The despicable horror of black holes
Dedicated to: Worryingly Innocent, for your amazing help, support and incredible annoyance of my science talk.
AN: And we come to the weird science chapter. :) My parents are both engineers, and are both geniuses, so I grew up with my head contemplating what black holes are. I get carried away.
I would also like to point out that despite the fact that I am in a happy relationship, if Prof. Brian Cox wanted to be owned, I would happily oblige him. As it is, I have no claim on him or MythBusters.
This particular day had started out as normal. There had been absolutely no indication that everything was about to change.
Several weeks before, Neal had, in a moment of forgiveness (and wanting to be forgiven) gifted Captain Jones a large, somewhat complicated, bulky and quite amazing telescope. It was clearly an apology for the many disagreements between the men, and a thanks for protecting Henry and Emma.
Contrary to quite a few people's expectations, he took to it like a fish took to water. Once he mastered the basics, he became very proficient with the device. When Emma asked him about it, he pointed out that he still was, strictly speaking, a captain of a pirate ship, and in order for him to make his choice of employment a success, he had to be able to navigate, particularly by the stars. This meant that he knew his way around a telescope or binoculars of any description.
Strangely, once he mastered the device, he became unnaturally interested in watching scientific programs. He could sit for hours in from of David Attenborough's programs, open mouthed, learning more about the world. He was particularly enthusiastic to discover MythBusters and the fact that he is not the only person in the world who makes things explode - there are others, and they do it on purpose.
So it is no surprise when he starts watching programs about space, seeing something shown and explained to him via the screen. At the end of the day he would run to the telescope and tinker with it and a sky map, looking at the objects he saw on the program, circled in a bright green on his papers.
Emma and the others get completely used to the exclamations of pure joy that come from the garden in those days - after all, each man must have a hobby, and compared to attempting to kill Mr Gold, this one is relatively benign.
This is probably the reason when that particular day happened, it was such a shock.
Killian had spent most of the day in the forest, helping the local ranger and Ruby maintain trees - that is to say, hanging about 20 meters above the ground, singing and chopping off dead branches. By the time he had come back, the sky was overcast, and it was clear that he would get no star gazing done. Instead, he settled down on the sofa with Mary Margaret and took her up on her invitation to watch a marathon of space programs.
It was about two hours in that they go to an episode featuring a man called Brian Cox - Snow seemed to go misty eyed at the sound of his voice, and she took away the remote from Killian, turning up the volume to the max.
Killian ignored Emma's mother's strange habits and instead chose to concentrate on what the Professor was saying. He talked about the strange (and very magical sounding) Big Bang, from where all the universe and stars came. He talked of how bits and pieces left over from the explosion formed stars, and then galaxies. He talked of parallel universes leaning on one another (this made sense, as they had all clearly come from one of these). He talked of things that Killian had never dreamed of, but still understood and marvelled at the beauty of. It gave him a true appreciation for the world that he lived in.
Some time during the early evening, Ruby had come in, and she too was with them, watching the program, mouth hanging slightly open while she took in the Professor's words.
Then the topic changed. Brian Cox started to elaborate on the nature of black holes.
These constructs of the universe sounded atrocious. Indiscriminately destroying stars and everything else around them, these things tearing apart everything in their way, laying waste to all before them. They were monsters with hearts darker than the Dark One.
And they had to be stopped.
Emma could barely walk by the time she came home. The day had been long. There had been an accident a few blocks off main street, caused by someone having a drink too many at lunch (it was Friday, but still! Drinking at 12 should be banned - Regina would likely be able to help there), followed by her running all over town helping Archie find Pongo (Ruby had been nowhere to be found). Just as she was about to head home Dr. Whale called her and reminded that she needed to interview a woman who may have fallen down the stairs, but could have been a victim of domestic violence. Emma had dutifully gone over only to find that the husband could not have hurt anyone since he had been in the mines the whole day and wife admitted to tripping over the cat. Any confusion she may have experienced would have been likely down to concussion.
