On November 30, Killian Jones prepares himself for the onslaught of phone calls he will inevitably receive for the next several weeks. It is, by far, his least favorite time of the year for two reasons. One is the inquiries on adoption. The second is the inquiries on return.

By December 1, his little cat sanctuary has already received so many calls that he understandably has a bit of an edge to his voice as he picks up yet another call. Being the only such establishment for miles means he caters to several counties. He tries, he really does, to cut that edge off his voice when he answers the phone, but he still says hello much harsher than he normally would.

It's the same story he's gotten call after call and Killian is at the end of his rope. A mother calling about getting her son a cat for the holidays, and he can't help it. He cuts her off before she can continue what he's sure is coming next.

"Let me guess, you want a kitten to surprise your boy on Christmas morning, am I correct?"

"Well – "

"He'll be excited for roughly a week. And then when that week is up," he continues, "you'll be looking for a place to dump the cat because it turns out it wasn't really the right fit."

"Actually – "

"And let me tell you what happens after that. For the first couple days, that cat will look at its surroundings with confusion. It'll look at me as a stranger. And it'll wonder what happened to that cozy little home it thought it would be part of."

"But – "

"Can you imagine that feeling? Can you imagine getting left behind, time after time? Because once that darling is no longer a kitten, it isn't so adorable and easily adopted. It might develop behavioral issues. And it'll get returned, over and over. So maybe spend a little longer thinking of whether or not this is a commitment you're willing to make."

Without another word, Killian slams the phone back down on the receiver. He's suddenly glad he didn't buy a new cordless for the office when the last one broke, as hitting an "end" button wouldn't have felt nearly as satisfying in the moment. He leaves the small office, then, choosing instead to head to one of the rooms with the older cats, the ones who may never be adopted, so he always spends extra time with them so they know what love is. This is where Ruby finds him over an hour later, with twelve calls going unanswered in that time.

Although Ruby is much more partial to dogs, she splits her time between the dog shelter and Killian's cat sanctuary. She gives him a worried look from beyond the baby gate in the doorway.

"Bad day?" she asks, tilting her head much like the wolf-husky mix she adopted the day after she started working at the shelter.

"The calls have already begun. I'm afraid I may have gone off on the last one."

"Ah, yes. The 7926 number. Four of the six messages on the machine are from her. Good job, Killian."

He grumbles a few choice expletives under his breath before finally extricating himself from the pile of cats he's been half-buried in since he entered. The three cats in this room have been with him for longer than he cares to think. All of them are nearing double digit ages, but they still flop into his lap, or perch on his shoulders like spry kittens. He gives each one an affectionate pat on the head before climbing over the fence and closing another partition to keep them from escaping. They won't, especially not his three sweethearts, but it's always better to be safe.

Ruby leads him into the office, patting him once on the shoulder as she pushes play and wanders back out of the office to tend to the cats. Killian sighs and drops into his chair, grabbing pen and paper to copy down the information to return calls. The first is no surprise, whatsoever.

"Excuse me, mister do-you-know-how-it-fucking-feels. I don't have to defend myself or my choices to you. You have some fucking nerve – " The call cuts off. He rubs his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose as the machine recites the number and time of the next missed call.

"I just had to give my son ten dollars for the swear jar thanks to the f-bombs in the last message. He also told me to apologize immediately. Sorry." The call ends again, with her not sounding sorry at all. Despite his best efforts, he can feel the corner of his mouth tick up. The other side follows when the third message turns out to be from her again.

"I've had to give him another two dollars for – and I quote – insincerity, and you didn't raise me to be that way. So, I'm sorry, mister – god, I don't even know your name. I do sincerely, this time, apologize for my earlier behaviors. But my son is still hell bent on getting a cat and you're the only place he's willing to look. So, call me back, please?"

A swell of pride rushes through him that the lad is insisting on his particular business, and that, for once, he seems sincere in the responsibilities of pet-ownership. There are two other messages in between with inquiries, and Killian dutifully writes down any of their information to return the calls.

