A/N: First, forgive me. This is half a year late but life is unpredictable sometimes and the muse - always. This last chapter is the longest of this fic and I sincerely hope it makes up for the long wait. For a moment there, I didn't think I would be able to finish this in a way that satisfied me but I'm actually quite pleased with what you are about to read. I hope you will be too.
Second, thank you. This fic has proven to be my best experience in this fandom. Thank you for all the excitement, for the gifts and for the gifs, for the long reviews and for the "so good" reviews, for the kudos and for the likes, for the messages and for all the little jokes. I never would've written this without you guys. This isn't mine, this is ours. Thank you for the love!
The silver platter hits the table with a clatter – all empty cups and plates, she didn't know the girl could eat this much even if she forced herself, which Mrs Lucas suspects she has.
"Well?"
"'Well', well, he says. You couldn't have picked one that isn't stubborn as a mule, could you?"
"If we are being precise, Liam—"
"Oh, we're being ever so precise! So precise she won't let her toe graze the carpet."
Killian frowns deeply and Mrs Lucas feels her shoulders slump even before she has decided to give up being vexed with him and his lady wife.
Truth be told, Mrs Lucas was plenty relieved at first. She has seen her fair share of foolish women frequenting dances and even riding while with child. Mrs Jones deciding to remain at home looked like a blessing alright, before it became clear that the girl had decided to order herself on bedrest before one could even properly tell there was a babe growing inside her.
That was almost two weeks ago and it seems to Mrs Lucas that they have tried every trick for luring her outside. All save for the direct one.
"It seems to me that it is her husband who must talk to her."
Killian gives her a look that is part disgruntled old man, part petulant little boy and the way his mouth works tells her he is resisting the urge to argue semantics and point out that he walks to his wife every day. Just not about what needs talking about.
/
He opens their bedroom door a couple of hours after talking to Granny, after letting Roger take him as fast as he was willing to go. He'd decided even before saddling the beast but the acute absence of Buttercup beside him or Emma pressed warm and soft again his back certainly solidified his courage.
The sun is starting to itch down and Emma's fingers look like spun gold as they smudge the pencil lines on the sheet before her. Her ring doesn't seem to reflect the light but rather absorb it into itself and it makes something possessive and very satisfied purr in his chest.
He sits on the edge of the bed and dives his hand under the blanket, searchingly blindly until he finds her ankle and curls his fingers around it – they close perfectly, the tips of his thumb and middle finger touching over the smooth hardness of her malleolus. He studied all the known bones in the human body in a fit of morbidness and cynical humour when he first lost his hand but the memory that comes to mind is one made in this very room, much too late into the night, and saturated with Emma's almost constant giggles and sharp bursts of laughter as he recited all the names of her bones in the most tactile manner possible.
Now he circles the bone under his thumb and waits for her to finish drawing and look at him, not allowing himself to peak at her work, knowing she hates anyone seeing her sketches all the way until she grows either bored or pleased with them and abandons them on a windowsill. Her work was always good but he thinks it has been growing progressively better and he is having more and more difficulty holding his tongue about it until the right time.
Eventually, unhurriedly – he is both exasperated and incredibly pleased in her confidence that he will wait at the foot of the bed as long as it takes to receive her attention – she sets the sheet on the little bureau beside the bed – face down, pencil on top – and lifts her eyes to his. In the afternoon light, her eyes are golden too and this becomes one of those moments that make him very aware of how very beautiful his wife is.
He stands up and inclines his head toward the bath he sent Ruby to prepare before he came up.
"Trust me?"
It is not the layered question it might have been a year ago. It is mostly just that – I have only one hand and I want to lift you in my arms, will you trust me to do so? He doesn't know if that is indeed what she hears, the way her eyelashes flutter, the way her mouth softens, but then she lifts her arms toward him – so innocent and child-like and trusting that Killian feels the space where his heart lies burning.
The flames in the fireplace reflect along the length of the white bathtub. There's something different in the air, something tart and speaking of citruses because Emma doesn't seem to like her old perfumes and soaps these days, because Ruby knows all and is – always, miraculously – prepared for it.
Killian's arms are hard and firm as iron around his wife and yet, his step falters imperceptibly when her fingers first tangle in the ends of his hair. It's hypnotic, euphoric. Her thumb glides over the muscles of his neck, pressing at intervals – curious and bold, as her fingers move ever so lightly through the grey strands. His hair has grown longer than is proper in the last month, he has taken advantage, delight even, in getting completely off the merry-go-round of society.
She is warm in his arms and slightly heavier – almost unnoticeable unless you are looking for that last confirmation the way he is, he stops half a pace from the tub and drops to one knee, lowering her ever so slowly into the water. She ripples all over at the first touch and he hides his grin in her hair.
"Oh, you are something else."
He hums, inhales her before he pulls back to look in those molten eyes.
"All I am is yours, my queen." His voice is the embodiment of reverence and supplication but the look in his eyes must betray his baser thoughts so he keeps them firmly on hers.
