"This isn't necessary" Emma accused futilely as Killian set the tray down on the desk. "I don't need two hands to do that. Just because you have more practice doing things that way doesn't mean you're the only one who can."
He pivoted to face her and cocked an eyebrow. "You're injured, Emma. Let me take care of you, for a few days at least. Please? It's nothing to do with how capable you are. I want to be sure you're able to rest and recover."
She didn't answer immediately, not knowing how to respond. During her brief hesitation, he closed the distance between them and planted a tender kiss on her forehead. She closed her eyes and with an exhale, she allowed the tension in her body to soften. "I feel like you're always nursing me back to health. It's not that I don't appreciate it, really. I just don't want to have to be so careful all the time."
"I've noticed," he chuckled. "But you won't quicken your healing with risk-taking or endurance tests." Reaching behind her, he pressed the door shut, giving the two of them the best privacy that could be afforded on a ship underway. "Even the small ones will slow you down, and I know how you hate that. You want to always be at your best, which - as much as I admire the sentiment - is not always possible. All we can do now is minimize the amount of time you'll have to wait."
As much as she disliked it, he was right and she knew it. She wrinkled her nose at him. "I don't like being patient."
"So I've learned," he intoned with that deep and throaty laugh of his. "Come, sit and eat with me. It'll help you regain your strength," he teased.
Smiling in spite of herself, she poked him in the ribcage right where she knew it would tickle most as he guided her over to her chair and pulled it out for her. She waited without complaint as he divvied the items on the tray out between their two sides of the table, allowing him to neatly set each of their places for their supper. With the tray emptied, he retrieved a couple of glasses and the rum bottle from the cabinet and poured them each three fingers.
Briefly, he kissed her on her neck before he seated himself as well. "I have something for you," he told her then, reaching down to open a drawer.
"And I've got a thing for you too," she raised her brows suggestively, bringing the glass of rum to her lips.
"That will come later," he winked, producing a sheet of paper from the drawer. With a flourish, he laid it on the table beside their meal.
Several heartbeats passed before it dawned on Emma what it was that she was looking at. Her first thought was that it was another copy of her bounty poster when she noted the word WANTED emblazoned in large letters across the top, but there were two sketched faces instead of one. Neither belonged to her.
She sipped at her rum then set the glass aside to pick up the poster for closer examination. "What is this?" She asked him, but she recognized the names before he could answer. "My parents…" she exhaled.
"Your parents," he confirmed quietly, taking up his own glass.
It wasn't the first time she'd seen their faces, especially the queen's. She'd walked past plenty of posters advertising the current size of the offered bounty, but she'd never had reason to pay them any mind. She was certain they had nothing to do with her; they may as well have lived in a separate world entirely. They were both royalty, albeit on the run from a powerful enemy. She was no one - a young girl who came from nowhere, barely clawing her way off of the streets.
The best Emma had ever seen in life was a warm bed and a roof that didn't leak. Yet she was supposed to be their daughter. She was royalty. She was a princess. The title fit wrong. It was uncomfortable like a too-tight dress with a misaligned corset. She wasn't built for poise in exquisite gowns, formal dancing, or arranged marriages.
But "daughter" was a title she could grow used to. That was one she wanted to learn how to wear. These were the two meant to bestow it upon her. Would they agree with Pinocchio's assessment of her? She thought, as she studied the drawings, that she could see some resemblance. Perhaps it was only her being hopeful.
Turning the page around to show Killian, she held it beside her face. "What do you think? Do I look like them?"
"Aye," he told her, taking a bite of his food and barely glancing at the page. "Very much so."
She put the paper back down on the table in front of her, hardly able to tear her eyes away from it as she reached for her own food. "It's hard to believe," she admitted. "The idea of having a family after all these years… It feels strange."
"I would imagine. I hope that it's not an unpleasant feeling?"
She shook her head, swallowing a bite. "No, I don't think it's bad. It's unfamiliar, but if they're good people, I think I could get used to it. I've heard that they're good people."
"It's certainly what their followers say, and they have many," he agreed. It felt like he was being cautious with her. She always hated when he did that, but supposed that at times she couldn't blame him. This was one of those instances.
"Do you think they'll help us?" She hardly tasted the stew she spooned into her mouth. Her attention was too absorbed.
"Aye," he repeated confidently. He believed it, clearly. He wasn't just placating her. "Even if Pinocchio is wrong, we've a common enemy. You would be an asset to them and their cause regardless of your relation. For what it's worth, I believe the claim could well be legitimate."
Emma nodded and continued to feed herself almost mechanically, utterly absorbed in thought. She was going to meet these two people soon, and she would find out. Within a few weeks time, she would know one way or the other. She would either have parents for the first time in her life, or she wouldn't. Technically, she would be no worse off than she was now. She'd always been an orphan, but the possibility now somehow felt like she would be losing something precious.
Moments passed in silence between them before his voice pulled her back into the room with him again. "I know you're afraid to be hopeful."
She cleared her throat and finally tore her gaze from the strangely familiar faces. "How do you mean?"
His eyes saw through her so keenly. "Wanting to avoid disappointment is entirely understandable. Wise, at times even. It can act as a form of self-preservation. But if you're sitting inside your head repeatedly subjecting yourself to the worst-case scenario until you've numbed yourself to its effects, you're not exactly saving yourself any pain. You're causing more before you're sure you'll have to endure any."
She wrinkled her nose at him again. It could be really irritating when he was right. Still, she wasn't ready to fully subscribe to optimism. "Can we talk about something else?" She asked instead, following the question with another bite. Perhaps a change of subject would alleviate the rising tension within her.
