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hopewritcs · 5 years

Text

shipwrecked. three.

pairing: tony stark x f!reader

word count: 3k

summary: au based on the film overboard ( both the 1987 and the 2018 versions influenced this ). y/n is a widowed mother of four children, who works constantly to make ends meet, and relies on her friends and family to help out with her children. all the while she’s still working toward her own goal of publishing a novel. y/n is working at a “last minute emergency” party on a yacht where she meets tony who seems to believe that since it’s his boat, he can order her around like any other person who works for him. let’s just say their first meeting does not go well, as it ends with y/n in the water and a laughing tony topside on the yacht. their second meeting? oh, thanks to a bump on the head and a case of amnesia, it’s all going to go according to plan ( she hopes ).

notes: hi i know this has been forever coming since i’ve updated just about anything on this blog, but i am so excited to return and bring this fic back. i’ve got so many ideas and the whole thing planned out--i just don’t know about how long it’ll be.

trigger(s): mentions of alcohol, amnesia, and accidents.

masterlist: here

shipwrecked tag list: @and-drew-101, @witheringblooddemon, ( if you want to be added to the tag list, send me a message !! )

The ride back to your house was excruciatingly longer than it should have taken. Or maybe that was just the silence in the car.

Lenora came back to the hospital to pick you and Tony up, and you held onto his hand as you stood outside waiting for the car to show up. He’d been quiet after you signed the papers to get him out of the hospital, but he continued to look at you quizically every once in a while. It made you nervous. What if he was putting everything together, figuring out that you weren’t his wife?

After the car ride was too quiet, Lenora spoke up. She looked at the two of you in the rearview mirror ( she’d insisted that you sit in the backseat with Tony since you’d been apart for so long ). “The kids are so happy you’re coming home, Tony. Everybody was really worried. We’re just glad you’re okay.”

“The kids?” Tony asked, turning his head from looking out the window to look at you. After a moment of thought he added, “You...mentioned something about them at the hospital, right?”

“Yes. We’ve got four kids, honey. Joanna, she’s the oldest. We got married when we had the twins, Kate and Dean, and then little Leo’s the baby.” you smiled, pulling up a photograph on your phone that had been photoshopped earlier--the four kids in both you and Tony’s arms. You turned the phone toward him and he took it in his hands, looking at the picture. You leaned over and pointed at each of the children’s faces and repeated their names quietly.

“I’m sorry that I don’t remember them.” Tony said quietly, his eyes still focused on the picture. Maybe he was trying to remember them--which, he couldn’t, since they weren’t his--he looked so focused. Then he handed you the phone back and turned his attention back to the window.

“It’s alright. You must’ve hit your head really hard in the water.” You said, your hand twitching at your side to comfort him in some way, but you didn’t reach out for him. You were supposed to be his wife. You were supposed to have been with him for about fifteen years.

But the only thing in your mind right then was him pushing you off his yacht into the water. You were still mad about that, if you were being honest with yourself. Lenora said this wasn’t revenge for that, but it was just to get some of the money he owed your company for the work you’d put in--even if it wasn’t going to be paid. You were just paranoid that the man sitting next to you was going to suddenly get his memory back and remember that he didn’t belong.

Several long moments passed by, the car was silent again, and Tony was still looking out the window. You put your hand on his shoulder and gave it a light squeeze. He didn’t turn his attention toward you, and you even felt his body stiffen. “It’s going to be okay. I promise.” you said softly, hoping that it was reassuring to him--and hoping that you were right.

God, what were you getting yourself into?

“Maybe once you see the kids everything will just come rushing back, right Y/N?” Lenora added from the front seat, laughing at her words as she made brief eye contact with you as she turned down your street.

“I can’t believe we have four kids.” Tony said, shaking his head. Maybe the thought really was unbelievable to him. He was quiet for a long moment as he sighed, leaning back against the backseat, looking at you out of the corner of his eyes as he kept his head up towards the ceiling. “You sure we have four kids? I feel like I’d remember having that many.”

You laughed, rolling your eyes at his comment. “Tony, you can’t even remember your own life right now.”

He breathed out a laugh, tilting his head to look at you with a smirk on his face. “I guess that explains the pounding headache. Does this count as a time a kiss might make everything better?”

Lenora, in the front seat, let out a laugh at that comment.

You gasped, nudging Tony with your arm and shaking your head. “You forget everything except the cliches with that amnesia of yours, huh?”

“Is that a no?” Tony raised his eyebrows at you.

“It’s a...” you paused. You were supposed to be married to him, but it was still something you wanted to adjust to. You didn’t want to push too many boundaries--you weren’t a cruel person. Lenora stopped the car as she pulled into your driveway, you turned your head to look toward the front porch where the kids stood with a welcome home banner and excited grins on their face. You smiled and turned back to Tony, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek. “We’re home. C’mon, let’s get you settled in.”

Pepper Potts wasn’t dumb by any stretch of the word. Pepper had been taking care of Tony Stark for several years now, working as his assistant meant she controlled his schedule and made sure everything was in good shape. Pepper was in charge of many of the daily to dos around Stark Industries--she wasn’t just Tony’s personal assistant, she actually knew what was going on with the company. He trusted her, didn’t he? So, Tony may be a wild card, but he wasn’t just one to disappear off the face of the Earth--and not even tell Pepper anything before he left.

It was only a couple of days since Obi came back from their yacht trip and told Pepper that Tony had gone to stay with a friend. Pepper and Obi then took the jet to the shareholders meeting in New York City. Pepper went in the capacity as the official Stark Industries assistant--while she was Tony’s assistant ( and just Tony’s ) that didn’t stop Obadiah from pulling her into whatever he needed as well.

It infuriated Pepper to no end, but without Tony she didn’t exactly have a work related excuse to deny Obadiah her assistant services. She sat in on the meetings, sitting in the corner with her tablet in her lap. She took notes for Tony about what was said, so that when he came back he would have everything he needed--not that he ever really read any of it on time, but Pepper would rather be over prepared.

The strawberry blonde continued to look down at her phone every so often as it too rested in her lap. Still nothing from Tony, which only perplexed the woman. Sure, Tony was one to go on benders and leave the world behind during them, often forgetting his own responsibilities and everything else he might need to do in order to do what he wanted instead--but he was still usually in touch with Pepper. She’d left him several messages--both calls and texts--but she still got no response. Not even an “I’ll deal with it later” or an “I trust you can handle that, Pep”--which just confused her.

Pepper sent a message to James Rhodes, one of Tony’s oldest friends, and someone who also worked with him on occasion, asking him to meet her when he got the chance. She sent the time the flight would arrive back to California, and when she would be free after finishing work.

Maybe if Tony hadn’t told Pepper something, he’d mentioned something to James. It seemed likely, and Pepper had her fingers crossed that she was just worrying for nothing.

You had watched how easily your kids acted like Tony was their father. Joanna seemed a bit hesitant about the whole thing, and she had stayed back, but even she was enthusiastic when she needed to be. You were grateful that the kids were selling this.

Tony still seemed shellshocked. His face when the kids had come running toward the car to greet him, it was almost like he didn’t know what to do with himself. Like he’d never dealt with children before which, from what you’d seen of him on his yacht, was likely true. Eventually, you noticed he got more comfortable around everyone. You had to explain almost everything to him--

“No, Tony, that needs to be hand washed,” about the pot you had used to make dinner.

“Yes, this is the whole house,” it was rather small, even for just the five of you before--there was just enough room, and the kids bunked together. He was certainly used to places more spacious which, even if he couldn’t remember his own life, he seemed to just be aware of that fact.

“I work with Lenora at her event company.” When he asked what you did for a living, you almost worried that it would be a giveaway. That Tony would remember everything from those simple words, but it didn’t seem to trigger any memories for him.

“You work with Billie down at her garage,” when Tony had asked what he did. Billie went on to explain that she would be by in the morning, bright and early, to pick Tony up and get him reacclimatized to the job. You thanked her profusely, and sincerely hoped that putting Tony in a garage was going to be something he could handle. It wasn’t like you knew anything about the man ( other than the drunken, selfish, arrogance you’d witnessed for yourself on the yacht ).

--and now the kids were in bed. You kissed the tops of their heads as you tucked them in and then sat down on your eldest’s bed. She was still up, reading by the light on her desk.

“Jo, you need to turn out the light soon, Katie’s got to sleep.” you reminded her, gesturing to the other bed in the room where Kate was curled up with her eyes closed.

“I can sleep with the light on, mama.” Kate said, her eyes peeking open and turning to look at you. You waved at her, gesturing for your youngest daughter to put her head down.

“See, she can sleep with the light on.” Joanna said, closing the book and resting it on her lap, careful to keep her page open.

“I’m not having this argument, lights out when I leave. This is why I bought you a book light.” You sighed, tapping at where the book light sat on your daughters side table.

“What do you want?” Joanna asked, raising her eyebrows at you. It was her look, the one that Lenora and your mother always said was so similar to your own. She just wanted to get back to what she’d been doing before you interrupted.

You ran a hand through your hair and then put your hands on Joanna’s. “I know this is difficult for you.”

“Oh, this again? We all said it was fine, mom.”

“I know,” you replied, shaking your head. “Maybe it’s harder for me than for you kids. I just, while he’s here could you keep an eye on your siblings?”

“You want me to babysit? Isn’t that what he’s here for!” Joanna’s voice raised and you had to hold up your hand to keep her from getting too loud. “Come on mom, you can’t just expect me to watch them all the time. I have a life, I have friends.” Joanna continued, before muttering something under her breath that you didn’t quite catch all the way. You could assume it had something to do with the friends comment--she’d been struggling to make friends since you had moved the kids back to Elk Cove, but she hadn’t been talking about it much either.

“Not babysit, but--keep an eye on them.”

“That’s babysitting. Do you, like, think he’s...”

“What? No. No, I don’t think he’s anything like that. I just, he’s a stranger.”