Her cheeks flush quickly, the warm bath and the blatant flirtation attacking in tandem, she lifts her shoulders slightly and gathers breath to pay him in kind. But he knows her ever so well, well enough to steal it again, ducking his head in the exact moment when the tops of her breasts peak out of the water and pressing his mouth to the soft skin.
It's tempting beyond belief to touch and tease and enjoy her like this but he did in fact intend to help her with her bath and the ends of her hair are already growing heavier and darker. He rolls his left sleeve and watches her leave wet spots all over as she does for his right. He grabs a comb and shuffles behind her, pressing his body against the cool surface of the tub for relief, to keep his mind somewhat clear and starts working his way down her tresses.
"Emma." He lays a curling strand over her shoulder and runs his knuckles over the long expanse of her throat – up and back to the nape of her neck, gathering another section of hair. "I've pondered— that is… I believe… love, I believe everything is going to be well."
The air is still for a moment, the only sound the crackling from the fireplace. Then there's a slight tug as she nods. Confirmation because of decisiveness rather than belief, he thinks.
"What I mean to say is that I want you to stop worrying."
"I'm not worr—"
"You haven't left this room in days."
"My being careful does not mean I am worrying, thank you ever so."
"Emma."
"It does not."
He presses his lips together and continues working the comb's teeth between the strands of her hair. He itches all over to snuff out the tension in the citrus-scented air, to smooth his hand over her shoulder and embrace her and tell her that she is right. Alas, she isn't always. His brother would laugh to death at him but Killian wants his wife to always be right, it makes him feel like he is losing his footing when she isn't.
Emma's sigh is deep, nettled but almost accepting now.
"Perhaps…," her voice is small but she tips her head back on the edge of the tub and he can almost see her eyes. "Perhaps I'm a little scared."
"That makes you a good deal less scared than me, love."
She snorts – mellow and undignified and private and he drops the comb and slips his arm around her, resting his palm and forearm over her sternum and his cheek on her neck, wet hair sliding against skin.
"It's going to be my fault if—" she starts.
"Nonsense. That is nonsense and you know it."
"It is not. You don't know. I feel… It feels like in all the world only I can protect this little thing that needs so much protecting."
"Aye, I don't know. What I do know is that you are the best protector anyone can ask for. And what you seem to forget is that… this time, this world, our world would do everything to protect you both."
She is silent long enough that he picks up the comb again but when he takes a section of hair she hums and turns her face to the side, her lips pressing against the inside of his wrist.
/
She knows Killian means well, what is more, she suspects he might be right. But the thing is that Killian has already done this, he already is a wonderful father, he has already raised a beautiful, healthy and happy daughter. Killian could never muck this up. She just needs to be certain that she won't either.
As with most things, Killian Jones changes her mindset and she has to give him extra credit for not even being present when doing it. It's just that it does get insufferably boring to stay in one's bed all day long, no matter how tall the pile of books by said bed and no matter how many different sunrises she draws. The house is still much too quiet without the girls there and somehow she manages to miss her husband any moment he is not being doting and overbearing. So, this is how Emma finds herself throwing off the thin blanket laid over her legs, wrapping herself in a shawl and tiptoeing out of her room.
"I did not know that I was married to a thief."
Killian's head comes up lightning fast, his neck pops audibly and his eyes widen in surprise and crinkle with joy as he finds her with a hip against his doorway. It takes him a moment and then another but Emma waits patiently for his mouth to quirk up and for him to lean back in his chair and meet her challenge.
"I've been called many a thing, my queen, but this is the first I'm hearing of my being a thief."
"Everybody gets caught eventually, my heart, and you most certainly did not pay for that," she says and nods toward the framed drawing hanging above his head.
Truly, it's ostentatious and a little bit ridiculous to have it handing there. The sketch is good enough, if she does say so herself, but it's old and messy and clearly abandoned much sooner than it would have been decent enough to display anywhere, let alone in a such a place of pride. It is far from the best rendition of this particular subject that she has been drawing ever since he told her.
"Oh, this?" Killian leans his head back so he can see the drawing and Emma can see the long expanse of his throat. "Why, Mrs Jones, I found this masterpiece just lying about on my property. I must say I'm rather in love with the style but for the life of me cannot seem to track down the artist."
Emma shakes her head and moves further into the room, Killian pushes away from his desk and turns to face her as she circles his desk. She does so love every surface in this study.
"In love, are you?" she asks coyly even as she straddles his lap shamelessly.
"Hopelessly," her dramatic husband says as both his real and wooden hand find her hips with studied accuracy and he rests his chin just below her belly, pressing a soft, absentminded kiss there that makes it flutter the way her eyelashes do. "Thank you for giving me my island, Emma."
/
Alice and Robyn are back within a week of the three letters Emma and Killian pen, sharing the newest development in their life with their closest friends and family.
"Have you chosen a name for her yet?"
