June 19, 2001

It happens because she's afraid, and he's sad, and they've had far too much to drink between the two of them because Ruby Lucas swiped her grandmother's vodka and spiked the punch.

Again.

"You sure, love?" he whispers, and it's sort of a pointless question because her dress is already hiked up over her hips, his breath warm on her throat. But still, she's not entirely, because she's leaving, and he's leaving, and no good will come of this, but she wants to, so she nods and pulls him back down.

They fumble together, two teenagers caught up in a moment, a flash of time that could mean everything but is destined to burn away with the morning fog. It's not her first time, and it's not his, but it's their first time together, and they probably shouldn't be doing this, in an empty field or otherwise, but god, Emma wants this, wants him, if only for a night. For one night, she wants to know what it is to be the center of Killian Jones' entire world, because they're still kids, but she knows she'll never meet another man like him.

They're eighteen, and they barely know what they're doing, all instinct and impulse grinding into each other in the bed of his brother's truck with a sky full of stars above them. The night is warm, the Maine air bathing their skin in summer when they curl together after, his breathing ragged and her heart hammering in her chest. He kisses her again, slow, lingering, like he misses her already, like this is the beginning of a story and not a footnote.

"This isn't goodbye, love," he murmurs against her hair, clutching her close and staring up into the night sky, and they've only been whatever they are for a few weeks, but there's gravel in his voice. "I will bloody well see you again. We'll find a way, Swan."

"Don't," she warns, squeezing her eyes shut against all the promises he won't be able to keep. She never should have left their going away party, never should have let him wrap her in his arms in this secluded, painfully romantic spot when she told him weeks ago she just wanted to have fun before she left. "I'm leaving, Killian. I won't be back anytime soon, and you're moving to California. We're just having fun, remember?"

His fingers work their way into her hair, and he's silent, but she can hear him thinking, hear the wheels spinning, and she struggles not to say anything else, not to remind him that they have this one beautiful night left together. They should make the most of it, not ruin it with a pie in the sky dream she's too realistic to believe in.

"If you get tired of the Peace Corps, Liam will always let you stay with us while you figure it out," he finally says, but she hears the sadness creeping back into his voice, and she's never been one for tearful goodbyes, and she's not about to start.

So she kisses him to shut him up, and she keeps kissing him until he stops saying anything intelligible, and she forgets they'll soon be thousands of miles away – forgets that tomorrow, he'll help his brother load up the truck they're in with all their possessions and drive them clear across the country. Liam's the only family Killian has now, and Liam got transferred to San Diego, so off they go.

It's not like he can tell the Navy no.

And Emma...Emma isn't going to college. She's not cut out for that life, books and studies and academics. She feels caged in enough by the sleepy Maine town she finally ended up in, despite all the love her foster parents have given her. She doesn't want to stay and work at the diner or end up David's deputy – she wants to see the world, and the Peace Corps will give her that.

They don't talk about how dangerous it may be, that she doesn't necessarily get to choose where they send her. That some of those places aren't safe for women, and definitely not young, blonde, American girls. But Emma has been scrappy her whole life, and just because she's spent the last six years in Maine doesn't mean she's forgotten any of the lessons she learned being shuffled from one group home to another. Most kids grew up with cartoons on Saturday mornings, but Emma had the streets to keep her company.

She'll be fine. Kilian will be fine.

June 19, 2002

The world is a much different place than it was when she left. When the world watched two towers turn to rubble and take thousands along with them, it took weeks for the news to reach her in the remote village she landed in.

Her first thought was of Killian and his brother, and Liam is in the military, and what does it all mean? By the time summer rolls around, she still doesn't have an answer. The few letters that have made their way to her are always weeks old, and it's been a month since the last one. Killian has said nothing of his brother beyond the news of his deployment and Emma is too terrified to ask.