He's aware he only has the number for the fiery woman, pulled from the answering machine, but Ruby did say she was four of the messages, so he patiently waits for the last message on the machine.

When her voice comes back, she sounds much calmer, and he finds himself imagining what kind of face goes with that voice, then chastises himself. She has a son, and that usually means there's a father around, which makes her definitively off-limits.

"Hello again, Killian. My son found your name on the website before informing me that I never left my contact information. Even though I insisted you probably have some kind of caller ID, he told me it was impolite not to at least give you my name. So please, if you would be so kind, call me back and ask for Emma. Thanks again."

Killian chuckles quietly, trying to figure out how much of the message was composed and dictated by her son, with pauses between the sentences indicating prompting and cajoling. He jots down her name next to her number, and decides to call her last. After kindly explaining to the first missed call that they are not a pet store, and that no, they do not sell snakes as well, and after the second call inquiring whether they can just rent a cat (rent a bloody cat!), Killian dials Emma's number and hopes for a smoother call this time.

He gets her voicemail, instead, and leaves a simple (and friendly, even) message for Emma to return his call at her convenience. As he's hanging up the phone, he hears the front doorbell jingling and Ruby calling from the basement for him to head up front.

Standing by the front door is a woman and her son, and Killian's stomach dips when he catches sight of her. Because he knows without asking that this is Emma, and then she turns, and he's rendered momentarily stunned as she's not quite what he was expecting. He figured middle-aged, with maybe a bad mom-haircut. Perhaps he shouldn't have been so quick to assume. He regains his wits as quickly as he can, just as she turns to look at him. He can't help the sly grin that spreads across his face at the gob-smacked expression on her face.

"Cat got your tongue, lass?" He is a man powerless to control such urges.

The joke pays off when she snorts with laughter, and she shuffles her son further into the shop. His wide eyes are still taking in every detail, including the adoption wall, where polaroid pictures hang with smiling faces and content creatures.

"You must be Emma," Killian finally says, meeting her the last few steps to stretch his hand out for her. She takes it firmly, meeting his eyes directly as if this is a challenge instead of a greeting.

"I am. And you must be Killian," she responds.

He still feels as if he's being weighed and measured, so instead he turns his attention to the brown eyes that are still peering around at anything in sight. "You must be the young lad ready to take on the responsibilities of pet ownership." He holds out his hand for the boy, as well, and he beams up at him as he enthusiastically shakes Killian's hand.

"I'm Henry! I've been bugging mom about getting a pet forever, but she says I'm not ready to potty train a dog or teach him tricks. And she doesn't like hamsters or mice or guinea pigs because they scare her, or something, and I finally got her to agree to getting me a cat!"

Killian glances up at Emma in the middle of Henry's explanation, enjoying the way her cheeks pink up at the fear of small rodents, before giving Henry his full attention.

"But there's a catch," Emma says with a nudge to the boy's shoulder, once he's finished. Henry's bright smile dims only slightly before he looks back at Killian.

"What kind of catch are we talking, here?" he asks, looking between the two of them. Thankfully, his inner alarm system doesn't seem to be triggering, but catches are always a gamble.

Henry's face takes on a serious expression, one too serious for a boy his age. "I have to ask you if I can stop in once a week until Christmas to see what goes into taking care of the cats, and if I make it through all four weeks, then I'm allowed to adopt one for myself."

"Ah, yes. There is a great deal of responsibility that goes into taking care of an animal," Killian says sagely, nodding his head and pursing his lips. "But I think we can come up with some sort of arrangement. Why don't I give you the tour?" He moves to the side and gestures to the door that leads to the back, inviting them both to walk through before he makes his way to the front to guide them through.

Ruby is in the room with his three sweethearts, dutifully cleaning the litterboxes, and he can see that she's already filled each of their food bowls, with treats primly poised on top. Killian introduces her to Henry and Emma before launching into an explanation of the cats in that particular room.