"Why are you so certain it should be a girl?" Emma asks, even though she is quite certain herself and delighted and anxious and impatient and many other feelings that she keeps stored beside her and Killian's bed to unfold and examine only when it's late and cloudy and just the two of them. The name of their child has yet to see the clouds of such a day.
"Oh, it is simply papa's fate to be surrounded by ladies," Alice answers as she winds another layer of wool around Robyn's patiently extended forearms. Everyone but Alice is convinced that she has no idea what she is doing, mostly because she hasn't even decided what it is she wants to make, but she and Robyn have been kneeling before the hearth and untangling Granny's balls of wool long enough that now something simply must be done with it.
"Ladies?" Killian looks up from his papers and pulls his glasses a little down his nose, making a show of carefully surveying his surroundings. "Why, I cannot remember the last time I saw one."
Emma gasps in a way worthy of her husband's own theatrics even as Alice takes hold of one of the balls of wool and throws it like a true markswoman straight at her father's head, dislodging the poor spectacles further, while Robyn agrees mournfully that she herself has forgotten what such a thing as a lady even looks like.
Emma couldn't be happier to have them back.
/
One thing Emma never expected from her older and storm-wrought husband the first time she met him was to ever see the child that he surely must have been, the playfulness and innocence of youth. Emma remembers that assumption wobbling unsteadily the first time she saw Killian sitting on the floor and then a little more every time she watched him enjoy his cocoa a frankly undignified amount. She thinks this is the moment when the last rock of what's left of that assumption topples, as she watches Killian lying on his stomach between her generously spread legs, head tilted to the side and tongue and teeth working over his bottom lip as he measures her breasts with his good hand with all the dedication a physician might apply to his life-saving research.
"Killian, they have not changed."
Killian ignored her for a moment, then looks up with all the disappointment in the world gathered in his blue eyes. She suspects he positions the candles in their bedroom just so to give him the utmost dramatic flair when he himself is positioned just so between her legs.
"It is an outrage and a travesty how little attention you have paid to your own lovely form."
"If I did, neither of us would get anything done, my heart."
Killian's grin is unrepentant, triumphant even.
"Precisely so, love. Thus, I am the expert on matters such as these and can assure you that differences are present, have been noted and must be properly appreciated."
Even as she shakes her head, Emma arches her back a little off the mountain of pillows behind her, pushing her chest toward the warm radiating off of Killian. He obliges her with hand, stump and mouth and difference or not, Emma delights in being properly appreciated.
It is perhaps why the question catches her unawares later, somewhere in that state between the clearest pleasure and the deepest comfort, as she melts against Killian's body and traces her nose along the edges of a long scar on his side – rhythmic and hypnotic and gradually putting herself to sleep.
"Have you given it any thought?"
The hum she lets him have is more than she thought herself capable of giving right now. It makes him chuckle, a hint of smugness in it that would make her roll her eyes if he had not earned it so thoroughly.
"A name. For our lass, according to all of you."
"Oh."
She follows that scar until her nose is buried between Killian's hot skin and their silken sheets. Killian twitches a little and his hand tangles in her hair.
"I have no good ideas," she mumbles somewhere under him and tilts her face so it's now her mouth that brushes the raised skin, her tongue flicking out to taste the uneven texture. Killian groans above her and his hold tightens.
"Perhaps," he swallows and gasps, delightfully out of control now as she digs further, following the routes on his skin and butting her head under him even as her hand slips between his legs. "Perrrhaps you could be… so good… oh, Emma, so good."
"Mhm?"
"So… so good as to share them anyway?"
She takes her sweet time about it and he does not seem to mind terribly, not if the way he twists toward her and ruts against her is any indication. But, eventually, after she has been satisfied with his satisfaction, she comes out from under the tangle of sheets and blankets and Killian and combs the hair out of her eyes.
"I like nothing so well as to share," she says, honest but almost petulant. "Evelyn. It's the only one I like but not enough."
It's the first name spoken between them and it doesn't fit quite the way she wants it to. Killian hums and mentions some he has considered and discarded himself.
"Mary Margaret says there is this new fashion to choose something meaningful. She and David wanted something brave. Strong."
Killian props his chin on his left forearm and gives her a soft look, the kind that negates the need for her to ask for anything, the kind that says she just has to name it and it shall be. It always makes her feel terribly flustered, overwhelmed and rather powerful too. She wonders if that's how queens feel at first.
"What do you want for her?"
Her lips twitch as his steady conversion, his blind trust in her equally blind belief that they are to have a girl.
"I just wanted her. And you gave her to me."
Killian laughs, it delights her. "Rather the other way around. But after, what do you want after?"
She is still afraid to think too much about after, as if she will ruin it, if she imagines it too much. "I don't… I just hope she is happy. I hope she is healthy and happy to be here." She laughs, it sounds wet. "I hope she loves me."
Killian's eyes widen and he opens his mouth but she rushes ahead, can't stop imagining now and it feels safer to do so here, with him.
"I hope I get to teach her to ride and Alice teaches her to shoot a bow and arrow and you teach her to read and, lord, I hope Ruby can teach her to dance because none of us will do it properly."