“He’s supposed to be our dad, don’t you think it’s going to be a little weird if he’s always with all of us.” Joanna gestured around the room, moving her arm in a circle as if she were pointing to her and her siblings, even though the boys were in their own bedroom.

“I’ll figure out,” you sighed, shaking your head and looking at your daughter seriously. “Look, we’re all going to be handling things. I just want you to make sure your siblings are alright.”

“Fine. Fine.” Joanna replied, shrugging your hands off of her and picking her book back up. “Can I get back to reading?”

“Yeah.” you answered, standing up from your daughter’s bed, then taking the book light from her nightstand and holding it out to her. “Goodnight, sweetheart.” you kissed the top of her head, smoothing out her hair and then turned out the lights on your way out of the room.

You closed the door to your daughters room and then turned around to head into your own bedroom.

“Pepper, this is Tony Stark we’re talking about.” Rhodes was saying that for what felt like the millionth time since he’d met Pepper for a drink.

“I know but this is...this is different.” Pepper sighed, taking a sip of her martini and looking over at Rhodes. “He didn’t mention this to you Rhodey?”

“No Pepper, he just said he’d see me in Vegas--if not before then. You know how Tony is. I don’t understand why you’re getting so worked up this time.”

“Because...”

Rhodey leaned over and put his hand on Pepper’s shoulder, giving her a kind smile as she took in a breath. “I promise you, everything’s alright. This is typical Stark, we both know that. He likes to go off on his own and play his games and next thing you know he’s back in that garage of his working on some top secret government funded plan.” He chuckled and took a sip of his own beer, nodding his head towards Pepper.

“But, Rhodey.” Pepper started once more.

“No But Rhodeys Pepper, everything is fine.” Rhodey stood up and dropped a couple of bills on the bar counter to pay for the drinks. “Now, let’s get you home. I’m sure Tony’s left you with enough work to keep you busy while he’s gone.”

Pepper and Rhodey took a cab back to Pepper’s apartment and the woman was still worried, but she did trust the other to tell her if anything was wrong--and Rhodey seemed certain that everything was fine. So there was no reason to worry about Tony. Not until he gave her a reason.

“Hey Pepper,” Rhodey called out as she was getting out of the cab. She turned back around to look at him, raising her eyebrows at his words. “If anything happens with Tony, you know I’d tell you. You’re just worried about him--but he can take care of himself.”

“He doesn’t even know his social security number, Rhodey.” Pepper laughed, rolling her eyes as she grabbed her keys out of her purse. “I appreciate what you’re saying.”

“Listen, if we still don’t hear from Tony in a couple of weeks, I’ll look into it. How’s that sound?”

“Thanks James. Goodnight.” she said, closing the cab door and heading into her apartment building.

Maybe Pepper was just worried about Tony for no reason in particular. She was his assistant, she might even go as far to use the word friend to describe her boss--but not too often. The blonde went into her apartment and did her best to get her mind off of everything. She needed to go to work with a clear head.

Meanwhile, on the cab ride back to his own place, Rhodey was contemplating Pepper’s words. Sure, he’d said that she was just paranoid with her worry, but maybe she was onto something. Tony only telling Obadaih about what he was doing was odd--but there was no reason to jump to the conclusion that Pepper had. Nothing was wrong with Tony, of that Rhodey was certain. His friend was okay, and he’d believe that until he was proven otherwise.

“All the kids asleep?”

Tony’s voice startled you, causing you to jump in shock and turn to look at where he was standing in your doorway.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s fine. They’re all in bed. I doubt they’re all asleep yet. Joanna’s still reading.” you explained, nodding your head.

“So then, I guess this is where we sleep.” Tony gestured to your bedroom with a smirk on his face and then looked back at you.

“It’s where I sleep.” you replied, brushing past him to get into the room. You gathered up the spare bedding you’d had on the chair and turned to hand it to him.

“What? But we’re married.” Tony looked confused. He took the sheets from you, but still stayed where he was. “Don’t I sleep in here? With you?”

“You did. But then you decided to go out and get drunk and swim in the ocean, honey.”

“So I’m being punished for something I don’t even remember! How is that even fair?” Tony scoffed. Then, as if the thought just occurred to him, he added, “What are the kids going to think when they see me on the couch in the morning?”

“I think maybe, thank God daddy’s still home.” you answered with a pointed glare. It shut Tony up and he looked down at the sheets in his hands, the look on his face almost making you feel guilty for what you’d said and how you’d said it. “I’m sorry, that came out harsher than I...than it should have.”

“I’m going to go to bed.” Tony said, taking a couple of steps backwards before turning around and heading down the stairs.

Guilt rushing through you, you followed him and stood at the top of the stairs. “Tony.” you called quietly, which he turned around and looked at you. “I’m sorry, I really am.”

“Go to bed, Y/N. I’m fine.” he replied before heading down the rest of the stairs leaving you at the top of the stairs looking down at the path he’d taken and looking uncomfortable and guilty still.

You hadn’t expected to feel guilty and worried just the first night he was in the house.

Shaking your head you called down a goodnight before turning back and heading into your own room--tomorrow was a new day.

Things would go smoother tomorrow.

You hoped.

#tony stark x reader #marvel reader insert #tony stark au #mcu reader insert #tony stark x you #shipwrecked

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capnjay21 · 5 years

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bring walls down, hear my sound 3/3

Ten happy years after the events of 'the boy that stood by the sea', and Henry Cassidy is no longer the little boy he used to be. Unused to the unpredictability of raising a teenager, his sudden wayward behaviour becomes a source of mystery to all the adults in his life. When things begin to spiral out of control, Killian and Emma must decide what sort of parents, and partners, they wish to be - of course, where Neal Cassidy is involved, nothing is ever simple.

link to the boy that stood by the sea || ao3 || part one || part two

Rating: T A/N: So it's actually been two years since I updated this story. I'm not sure if any of my readers will still be around, or interested, but nonetheless I am excited to finally put the conclusion out into the world!

As it's been a while, I will reiterate the content warning for the last chapter which still applies - there is a discussion regarding a miscarriage Emma underwent a few years prior, which is an important event for her and Killian and in this narrative. As ever, please take care of yourselves, but I hope you decide to continue!

Now without further ado, here is my 13.5k finisher! (PS, I know Coney Island doesn't open in the winter, but please dispel that tiny bit of realism for this chapter!) Enjoy! <3

-/-

Henry has been in New York for four days.

Neal keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop, for him to decide to go home or for Killian to ring and demand that he be sent back to Boston — he’s more than aware he’s living on borrowed time. Truth be told, for the first time in a long while he really feels like he’s doing the parent thing, making sure the boy gets decent meals every day and leaving work early enough to come home and spend time with him.

In fact, he’s beginning to wonder what made this so hard ten years ago.

It was such a long time ago now, he remembers the sensations and emotions far more than how he actually behaved when Henry lived with him full time, before Emma had stolen his car and entered their lives. It had been such a colossal struggle, trying to balance his work life with Henry, all pushing boundaries and guilt, god, so much fucking guilt, until it had reached breaking point that night on a beach in Maine. No matter how hard he had tried, he just couldn’t reconcile the two things that he loved most, this little boy who had needed him there and this job, the only thing he had ever wanted before Henry was born. It had ended in him letting one of them go.

He doesn’t regret sending Henry to live with Killian permanently. That had always been the right decision. What he does regret is missing out on time spent with him; the lazy mornings and sun-soaked afternoons, the science projects and parent-teacher conferences. Neal never had a reason to go to the library without Henry tucked into his side, but then, he had to remind himself, it wasn’t like he’d been around enough to take the boy there when they were together. Although he gave both Killian and Emma a hard time on the phone after the yacht incident, he knows Henry had a better life with them than he could’ve ever given him.

He just can’t work out why. Now, it’s the easiest thing in the world. He can’t wait for the end of the day to come so he can be back at the flat playing video games, or taking him out to eat or touring him around the best attractions New York can offer. They’re making up for years of lost time, and he can’t bear to waste a single minute.

His priorities have shifted; he realises that now. Better late than never.

And god, it’s so much better.

If he could redo that decision on a beach in Maine, hell, every decision he’d ever made before that, it would not be the job that he would keep. Nor the boy he would lose.

That said, with this newfound clarity comes something else — maturity. At thirty-fucking-nine it’s about time. Henry is his son, sure, but four perfect days don’t make up for sixteen years of emotional and oftentimes physical unreliability. Killian is the one who had been there, Killian is the one who is probably sat at home in Boston worrying himself into the ground, thinking he isn’t worth it. Killian is the reason this boy is such a bright spark in Neal’s otherwise empty life.

Well. It doesn’t have to be empty. He just has to go home.

(And so does Henry.)

As long as he knows that, as long as he’s aware of it, it feels okay. But he doesn’t want to let go of this yet, these longing, desperate days. He wants to know how it feels to have everything.

“So, you got work today?” Henry says brightly around his cup of coffee, eyes wide and expectant.

It’s Monday. Neal has a conference in the morning, two meetings and a sales briefing.

“Nope,” he says, taking out his phone to text his assistant that he won’t be in. “Day off.”

“Wow.” Henry’s eyebrows have shot to his hairline. “I didn’t realise you had those.”

It’s not said bitterly, but it could well have been. It could have been and it would’ve been entirely fair. But Henry is sweet and good and always forgave him, even when he didn’t deserve it.

“Very funny,” Neal sticks out his tongue, setting a plate of scrambled eggs down in front of the boy. He reaches into the microwave and emerges with the cheese he’d melted ready to drizzle on top.

“Cheddar?” Henry queries.

“Gouda.”

The boy grins. “Good, I was just testing you.” He takes the bowl from him and begins to smother his eggs. Once he’s done, he uses a fork to begin mixing it all together. “So, what’s on the agenda for today then?”

It’s so easy, being with Henry like this. It’s so fucking easy, which is what makes this so fucking hard.

