Emma was sprawled on her bed, bag of popcorn nestled in the crook of her arm, lost in Iron Man, when a crisp knock echoed around the corners of her small single room.

"Ruby, I am not going out tonight so don't even try!" She yelled through the door. God, her friend could be annoying. The amount of times someone had to say they were not into clubbing before it got through that thick skull…

"Is this…Emma Swan?" The voice on the other side sounded more hesitant than Emma suspected Ruby ever even could, besides the fact that whoever was behind that door was decidedly male.

"Uh…who's asking?" She called back, pausing the movie and sitting up.

"Killian Jones."

"I think you have the wrong room." Nevermind how he knew her name – she didn't know any Killian Joneses, and to hell with opening the door to strangers.

"I'm the…uh…barista?" He said, and it suddenly clicked as to why that voice sounded so familiar. Then a thought popped into her head, and she glanced down at the clock in the corner of her screen.

"Seven on the dot." She muttered with a wry grin, standing to walk over to the door. She pulled it open to reveal a very dapper barista – a very dapper Killian Jones, I guess – looking more than a little sheepish as he held out a sheaf of papers to her.

Of course. She had left her essay on the counter.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think I wrote my room number on my Chaucer essay." She raised a warning eyebrow, leaving the door open only enough to allow her to lean against the frame as she watched him fidget.

"Yes. I…well, it took some asking around…"

"God, I hate this building." She muttered over him. Of course someone would just give away her room number. Some kind of security that was.

"I do apologize." He said, and she could tell it was sincere. "But I had a class a few buildings over and figured you might want your paper back."

"Yeah, because I don't come into the coffee shop every single day, and you totally couldn't have returned it then."

"Well, you did ask me out, and it's not good form to stand up a lady."

"Christ." She smiled and shook her head, opening the door wider and ushering him in. "I guess I did, didn't I?"

"I'd be happy to leave you be, if you'd prefer." He said, regarding her small room even as he did. Strangely, from him it didn't feel invasive. If anything, he just fit in the small space, like the red leather jacket hanging from the hook on the back of the door, to the purple and white knit blanket peeking out from under her pillow. "But let me introduce myself properly." He continued, sticking out a hand for her to shake. "Killian Jones, professional coffee wizard."

"Emma Swan." She returned. "Professional Chaucer scholar."

"If yours are the hands that Modern English poetry fall to, I say let it die." He deadpanned. She rolled her eyes at him, and they both lapsed into silence. Emma wasn't quite sure what to say to him, standing there in old jeans and a sweatshirt, their topics of conversation pretty much exhausted. After a few long moments, he laughed a little. "Do you happen to have any coffee? This all seems to go better when I'm fixing you a drink."

"If I had coffee in here, why do you think I'd be spending every paycheque at the coffee house?"

"Perhaps there's good company." He suggested with a waggle of his brows, pulling a laugh out of her.

"Well, good company can travel. I was going to go to the library – wanna come?"

"Well…" He pretended to consider it a moment, but she could see his answer already bright in his eyes. "On my honour as a Literature student, I couldn't let you near those poor books alone. I've seen how you've butchered poor Chaucer already."

"You're going to talk yourself right out of some excellent company." She said with a grin, grabbing her bag off the floor and shutting her computer – Iron Man would have to wait.

"Perish the thought." He made a face at her, and held the door open with a gallant bow. "After you, Swan."

She was waiting for him tonight, sorting through the pile of maybe-dirty laundry on her floor as she did. They were both busy, both students, both with jobs, but they found time between it all. Granted, the time they found was most often spent studying different things together, but it was like their conversations at the coffee house: normal, average, almost boring, but perfect.

His knock pierced the silence in the room, and she smiled softly to herself. She knew his knock now, the three sharp raps on the thin door, and it always made her happy to hear it. She didn't know quite was this was between them, but whatever it was it made her feel warm and safe and right and she never wanted it to end.

"It's open, you idiot." She called. It was always open for him, and she had told him that a thousand times, but still he knocked. Good form and all that.

She teased him about it but, privately, she never wanted to stop hearing those three crisp knocks.

"Evening, Swan." He said, slipping through the door and sinking down on her bed without an invitation. He let his bag slide from his shoulder and pulled out a thick anthology, letting it fall open of its own volition and burying his nose in it, leaving her there on the floor amidst her laundry. She knew he couldn't see her, so she let her warm smile fill her face. This was so like him. She had learned very quickly that his little trick of quoting Chaucer to her all those weeks ago wasn't just a trick – he actually, truly loved all of this. Loved poetry and Chaucer and flowery language and English words that didn't look like English. It was just like him to say two words to her and then have his face in a book.

"Thanks for the enthusiastic greeting." She rolled her eyes and went to join him, pulling her own book of much-less-loved poetry towards her – Goddamn Chaucer unit – and regarding it with a measure of disdain. "What've you got over there that's more interesting than my glorious company, hmm?" She pretended to yank it from him, and the indignant look he gave her surprised a laugh right out of her.

"Bad form, Swan, taking a man's poetry away from him."

"Oh please. If I took this one, I bet you've got like five more in your bag."

"Yes, Swan, but this is Whitman." His reverent tone caught her for a moment, and the sound of it was like he opened a door, just briefly, into his passion for it. For a moment, she got it.

"Read some." She said, releasing her hold on the book and turning to face him. He regarded her with a half-skeptical, half-annoyed look because…did he think she was kidding? "I'm serious, Killian. Read something. Make me love it."

"As you wish." He said quietly. He tilted the book to see it better, and flipped a few pages before a soft smile lit his features, and he settled with his back against the wall. His voice as he started was soft and gentle, and if she didn't know him – and with a start she realized that she did know him, somehow, even after so short a time – she would be surprised to hear the sound from his mouth. But she did know him – now that she thought about it of course she knew him, and he knew her, and she realized that she couldn't ever lose this man – and she knew that this soft side that loved poetry was just as much a part of him as the side that wore leather jackets and dark jeans, as the side of him that loved loud rock and took her to concerts and then made out with her in the alleys outside as they walked back to campus, as the side of him that had told Walsh all those weeks ago to stop talking to his girlfriend (before she even was his girlfriend) like that. She was coming to know every part of him, and she loved them all.

"You sea," he said softly, and she leaned closer to him to hear, their sides pressed together, and just for the hell of it she let her head drift to rest on his shoulder so she could hear the words rumble in his chest as he spoke them. "I resign myself to you also…I guess what you mean," God she loved the way his voice lilted, British or Irish or something else but so entirely him. "I behold from the beach your crooked inviting fingers, I believe you refuse to go back without feeling of me;" And sometimes he would bring her cups of coffee when he came, medium dark roast, with a few lines written on the side: It was mine heart! I pray you heartily/Help me to seek. "We must have a turn together…I undress…hurry me out of sight of the land," They had fallen asleep here one night, and when she woke in the morning with his arms around her, nothing had ever felt so perfect. "Cushion me soft…rock me in billowy drowse, dash me with amorous wet…" she leaned over the extra inch to press a kiss against the corner of his mouth as he finished, his eyes locked with hers, and she could see in them her feelings reflected back tenfold. His heart was beating fast, in perfect time with hers. "…I can repay you."