She requests time off. She gets it. Her parents are more than happy to foot the bill to fly her halfway around the world, to home. And it's good to be back in Storybrooke, even if she has been traveling for two days to get there, even if she can still taste the dust of the dry plains and empty riverbeds. Even if traveling by plane has become an exercise in imagining horrors she'd never dreamed of when she'd left.

They drive past the marina, and she looks for Liam's truck by habit, only to realize the brothers Jones are still thousands of miles away. Her heart aches in that moment, because she misses him, and she wasn't supposed to miss him, the boy with the blue eyes and soft accent. They weren't supposed to be friends, weren't supposed to be anything after that night under the stars.

Her mother probably gave him her address. She doesn't know how else he managed to get a letter to her at the ends of the earth, but he did. It's never earth-shattering news. He tells her about California and the endless sunshine and beaches. He enrolled in classes at the community college and taken a part time job at a bar washing dishes. In every letter, he says he's happy, and she wants to believe him, but all the letters carry that same note of melancholy she kissed away a year ago.

"Are you sure you want to go back?" her mother asks the next night when Emma hasn't been in Maine for a full forty-eight hours and she's already restless. She asked for this trip, the chance to come home, but whatever it is she's looking for, it isn't in Storybrooke. Maybe it isn't anywhere.

Maybe it's in San Diego.

But she doesn't say any of that.

"Yeah," she tells her mom, her eyes on the ocean beyond the dock they're strolling along, the breeze keeping the summer night from being oppressive. She hasn't been in humidity like this the last year, and she's forgotten how it clings to her skin. She's forgotten the brine of the ocean on the air, the slap of the waves against the hull of the ships tied up along the dock. "I have to."

"Baby, there are other ways to see the world. Safer ways. Things are different now." Mary Margaret takes her hand, and it almost works, the pleading and the fear knotting into a lead ball of guilt in her stomach.

But she can't stay here, and where else would she go? She can't show up in San Diego. A few magical weeks and one perfect night and a handful of letters isn't reason enough to change her entire life. So she takes a deep breath, plasters a smile on her face, and tells her mother that she's happy in the Peace Corps. She's doing good work, she's learning new languages, and she's not the college type.

Her mom squeezes her hand and nods, turning away, but not quickly enough to hide the tears in her eyes. Emma is the worst human being on the planet, because she pretends not to see that she's made her mother cry, and they turn back toward the loft in silence.

"I almost forgot," Mary Margaret says as they climb the stairs, an odd note in her voice. "Killian Jones asked me for your mailing address. Did he write to you?" And Emma knows her mother didn't forget a thing, because Mary Margaret has been rooting for them since the first day Killian and his blue, blue eyes arrived in town. Emma realizes then that her mother has been waiting, holding onto this topic until she thought she could find Emma in an honest mood, and it almost works.

"Yes." Emma swallows hard, squeezing her eyes shut only to be met with a flash of blue set against a backdrop of stars and fireflies.

"He left a phone number with me if you'd like to talk to him while you're back." The offer is a little too hopeful, a little too pleading, and Emma nods stiffly, because now she gets it. Her mother thinks there's something more between her and Killian than there is, and she's hoping a boy will keep Emma from running back off to a place with sporadic electricity and no indoor plumbing – a place where when it seemed the world as they knew it was ending, it was weeks before Emma could be reached.

Still, she takes the slip of paper, shoves it into the pocket of her jeans, and tries to ignore it as she indulges herself with fried food and ice cream and all the things she can't get in that remote village. But on the very last night, when she should be packing, she pulls out the phone number instead, the ink faint from her constantly running her fingers over it, but still legible in her mother's neat print.

She takes the cordless phone into the bathroom, turns on the tap to drown out her voice as much as she can, and dials the number with shaky fingers. He doesn't answer, and she leaves a long, rambling message filled with false cheer on the answering machine, not quite knowing when to shut up and desperately wishing she did. She ends by thanking him for his letters and apologizing for being a shitty correspondent, and then apologizing for swearing on his brother's machine, and she probably shouldn't have called, but, well, she's leaving in the morning and…

Emma hangs up before she can make an even bigger fool of herself.