“Henry,” he starts, before hesitating. The tone of his voice probably alerts his son to the nature of what he wants to say, and he looks up from his breakfast. Neal merely meets his gaze sadly, lifting one shoulder in a half shrug. “When are you going home, kiddo?”

Henry’s face falls, and he looks younger than he has in four days. More like a little boy by the sea trying to make an impossible choice. “I thought we said no outsider —”

Neal shakes his head. “Not gonna work this time.”

They’ve spent days running in the opposite direction to their responsibilities, from the people who care about them — he supposes it’s a comfort, in a sense. In his quieter moments he’d always been afraid that when Henry became a man, he’d see nothing of himself in him; he just wishes he’d passed on a more redeeming quality than the tendency to ignore his problems with more conviction than he confronted them.

Whatever happened back in Boston, he has to face it. Neal can’t be the place that Henry runs to, as much as he wants days like this to never be over.

When Henry speaks, his voice is quiet, the furthest yet from the confident young man that turned up on his doorstep.

“Can’t this be home?”

A bachelor pad in the middle of New York City, the safe haven they’ve turned it into. Neal’s heart melts, if only under the weight of the knowledge that no, of course it can’t.

He smiles sadly. “You know I’d love nothing more.”

“Then let’s make it happen!” Henry urges.

Before Neal can reply, his cell begins to buzz across the countertop. For a terrifying moment he thinks it might be Killian, finally coming to hold him accountable, but the pair of them look over to see Tink’s name flashing across the screen. Neal’s stomach clenches tighter. God, he wants to be the responsible adult they all deserve, but fuck if it doesn’t make him feel like shit.

Wordlessly, he reaches over and turns off his phone. Henry watches the movement intently.

“Why aren’t you answering her?”

After all, they’ve already lifted their embargo on no-outsider-talk.

Neal readies himself to tell his son everything, but the words that leave his tongue don’t resemble the confession he had meant to impart.

“Do you remember that time I took you to Coney Island?”

Old habits die slow and brutal deaths.

Henry looks wary at the sudden switch of conversation, but he plays along. “I wasn’t big enough for most of the rides.”

The boy had only been eight, and a short eight-year-old at that, and the day had been such a dramatic failure that he couldn’t hand Henry back to Killian fast enough to break from the shame. Of course, Henry had babbled on about how amazing the cotton candy and the spectacle of the entire day had been, thanking his father profusely and Killian had looked suitably impressed. Neal didn’t dare confess to the contrary. Undoubtedly, Henry’s optimism and his father’s realism remember that day excruciatingly differently.

Neal shrugs. “You would be now, wouldn’t you?”

It’s a dare. They’ll see how long they can push this.

Henry grabs his coat, and they decide to keep running.

-/-

There was Emma, thinking her couch hopping days were finally behind her.

Thankfully, David and Mary Margaret’s couch is infinitely superior to any she’s put up with before.

Almost buried under an abundance of pillows and soft blankets as the white gold of morning begins to creep past the curtains, Emma is grateful she didn’t think to go anywhere else. Truthfully, the night prior is a blur. All she knows is it left a yawning hole in her chest, a dead weight that begged to be lifted but had settled rather firmly in the crevice where her heart usually lay. She’d gotten up to try and convince Killian to come back to bed, come back to her, and somehow it had ended with them spitting fire at each other about Henry, and then — well. Then it had been marriage and children and missed opportunities and apparently a colossally poor level of communication between them that she hadn’t even realised existed.

It’s exhausting to even think about. She feels emotionally drained, devoid of energy, and wants nothing more than to sink into the Nolans’ sofa and never emerge.

As a gentle knock sounds at the door, she senses this is not to be the case.

“Emma?” Mary Margaret pokes her head around the door, a tentative look on her face. When Emma merely grunts in response she slips inside, closing the door behind her with a gentle click. “I bring gifts,” she says, waving a mug topped with whipped cream in front of her as she comes to rest on the arm.

With great difficulty, Emma drags herself into a sitting position. “Is that cocoa?”

“With cinnamon,” Mary Margaret promises, and Emma eagerly reaches for the cup. “And cream. I thought I’d push the boat out for this one.”

“Please, don’t mention boats,” Emma grimaces, but thanks her friend fondly as she hands her the mug. Any kind of nautical reference is far beyond what she can handle right now. She takes her first sip and it’s warm, and heavenly. Mary Margaret had introduced her to the wonder of adding cinnamon to hot chocolate, but she’s yet to brew one that tastes even half as good as her friend’s.

Taking delicate sips from her own mug, Mary Margaret allows her this — a few peaceful minutes of silence, letting her make the first move. She’d never met anybody who treated her quite as tenderly as her, except perhaps Killian. With a jolt of nausea threatening to rise, she lowers her mug. Something was made tender by Killian last night, but it feels more like battle scars than hot cocoa.

“Do you want to talk?”

Emma sighs. It’s not as if she thought she could avoid this conversation (turning up with red-rimmed eyes on your best friend’s doorstep at nearly three in the morning did somewhat merit an explanation), but she was at least hoping to get in a few more hours of sleep.

“Not… really.”

Mary Margaret turns from where she is perched on the arm, angling her body towards her. “I take it you and Killian had a fight?”

Putting it mildly.

“It wasn’t just a fight,” Emma says tiredly, “it was the armageddon of fights. You could have measured it on the Richter scale, I mean it.”

Her friend’s expression twists with sympathy and Emma looks away, picking violently at loose threads on the blanket she’d been given. Even now, with her roots down and her life as settled as it’s ever been (the previous night notwithstanding) she isn’t comfortable with anyone, no matter how well intentioned, pitying her. It takes her right back to life in the system and teachers who were happy to condescend to her, but not to do anything about it.

Unaware of her ire, Mary Margaret continues. “What was it about?”

“Henry, me and him, just…” Emma waves an absent hand. “Everything.”

“Henry’s still in New York then?”

Emma nods. “And ever since he left — hell, before he left, with all that stuff with the yacht, Killian’s been totally… I don’t know, out of it. Not himself.” It feels good to tell someone, to hopefully find at least some validation in the way she’s been feeling; to have someone else recognise that things haven’t been right, Killian hasn’t been right, and it’s not all within her imagination. “And I tried to call him out on it and suddenly we were arguing about what terrible parents we’d make and the fact that we never got married.”

Mary Margaret’s eyebrows jump to her hairline. “Wow.”

Wow didn’t quite cover it, in Emma’s opinion.

“Bit of a one-eighty, right?”

Her friend hesitates for a moment, taking a small sip of her cocoa as she does so. “I’m not so sure.” At Emma’s surprised look, Mary Margaret’s gaze slips to her mug, as if trying to work out how best to put her thoughts into words. “Listen, I don’t know your relationship even half as well as you do, but it seems to me like… this is the first time you guys have ever really experienced each other without Henry.” She shrugs, a pensive rise in her shoulders. “The first time there isn’t a third variable to consider; it’s just the two of you. Maybe it’s just about finding a new rhythm.”

Emma turns over this new assessment in her mind. She’s spent weeks roiling in doubt, watching Killian slip further into himself, and last night had felt like the final challenge — she hadn’t been enough to bring him out of it, she’d just become collateral damage. Mary Margaret was right, throughout their entire relationship Henry had always been there. They’d fought before, sure, but they’d always had Henry to think of, and they’d never wanted to make the boy feel the way he had when she and Neal had been together. They kept everything as open and honest as they could, and she knew Killian always tried to explain things to him when they disagreed.

Their entire life together had been coloured by Henry. Wasn’t he their rhythm?

“After ten years of the old one?” Emma let out a long, uncertain breath. “I don’t know If we can, I feel like last night proved that.”

I just added it to the long list of things I was giving up because I wanted to be with you!

“We wouldn’t even be together if it weren’t for Henry, I know that much.”

Without Henry, her marriage to Neal would have just disintegrated with nothing to show for it but wasted time. Without Henry, Killian might never have entered her life. Without Henry, she might not have fought for her own little piece of happiness, she might never have recognised what she deserved.

Could she still do it without him?

“But if your relationship is so dependent on Henry…” Mary Margaret bites her lip. “I don’t want to say it, Emma.”

She doesn’t need to. “Maybe we shouldn’t be together at all.”

The mere notion of it takes the fight right out of her and she sinks back into the cushions. Her mind is abuzz with doubts and truths she refuses to acknowledge, and wordlessly her friend lifts the blanket and snuggles in beside her. Even in the midst of her heartache, her entire body warms as Mary Margaret wraps an arm around her shoulders and allows Emma to rest her head in the crook of her neck. She’s always been jagged edges to Mary Margaret’s softness, but maybe if she stays here long enough she can absorb some of her strength.

“I love both of you,” Mary Margaret says gently, “but your happiness is the most important thing. However you find it.”

I’m pregnant, she wants to tell her.

Instead she curls in closer, and begs the sun to stop rising.

-/-

“You look exhausted, mate.”

Killian rubs his eyes tiredly. “I didn’t sleep.”

Barely half an hour after Killian had informed the Rabbit Hole WhatsApp chat that he wouldn’t be coming in today without providing any further information, Robin had arrived on his doorstep armed with coffee and a full monty breakfast from the café down the street in his arms. Given the café down the street didn’t usually do breakfasts to go, Killian had regarded his friend with amusement and allowed him inside. It felt good to have somebody else in the apartment — it made the walls seem closer, the space not as empty as it had been throughout the night.

Currently, he sits only prodding at the meal hurriedly dumped onto a plate as Robin fusses around in his kitchen, filling two glasses with water before bringing them over. He had correctly deduced that coffee probably wouldn’t be conducive to productive brain function, not with how wired Killian already felt. Every time he shut his eyes he could see Emma, coat thrown over her dressing gown, the door clicking shut behind her. Sleep had been entirely unobtainable.

“Sounds like a hell of a bust up,” Robin says with sympathy, handing him the glass.

