If I burn, I burn for you

I could let you love me forever. It terrifies me; Sequel to "Oh, Fever." Time heals all wounds, or maybe it just makes them easier to bear.

notes: originally posted on ao3 & tumblr.

Boston is quiet. It shouldn't be. It's a college town after all. Yet, silence permeates everything here, even the shouting conversations of drunken students and the trundle of the metro. Not that she takes the metro much or passes by the colleges. Her catches run a bit older, and the metro leaves way too many options for a potential getaway.

Boston is quiet, and its silence lulls her into a very real sense of insecurity. She feels wrong in this city. Wrong in her apartment with the greyish walls, just a shade off from the painted walls of her prison cell. That isn't irony. It's the world laughing at her - "You'll never escape," it mocks. The only thing is, when she was sitting in that cell, escape was the last thing on her mind.

She didn't have a damn thing worth escaping to.

But it's not the greyish walls with the faint chipping at the edges of a cheap paint job that imprison her. She isn't naive enough to think so, nor is she strong enough to pretend otherwise. Her heart has made a prison of her whole life, too weak to let go even when her head already -

Well, her head's weak too because it hasn't let go of anything at all.

In the silence of Boston, her head replays moments past. Time she'll never get back and that she would never want to - she's weak, so fucking weak because it's only with miles stretching between Boston and New York that she realizes how stupid she was to believe that she would ever regret loving him. Distilling that truth hadn't been easy, and it still isn't. It's actually worse now that she knows...now that she knows...

Knows that they're, as Killian said, with his hand over hers and eyes locked on her, when he made her sit through X-Men: First Class, "brothers, you and I. We want the same thing." She remembers those words so clearly, the accent of his voice almost matching Erik's in pitch.

He was right. They want the same thing, and it's something they can never have. He's the Charles to her Erik in a sense, putting his heart in her hands knowing that she would break it in the end. He could see right through her, so why did he jump in anyway?

It's a question she asks every time she watches the movie. She does it a lot because she's a masochist - or maybe she's a sadist because every second spent watching it is another spent wanting to call him.

Emma spends too much time wanting to do that because Boston is too quiet, but its silence is deafening.

The first time she calls him it's after a particularly nasty catch.

The guy, Spike Rahl, is some high end thief that not only ripped off a bunch of fancy boutiques, but actually managed to become a partner in one, buy it out, and sell it off. He's of the kind of scum that practically shit their pants when Emma doesn't fall for their con.

Except once that realization hits him, he returns with a hit of his own. Emma can take a punch but he smashes a glass over her head hard enough that she blanks for a moment and ends up nearly losing him in the interim. It takes her and a Good Samaritan with broad shoulders and a backwards Red Sox cap to catch the guy - and it takes two onlookers to convince her that the stitches are very necessary.

All in all, it's a terrible day only made worse by the silence as she enters her apartment and the loneliness that doesn't creep, but pounces on her in the instant that she places the ice pack on her head. The cold never feels good, and without Killian there to hold it for her, it just hurts.

Hurts enough to make her drop the pack and fumble with her phone instead. She still has his number on speed-dial and it would be a lie to say that she doesn't know why. It's for moments like this where her finger hovers over the number 3 -

"It took me three tries to get you to even let me ask you on that date. You cut me off so many times that I thought I'd have grey hairs before you let me pose the question - and then you had the audacity to ask me before I could ask you. You made me drop my cupcake, Emma."

"...So, Sir Whines-A-Lot, I'll put you in as number 3."

It's for moments like this when she presses the button, but doesn't even let it ring before she hits end call.

The second time she calls him, she nearly lets it ring before she remembers that he doesn't know where she is. Calling him with her new number and its new area code that plant her firmly in the Boston area is just one google search away from a big mistake.

She can't take that risk.

(But she can take the risk of hurting both of them with a phone call? Yeah, she knows it's fucked up and makes no sense.)

It's why she ends it with a mere second to spare and goes back to numbing her mind with Jeopardy.

(I'll take Misery for 1000, Alex!)

(And that's the Daily Double.)

The third time she calls him, Emma knows she's risking far too much. Still, she lets the call connect and the ring buzz in her ear.

The third time she calls him, she's terrified he won't pick up.

It's as he's saying, "Who is this?" all weary and tinged with the sound of voices shouting in the background that she realizes she's on the verge of tears.

"Hello?" Killian says and his voice is just that much higher in pitch that his instant worry halts the tears in their tracks.

She shudders on her breath. "It's me. It's Emma."

"Thank god. I've been worrying," he says as if he knew she would call.

He always did know her so well. She lets out a shaky laugh and rolls over on her couch so she can sink her head deeper into the pillow.

"Talk to me for a moment," she says.

"About what?" he asks voice almost too soft for her to hear over the shouts of who she can now tell is his crew.

"Anything."

Killian falls into the story so fast that Emma knows he's been waiting to tell her it for ages, which is why she barely hears a damn word after, "Will swears he saw a giant squid in the New York Harbor." All Emma hears is his changing tone, from the weariness to this brightness that makes her want to curl up even more than she already is underneath the soft wool blanket. She wants to curl up so tight that she blinks out of existence. If she's gone she doesn't have to hear him sigh so happy into the phone like her call has fixed something broken in him.

"Emma?" he says after a while. "Are you… are you okay where you are?"

She notes that he makes no mention of her blocked number. She knows him, too; he's saving that for another time. Her face is sweaty and hot against her phone. Her toes are too cold.

"I'm fine," she says.

It isn't easy for her to tell her own truths from her lies, but she does feel fine. The kind of fine that will break the moment she hangs up the phone. She stays on the line a moment longer, listening to Killian breathe, and then she disconnects without a goodbye.

Call ended. 6 minutes and 23 seconds.

(7 minutes in heaven. 6 minutes and 23 seconds in hell.)

Emma lasts two days before her head becomes too unbearable to live in any longer. She'd rather live in his. There are jagged edges there, too, but they're softer around her.

"Happiness is…"

"Mary Margaret, we're not playing this game."

"Happiness is this, Mary Margaret: how flustered our Emma gets at a silly game."

