Author's Note: Y'all remain awesome! Thank you for the reviews and follows and favorites! Here be the next part. :)
Snow emerged from the bedroom with the kind of careful silence only the mother of a sleeping baby could manage, a green plastic tote in her hands. It was one of those big suckers meant for storing Christmas decorations or out-of-season clothes, the kind people stacked up in basements and attics and wrote things like "Old School Papers" on the lids with Sharpie. And Emma knew from previous experience that the big green tote in her mother's hands was chock-full of every classroom art supply one could possibly imagine.
Sure enough, when Snow set the tote down on the floor and removed the lid, it looked as if a Michaels had thrown up in the tote. There were boxes of crayons and colored pencils lying among packages of markers and pads of construction paper. Loose sheets of stickers lay next to glue sticks – oh so many glue sticks – and little plastic vials of glitter.
It was underneath a few sheets of what Emma could only assume was scrapbook paper that she found the multiple sets of acrylic paints. Real sets, too, not those little pots of paint that were connected to each other by plastic strips. Another second or two of digging turned up plenty of brushes, multiples in each size and style.
Just when Emma thought they were going to have to paint their ocean scenes on construction paper, Henry unearthed a sketchpad filled with heavy, textured paper. A relieved Snow smiled at her assembled family members. "It looks like we do in fact have everything we need."
"We can work at the kitchen table," David said through a smile of his own.
Emma flicked her gaze to Killian, who nodded. The kitchen table was indeed the best place to set up; they all could comfortably fit around it and he'd be close enough to monitor everyone's progress. "Sounds perfect," Killian said. "Thank you for the use of your supplies."
As David cleared off the table, Emma and Henry headed to the kitchen to fill plastic Solo cups with rinse water for their brushes. Killian tore five sheets of paper out of the sketchpad and set them out on the table while Snow reached into the cabinet and withdrew paper plates for her family to use as palettes.
With rhree half-filled plastic cups in hand, Emma returned to the table and was surprised to find Killian kneeling on the floor in front of the plastic tote. She set the cups down beside a sheet of paper before approaching her pirate and plopping down on the floor beside him. The expression of wonder on his face at the sheer abundance of art supplies struck her as ridiculously adorable. "If I'd known you'd be so interested in a bunch of kiddie art supplies, I would have had Mom show you this sooner."
He smiled up at her, a faint flush of pink coloring his cheeks. In his hand was a package of scented markers. "I've never seen some of these coloring implements before."
Sometimes Emma forgot that he hadn't grown up with the stuff of her childhood, things like markers and construction paper and Crayola crayons. He'd probably never seen a marker at all, never mind one that boasted a lab-created fruit fragrance when the cap was removed.
She smiled back and slipped the markers from his hand. She opened the box, withdrew the purple marker, uncapped it, and held it out to her pirate. "Take a sniff."
A single eyebrow quirked up in Killian's trademark incredulous look but he did as she instructed without a word of argument. After one whiff, the skepticism on his features was replaced with bewilderment. "Why in blazes does this coloring pen smell like imitation grapes?"
Emma managed to swallow her chuckle but Henry laughed out loud. "Because kids like things that smell like other things," he informed Killian.
With a wink at her husband, a grinning Snow approached the tote and dug around in it until she found a pad of stickers. She handed the pad over to Killian and said, "Scratch one of these stickers with your fingernail and then smell it."
Though he was clearly still perplexed, Killian once again did as instructed, dragging the nail of his index finger over a sticker shaped like a strawberry. Emma, her parents, and Henry all watched with amusement as Killian brought the pad to his nose. "Now this piece of paper smells like imitation strawberries," he said a touch unnecessarily.
Everyone swallowed snickers. "Yeah, that's the idea," Emma reminded him.
"And children in this land really find this amusing?"
Emma nodded. "Are you kidding? Getting a scratch and sniff sticker back on my paper was always a hundred times better than getting a regular sticker." Out of the corner of her eye, Emma saw her parents share a little smile at her admission. Both of them were now undoubtedly imagining her as a little girl, happily scratching and sniffing a congratulatory sticker on her schoolwork.
When Killian remained dubious, Henry nodded his agreement. "Scratch and sniff stickers are the best."
"I'll take your word for it," Killian said, once again making everyone swallow chuckles.
"You know what we should do before settling down to paint?" Henry asked as Emma and Killian stood up, halting the inspection of the art supplies in favor of moving their evening along a little bit.
The adults frowned at each other. He wanted to delay painting? This had been his idea in the first place! Once again, David was silently elected info-gatherer. "What's that?"
"Get snacks!" He flicked his eyes to Emma, knowing full well that she was the one who would be most likely to agree.
And sure enough, she did. She couldn't sit at the kitchen table for the next couple of hours and not have something to much on. "Snacks are absolutely necessary," she grinned.
"Let's see what we can find in the kitchen," Snow sighed, giving an indulgent shake of her head to her perpetually hungry daughter and grandson.