The phone rings in the middle of the night, and she hears her father's groggy voice as he answers. It's probably just a call to come deal with Leroy, put him in a cell to sober up like David has so many other nights. But then her father's voice changes, sleepy confusion gives way to annoyance, and then he's slowly walking up the stairs. "I doubt she's awake," she hears him say, and it's a threat if she's ever heard one, but there's only one person who would be calling for her in the middle of the night, and she can't turn him down no matter how murderous David sounds.

Her father eyes her suspiciously when he hands over the phone, his brows knit together and his lips pressed into a thin line. They'll discuss it on the long drive down to the airport, she's certain, but for tonight, she mouths thank you and takes the phone.

She holds it to her hammering heart as she listens to her father's steps move away, her eyes shut tight. But finally, she can't put it off any longer, and she whispers a hello into the phone that feels a year overdue.

They talk until sunrise, their voices hoarse from the hours of stories. She tells him about her travels, and he tells her about learning to surf, about his job, about his classes. There's so much to say, and not enough time to say it all, and when the first rays of sunlight peek over the horizon, he promises to keep writing, and she promises to answer.

She doesn't say goodbye, because she still doesn't do tearful goodbyes, and damn him, it's just one night, but the thought of hanging up makes her throat tight. She has no idea when she'll hear his voice again, no idea when she'll return, or where he'll be, or how she'll find him. "Send me a picture of the beach," she says instead, the last words she has to offer before she hangs up and stares down at the phone in her hand, the low battery light blinking at her like a beacon to a home she never asked for.

June 19, 2003

She meets August Booth in the Corps. He's older and ruggedly handsome, with a wandering soul and a sense of adventure that calls to her own. She ditches the remote villages and takes him up on his offer to go to Paris, where they live in a one room apartment in a six floor walkup in a dodgy part of town.

Emma doesn't care. She picks up French quickly enough, her pride forcing her to continue on even when she stumbles over the words. Before long, it gets easier, and August helps, mostly by whispering dirty things in her ear when they're in bed. It's one way to learn, and she doesn't really mind.

With Paris comes internet access, and Killian's letters turn into emails, and occasionally, if they're lucky enough to catch each other across all those miles and timezones, IM chats. He was attractive as a boy in Maine, but the years of the California sun have been kind to him, and as he grows into a man, there's something ruggedly handsome about him, too. Emma doesn't show August the photos Killian still periodically sends, him grinning with Liam with palm trees behind them, the waves, the beach at sunset.

It takes her far longer than it should to admit she hasn't moved to Paris alone, and when she finally does tell Killian about August after retyping her IM message fifteen times, there's a lengthy pause before he responds with a simple are you happy.

Then it's her turn to hesitate, because she thought she was happy, but there's something about the fact that it's Killian asking that makes her hesitate. She's not unhappy in Paris – she came for the adventure and because she was getting tired of not having running water, and she likes August.

She tells him she's happy. He changes the subject.

Killian doesn't warn her when he shows up in Paris at the end of June, a sheepish smile on his face when he knocks on her door, a beat up leather duffle bag hanging off one shoulder. "Miss me, love?" he asks with a smirk that doesn't completely hide his uneasiness, his palm hanging off the back of his neck.

The last two years fall away, and he's the same boy who smiled at her in Granny's. "Killian…" She breathes out his name, suddenly grateful August is out writing in a cafe. It's mostly her work that pays the bills, leading tour groups of Americans around the major attractions, but August swears he'll make it up to her once he sells his book, and she doesn't really believe him, but she's living in Paris, and he's decent in bed, and so what if he doesn't have A Plan?

Emma sure as shit doesn't have plans beyond her evening, and even those look like they're about to change.