Dutifully, Killian takes a few large gulps. The liquid only gathers in his gut, churning, lending discomfort to his already turbulent, weary state. “It’s like I was floating above my body, you know?” he brushes his hair from his eyes, the strands greasy from being ruffled all night. God, he needs a shower. “I was watching myself saying these things that I didn’t mean and flinging them at her like — like somebody that isn’t me.”

Robin drops down into an armchair, watching him carefully. “Have you called her?”

His heart clenches.

“She asked me not to.”

“Well, you know women.” His friend’s mouth quirks upwards. “Whenever Regina tells me not to call her it’s only because she wants me to. Secretly, mind.”

Not Emma. Emma doesn’t play games. “Believe me; she doesn’t want me to call.”

The open hurt, the wide eyed-astonishment. The staggered look she sent him when she realised just what it was he’d said — all of it replays and replays unpleasantly like the scratch of a broken vinyl. Miserably, he stabs a rasher of bacon and shovels it in his mouth, not wanting to see the sympathy in Robin’s eyes. He doesn’t deserve it.

“Couples fight, Killian,” he offers gently, “it happens.”

He shakes his head miserably. “Not like this.”

Either Robin concedes or he just has no idea how to respond, the effect of which being they sit in silence for a few comfortable minutes. They both just watch Killian push the food around his plate with his fork, the only sound the scrape of the utensil against china. Fuck, he can’t do a single thing right. Henry, Emma — somehow he’s managed to drive them both away, and he has no clue how to fix it. At least he knows where Henry is, still safe in New York with Neal, but Emma? He could hazard a guess at her going to Mary Margaret’s, but she could just as easily have found herself in August’s apartment. A hot flush of jealousy unlike anything he’s felt in years surges up without his consent. August has never been a threat, Emma had assured him of as much the first and only time he’d ever gotten silly over it, but at that moment his every irrational thought is crawling for sunlight.

Gods, what is he doing now? Doubting her? What the bloody hell is wrong with him?

“Maybe it’s because of Henry.”

Wrapped up in his own thoughts, for a moment Killian had forgotten Robin was even there. At his bemused look, the other man shrugs and carries on.

“You know, him not being here. Perhaps your relationship has been about him for so long, it’s struggling now that he’s gone.”

Killian frowns. There’s some sound logic behind it, but it doesn’t sound right. It’s enough of an oddity to give him pause. “I don’t… I’m not really sure about that.”

“Makes sense, doesn’t it?” his friend continues, exuding a nonchalance that, if Killian is honest, slightly winds him up. “The only reason Marian and I stayed together so long was because of Roland. By the end, my feelings for her were built entirely around our son, it just took me a while to realise it.”

“But that’s different,” Killian insists, before he has a chance to even think it through.

Robin’s eyebrows raise as he lifts his glass to his lips. “How?”

“Because —” he falters, but the power of the words in his rebuttal surge forward regardless. “I love Emma. I fell in love with her for her, not Henry. Hell, she was married to my best friend. If I wanted something easy, some scapegoat for love, I wouldn’t have picked this.”

“But if it’s this hard,” Robin presses, shrugging lightly, “maybe it just isn’t meant to be.”

“I don’t believe that,” he says fiercely, sitting up straighter in his seat as he angles more towards his friend, agitation spurring his movements. “We should be together, Emma and I. All this — all this crap doesn’t change anything about how I feel.” In his distraction, one of his hands finds its way into his hair and runs through it, tugging sharply at the ends. “I love her. Her strength, her vulnerability — and I love her walls. I love being the one to break them down. It doesn’t matter that our journey has been slower than most, or more complicated than most, because we are always moving forward. We’ve fought for our love and we’ve won, and I am not giving up just because it got hard.”

If he had been paying attention to Robin, sitting on the opposite armchair, he might have noticed the way the other man’s grin widened, his eyebrows climbing closer to his hairline the more Killian rambles on. Once he’s done, Robin drains the rest of his glass and drops it down onto the table, spreading his hands.

“And you’re telling me this, because...?”

His friend’s mischievous expression is the only confirmation Killian needs that he’s been goaded into something. Still, he’s not sure he cares.

Robin helps himself to the remainder of his breakfast, while Killian practically falls over himself in his haste to get dressed and out the apartment.

-/-

After some persuading, Mary Margaret finally convinces her to eat something and even ushers her into some fresh clothes as the morning wears on. The frilly collared cardigans of Mary Margaret’s wardrobe aren’t exactly her style, but at least they fit — she’d left her flat in only a coat and her dressing gown, and although that worked reasonably well for her escape at two in the morning, she can’t imagine going back dressed the same way.

God, going back. Emma doesn’t even know how to consider it.

Unfortunately, with it being a Monday morning, Mary Margaret has a class to teach at Hopper’s Elementary and only has time to ensure Emma manages to force down a bagel before she regrettably departs, but David has the morning off and she is assured she can stay as long as she wants. The man seems to sense she isn’t in a particularly talkative mood, and keeps her company in silence after trading a few polite enquiries about Henry’s wellbeing — he’d been one of the first people they’d called when they discovered him missing, so it’s only natural he should be anxious to know the boy is okay. Grateful for the company, she answers his questions as best as she can without letting her heart seize too much.

After a few hours of warm distractions, watching re-runs of Friends on the Nolan’s ancient television set, the buzzer for the apartment goes.

David sends her a reassuring smile as he stands, heading over to the intercom.

“Who is it?”

“David?” Killian’s voice stutters to life over the static, and Emma’s chest tightens uncomfortably. “It’s Killian, sorry to disturb you. I was hoping — is, erm, is Emma there?”

David looks to her apprehensively, ready to take his cues from her. She doesn’t want to talk to Killian, not with her conversation with Mary Margaret so fresh and with so little time to prepare herself. Still, it would feel worse to lie. Emma merely shrugs, helplessly, and David scratches the back of his head

“She — uh, she doesn’t really want to talk right now, Killian,” he settles on, biting his lip.

“That’s — that’s okay,” Killian continues hesitantly. “I mean, it’s fine. Would it be alright if I just — talked?”

David turns to her again, but she doesn’t know what to tell him. She’s more than acquainted with how determined Killian can be when he wants to, and if she’s honest there are very few things she can think of that he can say that would be worse than the night before. It seems only mildly ludicrous to have their first interaction after the argument be over the intercom at David and Mary Margaret’s apartment, but she can’t help it — she can’t face him, not yet. Not when she is still trying to decide how she feels.

“I’ll just talk and she can listen, or — or she can not, if she doesn’t want to, but I’ll be here, outside, just… talking.” After a moment’s hesitation, David locks the switch that keeps the line open. Taking that as some kind of affirmation, Killian clears his throat. “So, uh, here I go.”

David, ever the considerate one, gives some weak excuse for re-arranging the shelves in his bedroom, but Emma’s arm shoots out to stop him. She could do with the support; she doesn’t want to listen to this alone in case she isn’t ready for what he wants to say. Without a word, David drops down onto the sofa beside her.

“I, erm, I didn’t sleep,” the voice crackles through the speaker. “Not a wink after you left, I couldn’t. That’s not relevant. Ugh, I, um.” He lets out a sharp, frustrated sound. “Listen, a friend helped me realise — or, he reminded me, I don’t know — that a man unwilling to fight for what he wants deserves what he gets. So maybe I deserve to lose you because I don’t know who I’ve been fighting for these last couple of weeks — because it hasn’t been you, and it hasn’t been Henry.”

He pauses, and Emma listens intently. David links their fingers together.

“I’ve been a damned fool, Emma, I’ve been a coward and I’ve let my demons get the better of me. It’s like you said — you said children need to make mistakes in order to find out what matters to them, but I’m prepared to argue that kind of self-education carries well into adult life. Because you matter to me, Emma. I love you. I have loved you since the first night you yelled at me and I love you all the more for continuing to do so when I’m being a prat. These past ten years have been the best of my life, and there isn’t a thing I would change.”

Emma shakes her head fiercely, reaching her hand up to cover her eyes as she knows they must be watering. He did want things to be different, that’s what he said. Apparently, he’d spent ten years giving things up for her, compromising for her, and the idea that she’d been holding him back from some great happiness is perhaps what had shaken her the most. They were in this together, that’s what she’d thought. Killian doesn’t stop, however, uncertainly continuing to speak over the intercom, the tendrils of his voice clutching tight around her heart.

“I know that, given my behaviour last night, you may believe me to be speaking in untruths, but I swear I’m not. Every single decision, every single moment has led us to where we are now and that place means everything to me. I’m not unhappy. I’m not unsatisfied, quite the opposite. And I’m sorry if I ever made you think otherwise.”

The speaker crackles, a little bit of distortion as he collects himself.

“I’ll never stop fighting for us. Never again. I — I hope you know that.”

Silence, and David pulls Emma close, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

“So anyway, I guess, uh, feelings shared. You can go back to... Friends, I suppose, given it’s a Monday morning. Or maybe David and Mary Margaret don’t like Friends. I never asked. Bloody hell. I’m - I’ll go now. Just,” he sighs again into the speaker, “come home soon, my love.”

She slowly disentangles herself from David, and reaches for her coat.

-/-

After lyrically vomiting into the intercom system, Killian doesn’t really know what to expect.

He’d hoped, of course, for some kind of reaction or response, but he’s never been one to push for it where Emma is concerned. When it became evident that no answer would be forthcoming from the speaker, he had reluctantly stepped away; only becoming more embarrassed once he realised a man poking through his mailbox for a suspiciously long time had, in all likelihood, listened to the entire spiel. Face entirely aflame, Killian had departed the building out into the early Boston morning.

It had rained the night before, the entire street awash with muddied concrete and the stench of wet asphalt, but Killian isn’t ready to go home yet. Point of fact, he’s just declared he won’t be giving up on he and Emma without a fight, so returning to his apartment would appear to nullify the entire notion. He thinks about stopping somewhere for a coffee, but after patting his jacket down he belatedly realises he didn’t bring his wallet out with him. After Robin’s needling he had been so fired up that he hadn’t exactly considered that Emma might not be ready yet for what he had to say. He only knew he was desperate to say it.