She looks at Killian's eyes and can't tell if she loves the colour or the dark lashes or the lines around them more.
"I hope she falls in love. I… I hope…"
Killian's eyes sparkle and the lines grow deeper.
/
Next come Liam and Elsa with all the fanfare and gifts that befits Admiral and Mrs Jones.
"She is not even born yet," Killian grumbles even as he admires the toy horse his brother has deposited in the middle of their drawing room, on top of the table – much to Granny's dismay and more genuine grumbling – like it's the queen's jewels.
"She?"
Killian's face scrunches up and he waves a hand in the air.
"The girls have gotten into my head."
"Then God help you when you get yet another one," Liam grins smugly.
/
"You never asked."
"Hmm?" Emma tears her head away from the target practice going on a few feet away from them. It's not easy. There is something delightful about two young girls in billowing skirts embarrassing a naval admiral and captain and pushing them to the sort of language that Emma is certain neither Killian not Liam have ever permitted themselves to use off a ship before. When she looks at Elsa she has the same look on her face that she first gave her at her welcoming ball. "I beg your pardon?"
"It's quite alright," Elsa turns her head toward the rest of their party and takes a sip of her tea. "I could hardly take my eyes off him for the first three years after we married."
Emma smiles and resists the urge to point out that time hasn't changed all that much for Elsa and she is quite certain it won't for her.
"Why we don't have children. You never asked."
Emma's eyes widen at the non-sequitur and Elsa's matter-of-fact tone.
"I… I didn't want to pry."
She hadn't, she hadn't even asked Killian, too aware of how much she hoped Admiral and Mrs Jones would take their time before they start asking themselves and others the same thing about her. That and she had drawn her conclusion and felt nothing but desire to not bestir those waters.
"I never wanted to," Elsa says in that same tone and Emma blinks at her – once, twice, until Elsa's perfect blue eyes turn to her.
Once, after a shamefully long and indulgent dinner at their estate and a couple of glasses of cognac each, Liam Jones said that he no longer feels the need to go sailing because he has the ocean all to himself every time he looks at his wife. Killian teased him mercilessly until Emma was forced to bring to attention the fact that he has taken, perfected and elevated his brother's talent for dropping into casual conversation the sort of lines that must belong on stage.
Elsa smiles gently at her surprise.
"Outrageous, I know. What sort of a woman doesn't want to raise a child with her husband?"
"No, I…" Emma doesn't know what she would have said, if Elsa hadn't continued, it's hard to imagine not wanting something that you've thought you simply won't be allowed for so long.
"I'm simply a terribly selfish person, Emma."
"That's not true."
Elsa smiles again, much more playful, the kind of smile Emma is used to from her, the kind that tells you you don't know even as little as you think you do.
"It is. But I don't mind. I rather like it. Love it. I love my life and my husband. I never wanted to share it or change it and I've never felt…"
Emma can't help but know exactly how she herself would have finished that thought. "Incomplete?"
Elsa is surprised to find her knowing, pleasantly so.
"No. Never." She looks back at their husbands and the girls and Emma catches the movement of her fingers, playing with her rings. She notices because it looks so out of place in Elsa Jones who is always in perfect repose. "Liam has never tried to convince me. He wanted children, I didn't, so we weren't to have any."
Emma turns to look at Liam Jones who is bent in half, hands on his knees and nose almost brushing Alice's bow as he watches with narrowed eyes how she pulls back her arrow. She has never thought him an unsatisfied man and she doesn't now.
"I just wonder sometimes. Why he never asked again," Elsa says, almost as if to herself.
"Would you change your mind?" Emma asks, equally quiet and utterly unsurprised as Elsa shakes her head. "That's why."
Elsa turns to her and gives her a brand new smile, the kind that tells Emma sometimes Elsa doesn't know everything either and she is glad to be told.
/
Mrs Nolan comes last but she brings Leo and everybody forgets everything else the second he smiles his biggest smile and sticks Killian's thumb in his mouth.
/
"This is ridiculous! Absolutely ridiculous."
"Dearest—"
"Granny is in there! Why can't I—"
"Alice, it's… I'm sure it's all overwhelming enough for Emma without the whole household being present."
Robyn withstands her love's glare admirably, if she does say so herself. Oh, Alice is sunshine made flesh and she loves her so much but when she is unhappy she rages like the wind whipping the whole world outside.
"I'm not going to overwhelm her. I want to be there! What if…"
Alice's pacing comes to a sudden halt and Robyn furrows her brows and pushes off the wall outside Captain and Mrs Jones's room, taking an instinctive step toward her.
"Alice, she's going to be just fine."
But Alice looks up at her from under her lashes and chews on her lip and Robyn realizes she doesn't want anyone to see, let alone hear, her true fears. Robyn opens her mouth to reassure her again when Captain Jones appears at the top of the stairs and heads down the corridor toward them.
The change in Alice is instantaneous – her shoulders straighten and her eyes open and clear and she puts a little sway into her movements as she reaches out and takes her father's hand.