They do much the same for each of the other rooms of his respectable little establishment, and Henry marvels at the toys and scratch posts, the cat trees and window hammocks. He coos at the kitten room where an abandoned litter stays curled tightly together in the middle of a plush kitty bed, and takes special care petting the girls in his sweetheart room. It's as Henry is stroking the striped fur of one of them that Emma speaks up.

"Do they have names?" she asks, tilting her head at the scene in front of her.

"Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather," Killian responds, smile small and wistful on his lips.

"After the fairies in Sleeping Beauty?"

"I figured they deserved a little magic in their lives," he says fondly.

Emma doesn't say anything in response, just keeps smiling as Fauna and Flora crawl into his lap as well. Merryweather already has him wrapped around her little paw.

They leave shortly after, with Henry chattering a mile a minute and Emma giving him a hasty thanks as they exit the sanctuary.

He has never been so aware of the silence as the moment it closes all around him once more.

The second and third week that Emma and Henry stop in are spent in similar fashion, except Killian shows Henry how to take care of each variety of the cats so they're all comfortable. Henry takes special liking to the sweetheart room, spending the time after they've finished up petting all three equally and letting them sucker treats out of him at every turn.

At the same time three cats are making Henry fall in love with them, Emma seems to accidentally do the same to Killian. They spend time talking. Killian finds out about the lack of father in Henry's life (off somewhere seeing the world, or some such, instead of bonding with his son) and Emma finds out about how Killian came to set up a cat sanctuary in Storybrooke (it's not really his fault, they just kind of flocked to him and he felt the need to help them in any way he could), but they skirt around their first encounters, both avoiding something in the way they don't talk about it.

The last week they're due to stop in, Killian is anxiously bouncing on the balls of his feet waiting for the jingle of the bell over the door, waiting for Emma and Henry to walk in and fill his modest space with the sounds of laughter and talking, with something more than just the cats. This needing more was never an issue, before, and he's a little alarmed at how comfortable he's grown with the two of them over the last couple visits. If told that this is the way it would've turned out after that first phone call, he would've laughed. But now he's almost dreading the time when Henry will choose his cat and the two of them will walk out of his life again.

When the two finally do enter, their arms are laden with bags, with Henry peering over the top of a food bag as big as he is, practically. Killian springs forward to take some of the burden from them, but unable to keep the astonished look off his face.

"Merry early Christmas!" Henry exclaims as the food bag is lifted from his arms.

"Courtesy of the Storybrooke sheriff's department," Emma adds, giving him a tentative smile and letting Killian usher the two of them back to the office to rifle through the spoils. "Henry put up a flier last week in the station. He saw how low you were running on some of the essentials when we were here and figured out all on his own that it must be difficult taking care of the whole place by yourself."

"I get a little help through grants, but it's exhausting writing those things out. You've no idea how much this means to me," he says, trying to swallow back the emotion in his voice.

"Well, there's more," Emma says, biting her lip when the bell over the door rings again. And again. And once more.

Killian weaves back through the hallways to the front reception area to see it filled with people. The bell has stopped ringing because the door is never fulling closing. Each person, or cluster of people, has something in their arms. Bags of litter, of toys, of food. There's Sheriff Nolan with his wife, and a new cat tree to replace the one that the adorable demons destroyed in the kitten room just a week after Emma and Henry walked into his life. It seems more than half the bloody town is standing in his shop, all of them smiling and waiting for something.

Emma walks up behind him, then, gently placing her hand on his elbow. "Henry also pledged an adoption drive. With strict instructions that this is not a light decision, and that walking through the door with a cat means a life-long commitment. Tomorrow, there will be another one at the dog shelter, because he thinks every animal deserves a home as their Christmas present."

By the end of the day, his number of cat tenants has gone from well in the thirties to just thirteen. The whole place has been cleaned top to bottom after the welcomed chaos, Emma and Henry working alongside him to replace old food and water bowls, to install new climbing structures, to scrub walls and floors and litter boxes. He knows his low occupancy won't last long; there's always a cat giving birth, or finding its way over from neighboring towns and ending up at his door, but he has enough supplies to now tend to any unexpected visitors that end up with him.