For lack of a better idea, he sits down on the kerb.

Considering his options, he waits, staring out into the city traffic and remembering the first time they met, the distrust to the chorus of car horns and loud, angry pedestrians in front of Henry’s old school. It’s only a few blocks from here, where Mary Margaret works. He muses on walking there and back just to clear his head a little, to observe how much of it might have changed in the last ten years, but just as he’s convinced himself it would be a good way to procrastinate, the door to the building opens behind him.

His eyes lock with Emma’s, sparkling jade and bright with unshed tears, red-rimmed, and he immediately jumps to his feet. Uncertain of what to expect, he just waits for her to speak. When she does, it’s with a gentle tremble in her bottom lip, after she takes a shuddering breath.

“I don’t want to stop fighting for us either.”

When Killian steps forward to fold her tightly into his arms, she returns the embrace with equal vigour.

-/-

Luna Park boasted only a smattering of attendees, January not exactly a conducive time for regular theme-park goers, but the crowds were substantial enough to hide Neal and Henry from each other. They had spent over an hour amongst the rides, swapping only idle chatter and suggestions for what they should do next, a dead weight hanging over them like a cloud from the overcast day descending into the city. Neal knows what he has to say, Henry is waiting for him to say it. Their conversation at breakfast hovers between them, unresolved and deadly.

It's a stark contrast to how the last few days have been — at least he thinks it is. Maybe all along they were aware there was an expiration date on easy.

As the clock edges nearer to midday, Henry is leading his father through the crowd in the direction of the Ferris Wheel, boasting about how cool it would be to be sat on the top on exactly the stroke of twelve, but Neal catches hold of his hand and slows him to a stop. He suggests taking a break by the beach instead, and Henry reluctantly agrees; they both know what happens when they talk.

It isn’t the same as that beach in Storybrooke.

The breeze from the ocean stings with the sharp bite of winter, and the sand underfoot is far thinner and grainier than Maine had offered. Although almost deserted, the distant sounds of the park quietening behind them, a few gulls flock towards the edge of the coast, rising and falling with a flutter as the tide washes in, and out. It’s enough to bring back the memory of watching his boy ask for something he couldn’t provide, and it’s enough to spur him into action.

Henry stares out into the ocean, hands in his pockets, expression unreadable.

After a few moments they sit, uncaring for the way they disturb the sand.

“I am glad you came to me when you needed somewhere to go,” Neal starts, and it’s as safe a place as any. “That after all this time you can still trust me.” Even if he doesn’t deserve it. “But I do want to know why — and I need to know why because I trust Killian and Emma to be your home, to take care of you, and if they aren’t doing that then I can change it. Just say the word Henry and I will change it.”

Killian and Emma are twice the parents he will ever be, but if Henry breathes a word about not wanting to be with them — he would raise hell on earth to make it happen.

“They’re fine,” Henry says quietly, to Neal’s surprise. The boy picks up a stick from the sand and begins to push patterns into it. “They’re great, they always have been.”

Neal shakes his head, not understanding. “Then why did you come?”

Henry mimics his uncertainty. “I wanted — I wanted to get to know you. You as a person, as Neal. Not this… this thing that towered over me for years.” Neal swallows, and Henry finally turns to look at him. His chestnut eyes are round and as open as they have ever been. “You terrify me, do you know that?”

Whatever he had imagined Henry might say, it certainly wasn’t that.

The beach, in Maine. The rush and fall of the waves. He can hear himself responding to that very fear as if it were yesterday, and not ten years prior.

I’m sorry. Henry I’m sorry, I don’t want you to be scared. I’m an… I’m a massive idiot.

“You had so much power over me for so long,” Henry continues, and Neal realises how much easier it is to stare out into the sea than to truly acknowledge what his boy is saying. “I would have done anything to impress you, I agreed with anything you said. I wanted you to like me. I wanted you to want to keep me.”

Neal hangs his head.

“I love Killian and Emma so much, but you? God, I can’t even explain it.”

“I get it,” his father says quietly.

Henry finally turns to look at him, his mouth curved in a doubtful line. “Do you?”

“Henry, you could be describing verbatim how I talk about my old man.”

That family fucking resemblance he’d always been hoping for; there it was.

Neal knows how it feels to fight and fight when the other person isn’t fighting back. The realisation that he wasn’t, that he couldn’t, is what made him let Henry go in the first place.

“Tink is pregnant.”

Henry tenses up at his side. Neal’s gaze drops down to the sand, not realising he’d been curling her name into the earth with his finger. Fuck, he loves her. Like he’s never loved anyone. And this is how he’s treating her?

“She hasn’t told me yet, not officially. But I found her test. It’s why I’m out here,” signing up for every conference and meeting on the other side of the country that he could, “I’m scared shitless, buddy.”

Henry opens his mouth. “Dad—”

“I fucked up so badly before — you know that, right?” He’s almost afraid to hear the answer. “That was all on me. I couldn’t be there for you growing up because I wasn’t ready, I made shitty choices. I was selfish. And do you know what the worst part is?” Mutely, Henry shakes his head. “I gave up on us.”

The moment he’d realised just how tricky this balance was going to be, he’d given up. Maybe Henry had a better life because of it — he liked to think that. Of course, he’d never really know. Still, when he looks across at Henry now, a healthy boy with a heart the size of the entire state, it’s impossible not to recognise that something incredible has taken place.

He feels the humiliating sting of something behind his nose, so he turns his gaze back to the skyline and the gulls that sweep across the tide.

“And I missed the whole goddamn show. You’re perfect, Henry. You’ve never needed to impress me.” Neal tries valiantly to keep the tremor from his voice, but isn’t entirely certain he succeeds. “The fact that you’re sitting here, a whole person who can love and forgive as easily as you do blows my fucking mind, and it all happened without me.”

Henry shifts from where he sits, sending a scatter of sand up into the air.

“It wasn’t —” he starts.

“Not again,” Neal continues firmly. Determinedly. “Never again. I’m going to be there for this kid and for Tink, every fucking step of the way. I’m ready now and I — I think I needed you to help me realise I could do it. Thank you, Henry.”

When the silence stretches for a few, painful beats too long, he considers how he might have better phrased that particular confession. Once he looks over at Henry, the boy barely meets his eyes for a second before turning away, shaking his head as he roughly stumbles to his feet.

“I have to go.”

Neal blinks in surprise. “Henry?” He’s already halfway up the beach before he can stand. “Henry, wait!” Although he jogs back up to the entrance of the park, Henry’s signature scarf has already disappeared into the crowd.

Shit.

-/-

"When was the first time I yelled at you?"

Emma speaks quietly into his chest, although he can feel her smile in the curve of her mouth pressed against him. Killian edges the sheet further down the bed, baring Emma’s back so he can continue to trace absent star patterns into the slope of her spine. They speak only in low tones, neither wanting to disturb this bubble of peace they have finally won; warm, sated, and basking in the late morning sun.

He smiles at her question, pausing before answering just long enough to press a kiss to the top of her head.

“I’m surprised you don’t remember,” he says amusedly. “Let’s see. I came by to Neal’s apartment with Henry, we’d known each other for — oh, I don’t know. A few months, maybe more? I wanted to see if you could babysit because I’d been lumbered with an extra shift at work.”

“Oh god, right,” Emma shifts as she remembers, pressing her lips briefly to his bare shoulder. “It was the day Neal and I moved into our new place, and I was locked out.” She gives him an apologetic look. “I was such a monster to you, I’m sorry.”

Killian chuckles gently. “You weren’t a monster.” Emma merely raises an eyebrow. “Perhaps a little monstrous. But I got a free cake out of it, so you won’t hear me complaining.”

“A vanilla apology cake.”

“My favourite kind.” Killian tugs her closer and she obliges, curling her leg over his beneath the sheet. “You looked so beautiful that night. Sitting in the Rabbit Hole with Henry asleep on your lap. You were just — I realised you were everything I hadn’t known I wanted. Until you drove away to the home of my best friend.”

Instead of replying, Emma straightens up. Killian lets her go, hand drifting down her back to rest near her hip, and she bites her lip. Something she usually does when she’s uncertain. When her eyes flicker to his, he knows.

“Killian.”

Abruptly Killian stands, reaching for their discarded clothes.

“That’s a tone that suggests I’ll need pants for this conversation.”

She takes the shirt he holds out to her and slips it over her head. “I think if last night taught us anything… we’ve been misunderstanding each other for a while. So let’s just — talk. Communicate.” Killian re-joins her on the bed, pausing slightly to brush some of her loose hair behind her ear. It shines in the dusty sunlight. “That’s what healthy couples do, right?”

“Definitely needed pants.”

Emma laughs despite herself, but shoots him a look warning him to take this seriously. So he takes a deep breath, and after a few moments he decides to go first.

“I… love the life that we’ve built together. What I said today — I meant it. But if it’s possible to have it all with you, I do want it.” Emma nods, urging him to continue as she brushes a hand down his arm. “I want to move out of the city. Get a house somewhere. A white picket fence, a stunning view of the sea — I want that. I want to marry you, have a kid of our own, maybe two if it's not too late. I love you, Emma,” he assures her, “but I want to share more than just this place and a bank account.”

When he finally turns his gaze back to her, he can see the sad crease in her brow.

“And you assumed I wouldn’t want those things too.”

He hangs his head. “I’m sorry.”

“You hurt me yesterday.”

“I know,” he says quietly, reaching for her hand and bringing it to his mouth to kiss. “I’m so sorry. I was a fool, and I never should have kept these things to myself, let alone exploded at you. It was bad form.”

Emma watches him before nodding, firmly. “Okay.” He turns her hand over to kiss her palm. “I forgive you.” It lands with gravity, and a tension he didn’t even know he had been harbouring releases itself. “My turn.”

Killian moves to let go of her hand, but Emma holds on tightly.