She hits 3. It rings. He picks up.

"Emma," he says softly.

There is no background noise this time, so she can't get a sense of where he might be. It's six at night. He could be home. He could be...out. On his way somewhere. Maybe a drop, or maybe…

"You're busy, aren't you?"

"You're making assumptions about my evening and you haven't even said hello yet," he chastises. His voice is light but there's one of his jagged edges peeking through. Shut up, Emma, it says. Stop thinking. Stop thinking.

"Hello," she says.

"Hello," Killian replies.

The moment after is too delicate for words. Her words, at least. He speaks as if it's so easy for them both to do this. Maybe it is for him.

"Do you want to hear another story?"

"About Will? No."

He chuckles into the phone. She wants to curse the sound, but presses the phone closer instead.

"Not about Will, then. Would Robin be better perhaps? Or Tink?"

She swallows. Killian isn't the only one she left behind. He's just the one that hurts the most on nights like these, where she's toying with the Chinese takeout in her lap, nauseated by the smell that reminds her so much of similar nights in the past - in the future. This might be how she spends the rest of her days, eating takeout in front of the TV and trying not to wish for anything more.

"Maybe I'll just tell you about the guy I saw on the subway instead," he offers.

She nods. He can't see but he goes on as if she answered anyway, describing the shirtless man painted all in emerald green because - as he explained to Killian after they'd spent three stops leaning against each other on the crowded train - his girlfriend was a performance artist and he was trying to understand her art by becoming a part of it.

"So far, he still doesn't understand a damn thing."

Killian laughs while Emma nods into the phone, long since dropped her fork into the container. Eating is out of the question for now.

"Understanding is hard," Emma says just for something to say.

"Not that hard," he replies.

She hates him, she really does. She hates when he says more than he should and forces her to confront things she'd rather leave tucked away in the back of her mind.

"You and I, we understand each other."

"Thank god. I was worried you'd be a Bale Batman fan."

This isn't fair. She isn't being fair.

Emma hangs up the phone.

Conflicted does little to describe the way she feels. Emma wants to do the decent thing and actually allow the space she traveled cities for to do its work and heal him. Him, not her. She did the breaking, it's only right that she should feel it.

She also wants nothing more than to hear his voice because she's selfish, she's so damn selfish and he made her that way. Before Mary Margaret's friendship, she never had anyone who put her first. Before David's warm welcoming arms, she never had anyone to lend her a hand when she hit the ground too hard. Before Ashley, she never had anyone to understand what it was like to stare into the bleakness of an empty future and struggle to find the light.

But before him, she never had anyone willing to give her every single piece of their heart and trust her to keep it safe. She wouldn't trust herself with anything so precious, but he did, and the selfish part of her wants to hold onto that a little longer.

"I love you. I miss you," she whispers to her empty apartment.

The truth is easier said aloud when there's no one there to hear it. This is what she tells herself when she lifts her phone from her pocket so she can charge it instead of making the call. He doesn't need to hear the truth.

It isn't like she could give it, anyway.

"You're being unfair," Emma tells herself, aloud this time because keeping it in her head isn't helping. Running herself ragged with every bounty she collects isn't helping. Binging on Netflix and dollar store paperbacks isn't either.

So, she's left with this. Her last resort.

It's been two weeks. 14 days. Some amount of hours and minutes she isn't going to count. She never liked math much. Numbers only ever led down paths of "they get this amount in the check to keep me fed and clothed," "those watches were worth this much," "he must be ten now."

It's been too much time.

"You went for six months without seeing him," she reminds herself.

Doesn't need the reminder, really, except Emma notes that the time she's lasting keeps getting shorter. Six months in New York. Two in Boston.

Two weeks since she heard Killian's voice.

Too long? Not nearly enough? Both?

"Don't," she says and self-awareness hits at exactly the wrong time - she hears her voice and it breaks exactly the way it did when she couldn't stop the tears.

"Sweetheart, the sun's up."

"Killian, you have to let me go."

"Not even if I could."

"Don't," she repeats weakly.

The next time she says it, it's with him rambling on the other line.

"Don't," she says, warning. Him or her, does it even really matter?

(It does.)

(Don't go there.)

Killian huffs. He's angry. She can see the tightness to his jaw, the darkness of his eyes.

"You called me, Emma and then you didn't call for two weeks. Am I not allowed to worry when you do that?"

"You're not supposed to."

"But you knew I would anyway."

She did. She does.

Emma should apologize or something, but there's too many things she's sorry about for one apology to cover.

"Stop beating yourself up. It's fine. Tell me about your day."

"It doesn't matter."

Not to her. To him...

"Do I have to whine until you do? You know I'm good at that."

He draws a laugh from somewhere she can't fathom. It occurs to her that she hasn't done so in weeks. She laughs again, this time in pity for herself.

"Emma," he sing-songs. "Come back to me."

There's two meanings in that simple phrase. She ignores the subtle plea, focuses on...focusing.

"I got two bounties today. Nothing special. Tried to watch some Game of Thrones. It's not for me."

She keeps her answers clipped, but he stays silent long enough that she can hear his mind turning. Trying to figure out what she isn't saying: that she spent the whole day trying to talk herself out of this, but then night fell and tiredness crept in, and so did he.

"Not for me either," he says, stiff with anger barely held back.

She never forgets that he's as scarred as her, but he's a little better at keeping it separate.

"Weighing you down with my troubles was never my intention, Emma."

"They're not that heavy. You, on the other hand..."

"Is my body not to your liking? Forgive me for presuming otherwise when you -"

(Hand on her waist, the other skimming beneath her skirt.)

(Shivers.)

"I didn't think it would be. Besides, you never like to watch Sean Bean die."

He chuckles. Emma holds that sound to her tighter than the phone in her grip.

(She's selfish, she knows.)

"That I don't. One day, perhaps, he'll catch a break."

"You have to have hope."

"Oh, I've got plenty of that."

This double meaning is harder to ignore. She has to hold the phone away from her for a moment just so she doesn't hear him breathe out his hope. Emma's too weak to carry that on her shoulders.

