, her head tilting to the side as she looked up at him, beaming in a way that spoke to her total comfort with him in every way.
"Don't I know it, love," Killian agreed causing Emma to laugh and shake her head. Her arms, meanwhile, came to wrap around his neck, with her fingertips grazing in a slow, but measuredly enticing way that sent a surging sense of need through Killian. This woman who he was blessed enough to call his own was a bloody siren through and through, and yet somehow she didn't seem to realize it, at least not fully.
"You know in the movies there's usually a far longer separation between the guy and the girl before they get the happy ending. A year, a decade, … meanwhile we just had one day."
"Well I have to rebuff your logic on two counts, Swan," Killian said, causing Emma's eyebrow to raise in question, even as her smirk turned up to one side. "First of all, we were never truly separated. I left my heart with you the whole time, and you left yours with me. So even if we weren't together, we weren't truly apart."
Emma's eyes lit up at that and she hummed out her agreement, running her fingers through his hair and moving her body slightly closer to his so she was truly flush against him. Meanwhile Killian was temporarily distracted by the way Emma wet her lips and darted her gaze to his in turn. Suddenly his line of thinking diverted from whatever other love stories the world had told before. All that mattered was Emma and the rest was inconsequential.
"That's one point. You said you had two," Emma teased before looking up at him again and urging him with those green eyes of hers to continue on.
"Aye love I do, and the second's more important. You see, we're not standing at the precipice of a happy ending."
"We're not?" Emma asked surprised but not moving away from him in any way.
"No. We're only at the start of this journey, Swan. It's more of a happy beginning than anything else."
A beat passed between them and in that instant Killian watched as understanding dawned on Emma and his words sunk in. In that moment Killian could see just how much she wanted that to be true, and he swore to himself he'd show her just how right he was. They had fifty or sixty years to be together still, and Killian was going to see every up and every down with Emma at his side no matter what. They'd have the life they dreamed of and more, and they would both look back on this time when they were old and gray as still the start of their beautiful life together. Killian knew even then they'd be just as happy, but he wasn't willing to speed up time for the sake of a happily ever after. Instead he chose to cherish every moment and cherish the woman who was making such a happy life possible for him at all.
"God that's cheesy," Emma said in the face of his words, but Killian could tell that they were well received when she pressed up to kiss him in the way he'd been dying for since catching her gaze minutes before.
At the moment of impact when the two of them melted into each other, all other thoughts faded away, leaving just the two of them and this perfect moment. Neither Emma nor Killian were the wiser of the people around them or the sight they made for up there in one of the most quintessentially romantic spots in the city, but it wouldn't have mattered either way, because love would always come first for both of them, and this kiss was nothing if not a living, breathing representation of the feelings they both had for each other.
"It might be cheesy, love," Killian said finally as he broke the kiss for just a moment. "But I know in my heart that you love it regardless."
Emma's laughter filled the space between them and Killian could almost taste it as he stole another kiss before she could reply. She was simply too gorgeous an enticement to deny himself any more, but he was heartened by her response when she was the one to pull away and get another word in.
"I love your cheesy lines almost as much as I love you, Killian Jones," Emma promised as her forehead rested against his and she closed her eyes. Killian did the same, savoring this moment and feeling that blissful symphony coursing inside him that only Emma could create, and when he opened them once more Emma was smiling at him in such an honest way it filled his heart enough to burst.
"Nothing comes close to you, Emma. Nothing."
"Good," Emma whispered as she stole a final kiss and stepped back, taking his hand in hers and leading him from their spot here in the sky back home where they both belonged.
Post-Note: So as the final chapter before the wedding, I felt it fitting to have some funny friend moments, but also tie back to the first date. I loved writing so many months ago about Emma and Killian up on the Empire State Building, and where they were both just a touch more cynical then, I thought it would be nice to have them caving to a reunion moment of sorts in such an iconic place. Of course I tried not to change their characters too much, and there's still that sly nod to how cliché a moment like that could be, but in the end the fluff had to win for me, and I hope you guys enjoyed! Thank you all so much for reading, and I hope you're all having a good day wherever you may be!