“Six years ago, I was pregnant.”

Killian’s heart stops. “Love, you don’t have to —”

“I was pregnant and I didn’t tell you because I didn’t know how you were going to react, I was trying to find the right moment…” Emma winces, shaking her head. “And I left it too late.”

He wants to say something, anything, to find the right words to reassure her — but none will come. Instead he feels suspended, his pulse racing. They’ve never spoken about it out loud, not a single word. In moments he is back in the waiting room at the ER, confused and distressed and waiting for her to return, to tell him what happened, instead of letting him make inferences.

Don’t make me go through this again.

“We lost a child, Killian.”

She grips his hand tighter, and he watches as a single tear curves its way down her cheek.

"Our child."

It isn't like he hadn't known. From the moment he lifted her from the bathroom floor he had known, somewhere in his restless heart, the truth she refused to confirm. Knowing it, though, and feeling it; they had always been entirely separate entities.

Henry had been ten. As emotionally mature as he had always been, it had still taken him a while to come to the same realisation that Killian had the moment he left the hospital; that Emma wasn't quite okay. When he'd started to pry, Killian had packed him off on a three week holiday to California with Neal, at little protest from both parties. By the time he'd gotten home he had forgotten the whole thing, and Emma was almost back to her old self.

Killian hadn't allowed himself to consider, truly consider, just what had happened that day; in the months that followed Emma's accident he had forced himself to focus on her, on Henry, on his every effort to get their lives back to normal. Henry made it to school on time, Emma found herself spoiled by date nights, surprise gestures, anything to divert attention from the way she had withdrawn into herself. His iron focus had allowed him to leave his own grief behind and blame it on Emma's reluctance to talk.

That had been a coward's way out, and on some level he had always known that.

In his dreams, he did things differently. In his quieter moments, he had found himself down the dizzying path of considering the way things might have happened, if fate had been a little kinder.

(In his heart, a little girl turned six last June.

She had golden hair and eyes like forget-me-nots.)

Emma's nails dig into his palm and he is wrenched back to the present.

"I want you to understand something," she is saying, and he pulls himself back to focus on her words, "you can't predict these things. It was nothing you did, it was nothing I did. It wouldn't have helped if you'd known."

Killian feels a gasp of air dart for escape through his throat; he thinks he might have been holding onto that breath for six years.

Emma wipes her eyes with the sleeve of his borrowed shirt. "I'm sorry I never told you that.”

Killian nods silently. When he doesn't speak, she slides across the bed to him, and his arm instinctively reaches around her shoulders. "Okay?" she presses.

"Okay."

"But most of all I — I am so sorry for never letting you grieve. For closing myself off, for letting it go unsaid." He would catch her staring out of windows, not responding until the third time he called her name. More often than not he found her curled up with a blanket on the sofa rather than in bed beside him, the distance between them substantially more than a couple of rooms apart. “We should have done this together.”

“Aye,” he murmurs, and he kisses a tear from the corner of her mouth, “we should have.”

They talk for a long time after that. For how long exactly, Killian couldn't say, he only watches as the sun slowly sinks to kiss the top of the Boston skyline, casting longer shadows across the bed. Their bed, their life. The life that had taken a decade to build, with a foundation far stronger than the demolition attempted the night before.

“We’ve been doing this all wrong,” he whispers into her shoulder, as the afternoon fades into beams of orange light.

Emma turns to him curiously. “What do you mean?”

It’s with determination that he faces her now, with the fight that had left him the moment he awoke to find Henry’s untouched bed.

“Let’s go get our son.”

-/-

It’s just gone 8pm by the time Emma’s beaten up bug has gotten them to New York, and Neal had been frantic as he opened the door to them.

“He’s gone,” he had said, “he won’t answer his phone. I’ve already called the police.”

Although her stomach had plummeted, her steadfast grasp on Killian had been all she needed to keep a level-head. If she paused for one second to consider the multitude of disastrous scenarios that could have happened to Henry after he left Neal on the beach she’s certain the sheer power of that tide would overwhelm her — perhaps the same could be said for Killian. Perhaps it was a testament to how far they had come over the last twenty-four hours that he immediately took charge, barking orders for Neal to check the public library one more time while he and Emma combed four blocks in every direction from his apartment.

For all his absence over the last few weeks, his confidence is like a sedative to the swell of panic within her.

She can’t stop thinking about the time the boy had vanished as they watched the Christmas lights turn on. Only that time Emma had miraculously found him happily perched on a hotdog stand, waving about his new light up sword and pretending to be King Arthur to the amusement of the vendor.

(Enquiries were made at various stands she came across. None had seen a lanky brunette in his teens skulking about.)

Her phone buzzes, and Emma reaches out a hand to give Killian pause as she checks, hoping it will be from Henry but certain it’s from Neal.

Nothing at library. No1 seen a kid. Whats the plan??

“He’s not there,” she winces. If possible, Killian’s expression turns even grimmer. “Now what? We’ve already checked all his old haunts.” Henry hadn’t lived in New York for many years, not since Neal had moved to California, so their best idea had been his favourite places to go when he was much younger.

Killian rubs his face with one hand, and it’s that moment Emma realises how unbelievably tired he must be. His eyes are tinted red and rimmed with dark circles, and exhaustion has aged him beyond his years. Even his skin appears sallower than normal. Guilt claws at her when she considers he was probably up half the night much like she was, and she can’t help but feel responsible.

Emma reaches for his hand, squeezes tight. “Maybe we should head back to Neal’s apartment. He’s bound to head back there eventually — and if his phone is dead then it’s better we’re there.”

“If something unspeakable hasn’t happened to him already.”

Unspeakable is certainly the word for it.

“This is my fault,” Killian laments, “if I hadn’t been so bloody stubborn he could have been home days ago. I’m a sodding idiot.”

“If you are then we all are,” Emma insists. “Henry is our responsibility.” Not just Killian’s, not just Neal’s. Theirs. “And we’d be better off just working as the team we should’ve always been instead of wasting time blaming ourselves and each other.”

Somewhere along the way they had splintered, and the fractures had found their way to Henry — the very storm they had believed they were protecting him from had found its epicentre in their insecurities and their inability to communicate. The only thing left to do was make a course correction and continue to try their best. Realise their mistakes, move forward.

Pray they aren’t too late.

“I just wish we’d come here sooner. I wish I hadn’t driven him away to start with.” He sighs heavily, turns back the way they’ve come. “But you know what they say, if wishes were horses—”

“Beggars wouldn’t bother making wishes?”

Even as she says it, the lightning bolt of realisation crashes into her with a force that has her tugging back on Killian’s hand to stop him in his tracks.

She knows exactly where Henry is.

-/-

Even at night, the plaza is packed with people. Tourists huddle together and alternate between staring up at the entrance to the library, lit with large floodlights that winked in and out for a display, and watching the fountain spurt behind them. Many stand at its edge, offering pennies into its depths for the opportunity to ask for something in return.

It’s no wonder Neal would have missed him as he charged into the building — he’d never really known Henry to be more interested in what the waters might offer than the curling pages of a beloved tome, but Emma remembered. At a time in the boy’s life when she hadn’t really known how much she could lay a claim to, this spot had been theirs. Fleeting, gentle, but full of hope.

The three of them scan the crowd frantically — and it feels as if they all lay eyes on him at the exact same moment. Henry is perched on the edge of the fountain, hands gripping the stone on either side of him, body angled towards the water. An immense wave of relief rushes through Emma once she recognises him, and she considers how achingly long it feels since she saw him last. So much felt like it had changed even as she tried to claw her way into keeping it the same.

Killian takes her hand; she knows he must sense it too.

His lips part as they approach, a deep breath being drawn in. Yet it’s only a soft word that comes out. “Henry —”

“What the hell were you thinking, running off like that?!” Neal brushes past them furiously, and Henry visibly starts at the sudden intrusion on wherever his mind had been wandering. It’s a staccato movement that pulls him right back in front of them. “I have been worried out of my mind for you! You could have been kidnapped, you could have died, anything could have—!"

Neal cuts himself off for the sheer horror of it, and Henry takes the pause as an opportunity to bite.

“You’d have noticed, then?”

It’s light, but it’s a thinly veiled accusation. For a moment Emma considers that there is more to the past few days than Neal has told them.

Neal, for his part, appears to stifle a retort. His hands clench and unclench at his sides.

He settles for a warning. “Don’t you ever do that to me again.”

Henry lets out a puff of air, a frustrated noise, his body angling away from his father in a visible snub. As his eyes start to sweep the crowd Emma can feel the hairs on the back of her neck stand to attention, as the boy’s gaze lands on she and Killian. If he is surprised he does a good job of hiding it. It lasts scarcely a second, his eyes flickering first from her to Killian, before turning determinedly back into the fountain.

Killian, after squeezing her hand once, lets go.

He closes the distance and sits beside the boy.

Henry flinches away, shuffling an inch in the other direction.

“Please, just leave me alone.”

“I want to talk.” Killian’s response is quiet, but firm.

“I don’t.”

“Henry…” Neal admonishes from his position at the side, and Emma finds herself frowning at the tone — since when did Neal become that parent? The one advocating respect and chastising for the contrary?

It doesn’t feel — earnt.

Maybe she is being unfair.

Henry looks up at him sharply, eyes narrowed. “You don’t get a say in what I do.”

Neal gapes for a few moments, before his expression sinks into something apologetic he directs at Killian — Killian acknowledges the attempt with a barely perceptible nod, but his attention is entirely on Henry.

“I’m sorry.” In the piercing January air, his words turn to ghosts. “For the things I said before. They were spoken in anger and not a day will go by I won’t regret them.” For all his sincerity, Henry continues to stare forcefully into the water. Emma had always found Killian impossible to ignore, not when he was light and soft and steady, but the boy doesn’t appear to have much trouble doing just that.

“Will you look at me, please? Henry?”

