Here we go, another angsty story coming your way to tide you over until the show returns. It's going to be a Pearl Harbor AU, with brief Gremma in later chapters (if you've seen the movie, you'll know what happens, if not, I assure you that this is a CS story through and through), and I hope you're going to enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it. As always, I owe so much to Adriane (emmaaswaan tumblr) who gives me inspiration, unvawering support, ideas and gentle nudges in the right direction, so thank you, baby panda. Enjoy! P.S. You can expect the new chapter on Tuesday.

It's not even noon yet and US Navy Nurse Lieutenant Emma Swan had already seen enough men in their underwear to last her a lifetime. She had taken their blood and blood pressure, checked their eyesight and hearing, and then, to top it off, stuck needles in their butts, which made most of them behave like babies, all their bravado quickly replaced with grunts of pain.

It's not that she can't be gentle, but a part of her wants to scream her head off at them for being so damn stupid to volunteer for duty, to volunteer to be pilots with the war looming ahead, threatening to swallow most, if not all of them. Maybe she thinks that if she pokes them mercilessly, they are going to reconsider, and she won't end up nursing them to relative health when they return home broken.

"Lighten up, Em, they aren't dead yet", Ruby whispers to her as she passes by carrying a tray with blood samples, and Emma focuses her attention back to the task at hand.

"Next", she calls out and doesn't even look up from the table, hand outstretched for her next victim's file.

"Good day, ma'm", a deep, accented voice says and she looks up in spite of herself, her eyes meeting the bluest blue she'd ever seen.

Her heart sinks, and she doesn't return his half-smile, ignoring her own curiosity as to what is an Englishman doing here.

"Drop your skivvies", she demands and gets up to prepare his shot, her eyes drawn to his file even as she tries not to look.

His name is Killian Jones, he's an Army Air Force Lieutenant, and he's got a really cute butt.

Emma presses her lips into a thin line and pokes him with the needle in a really cruel fashion.

"Bloody Hell", he exclaims and rests his cheek against the cool metal of the medicine cabinet he's leaning over, swaying a little when she pulls the needle out and throws it in the trash.

"Sorry", Emma says and presses a cotton pad drenched in alcohol on the puncture mark.

"I thought nurses were supposed to be gentle", he grunts, turning his head to look at her accusingly over his shoulder.

"Must've missed that class", Emma says and hesitates in returning to her table when she notices that he looks horribly pale all of a sudden. "Do you feel alright?"

"Yeah, absolutely wonderful", he says, then promptly faints and ends up sprawled on the floor at her feet.

"What did you do to him?!" Belle exclaims from across the way and Emma shrugs, runs a gauze under the cold water and kneels next to her delicate pilot to press it against his brow.

And since when is he hers?

"Come on, flyboy, wake up", she says and slaps his smooth cheek as lightly as she can, feeling a bit guilty for being so insensitive earlier.

Slowly, his dark, thick and unfairly long eyelashes flutter open and he lies there staring at her with a horrified look on his face.

"Am I grounded?" He asks, his voice breaking, his hand reaching for her arm and gripping her wrist with bruising strength.

"What? No, you're fine, you just fainted", Emma says, struggling to get her arm free. "Let go of me!"

"You can't put it in my file", he hisses, sitting up so fast that it startles her and laying both his hands on her shoulders. "Please, don't let them take my wings away."

"Nobody's taking your wings", Emma says and wraps her fingers around his wrists, finally freeing herself and standing up. "It was my fault you fainted anyway."

Killian releases a heavy sigh and levers himself to his feet, and her arms shoot out to his waist, steadying him when he sways again.

"Here, sit down for a bit", she says and pushes him into the closest chair, which happens to be her own.

"Tell me, lass, what did you do to end up here today?" Killian asks her, and her eyebrows shoot up as she crosses her arms in front of her chest defensively. "The way you're going about your job, one would think it's punishment."

"I love my job", Emma answers and lifts her chin defiantly, feigning annoyance even though she's deeply relieved that the color is starting to return to his cheeks.

"You just hate the pilots", he notes, those ocean eyes of his making her want to squirm.

"I don't hate the pilots", she says softly and leans against the edge of her desk even though she can tell just by looking at him that he's trouble and that she should kick him out right now.

Killian is looking at her carefully and she stares at her shoes, fighting the urge to explain herself, to tell him all her secrets even though it's not the time or the place, even though she doesn't know him at all, even though she had sworn she would never get involved with a pilot.

"No, you don't hate us. If anything, you care too much about what might happen to us", he concedes, his voice like velvet, like a whispered promise that he would understand, a promise she had never asked for and shouldn't believe in.

"How did you know?"

And yet she can't help but believe, can't help looking up to meet his calm gaze and wish she could get to know him better.

"You're something of an open book", he tells her and a smile stretches her lips because it's just impossible to resist him, and what's worse, she's losing the will to try.

"Am I?"

"Yes", he says simply and leans closer, his elbow resting on her desk. "Don't worry, love, nothing is going to happen to me."

Emma shoots up and turns her back on him, opening the curtain separating her cubicle from the hallway and waving her hand for him to go.

"Eat something as soon as possible", she says curtly and steps aside when he gets up from her chair and takes his file from her desk.