For his part, Killian looks like he couldn't compose himself even if he tried but he comes to a stop and kisses his daughter's temple and smiles at Robyn.
"I'm sorry you have to wait outside but Doctor Hopper said—"
"It's alright, papa," Alice cuts him off and some of that sunshine that has kept Robyn warm even during the bitterest winter spills into the windowless corridor. "You go ahead and calls us in when she is here."
Killian kisses her one more time and squeezes Robyn's shoulder as he walks into the room. As soon as the door is closed behind him, Alice flushes and averts her eyes.
"Yes, I know I was just complaining about being made to wait but it's not like he can—"
Robyn's hand finds the back of her neck and her lips cut off the flow of her self-conscious explanation.
"I love you, Miss Jones."
/
The youngest Miss Jones comes into the world in a tremendously dramatic fashion – a stormy night of swirling greys and dark blue, thunder and lightning and a wind that screams and screams in tandem with Emma. It's a fact that will be cited over and over again in the years to come, mostly by Granny but certainly by her parents as well when weary enough and certainly by her sister and Ruby with all the pride in the world.
Days later, when Killian is close to throttling the poor man because Emma still can't get out of bed on her own, Doctor Hopper will tell him that it was a perfectly normal birth – if a bit longer and a fair bit louder.
Hours later, when Alice rushes into the room and demands a proper introduction, Killian will look down at the baby he has only let go of for minutes at a time so Granny can clean her up and Emma can hold her close and introduce Hope Evelyn Jones and it fits just the way Emma wanted it to. They haven't talked about a middle name and the way Killian looks at Emma as if he knows she will be pleased makes her as happy as hearing him say it. As happy as Alice's little sigh of pure love and the way she leans over and presses a kiss to Emma's temple and tells her that she loves her and makes her cry all over again.
Seconds later, when Doctor Hopper tries to hand their baby to Granny to clean her up, Killian will intercept him and take his daughter in his arms with a movement that guarantees nobody but Emma will ever know he worried about how he will hold her only days ago. It's one of these moments in life that you know you will never be able to recall perfectly. It would be too much, to hold all that emotion inside you for the rest of time. So Emma doesn't even try, she doesn't do anything but watch and bask in the love on her husband's face and the love that overfills every little place inside her when he places their daughter in her arms – pink and squealing and so so warm.
/
The strangest thing is how calm she is in the weeks after, when she can do little more than feed her baby and herself. Doctor Hopper has sworn on everything Killian could think to make him swear on that she shall recover fully and Emma believes him. She believes him because she never once feels cold.
/
"Are you certain, love?"
"She is a bitter old woman, Killian, not an infamous brigand."
Killian gives her a look that seems to imply that he doesn't feel like the gulf between the two is wide enough.
"I'm merely suggesting you reply that her visit will be welcome at a later date," he says but the inflection on the word "welcome" somehow manages to turn it into its exact opposite. Emma smiles at him and lets her hand run through his hair long enough that Killian sighs in obvious defeat and drops his forehead against her shoulder. "I do not see why we shouldn't have her wait until you have fully recovered—"
"Because I do not want this visit hanging over my head. I'd much rather have it done and over with. And what is more," she continues quickly when she feels Killian's lips part against her skin to most likely explain how it needn't be done at all. "I do not care to perform for Regina's pleasure."
Killian is silent for a moment and she lets the silence prove her sincerity. Emma was surprised herself when she received Regina's card and realized she did want to see her grandmother one more time. She wants to close that door very firmly, lock it and abandon the key somewhere without even bothering to throw it away. What is more, she feels a queer thrill at the thought of welcoming her now, just like this, still recovering and as far from the perfectly staged lady as she can be without outright impropriety.
"Have it your way, my queen," Killian sighs eventually. "But the second you want her out—"
"I shall show her out myself," she bends her head and waits for him to look up so she can press her lips against his. "Thank you for trusting me."
"Always," he hums and scatters a few kisses over her cheeks and then down her throat – the light, soft kind that he has been giving her for weeks, the kind that she loves with her very soul but also make her skin tingle with an impatient desire for the future.
"I would like you to take the girls away, however. I don't want her around them."
Killian breathes out against her collarbone and swipes his thumb over the sharp raise of it before he glances up. "And I do not want to leave you alone."
Emma huffs a little but decides she could give him that, knows she would like to have him close, just in case, just in case Regina's presence affects her more than she thinks it will have the power to.
"Alright. You can have Hope, Robyn can take Alice out. Just for an hour. Just—I don't want her near my daughters."
His thumb stops, barely pressing into her skin, and Killian looks up at her. Fortunately, by now, Emma has learnt how to meet the steady and deep – bottomless, utterly without end, without corner or condition or caveat – press of Killian's love. She has become something of an expert at how to welcome it, fold it and hold it and keep it. It feels indulgent and almost blasphemous every time, especially when there is so much happiness and gratitude mixed in with it like now. She takes it gladly.
