A/N: Do you guys have any idea how much I love you for the way you're responding to this story? I'm actually mind numbingly overwhelmed by it. Honestly, I don't know what to do with all the favourites and follows and reviews. You're all ridiculous, I'm sorry I haven't been able to reply to them all individually. Sorry this next one took me a while, stuff at home took a turn, and I got distracted accidentally sketching a scene from the first chapter (don't ask, I can't even draw)…

Moving on. Here is part 3 of this little ditty. Fluffy or angsty? I can't even tell anymore.

Whatever Floats Your Boat

Part 3: Biographies

Emma desperately wished the roles were reversed.

She had had the rest of her Sunday shift to continue being mad at him (some of the second-hand books were squashed into place a little aggressively, providing evidence for her emotional crime and state of mind), and then several days to think about how she'd overreacted. She knew that he had been right, knew herself that her reluctance to share anything warranted some sort of frustration from he who was always honest with her.

Well, at least he never straight up lied, but he could definitely teach a few things about evasiveness.

She also knew why she'd reacted that way - it was years and years of being spurned and only really knowing how to be defensive about it. She regretted that stubbornness and defensiveness were her default emotional settings, the switch jammed years ago and forced into place after certain life events. The frustration within herself – at herself – for responding the way that she did when there was something clearly wrong with him ate away at her.

Really ate.

And Emma didn't know where to find him to apologise, hence her currently wishing that their roles were reversed.

It was her biggest problem right now, and desperate though she may be to fix the situation, she was not going to be trawling around the college campus asking around every dorm for the distressingly dark-haired, leather clad Englishman (God, don't let it come to that). If he were on the back foot he would have come into the shop (leaving the door to clang loudly as he always did), a sheepish expression on his face and making a mess of the hair behind his ear, apologising with endless sincerity.

However, that was not the reality of the situation. There was a growing sickness in her thoughts that told her he wasn't coming back, as Emma had experienced was often the case. She realised only too late that she had been subconsciously testing his staying power, and the idea that they had both failed was weighing her down.

Her boss told her one day that that young boy of hers had been asking about a certain biography in a casual conversation, and it hit her in the chest like an anvil, or six, or twelve. Had he come in deliberately on a day when she wasn't rostered, or had he come in hoping she was, the book request a small extended olive-branched gesture?

Emma couldn't sit around waiting for him to need another book to talk to him again, and the only option that she really had was the number in her phone. Not really her first choice, but the last one left to her.

She spent a good day trying to figure out how to broach him, and settled on the simplistic approach.

Her Thursday night shift had been unbearably slow. The kind of slow where your heart physically aches with boredom, and Emma watched as the arched windows of the shop started to frost around the metal edges. It was cold out tonight, below freezing, and she was both desperate to leave work and reluctant to go out into the cold night air.

She had also spent the last twenty minutes gripping her phone in her hands, spinning it restlessly, waiting to come up with something to text Killian with. A few stragglers doing late night shopping were in, but Emma dawdled through the aisles, shuffling books and wondering what to type.

(Secretly hoping that the title of some book would jump out at her so she could use it in some sort of quirky but meaningful gesture).

Eventually, the impatience to finally get in contact with him outweighed her desire to come up with something clever to say. Leaning against a shelf of south-east Asian cookbooks she swiped a little message.

Hey

Little message was an incredibly apt description. After Emma had sent it she regretted it immediately – too short, too abrupt, too vague.

He didn't reply to her.

Three hours had gone by and nothing. She had been so desperate to right things that she stood at the till counting the money with her phone face up on the counter in front of her, watching to make sure she didn't miss it when - if - he replied. Telling herself that three hours was barely any time at all did not help. There was a guilt inside of her that was making her sick, her mind plaguing her with reminders that this was not the first time she had pushed away someone who needed her.

She tried to swat those particular thoughts away, deciding to focus instead on the harsh Winter air swirling around her as she trudged home, and to focus on her travel (escape) plans.

Emma was only three blocks from the shop when she heard scuffling and shouting coming from behind her - but she had just walked passed one of the local college bars, and really, there were so frequently people drunkenly slurring at each other that she walked on without even thinking twice.

Until she heard the slurred swearing of an Englishman.