She watches Henry not even react, lashes low and downcast; watches the concerned edge begin to furrow Killian’s brow, his confidence rapidly deteriorating, and she’s about to step in when suddenly all she can think about are the gimmicks they would use when Henry was a kid. How one time he refused to listen to any instruction from either parental figure unless it was spoken like Yoda, how they’d adopted it into their every conversation until Henry frustratingly couldn’t get any help with his homework without talking in circles and he’d begged them to stop. How they had begun starting every sentence with ‘please’ and ending them with ‘thank you’ to freak Neal out by pretending new Massachusetts state grammar laws demanded it.

Emma considers these, and reaches into her jacket for her cell phone.

Moments later, Henry’s pocket begins to vibrate. Once he pulls out his cell and frowns at the screen, his shoulders twitch, as if he were resisting the urge to turn and face her. After a few pensive seconds he slides his thumb across the screen and lifts it to his ear.

“It’s the glass, isn’t it?” she says immediately.

Henry’s pause is dubious. “Excuse me?”

“The partition,” she continues, “the reason you’re not hearing us. We have to use the phones or we can’t talk through the glass.”

The boy’s shoulders drop and she hears a long exhale through the speaker, like a breath of laughter. He understands.

“I’m not in prison, Emma.”

“You got arrested, didn’t you?”

“And you think I’d waste my phone call on you?”

Emma smiles although she knows he’s not looking. “Wentworth Miller was busy.” She doesn’t want to lose this brief bite of connection, so she hurries to continue. “I used to bring you out here when we were in NYC together, remember? I’d tell you to wish your problems away.”

Finally, Henry turns. His gaze lifts and his eyes lock on her. He’s hurting. She can see it. Can feel it in her bones.

“Yeah.”

“Did it work?”

Henry lifts his shoulder in a shrug. “I don’t have a penny.”

Without a word, Killian rummages in his pocket and finds one, holding it out to him. After a moment, and watching only his outstretched hand, Henry takes it.

“Talk to us,” Emma pleads.

The seconds extend like an unfurling bloom; slow, and heavy with anticipation.

Then, by some miracle, he begins to talk.

“It was so easy before. Making wishes, I mean. I know you probably thought I was wishing for a new bike or a trip to Disneyland or… I don’t know. Stuff kids want.” Like raindrops, what begins as a few drops slowly develops into a downpour, as he turns the penny over and over in his hand and keeps his gaze firmly fixed upon the water. “And don’t get me wrong, I wanted those things. But I didn’t wish for them.”

Emma doesn’t want to interject, but she had never felt as if he were wishing for something as trivial as a bike. Not when he had held those pennies in his tiny hands like they were precious stones, as if he carried more value in his palm than a thousand gold bars. Henry had always been wishing for something more profound — she had known it like she knew the curve of his smile.

“Wishes were too — too important for those things. So I did what I’ve always done,” Henry scratched the back of his neck as he paused. “I listened to you. All of you. None of you ever stood by the fountain like I did, and it didn’t seem fair, so I listened to your wishes so that I could make them for you.”

He hadn’t understood half of them at the time, he says, but he lists a few — for Neal to close an important deal, for Killian to find the perfect birthday present for Liam, for Emma to catch the ‘bad guy’ she was looking for. Emma watches, stunned, as he lists the exact conditions of a case she had decided to gently let Henry in on that she had forgotten completely about; it was near on seven years ago that she had sought out the bail jumper Ryan Marlow, but here Henry was pitching her the particulars in perfect detail. Henry, who had been wishing ardently for her success at age nine, with a penny she had picked out of her purse.

“Happy endings,” he says quietly, “over, and over, and over. I was obsessed with them.”

A beloved tome, the curling pages of Once Upon a Time clutched tightly to his chest for years.

He doesn’t have to remind them.

“But to me, a real happy ending needed certain… well, conventions, I suppose. A wedding, a kid, a perfect home in a castle in the country.”

Killian’s words ring in her mind, and as if he knows the direction of her thoughts the man’s eyes rise to meet hers, and she notes the usual brilliant blue has been usurped by a duller, ashen colour. She feels the same tight clutch inside she knows he must, a softer yearning, the paralysis of something sweet and sad all at once.

A white picket fence, a stunning view of the sea.

How alike the pair of them are, even now.

Henry’s brows have knitted together. “I’m not a kid anymore, I know — better than anyone — that the world doesn’t work that way. But in a way, none of you got any that. Hell, you and Killian have been together for a decade and you still live in Killian’s bachelor pad. And then I realised the common denominator.” His shoulders appear to quiver, and Emma notices a muscle in Killian’s right wrist twitch, as if it had wanted to reach out to him. She herself wants nothing more than to rush forward, wipe the concerns away from him as if he were six again and had merely scraped his knee. “You’ve spent so much of your lives putting me first that the most you hoped to wish for was less traffic at the intersection on 23rd Street. And that just — it just —”

He is mute for a moment, words slipping out and away before he can form them, and Emma realises with a jolt that what she had mistaken for a kind of melancholy was in fact fury. Henry trembled with minute rage; at the penny in his hand, the fountain in front, at the stars concealed by the dark curtain of night above them.

“God, it was so frustrating to realise. Mortifying, even. And every good thing you did just made it worse. Every kind word, every thoughtful gesture.” He lets out a heavy breath. “It was like drowning in lukewarm water.”

So he stayed out late with some friends. He walked the length of the wharf, twice, before picking the prettiest, sturdiest yacht he could find and barking instructions for how to get it out of the harbour for those who dared to follow. For the wild, outrageous, cleverness of it. For the joy and the heartache of nostalgia and the wind in his hair and the way Violet Mogan’s cheeks had flushed when she laughed.

For the way that Killian had arrived at the precinct, powerful yet immensely disappointed.

Got everything? He had asked, quietly. Let’s go.

“I just thought if I could get you to stop looking at me like I hang the sun, then it might not be too late for you to build something together. Not a castle, maybe, but something just as strong. And I have Dad,” he flickered his gaze at the other man, before dropping it back bitterly to the penny in his palm. “Or I thought I had Dad. Turns out my wish for him was the only one that came true.”

It’s a quill, Daddy says it’s magic. It’s for telling stories. He says I have to write him a happy ending.

“Just a little too late for me.”

There is the chime of nail on copper, and in the space of two heartbeats the penny arcs into the fountain with a gentle plop.

No one seems to know what to say.

Henry drops the phone from his ear and jabs at it with his thumb, cutting off the call with Emma. She had forgotten they were still connected that way at all, how rapt her attention had been on him.

And all she can think is — what an idiot.

She realises she must have said it aloud as all three of the men before her startle; Henry from his perch on the fountain, Killian from beside him and Neal standing a few feet from them.

Hastening to clarify before more hurt feelings are thrown around, she doubles down.

“I just mean — Henry, your logic is way off. We’re your parents.” All three, no matter how distant. “We are always going to look at you like you put the sun there, even when you’re at your most bratty. That’s love, kid. We love you.” It was easy to say, now, easier to admit than it had been for most of her life. But then, this was the boy who had taught her how to do it. “Nothing you can do will change that, not boat stealing or,” she scrambles for something else, “or even hanging out with that little shit Malcolm.”

“Language,” Henry responds instinctively. At Emma’s exasperated stare a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. They thought they had been losing Henry — in that instance she realises he had been there all along. “He is a bit of an asshole.”

Emma crosses the distance between them, kneeling down in front of the boy and taking his hand firmly. Perhaps on another day he would’ve been embarrassed, a sixteen-year-old holding hands with an adult like that, but in the force of the last few days he just clutches her back tightly.

“But you’re right,” Emma continues seriously. She won’t do him the disingenuity of trying to claim a falsehood now. “There are steps Killian and I haven’t taken. Important ones. As it happens, we’ve been misunderstanding each other for a long time now.” With her free hand, she reaches for Killian, finding his fingertips already reaching back for her. “But that’s nothing to do with you. Do you get that?”

Henry nods, but the movement is hesitant.

“I mean it, kid. Look at me. Do you understand?”

He does. A visible weight seems to lift. Maybe he just needed someone to say it out loud.

To her surprise, Neal settles down on his haunches beside her, gentle in a way she is unaccustomed to seeing from him. Like he can sense the gravity of a moment and he doesn’t wish to disturb it — like a beach in Maine, and a little boy who had asked so quietly for what he wanted that his father had given it without reproach.

Turns out my wish for him was the only one that came true.

“Henry,” he picks up where Emma has left off, “I’m — you clearly needed someone this week, and all you got was this giant… playmate.” He considers himself with an air of obvious frustration. “And then I made it worse. You’ve never needed to try hard for me, you know that, right? You’re number one.” He lifts a single finger to illustrate it. “You’re number one. And about earlier…”

Emma does not know what happened earlier, Neal had been light with the details; just that they had been at Luna Park and Henry had run off. Whatever it was, the weight is palpable as Henry stiffens a little before her.

“You left before I could finish. Yeah, I’m going to be a dad again, but you know what that means? You’re going to be a brother.”

Henry blinks; like he hadn’t even considered it.

“And that was something I was really hoping you’d want to be.”

Neal bites his lip, waiting for his son’s reaction.

He needn’t have worried. Henry was warmth, and love, and he always would be.

“I do,” he said, then softer, “I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” Neal smiled ruefully. “I always am with you.”

The air bristles with something unsaid, and Emma stands. Maybe Neal also senses it because he too moves away, and as casually as she can she looks to Killian now for his thoughts. Silent as he had been throughout the exchange, his mood is difficult to read; Emma can identify some of the reactions she had seen, remorse, sadness, pride, and she leans on the turmoil she knew had been churning inside him since the first moment they had found Henry gone. But he has fortified, this she knows. He just wants to put them all back together.

Henry, perhaps in contrition, almost refuses to look at him.

If Killian takes offence he doesn’t show it. Instead he smiles, a watery, delicate thing.

“You’re my best friend in the whole world, bug,” he says. “I’m half a man without you.”

