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allthelittlelostgirlsgrowup · 4 years

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Love is History

*taps mic* is this thing on? (I stole that from Obama. He was still in office last time I posted my writing).

So fun thing I did - write an angsty sequel to Love is Fiction. If you’ve never read it, it just got over 300 notes this past week. I figured it was time to dust this off from my drafts and complete it.

I hope you like it and my voice sounds similiar to the last election year when I put this out. Honestly I’m so different now and I think this captures the changes I’ve gone through and the way I view relationships now opposed to four years ago.

Love is History

“Art imitates Life right?” Belle closes the folder encasing a rough draft of her first few chapters.

“All good things come to an end.” Emma shrugs as if the concept of him being just a ‘good’ thing ending doesn’t devastate her. He was the best thing.

She thought she’d never write their break up.

“What’s the history?” Belle squints her eyes, nose crinkling as she watches Emma. Belle has been Emma’s ‘Editor’ since college. Now more official. She gets a paycheck, as Emma gets advances from a publishing company that started as a small mom and pop establishment. In the last four years, this little wagon wheel of a company is now a fleet of office buildings all over the US.

“You read book 3: “Wind’s Ally”” Emma leans back in her chair, studying Belle right back. “You know their history.”

Belle keeps her eyes on Emma, relaxing the tension in her face and suppressing a smirk. They’re at a bit of a stalemate here because Emma isn’t sure what more info is needed and Belle isn’t sharing her thoughts at the moment.

“Emma, I knew their history. They finished book 3 in a ‘happily ever after’ kind of way. What underlying issues could have brought them to this point? Why did Alysandra leave?” Emma considers the question. Why did she decide to destroy the happiest relationship she’s ever written? Why would a character who fell madly in love just change their mind? “Maybe, ask yourself why you left.”

-/-

The sun is setting over the Manhattan skyline when she gets back to her apartment. She doesn’t know where she went after the meeting but her mind just got back to the present and she’s pissed.

Emma flings her keys across the kitchen island, kicking her heels off in a huff before stomping over to her bar cart. She pours his favorite whiskey into the anchor-etched old fashion glasses he got her one Christmas.

“History is a stupid word” she grunts to no one but a tilted glass, muffling the sound as the amber liquid meets her lips a second after. She’s taken up talking to herself these last few months. The first four were spent crying and avoiding her reflection. The loneliness finally set in one night and she made herself her own best friend. So she asks her best friend ‘why did you do it?’ as she feels the tension in her shoulder blades ease. Why? Why did Emma Swan leave Killian Jones seven months ago?

“Wouldn’t we all like to know?”

-/-

The nightmares finally stopped and she no longer wakes with a startle when she finds her bed bare of him. Its been 216 days. She’s cried herself to sleep at least 180. She’s been broken before, boys have left in more ways than one, and she has managed to wake up one day finding herself less damaged than all the others. Today might be that day for the Killian Jones saga.

Today is they announced the upcoming film and casting begins in a few weeks. She knows she needs to finish this novel, but she hasn’t finished much. She barely finishes lunch on most days, barely finishes a thought that isn’t dripping in Killian. It’s been seven months and he is everywhere, in everything. She thought progress was a slowly-operated escalator but she was finally on her way.

And then the congratulation calls come through. Text after text, email, voicemail and she’s sure in a week or two, she’ll get a card from Mary Margaret. She sorts through them looking for something she’ll never find and she has to rewind.

She left him. It wasn’t mutual and it wasn’t obvious. He had no clue. All the calls and texts he was going to send her were sent months ago when he was breaking down in voicemails and begging her to just tell him she was okay.

Congratulations, Emma, you saved him...from ever having to care about you again.

-/-

She doesn’t leave the apartment again until the 245th day. It is easy to stay inside with the modern advances in technology. People will bring literally anything to your front door. Except, maybe inspiration. That she has to go out and find.

She finds herself in Harlem. The Harlem Public Library. She has to get back to her roots. Sure, this isn’t Storybrooke, and no, she’ll probably never meet a pair of eyes as blue coconut as...but her work needs her to find a way to write.

She thinks of his face.

Three hours pass and all she has in a google doc is ‘why?’

-/-

Despite the first failure to launch, she finds she quite likes that library. She’s giving herself a pep talk this time, before she finds herself staring at a blank screen wondering why again.

“I left because I had to.” She looks at her reflection in her bathroom mirror. That’s the only statement she’s made to anyone, herself included. When her friends, her agent, her editor, and her heart ask, she tells them she had to.

She makes her way through her apartment, recounting the moments, hours, days leading up to it. There are very few things her mind makes enough sense to share. Everything else is so convoluted, so tangled up in self-loathing and years of agonizing loneliness, the average person wouldn’t get it. Some days, as she’s matured and healed, she finds even she has trouble understanding it.

There’s not a day that goes by she doesn’t spend half of it feeling nothing but regret. That’s the healthy part of her, the well-adjusted adult who grew from the little lost girl. She’s sane enough to know she threw away the best relationship she’s ever had. She’s sane enough to know she saved him from future hardships with her.

The sound of the empire striking back stirs her from her thoughts. Regina gets the Darth Vader theme as a ringtone so Emma never forgets who really owns her career.

“Hey,” Emma answers as she reaches her apartment door.

“Nice of you to finally answer your phone.” She can hear the glare in Regina’s voice. “You know you pay me to do this right? Not the other way around. Get your money’s worth, why don’t you.” Emma rolls her eyes as she packs her laptop in her messenger bag.