A security guard – a great, big, burley looking one – was standing between three men, trying to push them in separate directions, seemingly more concerned about defusing the conflict than the blood pouring from their faces. She walked back towards them, and around the two rough looking boys arguing with the bouncer.

"Killian?"

Her presence barely registered with him, too busy scowling over security's shoulder, before blinking twice to realise who was addressing him.

"Emma?"

The cut on his face was even worse closer up. Gulping and making a split second decision, she took his hand in hers, and led him back towards the book shop, listening to the lewd – and frankly sexist – slurs of the other brawlers as she led him away.

Led him away in silence - they did not speak as they walked back, did not speak as she let go of his hand to unlock the shop, and Emma only spoke briefly to tell him to sit. He heeded her direction, climbing onto the old leather stool that lived behind the desk, while she flicked on a few lights and rummaged around inside the cupboards looking for a first aid kit. He didn't appear to be mad at her, accepting her there without fight, but a dark expression still lived on his face, overshadowing any resentment he might be feeling. Of course, his dark expression was not helped by the bruising marks of fists that were blueing around his eyes.

(Although, the fact that he had gripped her hand in his for three blocks was probably a good sign).

He may not have been mad at her but she was definitely mad at him.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

Emma didn't look at him, instead focusing on coating a cotton ball with Dettol.

"I can hold my own. Think I gave as good as I got, given I was outnumbered."

He hissed when she applied the disinfectant to his wound, earning him an unimpressed look from her, as she dabbed the injury under his right eye and cleaned the heavy blood stains on his cheek.

Killian had spread his legs a little bit to allow her closer access to his face, but it wasn't until she had soaked her fourth cotton ball with blood that she became fully aware of their proximity. She was standing between him, face leaning close and focused on his cheek, but he had nothing to focus on except her leaning into him and neither of them had spoken in minutes.

She swallowed and tried to ignore the thickening of air between them (then again the air was always doing that, they were in part accustomed to it). The cut itself was small, but it had clearly nicked some sort of vein, as it was terribly stubborn to close over. She turned back to the counter, ignoring the bump his leg made to hers as she did, to find a band aid to cover the mess on his face with. When she spoke to him next her voice wasn't even forceful enough to echo in the empty store.

"What the hell do you think you were doing?"

He still said nothing.

At this point they both seemed to be ignoring the underlying tension that sat there like a third party, inflated into being from their earlier fight. He was resolute to sit there, eyes slightly out of focus, the remnants of rum in the occasional little open-mouthed exhale. Killian was clearly paddling between ignoring the nearness of her body to his, and being lost in his own thoughts. Emma hadn't really paid much attention to how drunk he might be, and absentmindedly wondered if he might have a concussion, but mostly she was just glad that he was here, bloody, bruised and all.

Even if he was swaying a little bit.

"What did they even hit you with? This cut is ridiculously straight and deep."

When she thought about what she would say when she next saw him (and she had thought about it), all the conversations she had made up in her head consisted of her apologising first – profusely – before gently trying to coax whatever was ailing him, out. Not that she knew precisely what she was going to say, but there was always a lot of attempt at expressing her emotions when she'd imagined it.

As it stood, she was too mad at him now, tutting as the cut on his cheek started bleeding again out through the edges of the band aid, exasperation taking over.

"Killian, what happened?"

He took a cotton bud from the counter behind her, peeling back the useless band aid - wincing a bit as he did - and held the cotton ball up to his face, sighing as he yielded to the wearied, worried and wrought expression on her own.

"Liam's in hospital."

Her heart sunk in her chest.

"Are you going to go back home?"

"He's in hospital - on deployment. They won't tell me what's wrong, or where exactly he even is, only that it's critical. Which they took bloody two weeks to tell me, and then they said they'd keep me posted," each word came out with a bite, as though every passing moment was a struggle not to be yelling at something.

Emma, still standing between his legs, hands fidgeting with a new band aid, suddenly understood that her own reluctance to tell him things was far more about him than it was her own secretiveness. Not really knowing what more to do, she told him quietly that she was sorry but getting into bar fights would not help him or his brother feel better (even if he shook his head a little to disagree). He was reluctant to meet her gaze, as bruised by the emotional conversation as the bruising under his eye. Emma pried the cotton ball from his fingers replacing it with a clean one, and turned her own attentions to a blood stain on his jacket.