Henry’s eyes shut tight and for the first time, Emma can see a bead of emotion roll down his cheek.

“Please come home.”

It happened so quickly that she almost didn’t see it; but the next moment Henry was in Killian’s arms, shaking and murmuring apologies into his shoulder. The older man was shushing him as if we were a child again, assuring him all was forgotten, and his relief was palpable in the manner with which his fists clenched into Henry’s coat and the tightness of his eyes pressed closed, supressing a stronger tide.

Emma looks down, the moment almost feeling too private to intrude upon, and Neal does the same. Unconsciously her hand lifts to her stomach, to the barely perceptible swell that has begun there; she has to tell him, but not now. She wanted to let him have this first. He deserved it

“What I said,” Henry croaks, and from the corner of her eye she can see he has pulled back, has his hands resting on Killian’s shoulders and is looking at him directly. “What I said before I left —”

You are not my dad!

“You are,” he nods determinedly, wiping at his eyes with his sleeve. “In every way that matters. You are. I’m sorry.”

Killian simply pulls him back in, closer, and the night feels just a little bit brighter.

-/-

A rerun of Jurassic Park is the only thing on the TV by the time they make it back to Neal’s apartment, most of the selection near midnight having dried up considerably as most prepare for bed before work the following day. Arrangements are made, and rather than attempt the near four hour drive back to Boston tonight Killian and Emma had volunteered to take the sofa while Henry spends a final night in his old room. However, the unspoken word among them is that none are quite ready for sleep yet, and had switched on the television for wont of something easier to focus on — something light, something arbitrary — something with a few more scales than the monsters they had been battling away today.

Killian sits with his arm around Emma, Henry on her other side leaning against her and slumped across the remainder of the sofa with his gangly legs stretching for the arm of Neal’s chair, where his father has been poking at the holes in socks much to the boy’s exasperation.

“Honestly. You know you don’t have to wait for Killian to buy you socks anymore, right? If you go to a store they’ll actually give you some in exchange for those green wrinkly notes.”

Henry snorts. “I don’t have any ‘green wrinkly notes’. When did you think I’d have time to get myself a job in between all my community service?”

“Nice try,” Emma says, “it was only twenty-five hours, and the last I checked you were nearly done.”

“Only twenty-five hours? Did you pay off the judge or was this just a really shitty yacht?”

“Can we not debate the particulars, please?” Killian admonishes. “I’m trying to watch the folly of man and a twenty-foot lizard tear devour a bloke on a bog.”

A brief pause where, suitably chastened, they realise it’s probably not appropriate to be making so light of the whole thing.

“And it was a Pershing 80 he stole, anyway. Even a used one would go for over two million dollars.”

At the indignant looks and protests from the others, Killian merely grins and shrugs, holding up a hand to shield his face as Henry flings a cushion over his shoulder in his direction. Emma declares that she’s going to the kitchen for more popcorn, and just as Neal asks her to get him a portion his phone rings. Killian catches a glimpse of the screen before he picks it up.

‘Tink calling…’

He offers an apologetic smile to the pair of them as he heads out into the hallway, his voice briefly floating back towards them even as they try and pretend their ears aren’t pointed towards the sound.

“Hey, baby. Yeah, I’ll be home soon — tomorrow, even. First flight I can get. It’s been a bit of a crazy week. For you too? That’s great. I can’t wait to…”

It trails off into a low murmur as he shuts the door behind him.

Killian watches Henry carefully for his reaction. The news that Tink was pregnant had come as a shock to all of them, not least to Killian, but it had clearly had a profound impact on Henry as it had only contributed further to his spiral. He seemed calmer now. A small smile had pulled at the corner of his mouth as he watched his father retreat into the other room, something proud and full of warmth. Maybe Killian can relate to some of what he must be feeling.

They had all waited a long time for Neal Cassidy to grow up, Henry most of all; maybe they were finally seeing it happen.

Henry turned back to the film, and Killian tossed the cushion back onto the boy’s stomach to get his attention.

“So,” he starts brightly, to the backdrop of little Tim’s daring rescue from the jeep trapped in the tree. “What’s her name?”

Henry pretends not to understand, but Killian knows he does. It’s something of a relief. He can still read this boy like the book of fairy-tales he used to tote around in his oversized backpack.

“Who’s name?”

Killian raises his eyebrows suggestively.

“Well if it’s dating tips you need, lad, I know my way around women.”

“Oh god.”

“Not so long ago I was just like you, young, spritely, ready for my first brush with a lady’s—”

“Stop, do not finish that sentence.”

“Charms,” Killian concludes, feigning an aghast look at what Henry might have presumed. This earns him another cushion to the face.

It’s such a relief, to be able to needle Henry in such a way, back to the easy companionship he had enjoyed for most of the boy’s life — but it feels different, too. Not exactly negative, he decides, but a change has certainly come about. Perhaps they could never make it through something like this entirely unscathed, but he realises as the moment passes by that there will be some things Henry will choose not to confide in him. An odd notion. There had never been anything Henry couldn’t tell him before.

But to his surprise, he felt that that would be okay. He was growing up, and it was about time Killian realised it. He couldn’t cart him around on the back of his bike to a museum anymore, but they could find their peace in other ways; like he and Emma, their rhythm would change but it could grow and blossom into something even better if he just let it. For the first time he is almost looking forward to what the next stage of Henry’s life might bring them, instead of longing for the treasures the past had held.

“Violet.”

Killian glances over in surprise, observes that Henry’s ears are scarlet as he keeps his gaze fixed on the television screen.

“Her name, I mean. Violet.”

Killian smiles, although Henry can’t see it.

Maybe he’ll get to keep the little boy by the sea just a short while longer.

Deciding not to put Henry through any further embarrassment, Killian stands. “That’s a lovely name,” he tells him, and leaves the door open for him to talk about it any time he wishes. “And I’m sure she thought your Grand Theft Marina was very impressive, if nothing else. I’m going to go see about that popcorn.”

He leaves Henry in the sitting room, passing Neal quietly in the hall before crossing into the kitchen. Emma is there, watching the microwave humming as whatever is inside rotates slowly. She turns to watch him as he enters. Dropping a quick kiss to her temple, he reaches past her for a couple of glasses and a bottle of wine from the cabinet. Neal’s taste for wine had grown over the last ten years, but he had still never quite acquired a taste for Sauvignon Blanc the way that Emma had — those he kept around for her, for special occasions, and Killian quite felt this merited a glass or two.

Pouring three glasses, two for himself and Neal, and just as he was about to pour the third Emma blurts out to stop him —

“I’m pregnant.”

Killian freezes. The microwave pings its conclusion loudly into the kitchen.

“So, uh, no wine, I mean. None for me. I’ll just, um, I’ll have juice. Or whatever Henry’s having. Do you think Neal has coke? I’ll just go ask—”

“Wait just a —” Killian blinks, “you’re —?”

She nods, biting her lip.

“I figured I’d be better off not waiting for the perfect moment anymore and just… picked the next one.”

Killian can’t wrap his mind around it. She’s pregnant. The thought spins back and forth around his head, ricocheting heavily and sending him spinning. For a moment he almost imagines the room swimming out of focus, Emma standing uncertainly by the microwave looking to him for his response — for his approval or, if the way doubt flickers across her expression, possibly his rejection. Through every dizzying sensation its that which pierces through, and before he can even consider his own feelings properly he is in front of her, dazed, kneeling and pressing a kiss to her stomach.

Elated, he decides.

Elated is how he feels.

It’s almost impossible to comprehend. Unbridled joy bursts forth inside him and he is invincible — Henry in the next room, howling with laughter at something Neal had said, Neal, growth and hope, and Emma. The only woman he would ever wish to bear his child, forgiving him, cherishing him, giving him the only life he had ever wanted, and more life beyond.

Emma’s fingers tangle in his hair as he kneels before her and he thinks he is trembling, breathing deeply as a few tears roll down his cheek. He doesn’t even think to be embarrassed, it’s been such a long, long road to get here. Her fingers squeeze and he looks up, as always awed by her and her strength. Through everything that had happened over the last few days, she had been carrying this knowledge with her with a steadfastness and fidelity to her own spirit — even when he was at his worst, she had not let him deter her when she had far greater things to be frightened of.

She’s crying too, he can see that. And as if she can read his thoughts, she murmurs, “I’m scared.”

Killian shakes his head. “I’m not.”

He stands, brings her hands to his mouth and kisses each one delicately.

This, he has to make sure she knows.

“I know we face an uncertain future, but there is one thing I want you to be certain of.” A press of his lips to hers and he is unconquerable. “I will always be by your side.”

She breathes out, deeply. “So — you’re happy?”

“Irreparably.”

At this she laughs, and his heart still melts at the sound. He tugs her in for a strong hug, lifting her off the ground and her joy is as palpable as his own. She peppers kisses across his jaw and he whispers that he loves her, and his reward is a smile the breadth of the sun. They hear Henry from the next room calling them in for his favourite part, the ascent over the electric fence, and he sets her back down. After reaching past him for the rapidly cooling popcorn, Emma gives him a final wink over her shoulder and departs back to the sitting room.

Pregnant.

He wants to dance on the countertop and yell until his throat is hoarse and run a thousand miles just for the thrill of it.

As he follows, the scene in the sitting room makes his bubble of happiness only swell; Henry catching popcorn in his mouth with the same enthusiasm as cherries thrown across the bar in the Rabbit Hole, Neal acting as pitcher with the bowl of popcorn and Emma choosing opportunities to intercept. There is something decidedly special about it.

There needn’t be castles, or weddings, or meadows upon meadows of wildflowers. Nor swords, magic, dwarves or palaces made of glass. No, Killian decides, none of those ornaments or flourishes are needed — happy endings are far from how they appeared in Henry’s storybooks. He has his own suspicions now about how they present themselves.

In unremarkable, fugacious moments. In the gentle shapes of people who love, are loved, and continue to be brave.

Happy endings, the real ones, look a lot more like that.

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