All thoughts of August fly out of her head as Killian drops his bag and hauls her against him, his arms strong and his body warm, and somehow, after all this time, his skin still smells the same as it did on that summer night. "I missed you, Swan," he murmurs against her hair, his grip still tight, and he holds her for far longer than he should, but she doesn't make an effort to pull away.

"How...you didn't tell me...what are you doing here?" she finally asks when he releases her, unable to meet his gaze. He knows about August. He knows that him showing up on her doorstep won't change that she lives with another man, that no matter how excited she is to see him, he shouldn't be here.

But after all their emails, and all their late night, far too honest IM chats, Emma doesn't care if they're playing with fire – maybe she'd like to just watch the city burn.

Killian shrugs, scratching behind his ear and turning pink. "I, well, the thing is…" He laughs, shrugging again before leaning down to grab his bag. "I've been saving a bit since you told me you were moving here, and I just thought…" He stops again, fiddling with the strap of his bag. "Liam said I should have told you first, and I see now that…"

She shouldn't kiss him to shut him up. Not now. Not with the years and miles between them, not with August's notebooks and socks strewn around the apartment at her back, but she does. She launches herself into his arms, and she grabs hold of his shoulders, and she kisses him until some form of sense returns. "I'm...I'm sorry," she stammers out, rubbing her lips and straightening her shirt, her pulse throbbing under her skin. "I shouldn't have...August…"

"Should I go?" he asks quietly, shifting his weight. She can't look at him, but she can feel his eyes on her, heavy and pleading and damn it, she can't send him away. August will hate it, but she doesn't care.

"No. I'm glad you're here. We just can't…" She finally looks up, meets that deep blue stare and forces herself to look him in the eye. "We can't," she repeats, hoping it comes out as firmly as she wants it to, and it doesn't, but he nods as he steps into the apartment.

He stays for the week, and he tags along on her tours. She pretends she doesn't notice the tension simmering between them, pretends that he doesn't look away every time August touches her, pretends that he didn't come halfway across the world to see her in spite of knowing she was with someone.

Pretends that in spite of having been here for months, in this city that sighs with romance on every breeze, Emma feels more cherished, more cared for, in the five days she spends with Killian than any single moment with August. She's never been a big romantic, never really believed in true love or any of the other starry-eyed dreams of young girls in safe places, but when Killian reaches for her hand as they walk down a moon-dappled lane his last night in town, she wonders if maybe that's all about to change.

And for a second – for one precious second – she wonders what would happen if she asked him to stay. If she walked away from August, who is safe because she doesn't love him, never will love him, and asked Killian to stay, could she find the romance of this place? Could they carve out a life for themselves here?

But she can't ask him. He's in school, and his brother is half a world away, and she has August. It's not fair to anyone to ask Killian to stay, so she untangles her fingers from his and pretends not to notice the sadness creeping back into his eyes.

"Perhaps next year you could come to California," he suggests as she walks him to the train station to catch his ride to the airport the next evening, her hands firmly shoved in her pockets. It's a warm night, and it's not Maine with an endless expanse of stars and crickets chirping in the night, but the air still wraps around them like a cozy blanket. They're on a sidewalk in a busy city, and the traffic and lights are bright around them, but for a brief moment, there is no one else.

"Maybe," she whispers, and she almost means it, but it'll never happen. She doesn't have the money for a plane ticket, and there is no way in hell she'll ever accept one from him. Still, she smiles up at him, and says, "I would love to see the beach."

"It is quite lovely." Somehow his arm has come around her shoulders, and she's leaning her cheek against his chest as they walk. It's awkward and she should move away, not let him touch her so much, but she doesn't want to. He's about to get on a plane and fly far, far away, and this shouldn't have happened this time, and it won't happen again so she might as well enjoy it while it lasts. "You'd like it, Swan."

"I'm sure I would," she says, and that part she means.

He kisses her before he gets on his train, not the fierce, needy kiss from when he arrived that she blushes when she thinks about, but a brush of his lips against her forehead that for all its gentleness wrecks her like no other kiss she's ever been given.

It's many hours before she's able to return home.