Henry and her parents went off to raid the cabinets while Killian and Emma relocated to the table. As they settled, Killian reached for a set of paints and a brush. A little smile tugged at the corners of his mouth and his eyes sparkled with touched anticipation.
Emma's heart skipped a beat at how at home he looked. "What is it?" she asked softly.
"It's been over a century and a half since I last held a paintbrush in my hand," he replied just as softly. "Liam had procured me a fantastic set of oils during a stopover in a faraway port. I'd almost used them up when we were sent on our voyage to Neverland. He told me he would get me a new set to replace the used one after we delivered our cargo to our King."
He let the story trail off then but Emma didn't need him to finish it. She could fill in the blanks herself; he'd never gotten that new set because Liam hadn't made it home from the trip. And something told her that her Killian, a man who'd held onto Baelfire's cutlass all those years, had never been able to use the remainder of the paints for fear of running out of the gift Liam had given him.
She placed her hand over his and gave him a gentle, sympathetic smile. After receiving a sad smile in return, Emma felt the need to lighten the mood a touch. She let the moment settle and then asked, "You can paint on a ship on the open ocean without messing it up?"
Killian blinked at her, stunned for a beat at the shift in conversation, and then chuckled. "You're forgetting that I learned to chart on the open ocean, lass. A stray line on a painting doesn't matter nearly as much as a stray line on a navigation chart, let me tell you."
And just like that, the light, teasing atmosphere was restored. Glad that she'd managed to get him to laugh after his sad remembrance, Emma smiled. "Point taken."
It was perfect timing, too, because they had barely a second between their shared chuckle and Henry's exclamation of, "We come bearing snacks!"
They certainly did. Henry was holding a plastic mixing bowl filled with white cheddar popcorn, David had a family-size bag of pretzels, and Snow was sneaking a stray chip off the top of another plastic mixing bowl filled with what Emma assumed were sour cream and onion chips.
A stunned Emma narrowed her eyes. It was a fairly decent spread, especially for the hour, but there was not a single sweet to be had. "What's with all the salty stuff?" she asked, quirking an eyebrow at her mother.
"Ask your son," Snow shrugged as she set the chips on the table. "He picked out the snacks."
Emma flicked the same questioning gaze to Henry. "I didn't realize until just now that it's all salty," he said with a shrug of his own. "I must be craving salt or something."
"You should get something to drink, lad," Killian spoke up, his tone serious. "Craving salt is a sign of mild dehydration."
"He's fine," Emma whispered to Killian with a pat of his shoulder and a roll of her eyes. Then she addressed Henry. "Would you mind grabbing the package of Oreos before you sit down?"
"Emma," Snow chided, clucking her tongue in mock disapproval of her daughter's sweet tooth.
"What? I want sweet, not salty."
"Yes, but those are the mint Oreos."
"Even better."
"It's just that you could demolish that entire package without breaking a sweat."
"And what, exactly, is wrong with that?"
David, who'd been watching the teasing back and forth between mother and daughter with amusement, offered, "I could make kettle corn."
"The Oreos are fine," Emma assured him. She glanced up at the clock and realized with a sigh that it had been twenty minutes since they'd agreed to Paint Night and they hadn't even opened the paints yet. Only in her family could the preparation for their chosen activity be so time-consuming.
In the end, Henry did indeed retrieve the mint Oreos (which were basically happiness in sandwich cookie form, as far as Emma was concerned) and plopped down at the table. Now, they could finally get down to business.
Or not. Killian squeezed a little puddle of deep blue paint onto his paper plate and frowned. "May I take a moment to experiment with the paint?" he asked.
"Of course," David said.
At first, Emma didn't understand why he needed to "experiment" with the paint at all. He probably had more experience with painting than everyone else in the room put together. But as she watched him pull another sheet of paper from the pad, dip his brush in the puddle of blue, and then swoop it across the paper, she realized that he'd never worked with acrylic paint before.
It did indeed only take him a moment to familiarize himself with the paint and how it went on the paper. After giving a barely noticeable nod of approval, he smiled somewhat nervously at his assembled students for the evening. "Are we ready to begin?"
"Ready as I'll ever be!" Henry quipped.
Everyone snickered. Emma glanced around at her family members and smiled. The fact that they all seemed so excited for this little evening of togetherness made her heart flutter in her chest.
She picked up her brush and, with Killian's lovely accented voice describing what to do, began painting a deep blue ocean. Every so often, she'd glance around at her family and smile. They appeared to be having a blast.
This clearly had been a fantastic idea. Good job, Henry, she thought. Yeah, it was still cheese central but she supposed that sometimes cheese had its place.
A glance over at Killian told her that he'd relaxed immensely and had settled quite nicely into his new role as art instructor. He looked up, caught her eye, and smiled.
She smiled back and then winked, a little reminder of their promised activities once the art lesson had concluded.
After a quick glance around to make sure no one was watching them, Killian waggled his eyebrows at her, his own silent way of saying, "How could I forget?"
Emma grinned.