He leaned forward toward her, putting his weight on his elbows on the table between them and smirking. "Speaking of pain then, how's your arm?"
Emma winced. That wasn't the sort of distraction she'd been hoping for. A more pleasant topic would have been welcomed, but she supposed it was still easier to talk about than her emotional state. "It's alright. It doesn't feel great, but I don't notice it so much as long as I don't move it. The sling has been doing its job."
"And you've had it on all day?" He checked.
Cautiously, she nodded, hearing a second question suspended in his tone. "Yes, why?"
"Have you changed your bandages at all?" He raised his brows at her.
She felt a flush of embarrassment rising into her cheeks at having neglected to care for her wound much at all, and knew he saw it. Quickly, she reached for a good excuse and remembered Quinn's difficulty in retrieving the strips of linen they'd needed. "It's fine, I don't think it needs it. It's not actively bleeding or anything. I think we're running out of the fabric we've been using for bandages."
"We've plenty of other fabric we can tear to make more. Having a doctor on board is not cause for taking unnecessary risk, even if he does seem to have some skill. If you've open wounds, even small ones, we need to mind them for infection." He leaned casually back in his chair, clearly reading the stubbornness on her face. "If you're that concerned by it, I'd be happy to re-wrap your injury with the same bandage if you'll at least let me see that it's not festering. Provided it's as unsoiled as you claim, that is. Does that seem a fair compromise?"
She swallowed another spoonful of stew, considering him for a moment, wondering how he always saw through her so completely. "I'll agree to that," she acquiesced.
His smile was so smug that she had to roll her eyes at him, but couldn't help but grin at the same time. He sipped the last of his meal out of his bowl before standing and removing his coat, leaving it folded over the back of his chair. Then, he was standing behind her, his fingertips brushing the ends of her hair off the nape of her neck where the sling's knot lay. No matter how many times he touched her or in how many ways, it always sent that electric thrill throughout her body.
His left forearm supported her elbow to keep her arm from dropping as his fingers deftly undid the knot at her neck, then set the fabric sling aside. Purposefully, he began unwrapping the bandage from her shoulder down, twist by twist, carefully keeping the board tied in place beneath. As the tension released, she felt the warmth of circulation flowing to the area. She started to exhale a sigh, but it caught in her throat when the increased sensation flooded to the worst part of the injury, renewing the pain.
"It'll only be a moment," he reassured her, noting her discomfort.
He spoke truthfully. He made quick work of applying the pain-relieving ointment to the unbroken areas of skin then re-wrapping the bandage equally as tight as it had been before. She couldn't help but smirk a little as he admitted she'd been right and that it was still as clean as any that could be found aboard most ships.
Once her arm was fully re-wrapped, she watched as he twisted the fabric around itself again and again and then pulled the ends taut into a surgeon's knot all with his single hand. He didn't even need his teeth to tighten this one, although she certainly wouldn't have minded his mouth on her.
"I'm always amazed at how you do that," she confessed, shaking her head slightly. "I know you've had a lot of practice, but I could barely get my sling on by myself this morning."
"Well, to be fair," he crooned, standing behind her, still holding her arm with his wrist. His warm breath caressed her neck. "Even before all that practice, I've always had rather innately good dexterity. And as you know," his lips pressed to the sensitive skin below her ear. "The ability extends far beyond my ropework skills."
Allowing her eyes to close, Emma leaned into his touch as his hand began to drift over her shoulders to her collarbone, then to the buttons of her shirt. One by one they opened beneath his touch as easily as she always did while his kisses trailed over her neck, sending shivers over the entirety of her body.
A soft gasp escaped her as those dexterous fingers of his found her tightened nipple, rolling it with a light pinch. Her head tipped back and she heard the sinful greed in his chuckle, felt it against her throat. His hand slipped further downward then, untying the laces of her breeches and plunging beneath them before she could capture a single breath. As his fingers entered her, she had to bite down hard on her lip to keep herself from moaning loudly enough for the whole ship to hear.
Her sound was even harder to stifle as he groaned in her ear. "Already so wet for me."
"I can't help it," she admitted, rapidly succumbing to his demonstrations of dexterity, which warranted absolutely all of his boasting.
"Mmm," he rasped into her ear. "Good girl."
He rapidly brought her all the way to the edge like that. Then, right at the moment she was certain he would send her over, his hand pulled away. Emma's eyes flew open, but before she could beg answer, he was placing her broken arm to rest over his shoulder, freeing both of his arms to lift her. "Bear with me a moment," he asked as he carried her to the bed and laid her down carefully so as to not jostle her any more than necessary. Letting her shirt fall open, she raised her hips for him and he stripped her pants from her legs in a single smooth movement. Another two quick movements detached his hook and tossed it aside.
Then his mouth was on her as two of his fingers entered her once again and it took everything she had not to cry out. The way that he hummed out his pleasure with his tongue against her most sensitive place was beyond what she could handle. Within moments, he sent her careening until she was seeing white.
"I love the way you cum for me," he whispered. "I could do this all day."
She would let him, she knew. As far as she was concerned, he could do whatever he liked with her for as long as he liked, and she'd be left begging for more once he was done. After the second time her body seized with ecstasy, he climbed on top of her, untying the laces of his pants and kicking his legs free.
He entered her so, so slowly, letting her stretch around him and thoroughly feel how fully and how perfectly he fit her. That alone was nearly enough to send her toppling over the edge yet again. When he began to move within her in determined but unhurried strokes, she couldn't hold back. Again and again, she fell for him until finally she brought him with her and they both drifted off, still entangled.