Pirate, princess, and newborn prince had plopped themselves down on the couch to watch while Snow, David, and Henry searched for buried treasure. Well, newborn prince hadn't exactly had an option, considering he was still cradled in his sister's arms. The treasure hunters done well so far but the final clue seemed to have stumped them.
Emma held back a snicker at the realization that her kid was even starting to get a little anxious, most probably because the only thing standing between him and finding his phone was that clue. This last hiding place was the one Emma was the most proud of because the amount of stealth it had taken to hide it had been off the freakin' charts.
"'You'll find me near the place everyone gathers,'" Henry read again, squinting at Killian's old-fashioned scrawl. "'I've made my new home under the item that made the gathering possible.'" He looked up at his grandparents and frowned. "But we all gather in the kitchen, and there is no real kitchen here."
Killian arched an amused eyebrow at Emma. She shrugged in return, just as amused. The kid spoke the truth; activities in their household did have a tendency to center around the kitchen.
Snow and David peeked over Henry's shoulders at the clue, reading it over again. Suddenly Snow's eyes lit up. "It's not referencing where we gather at home. It's talking about where we gathered here."
"The fireplace," David breathed.
Henry's eyes widened in panic, making Emma choke back another snicker. "Relax, kid," she said, her thumb absentmindedly running along her brother's tiny fingers. "I didn't put your phone in the fireplace or anything."
"Oh, thank God!" Henry cried, making everyone chuckle. He turned to look at the fireplace, his thoughtful frown deepening. "What could it be under, though?"
An ornate fireplace, this was not. The utilitarian stone hearth ran from the ceiling to the floor and left no ledge for sitting or gathering. A rack of fireplace tools sat off to the right side and a log cradle sat to the left. Basically, there wasn't very much at the fireplace under which to hide anything, even something as small as a phone.
After a beat, David grinned. A moment later, Snow did as well. They turned to Emma, touched smiles on their faces. Oh yeah, they'd totally figured it out. She smiled back at them.
It took less than thirty seconds for the same knowing grin to hit Henry's face. "I've got it!" He whipped the picnic blanket out of place and sure enough, his phone sat on the floor, right where the far corner of the blanket had been. Emma had made sure to tuck it out of the way so it wouldn't get stepped on when everyone got up to start the treasure hunt.
"That was a good one, Mom," Henry said as he picked up his phone and tucked it in the little bucket they'd been using to collect the treasure. "You guys hid it right under our noses!"
"We never even heard you," Snow agreed. "Were you still holding Neal?"
"Yep," Emma smirked.
"How did you keep the little guy quiet?" David asked her, amazed.
"That would be telling, wouldn't it, squirt?" she replied, addressing her brother with a teasing smile. In truth, all she'd done was brush her index finger along his little cheek. Her brother seemed to like the little touches, and truthfully, she liked giving them to him. She'd had so few comforting touches when she was growing up; she wanted to make damn sure her brother had them. And oddly enough, she found that giving him the ones she should have received as a kid eased that deep ache in her heart in a way that nothing else ever had.
David smirked at her. "He's not even a month old yet and the two of you already have your own secrets?"
"Damn straight. Just wait until he starts to talk. We could very well have our own language by then."
Her family exchanged touched grins. The words had slipped from her mouth before she could even think about them but hearing them aloud made her heart catch in her chest. She had a baby brother, a little sibling she could share things with and teach things. She was a big sister. After living so much of her life alone, all the little things that went along with being a member of a real family had a tendency to take her by surprise.
She felt her throat constricting in just the right way to let her know that tears were imminent. Her muscles must have tensed slightly because Killian reached behind her and, out of view of her parents and kid, ran his hand up and down her back. Then his hand was gone, as quickly as it had come.
The swift and silent reassurance was just so … him. And it was so perfect for her. No lingering over the moment, just a touch to bring her comfort. Just a touch to let her know that he was there.
"Snow," David breathed, his soft voice drawing Emma out of her reverie. When she refocused on the present, she found her father slipping the little treasure collection bucket from Henry's hand. He knelt down and gingerly dumped the contents of the bucket on the floor. "Look at this."
"What?" Henry asked after a beat of silence. "It's just our stuff."
"No, it's not just our stuff," Snow said, looking up at her daughter and Killian with touched eyes. "It's a 'treasure' made from one thing from each of us. It's a treasure made from us."
"It was Killian's idea," Emma said softly, smiling over at her pirate. She felt him tense beside her, and it was her turn to give him a gentle touch of comfort.
Snow turned a surprised look on Killian. "Thank you," she said, giving him a smile. "That was a very lovely gesture."