"As you wish", he tells her and squeezes past her on his way out, the smell of his aftershave washing over her and making her just a little light headed.

Killian winks at her and saunters off, and Emma returns into her cubicle, standing in the middle of it for a long moment, breathing deeply and praying that he hadn't just sealed his fate with that vow he'd given her.

"Em! We need to switch stations, come on", Ruby says and points toward the other end of the room, gleefully eying the long line of pilots still waiting to get their shots. "Time for me to pick myself a new beau."

"Only you could get excited about this post", Emma says and leaves Ruby to it, walking past doctors and other nurses and trying not to search for Killian's dark hair and piercing blue eyes in a sea of clean-cut airmen.

It's better if she never sees him again, because then she won't have to worry about not letting him get under her skin.

Ten minutes later, he's standing in front of her table again, folding and unfolding his file and giving her a cheeky grin.

"We meet again, Swan", he says and she glares at him, vowing to kill Ruby because she's always meddling like this, telling random guys Emma's name and even giving them her phone number no matter how many times Emma tells her that she won't ever date a pilot.

"File, please", Emma says and snatches it from him, then points at the poster behind her back. "Read the letters."

"Yes, ma'm", Killian gives her a mock salute and rattles the sequence so quickly she gets a little suspicious that he'd learned it by heart beforehand, since it's been known to happen.

"Slow down, flyboy. Read the third line, from right to left, every other letter", she says and he gives her an amused smile before doing exactly that.

Emma ticks a few boxes in his file and hands it back to him, then motions for the next pilot to step forward.

"Hold on, Humbert, I'm not done here", Killian says and Emma rolls her eyes, already knowing what he's going to say. "Let me take you out tonight."

And there it is, a cocky pilot doing exactly what's expected of him, but the thing is, there's more to this one than meets the eye, and Emma is tempted to give in, but only until she remembers what's waiting for her at home, and whose fault it is.

"I don't date pilots", she says firmly, and she hopes it doesn't sound like she's trying to convince both him and herself.

"Maybe you should try, at least once", he tells her, and it's astonishing how the background noise in the room dies down when he turns on his charm like this.

"I don't think so", she tells him, but she finds herself wishing that he won't give up on her as easily as all the men before him did.

"Very well", he says and Emma feels a pang of disappointment when he takes a step back, motioning for his friend to go forward. "But you should know one thing about me… I love a challenge."

And with one last breathtakingly beautiful smile aimed right at her he walks away, and she has to force herself to stop watching him go and focus her attention on the next pilot she's supposed to exam.

"Okay, Lieutenant Humbert, read the fifth line."

Emma climbs the long and winding staircase to the apartment she'd been living in with her mother for the last couple of years, sighing when she unlocks the door and steps over the threshold.

"Mom, I'm home!" She calls and starts turning on the lights as she goes, finding her meal on the stove in the kitchen, ready to be warmed up.

Mary Margaret appears in the doorway like a ghost, slowly walking across the kitchen and sitting in a chair at the table while Emma busies herself with dinner.

"How was work?" Her mother asks and Emma shrugs, lowering the fire and stepping into their tiny living room to change out of her nurse's outfit; it's a relief to be home and be able to release her hair from its tight bun and let it fall around her shoulders in heavy waves. "Ruby still trying to find you a date?"

"You know her", Emma says and avoids looking at the wall that's covered with pictures of her father, tall and young and beautiful in his uniform, standing next to his plane or kissing her mother on the day they'd gotten married.

It hurts too much to look at them because he got killed in action three months after the last one was taken and four months before she was born.

"There are good sides to dating a pilot", Mary Margaret says when Emma sits at the table and she pauses with the spoon half-way to her mouth.

"What?"

Mary Margaret smiles, and for a moment she looks young again, happy and careless the way she was in the pictures from so long ago.

"David got to show me amazing things because of his uniform; his rank really opened doors for him", she says wistfully, her smile dying as quickly as it had appeared, her eyes filling with tears; she ducks her head and starts turning her wedding ring round and round on her finger.

"You always told me not to marry a pilot", Emma says and puts her spoon down, suddenly not hungry at all.

"I did, but I never said you should close yourself off from the world and not have fun with one", Mary Margaret says and gives her an apologetic smile.

"Have fun but not fall in love, you mean?" Emma says, her voice harsher than she had intended; she doesn't know what's gotten into her mother, but she doesn't like it at all.

"I just don't want you to end up alone", Mary Margaret says quietly and Emma starts eating again to buy time.

"There are other men out there that aren't pilots", Emma says after a while, and Mary Margaret gives her a smile that tells her she's not fooling anybody.

"There are, but unless those stuffy, old, very married doctors you're working with suddenly get young and free, your choices are limited", Mary Margaret says and covers Emma's hand with hers in a very uncommon display of affection.

"I'm fine on my own", Emma tells her firmly and goes to wash her plate, putting a stop to the conversation concerning her love life.

Maybe her mother is right, but the trouble is, she's not sure she's capable of keeping her heart protected and just having fun.

Especially not if she says yes to a certain blue-eyed devil she already can't stop thinking about after spending just a few minutes in his company.

The world might be at war before the year ends, and now is not the time to think about romance.

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