Too weak to hang up the phone. She tells herself she's being fair. Killian deserves far better than a Call Ended.

If she can't give him his space, at least she's going to give him that. Even if it kills her.

(She's selfless, she knows.)

"Hey, Emma, are you still there?"

"I'm here."

This time she's the one with the double meanings. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere.

"What else have you been watching? Anything you'd recommend?"

"Just going through the Netflix originals," she says. "They're all pretty good."

It occurs to her after she says it that he knows exactly what she's been watching. Emma never did change her Netflix password. It didn't seem worth the effort of locking him out of that after locking him out of her heart.

"Have you been to the movies lately?"

He must think she's been holed up in her apartment, pining away. (He must know he's right.)

"No. Why?"

"You were excited about Jurassic World once upon a time."

She was excited about a lot of things once upon a time.

Aiming for wry, she says, "You know I only wanted to see the idiots finally get eaten, and from the reviews, I think I'll be disappointed."

She can tell he's laughing at her by the way he hums into the phone. "You're not wrong." He doesn't take more than a brief pause to add, "Well, if you're up for it, you should go to the theatre, just to see for yourself. If anything, you can yell at the screen."

"I can't believe that movie was so crap-tastic."

"It's a kid's movie, Emma."

"That's no excuse."

"Okay, mighty crusader against the injustice of bad kid's movies, let's go before they ban us from here altogether."

"Scared of being deported, are we? Don't worry, Killian, you'll get that green card someday."

"They don't even do that anymore. You need to step your insult game up a notch."

(Don't go there.)

(Don't.)

"I think I'll pass," she says.

"It's late," she adds. "I need to get some rest."

She's going to hang up, she really is, and ignore the question that he practically exclaims, all worried and much too much for her to deal with.

But he repeats it before she gets the chance.

"Will you call me again?"

She hates the way he doubts her now. Or rather, that he's more certain of who she is now than ever before. Emma Swan, disappearing act of the century.

"I'll think about it."

It's all the yes he needs. "Goodnight, Emma."

"Sweet dreams," she says without meaning to - with too much meaning than she'd like.

(Don't. Don't go there.)

(She's already there.)

Sweet dreams, she says. Think of me, she means.

"The sweetest," he says.

Killian's the one to hang up this time. She tries not to feel like it's something more than goodbye.

Fails.

Ends up clutching the pillow to her chest, afraid to fall asleep lest she share in his dreams.

"Hello, Emma. Is something wrong?"

Besides the usual?

"No," she says, the words a struggle.

Suspicion evens out his tone. "Oh, I was just surprised. You don't usually call this late."

Late meaning past 10. She's never been brave enough to call him during the times where she would often curl up beside him on the bed. She isn't brave enough now. Terrified, in fact, so before she can lie anymore, she blurts out, "There's a power outage."

"Oh," he says, and for the first time in a long time, she is happy that he understands her.

There's a power outage and suddenly the apartment doesn't look like a prison cell but a hospital room instead, lights flickering in and out before going out completely.

It's too dark in her apartment. She can barely see his face.

"Hey, Emma, stay with me," Killian says into the phone.

She can only hear him because she accidentally hit speaker when the phone slipped out of her hand.

Emma keeps it that way. With his words loud enough to fill the empty room, she can pretend Killian's here and she's not alone with her memories and the wounds that never really heal when she can barely see his face, the crying baby boy with the dark hair -

"Hey, love, I'm upgrading the Jolly."

She takes a breath. Shakily, she says, "Are you? But you said you wouldn't -"

"Change a bloody damn thing about her," they say at the same time.

"Yes. I know what I said, but Will thinks we should start taking tourists on our fishing expeditions. He's a thief at heart, you know. And a drunk, but that's neither here nor there."

Will's neither here nor there either, preferring to wobble along a straight line rather than follow its direct path. Thief at heart, though? Killian's wrong. Will's no thief. Neal was a thief, and what he stole -

She shakes her head. Does the deep breathing that draws upon her memories instead of putting them to rest.

Emma tries not to think. Killian breathes into the phone, and she succeeds. "So, you're planning to steal from your customers? Bad form, Killian. Also, illegal."

"Also, not what I'm planning. We're going to steal customers. Not from them," Killian corrects, voice lightly mocking.

Curiosity pushes aside her terror for a moment. "And who are you stealing these customers from?" she asks.

He laughs into the phone. "Did you know Regina had a sister?"

"Regina? You'd think she'd have eaten any competing spawn in the womb."

Clicking his tongue like some 60s sitcom wife, Killian says, "Zelena's older. That's impossible, Emma."

"For Regina? Improbable maybe, but she is nothing if not determined."

His laughter takes her by storm, lighting up the darkness of her apartment. She snuggles into the blanket Mary Margaret embroidered for her, the soft wool warming her cold arms. Toying with the purple threads of her name, she tries to take comfort in the ensuing silence but fails. The humor was only a temporary distraction. Temporary, transitory, ephemeral.

"He'll be 11 in a month," Emma says.

And she'll do the same thing she does every year. Buy a cake and light it and watch as the candles - 11 this year - burn down to nothing but wax. For a week, she won't be able to part with the ruined cake, and it'll sit in her fridge until the tears come and she tosses it, unable to see those iced words any longer.

Happy birthday, Henry.

(Make a wish.)

"When are the lights supposed to come back on?" he asks.

"At 4."

"4 your time or mine?"

She's too tired to lie. "Both," she says, and Emma doesn't need to see his face to know his surprise.

"Well, I've got the day off tomorrow." (Liar.) "I'll stay with you until the lights come back on."

She doesn't know how to thank him for this so instead she asks, "So, Zelena Mills runs a boating company?"

The lights come back on at 2:00AM. She tries to tell him, but there's never an appropriate time. Whenever she gets a word in edgewise, she's too distracted - by the story of Robin's defeat by sea bass and Marian's ensuing rescue of her husband or Will's attempts at wooing Ana or the fact that Killian attempted to argue for a sequel to Pacific Rim centered on anything but the kaiju and Mako.

At 4 on the dot though, she lets him go. He's yawning into the phone and it's the sleepy sound of his voice that she loves so much that pushes her to finally say, "The lights are on."