"I'm sorry about what I said the other day. I've never really had much reason to trust anyone, and I knew you were lying; knew you weren't okay and I sort of just lost it. You know I didn't mean it, right?"

The words had rolled out in a breathless stumble, her tongue tripping over the hardest parts in a rush, and she hated how awkwardly they fell out one after the other. She had had a whole thing she had wanted to say, wanted to explain everything, to share something of herself with him in apology. The problem was that she had reacted to him in such a manner due to things she didn't want to talk about, and it made it complicated to know what to share – and it all died on her tongue at the small smile that grew on his face.

"I do now."

Reaching behind her again to grab another dampened cotton ball, she attempted to swab the blood from his leather jacket.

"About the other stuff though? You're a little too perceptive," Emma determined not to look at him directly, the vulnerability on a level she was painfully uncomfortable with.

He chuckled, a toothy little thing.

"Now that, I did know."

Emma saw him three times before it happened, and it was only in an attempt at her own self preservation, but each time she tried to share a little something of herself with him.

As much as she liked him (and yes, she was willing to admit to herself now that there was probably something there, swarming under her skin and recruiting more members), and as much as she was in part doing it to strengthen whatever it was between them, she was doing it for herself.

Smiling softly and leaning across the counter as he always did, she processed the book he was buying – it was the book of Keats poetry he had skimmed his way through the week before.

He was doing a little better since that night. He had texted her (at her request, mind) to keep her up to speed on how Liam was doing. While he had not been told much, he had been injured by some shrapnel during some reconnaissance, and was at least out of their equivalent of ICU; out of danger. While his anguish was still present in the colour of his face, and the bags under his eyes (the bruises had healed surprisingly quickly), he was doing better.

But that scratch was definitely going to scar.

She had long since stopped putting his books in paper bags, declaring he had lost his customer privileges ("What did I do?" "I told you to stop with the clichés" "I hardly think the punishment fits the crime"), and she panicked a little because it gave her less time to come up with something to say. She thumbed through the book itself instead, lingering upon the introduction pages of Keats' life, finding something she could use as he watched her with confusion.

"He was orphaned you know - Keats."

"Aye, I did know that. What of it?"

She slid the tattered poetry collection across towards him, giving a shrug and a little upside down smile as she tore the receipt from the machine.

"No real reason. Maybe I should read the Romantics after all. At least, maybe Keats, he I might be able to relate to being an orphan myself."

She was never more grateful in that moment for his perception and the way he accepted the cavalier delivery in which she had told him this, each word said as though it were simply a fact, and not the beginning of a tediously lonely biography.

(Even though it was).

Killian's facial expression remained the same, but a knowing shadow shifted in his eyes and she knew he had understood her (not that she doubted he would). She had simply expected him to turn around, tuck the new piece of information under his arm along with the book he had just bought but instead –

"Perhaps, that's why I like him so much."

He had been so good at schooling his own face, but Emma failed in her attempt at this information. She felt her mouth drop open the teensiest little bit, unable to stop her eyes from darting between his eyes, to and fro. While Emma had suspected it a long time ago, the confirmation of it, the plain and simple connection that it brought between them brought a warmth to her cheeks, as though he had reached out with his own hand to touch her.

"Until next time, Swan."

As luck would have it, the next clue; the next piece of backstory, was easily supplied (although difficultly executed).

Her boss wasn't there that day, and Killian had been in a morose sort of mood, not saying much and using his thumb to spin one of his ginormous rings in irritation. So, she'd told him he could pick the radio station, or cd, anything as long as it wasn't lutes, or lute like instruments.

Except that he was indecisive, fiddling with the nozzle and skipping the stations after about thirty seconds.

She groaned out loud, perched on her faithful green stool, as he paused on a classic rock station. She had been quiet as he'd scanned the frequencies, and so her disinterested noise piqued his curiosity. When he asked her what the matter was, she responded by telling him, blasé as you like, that her ex used to like this song.

"Your ex?"

"Yes, my ex. Why are you so shocked?"

"What's the story there?"

He obviously knew he was pushing his luck, but at least he changed the station as he did it. Fortunately, a customer had come up to the counter, allowing her some time to form what she wanted to say. He settled on some old 50s pop station, before shutting the cabinet door the receiver lived in and leant on the counter, on her side of it, running his fingers through his stubble in contemplation.

"Is everyone a story to you?"

