Wednesday mornings consisted of rushing Henry off to school, running a few errands, and then brunch at Granny's with Mary Margaret, Ruby, and Elsa. Or as Mary Margaret affectionately called it 'Girl's day'. The fact that it wasn't an entire day was something Emma thought about often, but never thought important enough to mention. The greater good and what not.
The 10:30 am crowd at Granny's consisted of a very few people aside from them, the reason behind Ruby suggesting they meet at that time. Still remembering when all the busiest shifts were from working at the little diner for most of her young life, it came in handy when they wanted to enjoy the atmosphere without all the people it usually came with.
Everything went as it normally did, Mary Margaret gushed about something sweet her husband, David, had done and how cute their son Leo -who was just a few years younger than Henry -was. Ruby gossiped about whichever new guy she was seeing, currently it was some mechanic who was sweet but not really her type. And Elsa talked about her sister Anna, and their latest adventure. It was comforting this routine. Sitting around a cheaply covered table in the squeaky vinyl booth, with the women that were her closest friends.
The good food also didn't hurt. Ever since she had moved to Storybrooke with Henry just after he was born, Granny's diner had been a favorite of hers. She always ordered the same thing for breakfast, an order of pancakes with hot chocolate and cinnamon.
Smiling into the still warm cup of hot chocolate in front of her, Emma listened to the ridiculous conversation Ruby and Mary Margaret were currently having, resisting the strong urge to roll her eyes at them.
"- I do like Billy Mary Margaret, that's why I'm seeing him."
"But if you really liked him you'd say you were dating him."
"Well that's why I'm not saying I'm dating him, it's because I don't really like him." Ruby replied with a smirk that earned an irritated huff from Mary Margaret who usually didn't understand anything 'romantic' unless it was true love.
Elsa cleared her throat when Ruby looked like she was about to say something else and possibly stick her foot in her mouth, turning her gaze to Emma with a small smile.
"Emma, what ever happened to that guy you were seeing? I haven't heard you talk about him in a while." Elsa supplied as a change of subject, which to her credit did work. Both previously arguing women turned to face her with expectant and curious looks on their face, the disagreement from a moment ago completely forgotten.
She sighed, knowing that she had been lucky to not have been asked sooner by one of them, knowing it was bound to come up. She had been brief with them when it first started, just telling them she was 'seeing' someone, to which Ruby had asked how good he was, Elsa had smiled encouragingly, and Mary Margaret had looked at her concerned. But she hadn't told them anything about him, let alone his name, and in the two weeks since she had found out just who he was she certainly hadn't mentioned him again.
"I -uh- it didn't work out so well." She said, nervous under the heavy gaze of her friends. Especially Mary Margaret whose son went to the same school as Henry did. Granted Leo was two grades below Henry and Mary Margaret had likely never heard of a Mr. Jones, and even if she had she couldn't know that who the guy was - as she had once been told, fear holds no logic.
"What happened?" Ruby, nosey as always asked. She expected Mary Margaret to tell her she didn't have to answer that as she usually did, but instead she was meet with radio silence. She guess she shouldn't have been that surprised.
Killian was the first man in a long time she had been with, let alone told them about. She reminded herself, trying to ease her discomfort at the situation that they were only irritating her because they cared about her. She had been trying to forgot that she had slept with her sons teacher -multiple times -and this conversation surely wasn't helping erase the memories that seemed engrained in her brain.
"His work got in the way." She didn't care if she was being vague now, she just wanted to finish the conversation. Though mentally she smirked at her explanation. Understatement of the year.
"Emma honey, I'm sorry." Mary Margaret said, reaching her hand across the table and squeezing her hand in hers. Emma smiled politely at her, resisting the need to tell her that it's fine, she wasn't upset about it. Still in denial about it, and perhaps a bit disappointed that she couldn't sleep with him anymore, but not upset about him.
"It's okay."
"Please let me set you up with someone!" Ruby supplied, looking like an excited puppy. Emma outwardly groaned at the thought, letting her head fall back against the booth.