Murmuring quietly, so sleepy, his eyes probably already closed, he says, "Happiness can be found in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light."

Okay, Dumbledore, she thinks fondly. And then her eyes shut too, and instead of the blanket she feels the softness of Henry's cheek, her finger running down the bridge of his nose, the almost smile replacing the tears in his little eyes.

"Goodnight, Killian," she says and she's asleep only moments later, wakes with all the lights on around her and it's blinding.

She blinks to clear her vision, but when the lights fade, Henry's smile remains.

For once it doesn't hurt.

She counts her blessings, but stops at 10. There are too many pieces of Killian Jones for her to number them all.

Once she does it, she can't seem to stop.

It's become an 'every day that she can' thing now. If there are no bounties, she'll call him at 6:00PM, weakly hoping that he won't pick up the phone because the nights get too long when he does.

And it's barely late, and she hasn't worked at all for the past three days, and because two hour runs and five hour movie marathons don't count, she has no excuse for the tiredness that stifles her senses.

"I could go on for hours," he says mid-story. "But by that yawn of yours, it sounds like I'm putting you to sleep."

Panic hits all at once and she wheezes into the phone, her words an embarrassing jumble of, "I'm not tired. Talk to me," only made worse by the fact that he acknowledges it, not with any mockery, but with a quiet happiness.

"I missed feeling so wanted."

She's tired, but that's no excuse.

"You were never unwanted," she says.

He laughs. It's the one she hates, like that smile of his, all false and self-loathing and all too much like the way she'll laugh off the idea that she needs anything more than what she has.

"Yes, well."

He quiets.

The goodbye comes easy to her tongue. "You're right. I am tired. Good night, Killian."

Parting isn't sweet sorrow, it's a week of evenings spent refusing to call, refusing to make Killian feel wanted as desperately as he is.

Parting is the next evening after that, breaking news at half past ten, the story of the century, Emma Swan just can't stay away.

"It's late," he says.

His voice is hard to decipher, but thankfully he makes his point clear.

"I'm not sure I want to do this tonight. I don't have any stories to tell."

As much as Emma can lay claim to a belief in choice above fate and destiny, a life of having that choice taken out of her hands makes it easy to yield to the goodbye in his words.

"Alright," she says. Ending the call, she tosses her phone beneath her pillow.

(If I can't see you, you can't see me.)

(If she can't see her phone, she can't think of calling him and getting no response.)

"Don't hang up," he says.

If she was going to hang up, she wouldn't even have answered the phone when she saw Mary Margaret's number blinking across the screen.

"You can call me an emergency."

"But not just to talk?"

"It - it isn't like that."

"I know, Emma, I do, but you can call me too. Emergency or otherwise."

(Hand on hers, smile slowly fading. Pulling away.)

"How did you convince Mary Margaret to give you her phone?" she says, staring out her car window. No one has moved in the house, but she's distracted enough that she might not notice if they did.

"I told her it was an emergency."

Deliberately obtuse, she asks, "Is someone dying?"

"Emma, I was an asshole."

Getting right to...a point? Emma frowns. "That's not much of an emergency."

"I was worried..."

There are lines in Killian's forehead, probably. A dip to his mouth.

She blinks and looks back at the house, snapping, "That, what, I'd be torn up over one phone call? I'm no worse for wear."

"I didn't want you to think that I was angry at you," he says, imploring.

Begging.

Emma was always a little helpless to that.

"But you were, and I get it, I shouldn't have called. I shouldn't have done a lot of things, but I can't take that back, no matter how much I might wish to."

Before he can get in a response to that, she says, "I don't have time for this. I'm working. Give Mary Margaret back her phone."

"Stop this, Emma," he says.

And maybe this isn't what he meant, but she says, "I'm trying," anyway and hangs up the phone. She can't put it on mute. She is working, waiting on a heads up call from the bounty's wife. For the time being, she blocks Mary Margaret's number.

And his. She blocks his.

Considers deleting it altogether.

Doesn't.

She isn't trying that hard. Not this evening.

It's not like anything has changed but after spending a night not crying, she feels...something when she sees his number on the screen and it definitely isn't regret.

Maybe it's relief.

"You picked up," he says.

(It's relief.)

Her mouth curves up. It might be a smile. "You sound surprised. And I thought I was an open book."

"Not always," Killian says sharply.

A reminder. You've shut me out of your book.

(But not entirely. Her pages will be forever inked by his fingers, gentle and rough, his mouth smiling and frowning, and his eyes always on her.)

"Let's talk about something else."

"You want to talk?"

She could laugh at his reply, but that would run the risk of tears. Not today.

(Not ever, he'd say. Predictably believing Emma's stronger than she is. Knowing that she isn't, thinking she could be, offering to be that strength instead.)

(She sounds like she's writing her wedding vows.)

She shudders.

"Emma, I can't leave this unsaid."

She shudders again, nodding her reluctant acquiescence. Killian can't see, but he fills the silence anyway.

"I'm sorry for not telling you that I wanted nothing more than to hear your voice instead of mine. I was angry, but I wanted you to get angry too -" He quiets and then, he must be gripping the phone tight because his voice sounds right at her ear. "I wanted you to be as desperate to speak to me as I am to hear your voice."

Words take root in her throat, unimportant ones that would brush his off, replace his seriousness with jokes, and ignore that his words branch towards something more hopeful than she should be willing to entertain.

The unimportant ones stay rooted there, but the important ones, they flower on her tongue.

"I am. I mean I want to speak to you."

"That's..." A terrible part of her that doesn't feel so terrible right now wishes she could see Killian's face because he makes the same sound in the back of his throat that he did when she first said she loved him. It almost feels like she said it again when he finally says, "That's good. Ah, what did you want to talk about?"

Emma shrugs. "I don't really have many stories."

If she tells him that she had her second visit to the ER yesterday (the guy's wife set her up and tried to knock her out with a vase but ended up only slicing Emma's hand open - at least now she got to join her husband in jail), he'd probably fly through the phone to be at her side.

After all, she'd do the same for him.

