Title: Tired of the Same Routines
Rated: T for language
Summary: Emma's daily routines are a matter of habit. When she wakes up late one morning, her routines all change for the better. Killian doesn't care about routines, but he does care about Emma.
A/N: In which I wrap some pretty bows around the end of this, because I'm obviously a sucker for happy endings. This ends the main body of the story. There is a (very shamelessly smutty) companion piece already written for this, and there's always a chance for more side pieces if it's requested. For now though, a huge thanks to everyone who has followed along this journey with these two, and with me. Your follows and favorites and comments and general loveliness during this whole process has meant the world to me.
CHAPTER 7: Tired of the Same Routines
Emma wakes in the morning to Killian shifting restlessly in his sleep. They're still on the couch, if only just barely. Throughout the night, he had shifted her to rest against the back of the couch while he moved to the outside edge. She's just opening her eyes when she hears his gasp and then he's on the floor. Eyes open wide, now, she peers over the edge of the couch to see Killian wincing on the floor.
"Are you okay?"
"Just fine, love," he grumbles, rubbing his head where it smacked on the floor. She's stifling laughter when he leans up and kisses her softly. "Good morning to you too, couch hog."
"Hey! We could've moved at any time. Why didn't you wake me up?"
"Because I love you," he responds, and seems to notice which words came out instead of the response he meant to say. His eyes, wide and brighter blue than she's ever seen them, meet her steady gaze.
"I love you, too. But that's a little dramatic of a reason for why you're now on the floor."
"I'd go to the ends of the earth for you, love. This time, it just happens to be your remarkably uncomfortable floor." She can't help the laugh that slips out this time and she runs her hands through his hair.
"Thanks again for yesterday. I was a bit of a mess," she says, even though it feels like a vast understatement to what she actually was the day before. He waves his hand as if to dismiss the notion of her being anything other than composed. She wants to laugh at his ability to handle everything that's been thrown at him over the last couple months except for her one slip at punctuality.
"I understand. Old ghosts and habits, and all that. Speaking of which, I think you're behind on your weekend routines," he says. He raises an eyebrow and glances around the untidied living room.
"I think they can wait. What should we do today?" she asks, sitting up on the couch and stretching. She watches the way his eyes darken as her shirt rides up, exposing her bare waist.
"I'm sure we'll think of something," he responds. A wayward hand creeps along her inner thigh and her chuckle is cut off when his fingers brush her center through her pajama pants. They finally make it back to her bedroom, where she finally gets to learn the difference between what it feels like to be with someone who says he loves her, and one that actually means it.
In the weeks that follow the finalization of Emma's official divorce, her routines almost entirely disappear. She still gets up at the same time in the morning, but if the dishes in the sink aren't washed and put away before she goes to bed at night, she doesn't lose sleep over it. She doesn't feel the need to start her laundry at exactly noon on Saturdays. She does it whenever she feels like it. She walks back to Killian's after work some days and spends the night. One day, she snags a pair of jeans he doesn't wear often, along with a couple other pieces of clothing, and takes them back to her place when she goes.
Her friends throw her a Happy Divorce party at the bar one night, with a cake and everything. Her parents make the drive to come celebrate with them. Emma takes a special interest in watching David and Killian interact, and realizes that she never watched how her father treated the other men she brought around, mostly because she can't recall David interacting with any of them. Maybe that should've been a tip-off.
On Monday morning when she gets to work, Belle hands over an envelope of pictures she printed from the party.
"Thought you might want to hang some updated ones," she explains. She pulls out the photos, and there's one of her surrounded by Belle and Ruby. There's another of her with her parents, one where she doesn't look like she's trying to climb out of her own skin. There are others, candid, of the friends that surrounded her that evening. And one is of her and Killian.
It isn't a posed photo, although she's sure there's one of those in the pack as well. They're side by side, looking like they're sharing a private joke. And if he hadn't told her he loved her already (and repeats it often) then she would know from looking at them in this picture.
She notices the same picture on Killian's desk when she takes him lunch later in the week. When he sees her looking at it, he just shrugs and smiles, the same smile on his face in the picture and he nudges the door closed to kiss her senseless, which she is more than okay with.
When they finally break apart, she leans her head against the door she's already propped against. She brushes her hand over his cheek and runs her fingers through the hair that curls just behind his ear and smiles.
She thinks about a time, months ago, standing in the doorway of the guy she barely knew when she was still on the fence about whether or not to let him in. When all they had shared at that point was a couple drinks at a bar and a crossing path on their commutes to work.
"What's on your mind, love?" he asks.
"You waited for me," she answers. And in every sense she can mean it, she does. "You waited the day I was late. You waited for me to agree to our first date instead of pushing me. You even held back when you could've kissed me after it. And you continued to wait for me every step of the way."