"You're welcome, milady," Killian replied.
It took less than a second for the tender moment to be completely ruined. Neal began to fuss in Emma's arms and before she even had a chance to shift him to find out what was wrong, he spit up. She jumped to her feet, startled. "Oh, squirt, really?" she cried.
Vaguely disgusted expressions lit Henry's and Killian's faces while Snow and Charming swallowed chuckles. "Come on," Snow said, hiding a smile as she placed her hand on the small of Emma's back. "Let's get you both cleaned up."
Emma sighed. "We had a good thing going, too."
Snow smiled as she very carefully took her son from her daughter's arms. "Not to worry. We've got a change of clothes in the diaper bag for him, and I'll help you get the baby vomit out of your shirt."
A glance down did indeed reveal a trail of baby puke down the front of Emma's shirt. Aw, crap. She'd thought he'd kept his puke contained to himself. "Ugh."
A chuckle finally escaped Snow's lips that time as she crouched down and picked up the diaper bag. Mother and daughter crossed the cabin, and Snow set both the diaper bag and Neal down on the double bed. As Snow dug in the diaper bag for a change of clothes for Neal, Emma glanced down at her own shirt.
She didn't have the luxury of having a change of clothes with her. Even if she and Snow could get the baby puke out of her shirt, what was she going to wear in the meantime? And then it hit her. She'd poofed paper and a pen into existence earlier. Maybe she could magic herself a new shirt.
She closed her eyes and concentrated, focusing her magic. A new shirt was a bit bigger than a couple sheets of paper and a pen, literally and figuratively, but if she tried …
The magic grew, starting as a rumbling in her stomach and warming her from the inside out. She envisioned her new top, a dark green fuzzy sweater that would help keep her warm over the next few hours. Her head dropped forward as she gave herself over to the building magic.
A soft gasp beside her forced her to open her eyes. There on the bed beside the diaper bag lay a dark green fuzzy sweater. Snow looked at her with wide eyes. "Did you just ..."
"Yep," Emma said with a somewhat proud grin. She grabbed the sweater and swiftly changed, shrugged out of the puked-on shirt while pulling the sweater down over her head. She'd picked up that trick changing for junior high gym class. "That's the fourth thing I've poofed into existence today. Maybe we won't have to worry about food or water now, not if I can just think of something and have it appear out of thin air."
Snow smiled back at her. "No, perhaps not, but listen to me, all right? I don't want you overdoing it. Your magic is an option if we need it, but–"
A loud crash interrupted Snow's no doubt impassioned plea for magical caution. Everyone jumped, Henry slapped his hands over his hears, and poor Neal started wailing. "What the hell was that?" Emma cried, her heart pounding.
David and Killian were already on their feet. "It sounded like glass breaking," David said.
Emma glanced around the shack. No broken windows that she could see, so again, what the hell? A moment later, she felt cold air swirling at her feet, leaking into the room from underneath the closed door of the shack's bathroom. Oh shit, she thought, dashing over and whipping open the bathroom door.
Sure enough, a large evergreen branch was hanging half-in and half-out of the bathroom window. Shattered glass was everywhere. Frigid air rushed into the shack through the broken glass, and yet the only thing Emma could think was, I thought David said it was getting warmer out. Because judging by the cold air the broken window was letting in, it certainly didn't feel like it had gotten warmer.
"Snow, will you take Henry and Neal to the couch, please?" David said, his first and foremost priority being getting the kids as far from the frigid air as possible. "We'll handle this."
Emma glanced over her shoulder as her mother did as David asked, trying to shush Neal while ushering Henry out of view. "How did this happen?" Killian asked, so softly that Emma wasn't sure he'd meant to be heard.
David carefully approached the window and peeked around the branch. "The wind's positively whipping out there. Apparently it thought we needed to do some redecorating."
"Fantastic," Emma muttered. "Like we needed this right now." They were already snowed in, stuck in a tiny hunting shack in the middle of the woods, no winter clothes, no food, no water, and now the outside was trying to force its way in.
"Yes, well, it would have been nice if the wind had decided to redecorate on a warmer day," Killian said, making both David and Emma smirk.
All three of them stared at the window, trying to come up with a game plan. They needed to think of something fast because Emma was already starting to shiver. The fire was not going to be able to keep up with this for long; if they couldn't find a way to patch the window …
Emma reached behind her and pulled the door closed. The least they could do was contain the cold as best they could. Of course that also meant filling the tiny bathroom with frigid air. Within seconds, her teeth were chattering.