"Make one up, then," he says. She makes a starting sound, but he clarifies, "One with a happy ending. All the best stories end that way."

Emma smiles and doesn't stop. "Stop hanging around Mary Margaret so much. She'll rot your brain."

"No, just my teeth. Besides, it wasn't her who told me that."

Astounded, Emma says, "Really? Who then?"

"It actually...alright, okay, maybe I do have another story in me."

He sounds like he's grinning. (She hopes he is.)

"Pirates always do."

"Aye, salty sea dog that I am - a devilishly handsome one at that - I do often have a tale or two, but this one..." He pauses, tone shifting just a little quieter. "Do you have the time to listen?"

It's almost 9:30, but that barely matters.

"I have the time."

She finds out soon that it was actually Regina who told him this, while threatening him with dire consequences if he let Zelena's boating company succeed.

"What the hell?"

Apparently, that's her happy ending, watching the sister who tried to steal her boyfriend in college fail, and it's the best ending of them all. Predictable. Regina still holds a grudge against Mary Margaret for ruining her other happy ending in high school by telling her mother that she had a secret boyfriend - even though, Mary Margaret had no idea that Cora didn't know and that it would end with Daniel shipped off to military school...in another, unrevealed country.

"The Mills should have their own reality show."

"Soap opera, more like," he says, laughing lightly.

She feels just a hint of teasing when she says, "You do like your afternoon soaps."

"Me?"

She doesn't know how soap operas lead into dinosaurs - maybe he compares Jurassic World to one, maybe she does - but it's one in the morning and she has her laptop open on a wiki page of all dinosaur related media and Netflix open in the next tab over.

It's one in the morning and she's seriously considering watching Mighty Morphin Power Rangers because Killian's laugh echoes through the speaker and across her bedroom walls when she reads the name off the list.

It's one in the morning and she doesn't want to hang up the phone even though it's so dark that only the glare of her phone and computer screen light up her room.

She shuts down her laptop. The only light left: her cell phone; the only sound: his ceasing laughter.

Emma needs to hang up the phone before she regrets this more than she already does now that it's 1:04 in the morning and she's stolen half a night he could've spent without her.

"Are you going to do it or do I have to? I admit, as a teen I had no interest in ah - what did you call them? Zords? But I could be interested enough to make you watch it with me."

He keeps talking, cramming the emptiness with words she doesn't hear. It's just a cadence that grows softer and quieter. Calming her - that's what he's doing and deliberately so.

It works.

It transports her out of her head, and she's back on that church bench with his knee pressed to hers.

...whatever's troubling you...

"It's lonely in Boston," she says. He quiets and now he knows where she is, he knows she's lonely - it sounds like an invitation. "There's no place where you can get a good bear claw and get offered wisdom about the nature of blue birds."

His laughter returns. "Definitely not. There's only one Mary Margaret after all."

Instinct threatens to take over and it's some kind of flip in her system because it tells her to run towards him and not away. Her throat closes around her reply, but for once it's through an effort not to speak.

"And there's only one you," she wants to say, and that desire is more terrifying than when the words first stopped coming.

Emma struggles to say goodbye after that, knows how stilted she sounds when she tells Killian to go to bed.

For her, sleeping is out of the question. Over and over, she tests the ease of the words on her tongue, so easy that they flow like she's finally going with the current instead of fighting it.

When it's time to head in to work, she stops by the Starbucks across the street but where she usually has a cursory awareness of her surroundings, today she feels unfocused while she orders her coffee and lemon iced pound cake.

She stares at the unshaven teen who takes her order a moment too long.

Mary Margaret wouldn't have minded but his eyebrow raises warily and when the impatient lady behind her smashes her bag into Emma's back, she doesn't even get annoyed, just wishes it was Killian's arm instead, curving around her waist.

The next time they stay on the phone too long, it's only 12:00AM before she makes her second confession. Knees folded beneath her while she leans back against her pillows, staring at the blank wall, she says, "Sometimes I wish Mary Margaret would consider a burnt cupcake an emergency."

"And call you?"

(Would you really like that?)

"Yeah. Or deliver."

Killian chuckles. It sounds like he's moving in the background when he says, "Give me the address and I can send her your way," no doubt going for a pen and paper.

She laughs it off and he lets her draw the conversation back into easier waters but - but it could've continued just like that and she wouldn't have minded.

(Even, perhaps, liked it.)

They don't talk the days leading up to Henry's birthday - Emma's busy, too busy and too tired to answer his calls whether they come in the morning, the night, or during her mid-afternoon circuit around the park.

On the day, her phone rings at three in the morning. She's already awake.

She doesn't know how she reaches her phone, having dropped it somewhere within her sheets the night before when she'd come to her apartment thinking she would be okay.

When she crawled into bed and whispered lies to herself. It's just a day. It's just a day. It's just a day.

"Killian?"

"Where are you?" he demands.

She responds in kind. "You have my number," she snipes.

He doesn't back down, but he softens. "Where are you?"

"I had to fight for everything there. So, I just left."

(A pause. Too long. Too many memories.)

"And then Neal and prison and -"

(Barely able to say his name. Choking back tears.)

"You don't have to fight me, this...us."

(A laugh, tears in her eyes.)

"What about Mario Kart?"

"Don't push it, Emma."

(Hand on her cheek, brushing away her tears. The words so much easier to say.)

"His name's Henry. He'll be nine this year."

Eleven this year.

Emma rattles off her address.

She leaves her bed only once, failing in her attempts to draw the drabness from her eyes, before the doorbell rings and she drags herself across her apartment to answer it.

"Emma," he says.

"Killian."

He looks good, which would make her annoyed any other day, him all neatly dressed while she looks like she just rolled out of bed and hit the floor hard before making it out the door.

This isn't any other day. It hasn't been any other day for so long.

But especially today.

They stare at each other a moment longer before he reaches out a tentative hand to guide her back into her apartment, the other on the strings of a white cake box with a hand drawn buttercup on the top.

Emma lets him lead her to a seat on the couch and busy himself with setting the cake box on the counter, locking her door, and shirking his jacket before she lets out the first tears of the day.