"Course, love. Isn't that what you're doing, filling me in on your memoir?"

(He was far too discerning and she was clearly realms away from subtlety).

Yes she had an ex, yes she loved him as young people foolishly tend to do, and he broke her heart – all of which she told him. Unlike last time, she felt a little more comfortable, the lazy Wednesday afternoon vibe, sans boss, and with him essentially hanging around simply to bond with her – all a little more conducive to heavy conversation.

She also told him how he'd left her to take the flack for a bunch of stolen watches. If he was surprised by her life of thievery he didn't show it. All he really did was ask her how long her stint "in the brig" was. Regardless of how hard the topic matter was (and it was, she tried to let it out unemotionally but each word she knew was tinged in bitterness and heartbreak), she almost felt like she was telling him as warning – an indication of things she would definitely not be putting up with again.

"And you? Who's on your tattoo?"

She had only seen it briefly one or two times, but it had stuck with her.

(Largely because she too had a tattoo on her wrist as a scarred reminder of the past).

She probably shouldn't have pushed him, his mood still grumpy (despite her attempt at openness, and despite the upbeat melody of the radio coincidentally playing Why Do Fools Fall In Love?) no doubt as a result of Liam's stagnant condition, but he had pushed her. He swallowed, his jaw twitching in the process and began blinking a little as he told her anyway.

Told her by rolling up his sleeve to show her the name Milah that permanently resided on his skin, told her about a heart condition (the name of which slipped through Emma's fingers as she heard it – an aortic something).

Told her about how if it hadn't been for Liam, he's not quite sure how he would have handled it.

She didn't prompt him into saying anymore, the grief of her death seemed to trigger a dark glimmer in his eye, the glimmer largely there due to the tears that welled. The conversation had turned much heavier than either one of them wanted, and sensing this, Emma removed her hand from his shoulder (and couldn't for the life of her remember when she'd put it there), and turned their attention to a crossword that she'd started earlier in the day.

"Come on book worm, help me with five across."

The next time Emma attempted to share with him, she shared a lot more than she intended.

It was far less complicated to slip into a conversation about how she had never really stayed in any one place too long, when he had brought up how he only had a month left in the country. ("I'm no expert but shouldn't you be leaving in Summer?" "They're letting me leave mid-semester, some complication about compatible units. I don't know, I was barely paying attention when they told me and it was bloody months ago").

In fact, her longest stint was the place she was in now, stuck in an aisle, ripping open cardboard boxes of new shipments, counting down the hours till she finished her shift (and more importantly her two days off), and trying not to think about the impending absence of the boy beside her who was busy slicing through tape with a Stanley knife.

Everything was a little easier today, and Emma felt a little like her heart was skipping, each thump a light-hearted dance. The weather was getting warmer (she was only down to two layers and a coat now) and since mending the bridge between the two of them, their affections were coming more easily. This was the second time he had come into the shop specifically to talk to her rather than coming under the pretence of, for example, buying a Katherine Kerr novel.

And he was back to bumping her shoulder as well.

Emma heaved out some of the publications from the boxes, onto the table, and asked why he'd come here at all.

"Adventure, Swan – pure and simple. Why is it you've stayed so long here? Sick of running?"

She ignored the jaunty dig at her flighty nature, dropping the box she'd just emptied onto the wooden floor (with a little phopsh) and started taking things out of the one in front of Killian.

"Don't know, really. Needed money, wanted to go further afield, lost track of time. Travel is still on the agenda, just, gotta save first for what I want to do."

"Want to know what I think?"

"I have a feeling you're going to tell me anyway."

She wasn't watching him but she felt him migrate behind her, scuffing his black, elastic-shafted boots and moved the box she'd discarded out of the middle of the aisle.

"I think you're still here because you've grown attached to certain people."

"Is that so?" She smiled as she said it, relishing a bit in the fact that he was back to a happier banter, literally lighter on his feet, and teasing her again.

"Aye, your boss for starters," she scoffed at that, deep in her throat and turned around to show him with her face how 'unimpressed' she was by his joke. He wasn't fazed – not in the slightest, this back and forth was an old game now (he teased, she glared, they both smiled) – and he moseyed right in front of her, so close that he cast a bit of a shadow on her face. Her smile grew at the obvious step that rendered her stuck between a pile of Margaret Atwood on the table, and himself.