Killian, who'd cocked his head to the side as he took stock of the situation, said, "We should pull the branch out of the window from the outside. There's more of it out than in, so it would be easier than trying to pull it towards us."
"I agree," David said. "Then we'll have to clean up the glass in here and–"
"The branch isn't exactly the real problem," Emma interrupted. "How are we going to patch the window?"
Neither Killian nor David said anything, which didn't exactly fill her with hope. A quick glance around the bathroom revealed no materials they could use to patch the window, and Emma knew there was nothing in the shack they could use, either.
She couldn't let David and Killian go outside to try to remove the branch, not with a steadily dropping temperature inside. They wouldn't be able to get warm enough once they got back in! She wracked her brain, trying to think of something. She glanced down at her magically conjured sweater, and the answer came to her. "I think I might be able to do something, if you'll let me try it," she said. When they both looked hesitant, she rolled her eyes. "Unless either of you have a better plan right now."
Another glanced passed between the men before David sighed. "Go ahead."
Emma smiled gratefully him before shutting her eyes and concentrated. The flitting sensation in her stomach from the awakening magic was beginning to feel familiar. Tendrils of it raced throughout her entire body, warming her.
Her teeth stopped chattering.
Her first order of business was to get the damn branch out of the window. Without opening her eyes, she envisioned the snow-covered evergreen being pulled back outside as if by an invisible hand. A moment later, she heard her father gasp.
"It's out, love," Killian murmured into her ear.
A tiny half-smile turned up the corners of her mouth but she didn't allow either his voice or her success to distract her from step two. She continued to concentrate, and the warmth spread to her fingers and toes. Now she had stopped shivering altogether, the heat of her magic holding the frigid air at bay.
Emma willed every single little shard and sliver of glass into the bathroom wastebasket. She wanted it to be completely safe, no piece left behind. There was a soft, tinkling thud and David murmured, "Amazing."
Two down, one to go.
Though she was losing energy, she pushed on, imagining the shattered window as whole again, double-paned and strong enough to keep out the cold. This time, though, was different.
Her breath was coming out in ragged pants but she tried to concentrate, tried to focus on the task at hand. She thought she heard voices but they sounded far away. She thought the voices might be calling her name but she was too focused on her task to pay them any attention. Didn't they understand that she had to fix the window?
"Emma!"
The urgent hiss in her ear and a rough shake of her shoulder shattered her concentration, forcing her eyes open. Her magic, which had been at release point, sent a plastic cup that had been left on the sink who knew how long ago flying across the room. "What the hell?" she cried, whirling on her father. "I almost had it!"
"No, Swan, you didn't," Killian said softly. "We don't know what you were trying to do but you'd gone completely ashen and your whole body was trembling."
Just as she opened her mouth to argue the point, a wave of dizziness washed over her. Thank God David grabbed her arms and held her steady, otherwise she would have been on the floor. "Are you all right?" he asked when he felt her stand under her own power.
"Yeah," she answered shakily. "Yeah, I'm okay." All of a sudden, she wanted nothing more than to sit down.
Emma started to go down again, a little more controlled this time, but David and Killian held her up. She wanted to yell at them that she'd been trying to sit on purpose but couldn't seem to force out the words. "We need to get her out of here," Killian murmured to David.
The next thing she knew, they were walking her out of the bathroom and sitting her down on the edge of the bed. When she heard a panicked Snow tell Henry to hold Neal and stay on the couch, she groaned aloud. "All I was trying to do was fix it," she mumbled.
"Fix what, kiddo, the window?"
Emma nodded in response to her father's question, which kind of made her head spin.
"Oh, sweetheart," Snow murmured as she sat down next to her daughter, panicked hands fluttering and pushing locks of hair behind Emma's ears. "This is what I was trying to tell you before the window broke. You can do some amazing things, Emma, but you can't do everything. We don't expect you to have all the answers, and we don't expect you to save all of us with your magic."
"But the window … we have no way to fix it ..."
"Hook and I can check outside for a sheet of plywood or something to use as a patch," David assured her. "In the meantime, we'll close the bathroom door and put something against the bottom to keep the draft contained."
"I can make a sheet of plywood," Emma started to say.
"No," Snow insisted. "You're not using your magic, not until you get your energy reserve built back up again."
A sheepish Emma looked up at her pirate and her father and then over at her mother. "You guys are about to get annoyingly overprotective, aren't you?"
Her parents and Killian shared a relieved smile at the fact that she felt well enough to joke with them. "Oh, honey, you haven't even seen overprotective yet," Snow teased, lightly nudging Emma's shoulders with hers.