So, in light of all of this, Emma did not take it well when she was practically run over by a pirate captain attempting to simultaneously put on his shoes, coat and run out of the door. Especially when he did not apologise.
Grabbing him, she help on when he tried to snake past her and swung his round to face her. He looked confused for a moment and stared though her for a few moments before he realised that she was in front of him. He immediately tried to side step her.
"Wait a moment, Mister. Where are you off in such a rush? What have you done?"
The answer surprised her.
"I need to go see Rumplestiltskin."
That was interesting. Since Belle's party and at all of their urging, the two men had reached a sort of truce. Neither had any desire to hurt each other any longer, but I was far from trust. And it was unlikely that Killian would seek Mr Gold's help out willingly.
"Ok, this must be serious. Tell me."
The man in front of her launched into a tirade. As he spoke, a rather interesting picture emerged and Emma had to restrain herself from laughing.
"So, this Cox was saying that there is a massive one only 27 years away, and it's in the middle of eating a star! We need to do something, or it will eat us up in the next 27 years!"
Emma dissolved into laughter, leaving a confused Killian in front of her.
"Oh Killian!" And that sets her off again. It takes her a few minutes to regain a straight face. "It won't reach us. The galaxy has existed for billions of years. It's not going to get eaten up in just a few decades!"
He thinks about it.
"They are invisible, right?" She nods. "And destroy everything, but only if there is something to see there?" Again, she nods.
He looks triumphant: "Then only Gold can defeat it." That one went right over her.
"Why?"
"What's to say there isn't one just a short distance away that is growing and will start eating our star in a few years?"
She has to concede that that argument is actually intelligent.
Seeing her hesitation, he finished putting his coat on, taking advantage of her distraction.
Just as he was about to go over to the pawn shop, and demand that Rumplestiltskin do something about the vile monsters lurking in the sky, he was distracted rather abruptly. So abruptly in fact, that it took him a few moments to figure out that the thing shutting him up was Emma's lips.
He pulled away, surprised.
"Lass?"
Emma managed to somehow look both exasperated and angry (probably at the interruption) and glowing, all at the same time. She glared at him with some affection and pulled him back down for a kiss.
Killian resisted.
"Fine. I've been thinking that I want to give this relationship a go. Mary Margaret trusts you, David no longer wants to punch you and Henry absolutely adores you. And you haven't tried to kill Gold recently."
There was a pause, and Killian prodded. "And you, Swan?"
She continued to glare at him for another couple of seconds before relenting. He arms tightened around his neck. "And I trust you too. And I end up sleeping on that sofa next to you at least once a week. I am onto you, by the way. No one can get trapped in it 4 times in three days after proving to me that they can get it to fold properly." Aware that she was rambling, she stopped, took a breath and tried again. "So, I was wondering if you wanted to try this… thing, whatever it is?"
"And?"
Silence. For a moment he was about to relent and take the terms offered, when Emma buried her face in his shoulder.
"And I care for you. You make me happy. I can't say more." She lifted her face once again to look into his eyes. "Maybe ask me in a few months. I can't guarantee that the answer will be different. But we can try."
We. Finally, there was light at the end of the 300 year old tunnel. Someone cared for him, and he too cared for them in return.
He responded by kissing his Emma enthusiastically. When they pulled back for air, Killian raised an eyebrow. "So, all I had to do to get this reaction from you was talk about seeing stars and black holes for a while?" Said eyebrow moved suggestively.
He really should have seen that, however light, punch coming.
The wall behind them erupted in giggles, followed by the sounds of Mary Margaret and Ruby and Henry being dragged away by David. The pirate captain hear the giddy proclamation of "Welcome to the family!" just before the women and child dissolved into more giggles. They could almost hear Charming roll his eyes.
It was needless to point out that the sofa bed never got any use out of it again.
AN: Just one more to go folks! Tune in next week for the last episode of Hook being beaten, and occasionally embracing, tech. ^_^