Killian fits himself beside her and is quiet only for a moment before he says, "Mary Margaret baked it for you. Made me promise that you'd eat a slice."

He lifts Emma's hand and instead of twining their fingers together, he flips her wrist, traces her vein - she's paler than she was before; the vein stands out like it would on his normally much paler self - and Killian follows its path down to the buttercup on her wrist.

"It's a chocolate cake - a Hot Cocoa Delight, she called it and she wouldn't even give me a sample...highly rude of her. But she thought you might like it if I drew the buttercup on the box. So, I apologize for my poor go of it."

All the while, he draws his fingers around her wrist, head ducked not to look at her but at his hand instead.

Afraid of what he might see in her face, maybe?

She can't help but stare though. He has a patch of hair sticking up in the back. He'd spent too much time pulling on it. It probably won't stay down even if she runs her hand over it.

"What do you want to do today?" Emma asks him.

That gets Killian looking at her, confusion narrowing his eyes and then he's looking at her. The twitch in his cheek is the only sign of what's going through his mind - but he dashes whatever he first thought to say with a small shake of his head.

"If I say that it's up to you, will I get an answer?"

"Probably not."

He smiles. "That's what I thought. What is there to do in Boston?"

"Things, I'm sure," Emma says and she finds herself laughing. "I don't really get out much." She corrects herself. "Go out much."

His look is too understanding when he says, "Yeah, I spend most of my evenings talking to you. The highlight of my day if I'm being honest."

He is. She can always tell.

It doesn't hurt, not quite because she doesn't miss him the way she thought she would. It feels like he's been here far longer than the 10 minutes he's spent in her apartment.

She aches though.

"It's not really day," she argues weakly.

"1, 2, 3AM isn't really night."

"I'm sorry for that - keeping you up so late when you have to work -"

He leans in. Any other day, she thinks, they might have kissed. This isn't any other day - any other evening-morning spent talking for far too long for what they're supposed to be: past lovers, not friends.

It's Henry's birthday and Killian's here, making sure she isn't spending it alone.

Emma wraps her arms around his neck and buries her face in his chest. He has that fresh scent of his cologne, tinged with the sea that he just doesn't seem to get out after long days spent on his boat.

"Don't be sorry," he says.

At least not for that remains unspoken. He wouldn't mean it even if he said it, even though she deserves it.

"I'm tired," she says and she really is exhausted, bone weary. She hit the ground hard yesterday while running so she probably has purpling bruises underneath the loose cotton sleep pants.

"Wait, let me."

Killian disentangles them in a gentle move and she sits back to watch him untie his sea-water whitened black boots. He loses a sock when he kicks off his shoes, takes off the other one intentionally.

"It's cold in here," he says when he steps on the floor. "Where's your bedroom?"

"Second door on the left," she says.

When he disappears, she closes her eyes and soothes herself with the sound of her own breathing. It is cold.

He comes back with her top blanket and her stiffest pillow, the one that is easiest on her neck.

"Don't fall asleep before I've made you comfortable," he says when Emma closes her eyes again.

"I'm not."

But she is. She's already comfortable just having him here.

Killian sets the pillow at his end of the couch and with the blanket in one hand, scratches nervously at the back of his neck.

"Do you want me to?"

It's one thing to take off his shoes, another to actually lie down beside her.

She has half a thought that if they do this, something will shift, ripples in the water stretching out until everything returns to normal.

Normal.

Emma doesn't fight the current, reaches her hand out so he can take it.

"Stay with me," she says.

He nods.

She crawls to the opposite end, lays her head on the pillow and stretches out so he has enough space to curl up around her. Emma shivers, cold and so impossibly warm, having his body wrapped around hers.

"Emma," he says.

It's not something that needs a response, but she gives one anyway.

"Killian," she says, just as plaintive and soft and wanting and sad.

(And that same happiness overshadowing it all.)

Mid-afternoon, she wakes up to the smell of stir fry. Killian's in the kitchen.

"I've grown a bit hungry," he says sheepishly when she lifts her head to look at him.

He must've been checking up on her every second to notice her that quickly. Emma didn't even make a sound.

"I could eat," she says. And shower, too. "I'm going to go get dressed."

It's only when she's halfway to her bedroom that she realizes her shirt has ridden up her stomach and that's where his gaze was focused, on the mottled bruise.

It hurts, but she's sure his chastisement is going to hurt worse. Emma just hopes he doesn't burn the food while he's fuming at her. She's hungry, too, and she missed having Killian throw together whatever leftovers she had in her fridge into something edible.

It was always nice to know that he wouldn't let anything go to waste, no mattered how scattered the pieces might be.

The shower reveals even more bruises and she winces more at the sight of them than the feel of them. Winces again when her heart clenches up at the thought of Henry, maybe learning how to ride a bike, falling down, banging his knee, the bruises the same size and shape as hers.

Emma swears to herself that she isn't going to cry in the shower but she stays in there a lot longer than necessary. By the time she exits her fingers have shriveled up. Yet, the clean feeling clings to more than just her skin.

The smell of food filters into the bathroom. She dresses quickly and heads back to the kitchen, where Killian waits.

"The bruises?"

She knows him too well.

"Actually, my fault. Tripped while taking a run yesterday, so no, you don't have anyone to kill...except maybe me."

(Had he entertained the thought at some point?)

She can't tell by the mask of his expression.

"Food's done," he says.

By that he means he's already set her table which she doesn't think she's eaten at since she moved in.

"Took a while to find the dishes. You barely unpacked them."

Emma stares past him. "I eat a lot of takeout."

"Ah."

It's weird now, like something has settled between them and Emma feels nervous, toying with her food instead of eating it. Killian doesn't seem to have the same problem.

Her eyes dart to the cake box sitting on her counter and her hunger starts to fade.

"Emma, you should eat."

"I should," she acknowledges.

He huffs, sits back in his chair and she meets his glare with a look of her own.

"It's okay to take some time to yourself today, you know. At least to eat."

So, that's what he was doing. Letting her have a moment to herself.

"I don't need any time to myself, but you're right, I do need to eat."