But Killian's heart still clenches as Henry sits on an oversized cushion with one of the sweethearts. They're all three still there, and he tries to not deflate at the fact that they didn't find new homes. As much as he loves his girls, he was still kind of hoping for them.

He and Emma wander back to the office where he rummages through the desk and locates a flask of rum, passing it along to her as she perches on the edge of the old oak. She gives him a look at the offered liquor, but he shakes it enough for her to hear that it's less than half empty, just full enough to take the edge off a bad or busy day when it's over.

"Company policy," Killian states. "Always used for backup, but never enough to get drunk. Drunks and cats do not mix, I assure you."

She smiles, then, clearly fighting laughter. "I'm gonna take a guess that you have personal experience with that one." She takes it from him, sipping small before holding it back out to him. "What about the first day I called in? Was that a backup day?"

Killian chuckles, accepting the worn leather and metal back when she offers, and taking a sip of his own. "It was definitely headed down that path. But it got better. Found I rather fancied you when you weren't yelling at me."

"Likewise," she says, humming as she snags the flask from his fingers. She stares at it intently as he stares at her.

"Is that so?" he quietly inquires, using a finger under her chin to coax her to look at him. "Emma, I want to apologize for our initial phone call." Gently, he tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, wanting nothing more than to know the feeling of her lips against his, but needing to explain, first and foremost. "For someone in my line of work, I have a bit of a sore spot for animals – anything, really – getting left behind. My father abandoned my brother and I when I was just a lad of Henry's age. I'm afraid the sting of being left behind by the only parent I had left never really faded."

"I'll see your abandonment issues and raise you one sad history of an orphan. I was in and out of the foster systems more times than I can actually count, until I just ran away. So of all the people to understand what you said on the phone, it just hit a little too close to home." As she spoke, Emma's hand tentatively moved towards his, wrapping around the hand he didn't realize was still resting along her jaw.

"My deepest apologies – " he started to say, and maybe would've finished if her lips hadn't settled on his. She tastes like heaven, her hair soft and silky as his hand buries into it to cradle the back of her head.

They're startled back from each other when Henry calls for his mother, and she reluctantly pulls away with a little smile and a slight flush to her cheeks.

"Mom, I'm getting sleepy," the ten-year-old says when Emma rounds the corner. Killian can hear them murmuring and realizes that Henry is yet to pick out his own cat. He wonders which one the lad has chosen, especially when he hears Emma's softly spoken "Are you sure?"

He finally steps from his office, only to find both of them missing, and his stomach drops. Surely the kiss had to have meant something, that couldn't have been a one-time thing, right?

They're back a minute later, and Killian is more confused by the cat carriers in their hands than anything.

"Do we have paperwork to take care of before we take them home?"

"Them? I'm sorry, love. Who did Henry decide to adopt?"

"The fairies, of course!" Henry exclaims, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. And thinking back on it, maybe it was. Killian was always drawn to that room because those girls could brighten any day, and Henry always seemed drawn to it as well.

"Henry realized pretty early on that he wanted them, because he couldn't break them up. Our house isn't huge, but we have plenty of room for all three of them. And we already got a climbing tree like the one they have so it seems like home."

He wants to kiss Emma again, kiss her and never stop kissing her because never did he imagine during that first phone call that this is the way the story would end.

"And, of course," she adds with a familiar twist of her lips, "you're more than welcome to visit them any time you'd like."

The following year, Emma and Henry help Killian repeat the adoption drive, and they throw themselves a party when the whole sanctuary gets adopted out.

He wakes up on Christmas morning with Emma against his side, and Flora and Fauna draped across them both. Henry is just down the hall, no doubt just beginning to stir awake, with Merryweather's tail lightly tapping his nose. And Killian can't help but think that they all adopted each other, in their own ways, and there's no place he'd rather be.