/
Mrs Lucas bustles up the stairs at a speed that she thought she'd left behind in her years of running after little Miss Alice. She supposes it's a good thing to check and find that she is still capable of it and the thought of the new miss running through the house before long manages to break a smile on her face even in her current foul mood. But that would be then, this is now and there is nothing but fury propelling Mrs Lucas toward the master bedroom.
When she storms in, Emma looks up at her as if it's any other day. She is in bed but on top of the covers, a light blanket thrown over her legs and a shawl over her shoulders, her hair is messy, braided only at the very end, the way she does it when she's had her hands empty for a moment too long. Mrs Lucas feels a rush of fondness coming up her throat so violently she think she is going to belch. It steels her resolve.
"Now, Captain's saying you know all about this and, what is more, it's you who talked him into allowing it. But I've spent too long around you two and watched you consume too much sugar right before bed to mind too much about what either of you says first time around. So, you tell me now and I'll take that old wretch by whatever's left of her hair and drag her out the door myself."
Emma's eyes are wide for a second and Mrs Lucas has the strange feeling that now this girl truly knows her. Then the skin around her eyes crinkles and she shakes her head and extends a hand toward her.
Mrs Lucas huffs and keeps away, hands on her hips and her mouth set in a steel line for all of five seconds because this damn house has made her soft as an overkneeded ball of dough. She steps forward and takes Emma's small hand and bends forward to press her closer against her bosom because no matter how much Emma's appetite has grown, her hand is still a fragile little thing in Mrs Lucas's wrinkled palm.
"Let her up," the silly girl says. "And make that godawful tea you keep at the very back for business meetings Killian wants over as quickly as possible."
/
After all the fuss, Regina's presence when she enters the room is rather anti-climatic. Emma hadn't even considered how the couple of years in which they hadn't seen each other might have changed her grandmother, and even if she had, she doubts she would've imagined this.
Regina's hair is almost entirely grey now and the rigid and undoubtedly very carefully chosen coiffure cannot quite hide how thin it is in places. Her face is as cold and severe as always and there aren't that many more wrinkles to tell of the passing of time but it's her hands that shock Emma. If Regina were truly the evil witch everybody says she is, Emma would think she had cast a spell to gather all of her age in her hands – wrinkled and spotted and claw-like as they clutch her cane. The cane is new, as well, and obviously terribly expensive, black and shiny and looking like a rod for all that is bitter in the world. Emma is glad Regina didn't have it when she was living under her roof.
"Most women would be out of bed and taking care of their child and household by now."
Regina's voice has always been cold but now it sounds like it has turned to icicles in her throat and pains her slightly as she talks. Her opening is the first thing that slots right into place in Emma's expectations and almost makes her smile sardonically.
"You look well, Regina." She allows herself this one jab, she does not care to play a game of veiled insults with Regina but this one slips out before she can stop it and, if the look in Regina's eyes is any indication, it lands right on target. Emma gestures toward the armchair set beside a small table a little way from their bed, not too close.
Regina liked to stand tall and rigid over Emma for most of their life but it seems to cost her too much effort now. Her back stays as straight as possible, her hands spider like and just as restless. This is also new and Emma does not care to observe for too long.
"The child?"
"With her father," Emma says with a finality that should alert Regina to the likelihood of seeing Hope with her own eyes.
"Your servants could certainly improve on their manners," she says next and this time Emma does let the corner of her mouth quirk up. "Though I suppose I shouldn't expect you to run a tight household from your bedchambers."
"Captain Jones and I find them perfectly suited for us."
She can see the reply in Regina's cold and sharp eyes but that is when Granny comes in to bring the tea and display her improvable manners. The look Regina gives her assures Emma that they will be coming back to her household's shortcomings but she turns in a different direction when the door closes behind the cook.
"Yes, I suppose your husband must be less than concerned with propriety to be taking care of his babe, while his wife lazes around in bed weeks after it is all done."
Emma has the vague notion that such a comment from Regina should incite things in her but all it does is make her crave the image of Killian with their daughter in his arms, which she is sure to be treated to as soon as Regina leaves.
"Frankly, Emma, I believe you should thank me. I don't know who else would've put up with you."
She hears the tinge of annoyance, almost desperation, in Regina's voice and realizes her grandmother is now grasping, scrambling for whatever she came here for. Emma is not certain what it is exactly that she is withholding but she knows full well what it is that Regina doesn't want to hear.
Well, that's too bad, isn't it? Because Regina's not wrong and for this one thing Emma doesn't mind admitting it. Emma's smile is serene and she would think herself benevolent but for the twinkle in her eye that makes Regina's spider-fingers spasm.
"Thank you, Regina."
/
She wakes up next to the inferno that is Killian even barefoot and on top of the covers. His left sleeve is rolled up to his elbow, the right one just pushed up, his wedding ring catching the sunlight as he holds his papers in front of him, his glasses hanging precariously on his nose.
Emma pulls herself up and huffs at the way the pages drop to the bed and his hand immediately settles on her arm.