After the first forced bite, the rest come easy and the weirdness, it passes, too, even though the rest of the meal is spent in silence.

He keeps watching her.

She does the same to him.

In the end, they both push up at the same time and Emma throws the dishes in the sink, to be washed later.

"I don't really feel like going out," she says to him while facing the sink, hands braced on the edge of the counter. It's half-apology, half-invitation.

He ignores the former, accepts the latter.

"I see you've been watching the Land Before Time."

Emma turns to him, her cheeks tucked up in a smile. His own cheeks are dimpled.

She wants to kiss him, but it would be wrong.

If she's going to kiss him, it isn't going to be like this, a thank you for saving her from herself.

(When she kisses him, it won't be like this.)

"I like kids' movies," she says.

Henry probably likes them, too.

There's something about the thought of him liking the Land Before Time makes her heart hurt.

Does he wonder if his mother would sacrifice everything for him? Does he even know that she already has?

"Emma," Killian says.

She blinks away her tears, wipes the ones that have already fallen.

"Yeah, I'm good. Why don't we watch something else? I could go for a good action movie."

Killian lifts an eyebrow, says, "Did I hear superhero movie?" and then wiggles them both suggestively.

"No, you didn't," Emma argues, knowing that she isn't going to win.

He's a nerd to the core.

"I think I heard that I have Ant-man already on my laptop and you're highly interested in watching it."

She throws her hands up. "Whatever, but some advice, buddy, you should get your hearing checked."

He's already moving out the door when he says, "What was that, love? Can't quite hear you."

Emma laughs.

The endearment hits her later, while he's downstairs still and she's back under the blankets in her second set of pajamas for the day.

She bites at her bottom lip, conflicted. Half a year ago, this would've been easy in the hardest way.

A year ago, she wouldn't even have considered it, too busy staring at the dying flames of ten once blue wax candles. Looking at that chocolate birthday cake and wishing for anything to kill the thoughts in her head.

A year before that, it would've been the easiest thing in the world, to hear him call her 'love,' knowing that he meant it.

Now, it's just confusing. Frustrating.

When he comes back with his laptop, she watches as he hooks it up to her TV. He throws a smile over his shoulder that - she doesn't struggle to return it; she struggles not to.

Frustrating.

"This is illegal."

He stares at her with a blank expression.

"Did you say something? Told you, my hearing is terribly poor."

God, this is so easy and it's so damn hard.

It's his laptop background that decides it for her. A picture of the Jolly that she remembers too well.

There are a bundle of blankets on the captain's bed. The only neatly folded one: the one she has across her knees right now. Emma can just see the embroidery of her name. It's not a well-lit picture, but she'd taken it in the dark.

He's quick to open the movie but he worries his jeans, drumming his fingers on his knee. Eyes fixed on Killian's face, she grabs his hand away from off his knee. She squeezes once.

It's more than she needs to say, should say.

Should. It feels like that meaning is changing. Has changed.

His eyes light up when he looks at her. Even when the credits start, he doesn't even dart his eyes away for a second.

It's easy to lose herself in them.

She doesn't.

(Emma could kiss him.)

(She doesn't.)

It's only after the post-credits scene that it hits her.

The time. 8:15.

It's almost Henry's birthday. Officially.

Emma slips her hand out of his. Her palm is sweaty. Her head feels hot and she bites the inside of her cheek to hold back the familiar swell of darkness.

She gave birth to him in the dark, but his face, the lights came on when she saw his face.

Emma had wanted to look into those eyes forever. She gave him to the nurse instead.

Killian doesn't even say her name this time. His laptop battery beeps frantically, but he's too busy pulling her to him to stop the imminent shutdown.

Too busy stopping hers instead.

"We'll light the cake at 8:15," he says into her hair. "Blow at the candles and make a wish."

She coughs. It might've been a strangled laugh.

"What am I supposed to wish for?" she says.

"That's up to you, Emma."

So, she'll wish for what she always does.

"I just want him to have a good birthday," she says. "The best birthday."

She knows he kisses the top of her head a few times, feels the press of his lips like he placed his kisses on her forehead, her cheek, her lips instead.

Emma might fall asleep, but the next time she blinks, Killian is pulling her to her feet. The floor is freezing beneath them.

"It's almost time," he says.

She refuses to look at the clock.

At the table, Killian opens the cake box.

Emma cries again. Happiness tugs at her heart when she looks at the mug shaped cake, iced in a warm green with chocolate and vanilla frosting at the top like marshmallows in cocoa. Sprinkled over that, a dash of cinnamon.

On the mug, Henry's name.

Killian sets the candles around the edges, green ones to match the frosting and takes out Will's lighter, of all things, to start the circle of flames.

"Ah -"

Emma looks at him. He smiles.

"Happy birthday, Henry," she says, blows out the candles, and she makes a wish.

(She doesn't wish for what she always does.)

(This year, she wishes for something more.)

When he leaves, it's with half a cake and a promise to share it with the crew. When he leaves, it's with a thank you and a warm, tearless hug.

When he leaves, it's with an unspoken promise to come back.

Killian returns only two weeks later.

They watch movies until midnight and then she sends him on his way. He calls her when he gets back to New York.

"I didn't want you to worry," he says.

He knows her too well.

A week later, he's back in her apartment. This time he drags her out of it, insisting that they go somewhere, anywhere.

They end up in a fancy burger joint that sort of reminds her of New York but with way more college aged vegans crowding the tables.

"I feel like they're judging me for my all beef burger," Killian whispers.

"I'm judging you," Emma says. "Horseradish sauce is a crime against burgers everywhere."

He waves her off.

This time, she calls him after he leaves. She's measured the time it takes for him to drive from her apartment back to his, a little over 4 and a half hours, more if there's traffic.

There's no traffic tonight. She checks.

"I'm taking the elevator as we speak," he says instead of hello.

"No stairs? You should work that burger off," she teases.

"Tomorrow maybe," he replies on a yawn.

"I'll let you get your rest. Good night, Killian," she says.

She waits until she says goodbye, waits until he ends the call to finally turn off her phone.

It takes her hours to sleep, but that's just how it goes sometimes when she has too many thoughts on her mind.