June 19, 2004

She doesn't go to California.

August suggests Thailand, and he tells her about the beaches, and Emma agrees in a heartbeat, despite a lingering doubt as to whether they're leaving Paris because they want to, or because August has gotten himself in some sort of trouble.

Still, it's a good change, and she finds an internet cafe to email her parents and Killian from. August doesn't ask where she disappears to, and she doesn't ask how they pay their bills, because there are no American tourists for her to parade around here.

But when she begins to pick up the language far faster than August, Emma Swan realizes she just might have found one of the few things in life she is good at.

She isn't the only one to notice.

She does notice when they start following her, and at first, she is nothing short of terrified. She doesn't ask August a lot of questions, and there's a reason she doesn't, a wrongness about him she's never wanted to see. She doesn't love him, not really, but they work, and she's in Thailand, so what does she have to be upset about?

A woman and three men following her seems to fit the bill.

When she turns to confront them, they melt into the shadows, and Emma is left standing in the middle of a busy market, heart pounding and blood running cold despite the oppressive tropical heat.

The next time, they approach her.

They offer her a job.

She accepts.

She says goodbye to the beach, packs a few things she cares to keep, and gets on board a military plane bound for Virginia. She doesn't ask what happens to August, but from what they've told her, he deserves it, whatever it is.

Still, her first thought when she steps back on American soil is of Killian and that kiss they shared a year ago. If she'd gone to California, what might her life have been? Different, certainly – she doubts she would have ever set foot in Langley. But she didn't go to California, and it's probably better that way, because it's not just her life that's changing.

Killian has always loved music, but it's only in the last year that he's grown brave enough to start playing open mike nights at local bars. He was so excited about it the first time he emailed her to tell her he'd signed up, so nervous he nearly threw up in the alley outside the bar. But as the months go by, his nerves fade, and he talks more and more about his music, about the friends he's made and the band they've put together.

The last email she reads before her life changes in a moment, they're getting ready for a show that's rumored to have studio reps in the audience. He's so excited, and nervous, and she wishes him well in her reply and means it. If Killian does find success as a musician, it's definitely better she isn't there, distracting him, holding him back.

Because it may have only been a few weeks, a night, a phone call and a surprise visit, but she knows that Killian Jones could become her entire world if she let him – and he would make her his.

Still, she asks then and there what the rules are when it comes to revealing her new job to the people she cares about. She hasn't figured out what she'll tell her parents yet, because if Mary Margaret hadn't been thrilled about the Peace Corps, there's no telling what she'll say about Emma's decision to join the CIA.

But Emma is already thinking about how to tell Killian, because for all the unsaid things between them, and for all the miles, the one thing they don't do is keep secrets.

June 19, 2005

Emma misses his college graduation.

She's not sure where she was. Maybe it was the dead drop in Prague, or was it the op in Hong Kong where she got to put those defensive driving skills to use? The cities have started to blur together, one task after another. They've mostly been giving her easy assignments, low risk missions as she learns the ropes, but she knows it's only a matter of time before she ends up deep in a war zone.

Liam is already there.

But she never did find the right way to tell Killian about her new job, replying to his questions with vague, non committal answers. And it's not that she outright lies to him, but she never really explains herself.

Instead, when she hears there's a transport heading to San Diego, she impulsively hops aboard, calling from the airfield to request leave. Since she doesn't have anything pending, leave is granted, and before she knows it, it's her turn to knock on his door without warning, a battered bag hanging off her shoulder.

She doesn't stop to consider the possibility he won't be alone, that just because he hasn't mentioned a woman, there isn't one. He's Killian. Women must fall all over themselves.

It's only when he opens the door and he's clearly alone that the thought occurs to her, and she is selfishly far more relieved than she has any right to be.

"Emma?" He stares when he opens the door, taking her in. She looks a little different now, her training toning the muscle in her arms and removing the last of the baby fat from her cheeks. Her hair is longer, too, and bleached from the sun where it hangs over her shoulder in a messy braid.