"How are you feeling, sweetheart?"
"I'm fine. Better," she says pointedly. She is not perfect but she has been better every day, yet every day he fusses just as much as the one before. "Where's Hope?"
He kisses her sweetly and she pushes his glasses up before they fall on her face, then takes his hand off her arm so she can roll up his right sleeve properly.
"Ruby took her about an hour ago but I'm sure Mrs Lucas has gotten her hands on her by now."
Emma feels the stretch in her smile at that. When Granny holds their daughter in her arms you can't tell she can ever be anything but smooth edges and soft places and softer lullabies.
"You should have some breakfast, let me—"
"Can I have it outside?"
Killian's already on the edge of the bed but he turns back at that – his face a mix of anxious hope and consternation.
"Emma, I don't think you should be walki—"
"That's what I have a strong, gallant husband for," she says and makes sure her smile is enticing and not just plain spoiled as she throws off the blankets and extends her arms in a gesture he has never once been able to refuse.
Killian developed an amazing fascination with carrying her around during her pregnancy, even when there was no need and long after it was probably advisable for his back, the way his face positively melts tells her that their daughter's birth hasn't changed anything in that respect.
"That you do, my queen."
He helps her change into something less prone to blow in the wind than her nightgown and shrugs on his coat directly over his shirt, which Emma decides is definitely a look they should revisit when she can appreciate it properly, and takes her into his arms.
There is nothing quite like being carried in Killian's arms. It's not just how safe she is, it's how precious it makes her feel. The thought never fails to make her blush and she promptly buries that blush in Killian's neck.
After months of this, they navigate doors and corridors and stairs with barely a thoughts and she is being lower on the swing in the garden before anyone has probably even noticed they're outside. Killian disappears through the back door of the kitchen, much to her displeasure, because he claims food is more beneficial to her than being able to lie in his lap. Emma disagrees but she is more than willing to have both.
They stay out long enough for her to track the movement of the sun, long enough for Granny to find them and roll her eyes at them in a way that Emma knows means she likes what she sees.
"The little miss is hungry," she says with all the reluctance of someone who would give anything to not have to let go of the baby in her arms.
Emma grins as Killian wraps his arm around the entirety of her waist and helps her to sit up and lean against him. Confined to bed as she has been, she is more than aware of the tug of war in the house and how anyone who manages to get Hope in their arms will keep her there until they have no other choice. She has seen Ruby folding the bedsheets in their room one-handed and Killian somehow juggling baby, ledger, pen and inkwell with only two spillages as a result.
So, Emma feels rather smug in her privilege. They can hoard her baby all they want, eventually they all have to hand her over to be fed, and as Granny settles Hope in her arms and Emma feels the warm weight and the sweet smell of her, she really can't begrudge them the hoarding.
However, she can and does begrudge Killian the speed with which he steals their daughter's attention with barely a finger pressed to her pink little nose.
"Killian, my breasts are bared to the whole world," she huffs, even though there is no one else around.
"I know," she doesn't even need to see the grin on his face. "I'm paying rapt attention, love."
"You are distracting her." She tries to be stern but it is so very difficult when she is practically molded to his side and he is making Hope smile her big toothless smile and making the most embarrassingly endearing sounds next to her ear.
"Am I, princess? Am I distracting you? Are you not giving mummy's luscious breasts the attention they deserve?"
"Killian!" And she is scandalized and indignant, she really is, but she is also laughing so loud her sides ache a little.
/
Killian combs Emma's hair back and watches his daughter's blissful face as she feeds. His hand stays, stroking and scratching lightly, running his long fingers carefully through the tangled strands even though no pin has come anywhere near her hair in weeks, maybe months, and he raises his left forearm to Hope's back, the whisper-soft hairs at the back of her neck brushing against the hard skin at the end of his wrist. He can't feel that but he feels the way Emma drops her head back, closing her eyes and entrusting them both entirely to his arms and he presses his smile against the crown of her head.
/
Mary Margaret declares herself utterly enamored the second Hope spits on her shoulder. It takes another hour, during which Mrs Nolan wastes no time in adopting the habits of the household and refuses to let anyone else hold the happily gurgling baby in her arms, for her to come up with the idea that nothing will be better than a match between Leo Nolan and Hope Evelyn Jones.
Emma watches Killian and Mary Margaret haggle over the advantages and disadvantages of this only slightly premature plan and cannot help but wonder if Killian is so scandalized because "she was literally just born" or because he didn't think of the match himself.
/
Emma is just pouring out the cocoa when she hears the door open behind her. She glances over her shoulder, surprised at the sight of Robyn – not at seeing her there but rather at the rumpled state of her, the sweet, almost child-like way she is rubbing her eyes and the braid that's keeping less strands in place than letting them fly around. Alice and Emma and even Killian, but never Robyn – she cannot remember ever seeing Robyn on the verge of sleep.
"I could hear Granny grumbling all the way down the hall," the young woman teases and Emma just rolls her eyes.