"Your apartment grows more barren every time I visit, Swan."

She ignores him for the moment. Her heels are giving her hell and they just refuse to leave her feet.

"It's barely lived in. Your apartment in New York had better design than this."

Emma's apartment in New York was terrible, but he's right; at least it looked like she lived there.

"So, what are you saying?" she asks, finally removing her left heel. Now only the right remains. "I should move back to New York?"

The silence that follows says enough.

She laughs it off moments later with a "What would the Boston bail jumpers do without me here?" but they're both thinking the same thing when he leaves hours later.

It's something to think about.

(Emma thinks about it a lot.)

(She thinks about Killian more.)

Boston is too quiet, especially at this time of night when Emma should be sleeping but instead, she leans on Killian's shoulder, watching the latest in their long line of bad sci-fi movies.

The silence is enough to make her twist against him. Killian glances at her and says, "Bored?"

"No, I just - we need to talk."

The words are out and suddenly Boston is too loud in her ears, shouting loneliness and heartache and nights spent with him on the phone, talking about nothing and everything.

Boston is loud in her ears, telling her all the things she should've said. But the things she should say, Boston is silent on, so Emma has to speak for herself, has to dredge up all she's feeling and put it into words.

Killian watches her, eyes flitting across his face. His mouth is twitching, not sure whether to frown or smile.

"I miss you," she says.

He freezes. Even his hand stills on her leg, and for the first time she notices it was there at all.

"Well, I'm right here, Emma."

Killian shrugs like it's nothing to him but his ears are burning red and his cheeks have gone a red color that Emma can feel moving along her own skin when she says, "You always are."

"But -"

She pauses. The flash of hurt in his expression is so palpable that it spikes in Emma's stomach, sharp needles that remind her that it's been over a year since she left.

Over a year since the words stuck in her throat.

"I -"

At first she says it just to test it out, means only to mouth them but instead her voice breaks into sound, and it's real and it's…easy.

"I love you," she says again, like she did the first time.

But it's not the first time. There's no surprise in his expression or the bright happiness that made her want to giggle and tug him to her again for another kiss.

It's not the first time, and instead of a wild grin, his smile is softer, worshipful. Hopeful.

"Emma, you know I -"

Killian doesn't try to kiss her, leaving it up to her, so she places her hand on his arm and pulls him closer.

"I love you. I never stopped loving you. You know that, of course you know. Emma, I -"

Emma presses her nose to his and kisses him and if she said it was just to quiet him, she would be lying. She's done lying. Done trying to convince herself that this isn't anything she wants or anything she deserves.

She's not done being scared. She probably always will be, but she isn't scared of loving him. Not anymore.

"I love you," she says for the third time, just so he knows that this isn't the first time, but she means it just the same.

The day is ridiculously sunny, so hot that Emma's sweating out her hair, not to mention the way her tank top clings to her like a particularly wet skin.

It's gross. She can't even understand why he insists on keeping his hand on her waist.

(That's a lie. She knows why, but it makes her blush to think about.)

"Oh, god, you two are kind of disgusting," Mary Margaret says when Emma places her elbows on the counter, craning her neck to try and look in the back.

"I know. It's hotter than hell outside," Emma replies.

"That's not what I meant, Emma."

Emma brushes right past that. Another talk about her and Killian's love from Mary Margaret and she might have to duck her head in Ingrid's vanilla ice cream to cool the burn on her face.

"We are, aren't we?" Killian says genially, pushing Emma aside.

She glares at him. He's too encouraging.

Of course, he completely ignores her.

"I mean, you're so -"

Emma makes the mistake of looking down at her hand while Mary Margaret starts her speech. She decided to wear it today, doesn't usually do so because it's a dead giveaway of her fake identity when she goes on "dates" with dumbass bail jumpers. Of course, she doesn't wear it to the other "dates" either, the ones where the men prove themselves to not even care that they're the scum of the earth, advertising on cheaters' websites instead. But sometimes, on days like this, she wears the ring because it makes her think of him, and she likes to do that, even when she's by his side.

"Did Regina tell you that seriously? Who cares if you're not married, your love is as clear as this bright, sunny day."

A sunray catches on the ring. Emma kind of hates Mary Margaret.

It takes another fifteen minutes for Mary Margaret to finally give up trying to draw Emma into this fairly sickening conversation and brings Killian his cupcake. Emma's halfway through her triple scoop of rocky road by then, and Ingrid smiles at her.

"You want me to top that off?"

Normally, Emma would be all for it, but in this heat, the ice cream would melt right over her fingers.

"Nah, I'm good, but thanks."

They say their goodbyes, which aren't much of a goodbye anyway when she'll see them both for drinks later, but they make it seem like they'll never see each other again.

Emma really can't blame Mary Margaret for that, but sometimes she gets a little melancholic - not quite regretful, but mostly remorseful.

One day she hopes to make it up to her.

"Oh shit," she says when they step outside.

Killian follows her with a curse of his own because of course this is when the sky decides that a sun shower is a good idea.

Just because she's already wet, it doesn't mean that she wanted this.

Emma races to the car, covering her ice cream with her hand. Killian's feet pound behind her and he nearly crashes into her at the same time that she stops in front of her yellow bug, trying vainly to hold her ice cream in one hand and unlock the door with the other.

It doesn't work. She drops her keys and her ice cream pours down her fingers, heavy drops of rain slicking chocolate over her skin.

"This is so unfair," Emma whines, giving up.

Killian crowds around her, attempting to shield her from the rain, but it's too late and her ice cream is already wasted.

She doesn't mind though, not when he drops his hands to her shoulders and says, "I'll share my cupcake if you like."

"How kind of you."

His smile is too giddy when he says, "I live to please."

That isn't why she leans forward and presses her forehead to his, though. It's the smile that comes after, the one that says the words she's come so used to saying.

"I love you," it says, so she says it back, kisses the corner of his mouth deliberately because she loves hearing him sigh against her skin.

Kisses him again, this time his lips pressed to hers because if she can't have ice cream, she can have this, his mouth on hers, telling her that she can always have this whenever she likes.