"Ruby that last time you set me up with someone he spent the entire time starring at my cleavage and talking about his mom."
"Well he was into you, and has a good relationship with his mother! Isn't that supposed to be a good thing?"
"Not when you're almost thirty and live in her basement and talk about giving her creepy massages after work."
Ruby perked up again, about to defend her last pick for Emma when she frowned apparently out of things to say about her last fail that weren't negative.
"Why don't we talk about something else? Mary Margaret how's the day care going?" Else interrupted, sensing Emma's unease. She shot her a grateful look listening happily as Mary Margaret talked about how nice some of the new parent were at the day care she ran.
She sat there, picking at her mostly eaten pancakes wondering if maybe Ruby was right. Maybe she did need to go on a date, meet someone new. Certainly not one of Ruby's picks, maybe Mary Margaret knew one of David's friends that she would like, or Elsa could think of someone.
She knew she should do it, the fastest way to get Killian out of her mind, was to get someone else in it. But she found she didn't want to. Reluctant to think about it too much, she shoved the voice inside of her head down, content to finish the rest of her brunch in relative peace.
The rest of the week passed uneventfully, life starting to return to normal over time. She hadn't seen Killian again when picking up or dropping off Henry, she had stopped hiding when she drove to the school. She stopped feeling like he was going to show up at any moment and destroy her illusion of acceptance over what had happened.
The following Monday she sat at the kitchen table, sipping from a cup of coffee and tracking a perp on her laptop who was stupid enough to use their credit card yesterday to rent a car. Based on where he was last seen, it looked like he was heading in her direction. Perhaps it was time to try to lure him into one of her traps.
She was just thinking of checking which social media accounts he had so that she could reach out to him, when her phone rang startling her in the silence of the empty apartment.
She reached for it frowning in confusion when she saw the number of Henry's school.
"Hello?" She answered wondering what this was about.
"Emma Swan?" An unfamiliar female voice asked.
"Speaking."
"My name is Ashely and I work at Storybrooke Elementary. Your son Henry is in the principle's office and it's requested that you come and meet with him and the principle."
"What?" She blurted out, confused as to why Henry would be in the principle's office. Wasn't that usually reserved for misbehaving children? Henry was a good kid, he had never had a problem before.
"What happened? Why is he there?" She questioned.
"I think it's best if you just come down Miss Swan." The woman said before hanging up the phone without giving Emma a chance to respond. Frowning at the flashing screen, she set the phone down and huffed, wondering what on earth Henry had managed to do.
Shoving her feet in a pair of boots, and slipping on a tan leather jacket, she raced to the school, driving perhaps a bit faster than she should have, but curiosity took over and she didn't think of anything else other than worrying over what was going on with Henry.
She parked quickly, not hard to find a parking spot when the parking lot was empty during the middle of the school day, and rushed inside of the building barely even looking at the petite blonde woman sitting behind the counter -Ashely presumably.
Happy to see that the principle's office was open saying as she hadn't planned on stopping even if it was closed, Emma marched in, taking the liberty of being rude for the time being.
When she entered the room she didn't even notice anything except for Henry. Her eyes instantly darting to him and focusing solely on him.
Or more accurately his appearance. He had a bruise forming under his right eye, his lip was split slightly down the middle, and he had a tear in his jeans on his knee, as well as dirt and grass stains covering his pants and shirt.
"Henry what happened?!" She exclaimed, worried as she rushed over to the chair he sat in and kneeled on the ground in front of him, sighing when he in response hugged her.
A clearing of a throat snapped her out of her immediate state of worry now that she could see that Henry was in fact fine, if not a bit banged up. She stood up from the ground and meet the eyes of the person sitting behind the principle's desk, who had cleared their throat impatiently a moment ago.
She had hear stories about the Principle of Storybrooke Elementary, everyone had. But she had heard first hand all about the Principle, as Mary Margaret was on the school board and got to deal with them on a regular basis. It seemed they held a particular grudge against Mary Margaret for no particular reason.