"Aye, and I would've waited longer at each step along the way, even if it took us years to get to this moment. You're worth waiting for, Emma."
She doesn't have a response. Can't even think of what to say after that, so she just pulls him closer to kiss him again. She's found, more often than not, that it's a response he will gladly accept.
It's three months later that Killian locks himself out of his apartment and he and Emma huddle on the front stoop together in the snow waiting for his landlord to come unlock the door for him. He opens his coat and pulls her closer, jumping when her cold nose touches his collarbone and she chuckles as she repeats the action until her nose is warm and he's even warmer, and they thank Marco profusely when he comes with the spare set of keys.
The next day, when Emma comes back from getting coffee, there's an envelope propped in front of her computer. When she opens it, a weight settles in the envelope as she pulls out the folded note. Killian's neat handwriting stretches across the paper.
"My love,
understand me,
I love all of you,
from eyes to feet, to toenails,
inside,
all the brightness, which you kept.
It is I, my love,
who knocks at your door."
So next time I lock myself out, please unlock it for me. (Previous lines by Pablo Neruda. I'll make you like poetry yet, Swan.)
She peers into the envelope to see the key resting in the bottom and thinks he may be onto something with poetry if it always sounds like that.
Emma makes sure to beat Killian to the door when they walk back to his place after work so she can try out her new key, and she only smiles wider when the lock clicks open. She makes a big show of swinging the door open, gesturing him inside with a sweep of her arm.
It's just past Emma and Killian's one year anniversary when she and Ruby sit down at the kitchen table with plastic cups and a bottle of wine. Everything else in the apartment is boxed up and most of the furniture is already moved to whichever location it's going to.
Ruby pours a generous amount into each clear plastic cup and holds one out to Emma.
"Seriously, Ruby? You couldn't just buy the cheap plastic ones?"
"We are classier than red Solo cups," she responds. She holds out the cup for a toast, and Emma waits. This is, after all, Ruby's favorite part of drinking anything. She mulls over her seemingly endless supply of toasts in her mind before a smile spreads slowly and she looks at Emma. "May all our ups and downs be between the sheets," she finally says, clicking the cup against Emma's and taking a drink.
"Too bad you don't stick exclusively to between sheets. I liked that couch, you know," Emma responds before sipping from her own cup.
"Hey. We didn't have sex on that couch until you guys said you didn't want it. Not my fault you said you would be at Killian's- sorry, your apartment all night and came back to grab something."
"New topic. The memory is making the wine taste bad," Emma says quickly.
It's bittersweet for both of them to say goodbye to the apartment. While Emma was out of it for a few years, the apartment is the only place she considered home after leaving the nest until her decision to move into Killian's apartment. The discussion about moving in together took all of five seconds. It was the decision of which place to move into that lasted a little longer. Killian swayed her, although she will admit it didn't take much, by saying the magic words of 'shorter walk' and she remembered how awful every snowy morning and afternoon were during what seemed like a particularly ruthless winter.
They finish the bottle of wine while reminiscing, and Ruby tells her for the third time how close her new place will be to the hospital and Granny's Diner, so she'll see her all the time.
"It'll be a little weird not having you down the hall again," Ruby admits.
"You'll see me every Friday. And you're still in easy walking distance," Emma reminds her. They've all promised Elsa they'll keep visiting, even though none of them will be close to their customary bar anymore. Some traditions and routines just can't be let go.
They both still cry when the last box is taken down to their moving vehicles and the last surface is wiped clean.
Emma arrives home a little late one night to Killian already making dinner. The routines they do still stick to all include household chores and the way they divvy them up, and she's perfectly fine with that kind of situation. He glances over his shoulder when she walks in and smiles.
"Get stuck late again?"
"Not quite. That smells amazing," she says as she comes to stand behind him. "I kind of walked half way back to the apartment before I realized I was going the wrong way."
"Kind of? I don't think that's something you can kind of do, love," he says, and still manages to keep stirring whatever it is he's making even when she goes to swat his arm.
"Okay, so I did. You said it yourself. Old habits, right?" She hops up on the counter to watch him cook. He hums his agreement while keeping watch over his cooking. "So, are our adventures everything you thought they would be, Hot Guy?"
"Well, Blonde Goddess. I do believe the story is only in the middle. We'll just have to see where the pages take us from here."
"You are such a fucking romance novelist," she says. He makes sure to remove the sauce he's been carefully preparing the whole time before he moves in to attack. And even though she's squirming to get away from the nimble pressures of his fingers on her ticklish spots, she sends up another thank you to faulty alarm clocks and routines.
(A/N: poem snippet comes from Pablo Neruda's "The Question" as found in The Captain's Verses.)