"Try again," she played.

There it was again, that lopsided smile that seemed to nudge his eyebrows. It was clear as day what he was implying – but she wasn't surprised. She unconsciously mirrored the jovial sneer on his face, rolling her eyes at his never-ending flirtations.

"You wish."

"Perhaps, I do."

Something quite literally lunged in her chest. He was so close (again) and his expression so honest (as always). She thought back to Christmas emails, to the torn page sitting in her bedroom, to the fact that he was just always here, eyes always flirting or facetious. Before she knew it her body made the snap decision milliseconds before her brain did, and she kissed him.

She just dove the few inches between them and crashed herself into him.

At least it felt like a crash, the impact of the act hitting her as forcefully as though she'd leapt head first into a brick wall, but in actuality, she had grabbed him gently by the lapels of his jacket with shaking fingers. The mere shock of the others lips attached to their own made both Emma and Killian stumble, finding balance from the table behind her before finding a balance between their currently entwining bodies.

Her mind was a blank.

She could think of nothing in that moment except for the feeling of him gasping into her, and then recapturing her lips again with a gentle ferocity; could think of nothing else except the tingling, dancing feeling his hand in her hair was creating on her scalp; could think of nothing else except the feeling of his nose pressed against her cheek as she responded by grazing his lower lip with her teeth.

She was rapidly running of breath, ignoring the messages from her lungs that were telling her to take a moment to normalise her breathing. Emma ignored the messages so vehemently that she only gripped onto him with more intent, both hands on either side of his face scraping the scruff - that even with her eyes shut she knew was slightly ginger - with her nails as he changed the angle. (She may have accidentally made a noise as he did so). The corner edge of a book on the display table behind her was nudging into her lower than his hands were daring to roam, but she couldn't find it in herself to care, not when he was coaxing her with his lips the way he was.

He pulled back first, his own heated little puffs of air blowing on her skin. A gentle thumb found its way into the crevice of her chin as their noses remained insistently bumping, as though impatient to get back to what they had been doing.

"That -" he sounded wrecked. The cracking in his voice made her drag open her own eyes, to find his heavily lidded, staring straight at her lips. He looked how she felt – all blushes, bit lips and pounding hearts.

(He looked dangerously sincere and handsome with a blush on his cheeks).

He tried to speak again, a little more firmly.

"That, is a far cry from disinterested, love."

"So, if I'm a book," she started, falling further into the table to keep her legs from giving way (and pulling him by his jacket as she did). "Which chapter is this?"

He laughed a heavy exhale, moving his thumb round to the base of Emma's ear (grazing her jaw as he did so, sending a shiver down her spine), his fingers in her hair, leaning in until their lips were almost touching.

"I've no clue, but it's bloody riveting, and I intend to find out what happens next."

She tried to smile back at him, but he was kissing her again, erasing all her intentions of doing anything but returning the favour.

It wasn't until he tried to limit the already limited distance between them that they were forced to stop. The impact of his body pressed into hers (one hand finding its way under the hem of her shirt, one of hers leaving fingernail trails in his hair) caused her to inch back onto the table a little more, and the large pile of brand new books that were poking into Emma were accidentally bumped, falling to the floor in a cacophony of noise.

They paused, listening, waiting for the consequences, looking at each other and when he grinned mischievously she couldn't help but wince and bite her lip. He stared at her as she did it, clearly getting ideas of his own. They didn't hear anything but the absolute pounding of their own hearts in their ears, as she rested her forehead on his, until -

"Emma? Was that you? I told you those piles were an accident waiting to happen."

The sound of her boss' voice from the front of the shop, and his approaching boots, sent Emma into a series of hissed instructions as she nudged Killian off her. He kissed her cheek wickedly before scampering (was he scampering? Or was her heart doing that, it was difficult to tell) through a different aisle to avoid her boss, winking as he went.

That boy was so much trouble.

He was trouble for the rest of her shift when she found her heart rate wouldn't settle, and he was trouble right up to the moment she was still thinking about the bristle of his beard against her face, as she used the bristles of her toothbrush to clean her teeth.

But Emma's heart stuttered in her chest for an entirely different reason when he texted her that night at 1 o'clock, the buzzing noise startling her as she was drifting off.

Emma I'm sorry about the time are you awake? Liam's gone.