Regina Mills was a striking woman. Striking - not beautiful or pretty. For while she was beautiful, she was mostly cold. The dark short cropped hair, grey eyeshadow, and dark berry lip color combined with her stark clean grey pencil skirt and blazer gave her the look of a statue. And the glare on her face certainly wasn't helping the illusion.
"What happened Miss Swan," The woman started to speak, "Was that your son started a down right brawl during recess today." She shook her head as if disgusted by the whole situation. She looked back at Henry, confusion clouding her mind.
Henry had never done anything like that before, he had never gotten in trouble for being mean to a kid let alone starting a fight.
"Principle Mills, I do believe you're exaggerating the situation quite a bit." A third voice piped in that in her haste and confusion hadn't even registered that another person was in the room.
Her brain certainly hadn't thought to warn her that Killian Jones was sitting in a chair less than five feet away from her defending her son. She looked at him after he spoke, still a bit startled. Surprisingly, he wasn't looking at her, instead his attention turned on Principle Mills who was correcting him in his assumption.
It was strange, she thought that he was always looking at her, always watching, but now he wasn't. Until it dawned on her that in her need to forget that Killian was Henry's teacher, she had actually forgotten that Killian was Henry's teacher. it was probably customary and required that the teacher of the student in question be present for such things. This had nothing to do with her, this was simply about Henry.
Ignoring Principle Mills going on about what a ruckus he had caused, she instead turned to Henry who was sitting in his chair slumped far down trying to hide, looking very guilty.
She gave him a small smile, hoping that he understood that she wasn't mad at him.
"What happened Henry? Did you start a fight?" He looked down sheepishly at first when the room grew quite and all three adults turned their attention to the child, awaiting his answer.
"I didn't start it." He said, though it didn't sound defensive. It didn't sound like a child who was trying to convince them on something that wasn't true. Even her super power didn't tell her anything wasn't true about what he said. She was just about to prompt Henry into saying what happened when he started to explain for himself.
"A mean boy named Chucky was making fun of me. Saying that I didn't have any friends and was a loser. He said that I didn't have any friends because I didn't have a dad, and he started calling you bad names because you aren't married." She sighed, hating how guilty and ashamed he looked but also feeling her heart leap to her throat.
Henry had gotten into a fight to protect her, If the Principle hadn't been glaring daggers at the both of them she would have swept him up into a hug and offered to buy him ice cream everyday for the next month. Instead she settled with an "Oh Henry." before squeezing his hand.
"Yes, it's quite against the rules. I suggest a week of suspension." If she had turned her had any quicker she would have snapped her neck.
"And the other boy? The one who was bullying my son and being inappropriate, is he also being suspended?"
"The other child was a victim of violence."
"The other child was a bully who was harassing my son. My son defended himself, if anything Henry is the victim here not the other child." She said, voice rising and anger flaring. How dare she insist that Henry was the problem here?
"Miss Swan I suggest you calm down before you make matters worse. I can see where you son got his rage." She was about to really show Regina Mills where Henry had gotten his 'rage' from when Killian who had been quite the entire time interjected.
"A week of suspension if a bit harsh Principle Mills. Especially since the other child involved isn't suffering the same punishment." Her anger flared at his words, knowing that she had been right.
"How about a week of detention instead?" He supplied causing the Principle to glare at him thought she didn't turn him down immediately.
"Who's to run the extra detention? It's only held on Wednesdays and Thursdays, do you expect me to pay Mr. Donnell extra so that you can teach a lesson to a boy who won't remember it in a week?"
"I'll do it." She really should stop being surprised by Killian Jones at this point, she thought to herself. But she couldn't help in when he kept on doing things like that.
"You'll do detention on Tuesdays and Fridays?"
"Yes" He responded so simply, so flippantly. As if commenting on the blueness of the sky.
Regina put her hands up, surrounding with an incredulous look on her face, not even beginning to fathom his apparent immense stupidity.
"If you want to waste your time go right ahead Mr. Jones. But just know that you won't be payed for your extra efforts."
"I wouldn't expect to." He said smirking, brining her back to reality in a classic Killian move that brought her attention back to Henry who had again grown small in his chair but was now looking at Killian like he had hung the moon and had brought it back for him.