"Don't worry. Killian and I have decided that we shall be introducing Hope to hot cocoa as soon as we can. Just wait and see how quickly Granny decides sugar before bed is the most precious idea in the world." She offers Robyn a cup but the girl just shakes her head – she doesn't have Alice or Killian's sweet tooth and she does look like she is just about to lie down and go to sleep on the kitchen floor. She also looks very, very amused and a little impressed.
"You guys are ruthless."
"Are the rest still awake?"
"Not for the last hour," Robyn says and Emma laughs and picks up her tray.
"Are you coming?" She asks at the door but Robyn shakes her head and yawns, her impeccable timing making Emma laugh again as she heads into the corridor. "Goodnight, sweetheart."
"Goodnight, Emma. Please direct her upstairs when she wakes."
Emma smiles as she nears Killian's study and pushes the door slowly, in no rush to wake Alice or anyone else just yet.
She is less used to seeing them here, in this smaller, darker room that is more Killian than anyone else. That must be why her breath backs up into her throat and the mugs rattle on her tray as she looks at Killian behind his desk. His chair is pushed back, almost all the way to the window, his hair is very dark and the silver streaks in it seem to catch all the moonlight outside, his spectacles reflect the fire at the other end of the room, his left forearm is bare and wrapped securely around one dozing daughter while the smaller one is sleeping soundly in his right elbow, pressed close to his rest. Alice must have been holding the book he was reading but it's now lying face down in her lap, precariously close to toppling to the ground.
It's a lot for one chair and Killian looks like he has never been more comfortable in his life. When he dips his chin and looks at her over the tops of his glasses Emma feels his contentment travel down her own spine. She sets the tray on the desk and is just wondering if she can lay down on the settee and go to sleep just staring at them, when Alice grumbles and snorts sharply and jerks a little, book finally falling to the floor. Emma bends to pick it up and snorts, giving her husband a pointed look.
"Aren't pirate stories a bit on the nose for a naval captain?"
"A good pirate story cannot be resisted," Killian and Alice say at the same time and Emma sits on the floor with the book because… well, she is a little overwhelmed with how much she loves them is all.
Alice laughs sleepily, stretches and kisses her father's cheek, then promptly steals the baby in his arms. She ignores Killian's grumbling completely but stops by Emma to allow her a kiss goodnight.
"We'll be up in a moment."
"No, you won't." Alice grins before losing interest in them completely and bending her head over Hope as she whisks her away, telling her all about how their parents eat too much sugar and go to bed too late.
Emma shakes her head and looks at Killian.
"We need to be careful or—" The words die in her throat as she is confronted with the very incriminating scene of Killian with his eyes closed in bliss and his nose buried in one of the mugs she brought. It would be easier to get the sun back in the sky than to stop her gentle laughter.
Killian looks at her and pushes his bottom lip forward, a trace of chocolate smeared on the inside of it.
"What? I have been left cold and bereft."
"Oh?" Emma raised her eyebrows and takes her laughter down to a simmering smile as she gets to her feet and sways toward him. "Do you need me to warm you?"
If there was ever a double entendre, this should be it and yet. She settles against him with her legs swung over the arm of his chair and her head nestled perfectly innocently in the crook of his neck, feeling the spaces where the girls were and where the cold must have rushed in upon their departure. It gives her more pleasure than straddling his thighs would have – to warm him. So, Emma gratefully takes the second mug Killian offers her and relaxes completely, feeling the lift and fall of her husband's every breath against her.
"Emma?"
"Hmm?"
She watches him place his mug on the desk and his hand settles on her knee, drawing little circles over it with his ring finger.
"Do you want to get married again?" he asks and continues on when she doesn't immediately answer. "We can do it properly, invite Mr and Mrs Nolan and Nemo and Belle, the girls will be there and— or it can be just them. Just them and us, in the garden again or anywhere you like. Somewhere by the sea perhaps or—"
She has been surveying his study – the book still on the ground, the baby blanket Granny made for Hope on the settee and the ribbon Alice must have left on the mantle, the island drawing hanging over their heads, the mugs of cocoa on his desk – and now she twists around to kiss him and goes on kissing him and kissing him.
She can hardly remember the last time they kissed like this – long but chase, with nowhere else to go, nothing more to do. It reminds her of the first time she kissed him, she wonders if it reminds him of that night too because his lips keep twitching under hers.
"Do you always smile so much when you kiss a woman, captain?"
He pulls half a breath away from her and keeps smiling.
"It would appear I do."
"I don't want another wedding, my heart."
"No?"
She watches his face carefully but he doesn't look disappointed, he doesn't look like he is missing a single thing in the world. She remembers coming into this room minutes ago and knows it's because he isn't. She shakes her head.
"No. I never wanted to marry you," she lets her own lips tick up and takes his hand in hers, their rings clicking together as she leans forward again so her lips brush his as she speaks. "I just wanted to be your wife."
If you really enjoyed this monster of a fic, I have one of those Ko-fi things ineffablecolors. I will also be crying over having finally completed it for the next week so come join me whenever.