He looks different, too. His jaw is covered in dark stubble, the lines firmer, his shoulders broader. But his eyes still capture her the moment she looks into them, a deep, endless pool of blue she could happily drown in.

"Did you miss me?" she asks, an echo of a question from an open door in Paris, and when he curses and reaches for her, she goes. His embrace is everything she remembers, but stronger now, his body harder, something just a little bit more in the way he wraps her up and holds on just a little too long.

"Bloody hell, of course I missed you," he murmurs against her hair, pressing a kiss to her temple and releasing her from his embrace. "How long are you in town?" He shifts his weight, a telltale blush creeping into his cheeks and the tips of his ears.

"Five days leave, and then I'll catch a ride on the transport heading back."

"Leave?" His brow furrows, and he runs his eyes back over her again, notices her spine is straighter, her stance firmer. "Did you...have you...bloody hell, Emma, Liam is already over there and...there's a war on!"

"I'm not military," she says softly, laying her hand on his forearm and squeezing lightly. The truth might actually be worse, but in for a penny, in for a pound. "I didn't want to put this in an email." She gestures for him to sit, and he does, and he listens as the story comes out. August and the weapons he was trading in, the operatives who recruited her, her apparent talent for languages, Langley, the bits and pieces of the last year she can actually share, all of it.

By the end, his expression is unreadable, but if she has to hazard a guess, it's somewhere between terror and a curious kind of loss, and maybe she shouldn't have told him with Liam floating on an aircraft carrier in the middle of the whole mess. But when she's done, he takes her hand, weaves their fingers together, and asks very quietly, "Are you happy?"

He's asked her that before, and this time, she doesn't hesitate before she nods. He kisses her knuckles, and there's a moment, a moment where something else lingers between them, the heaviness of his stare brimming with so much more, but then he grins and asks her if she'd like to hear the song that's going to make him so famous, she'll hear about it wherever the bloody hell they send her next.

It's the first time she's heard him sing, and she tries not to read into the lyrics, tries to tell herself it couldn't possibly be about her, this song so filled with love and longing and the pain of heartbreak – but there's this look Killian gives her as he plays an acoustic guitar, and she knows it's going to happen before the final chord has finished vibrating through the strings.

She shouldn't. She has nothing to offer him. She loves her job. She finally feels like she belongs somewhere, this job where she's no one and everyone. She doesn't know what country she'll be in next week or the week after that. Maybe she'll just be in Virginia, but she can't take that chance.

She doesn't ask if he's seeing someone. Doesn't want to know.

But she's helpless when he kisses her, and it's like Paris, and it's not, because this is stronger somehow, more intentional. She flew across the country to see him, and he's flown across an ocean to see her, and however they got here, it's going to have to end.

"This…" she manages to get out even as she settles in his lap, her thighs splayed wide to cradle his hips between them. "This...it doesn't mean…"

"I know," he says, and whatever melancholy note she thinks she hears fades away as he turns his attention to stripping her out of her clothes. It's been years since they did this, and there's a flicker of jealousy running rampant in her veins, because obviously he's had some practice, but then again, so has she.

There's no fumbling this time. Killian drags his tongue across the sensitive spot below her ear, and his low chuckle as she shivers drives away any other thought. Yes, he definitely knows what he's doing now, nipping and tugging and teasing until she's panting in his arms, desperate and needy, and when he's finally inside her, she closes her eyes and gives herself over to all of it.

"I'm still leaving in five days. This doesn't change that," she makes herself say later, much later, when they've made it to his bed and lay beneath a tangle of sheets, catching their breath and still wrapped up in each other. "I can't…"

He's silent, his fingers faltering in the slow strokes he's been trailing down her back. But then he sighs, and she can hear the false cheer she can't see when he says, "Better make it a good five days then, love."

She closes her eyes when he kisses her so she doesn't have to see all that longing reflected back at her.