"By all means then Miss Swan, you're free to go." Emma nodded at her, not bothering to thank her for her time as she tugged Henry up by the hand and starting heading towards the door.
"Just know Miss Swan, Mr. Jones, that next time it won't be a week of detention. It'll be two weeks of suspension. And there always is a next time" She again suppressed the urge to strangle the principle and instead walked out of the room, and continued walking until she was standing in the secluded hallway between the main office and principles office.
"I'm sorry mom I-" She cut him off with a bone crushing hug, not waiting or wanting to hear an apology from him. Sure it was stupid of him to start a fight, but more than anything she felt proud of him.
"You have nothing to apologize for." She said smiling at him and she pulled back.
"But maybe next time you know, avoid violence when you're on the play ground."
He nodded smiling at her about to say something else before Killian walked into the hallway and stopped a few feet away from the pair of them.
"Thank you Mr. Jones." Henry said shuffling his feet a bit awkwardly. "For sticking up for me."
"Not a problem Henry. It's bad form to let you take a punishment you don't deserve." Henry thanked him again.
"Henry, you should probably go clean up before heading back to class don't you think?" She asked him, holing back a laugh as Henry looked down at his clothes, eyes widening in response as if just noticing that he looked a bit of a mess.
"Oh yeah." He said before waving and rushing off in the direction of the nearest bathroom.
A silence engulfed the hallway between them, but for the first time that Emma had been alone with him since finding out, it didn't feel awkward. Tense perhaps, certainly not something she would wish to stay in for too long, but the awkwardness was gone.
"Thank you." She said after a minute, looking up at him to find him already looking at her.
"Did you really think I'd let your son suffer Regina's wrath Swan?"
"I don't know," She shrugged noticing the just barely noticeable sad smile on his face, "But thank you all the same."
"You're welcome Emma." The sincerity in his voice shocked her a bit, the way his eyes seemed to clear up a bit when her gaze meet his.
Another silence defended over the two of them that seemed plenty loud enough by his eyes burning into hers. It wasn't until a long minute had passed that she realized she had unconsciously drifted closer to him, finding herself craving his touch after all this time of missing it.
She shook her self, trying to break the spell that seemed to be cast whenever she was around him and took a step back, keeping a careful eye on him while she did so.
"Well I, uh should let you get back." She said and he nodded bidding her a farewell before he stopped walking just after he had started walking away from her.
He turned to face her cautiously, swiveling slowly on the balls of his feet before coming to stop aligned with her, regardless of the space between them.
"I'd like it if we could be friends Swan." There he went again surprising her when he had no right to.
"This awkwardness between us I fear won't come of any good. The school year isn't even half over yet, and we're bound to see more of each other. Especially if Henry decides to embrace his new bad boy persona." She smiled softly at his last joking comment, but still thought for a moment.
He was right she supposed. There was no reason for them to not try to put the past behind them. Besides it wasn't as though he meant for them to stay up late gossiping and braiding each other hair. It was more of an invitation to be cordial for the sake of Henry and professionalism. The waving of a white flag.
"I'd like that too." She responded, relishing in the smile that graced his lips for a minute.
"Friends it is then." He wagged his eyes brows at her before disappearing behind the hallway back to his classroom.
She took that as her cue to leave as well, walking unnecessarily stiffly through the office and front door, all the way to her car.
It wasn't until she was sitting in the drivers seat, keys in hand that she realized what had just happened. She had just agreed to be Killian Jones' friend. She groaned at the thought, hitting her head against the steering wheel wondering why bad things happened to relatively okay people.
In that moment she couldn't think of anything that sounded like a worse idea than being Killian Jones' friend. Just as she was unable to stop the blush that still hand't left her cheeks from having a simple conversation with him, she was unable to deny him his request of friendship.
And she was fairly certain it was going to kill her.
Hope you guys enjoyed getting to see a few other characters in this chapter! I finally have a solid game plan and outline for the rest of this story, and hopefully you guys are liking where it's headed so far! Let me know what you think of this chapter!