Regina Mills is a fierce woman, as charming as she is aggressive. She can pretty much get anyone to do anything she wants. Emma doesn’t practice in the ways of the force, but she’s certain Regina knows a Jedi mind trick or two, and as her agent, that comes in handy.

What doesn’t come in handy is her tie to Killian. Regina’s husband Robin happens to be Killian’s cousin. Emma avoided Regina’s calls for months after the break-up, afraid she’ll have to answer the same question she’s been asking herself all afternoon. Once she finally started accepting calls again, it seemed Regina had moved on to bigger and better things: A movie deal.

“Right” she sighs. “What’s my money bringing me today?”

“This isn’t money related, so much as a word of warning.” Regina’s tone doesn’t seem as sass-filled as before, so it’s clear she’s not the one wielding the threat. She actually sounds a bit sympathetic. “Belle and I pulled straws to see who got to break this to you, and I, unfortunately, pulled short this time around.”

“There’s a point here.” Emma urges, feeling ill-fated all of a sudden.

“Killian just moved to NYC.” Like ripping off a band-aid. Emma braces herself for pain, but is met with an absence of feeling altogether. Her knees buckle and she finds purchase against her kitchen island. “Emma?”

“When?” She whispers.

“Just a couple of weeks. He took a job with the NYC public libraries, he’s actually doing really well and has just approached Belle with an idea to get the youth excited about writing. There’s a chance you’ll run into him at the office, so I just...we both thought a heads up was necessary.”

“Which library?” because Fate is a nosy bitch and has no business showing up and guiding her to the man she ran from.

“Emma?”

“Which library”

“I think...if I recall correctly, his home base is in Harlem.”

“I’ll call you back.”

-/-

She thought about leaving the country. At the very least, the state. She is overwhelmed, without a question just so damn overwhelmed. She has gotten so used to tears these days, she’s a little shocked she didn’t cry the minute she heard his name.

Her body had other ideas, because although she definitely meant to get on a train going the opposite direction, she found herself in Harlem 25 minutes later.

She sits in the middle of the library at an open table, clickity clacking as loudly as she can. Part of her really believes that maybe if she saw him, she’d remember why she left.

Another part is certain that masochism is her new favorite hobby.

He never appears.

-/- “Hey” Emma answers her phone going off for the eighth time today.

“Emma?” Belle sounds more relieved than usual. “Where have you been, I’ve been calling non-stop since 3.” Emma rolls her neck to view the time on the DVR.

7:45 pm

“Sorry, I’ve been reading all day.” she hasn’t talked to anyone for another two weeks. She does this far too often to still have a support system. Emma’s not sure she’d pour the same amount of effort into anyone who went radio silent every other week.

“We had a meeting at 2:30.”

“Sorry.” She shrugs, because honestly, nothing even matters.

“I’m coming over,” Belle says decidedly.

“No, Belle, you don’t have to do that.” Emma regrets answering on the eighth attempt. “Let’s reschedule.”

“We just did, I’ll see you in thirty minutes. Open the door.” Sure, she’s a small, sweet, meek-looking woman, but what most people don’t know about Belle is she could slay dragons with pure determination alone. In a battle of wills, she's even got Regina beat.

Emma peels herself off the sofa for the first time since noon, snuggie falling to the floor as she heads for the shower. If Bella can make the journey to her apartment, Emma can at least shower. Sure enough, 30 minutes later she’s greeting Belle at the door, a pizza in hand.

“Are you okay?” She sets the pizza on the kitchen island and wraps Emma in a hug. Emma tries to pull her head far enough to keep her hair from wetting Belle.

“Yeah, just...the creative process. Ya know.” Emma trails off as the hug ends. Of course, she’s not okay. ‘Okay’ people don’t stop answering their phones for weeks, they don’t stare at blank pages until their vision blurs. They don’t behave this way. This was her first shower in days.

“He was in the office yesterday,” Belle says after a long silence, just a full 3 minutes of her studying Emma from head to toe. Do her eyes just scream ‘Killian’ every time someone looks at her. “He said he called to congratulate you on the screenplay adaptation.”

“No, he didn’t.” She’s quick to dismiss. She scoured her missed calls for days looking for his name, he never called.

“How would you know, you never answer your phone, Emma.” She sits on a counter stool, tugging Emma to join her. “He’s going to be in every day next week, and I think…”

“No.” Emma cuts her off.

“Let me finish.” Belle opens the pizza box, sliding it toward Emma. “I think you should take a vacation. Get out of the city for a while, maybe visit Storybrooke, since you know he’s not there to run into.” Emma grabs a slice of pizza, not sure when she last ate but too preoccupied with the idea of leaving the city for a while. She ran to NYC. Now she’s running back to Storybrooke. Is he just going to chase her back and forth?

“Did he say anything else about me?” she hates the desperation gnawing at her.

“He asked me why…” Belle sighs “I told him we’ll all find out in book four.”

-/-

God only knows what compelled her to do the exact opposite of what Belle suggested and show up at the publisher’s office. Probably the same thing that led her to the Harlem library a few weeks ago. She bought a new outfit. She realizes she’s barely even worn jeans over the last eight months, and now she’s in a dress and heels like she has an interview to work here. She’s wearing makeup and perfume. She’s trying her best to cover up and signs of the wreck she’s been for months.

The office seems busier than it has ever been, many new, young faces bustling about. She keeps her features calm as she scans every inch of every room she enters for him.

“Emma?” Belle is hurried as she crosses the main floor to meet her. “What are you doing here?”

“I know.” Emma returns the hushed tone Belle is using. “I reworked some chapters, delayed the breakup, and gave more of Aly’s history.” and Belle nods, but is evidently not listening.

“He’s here.” Belle looks almost frightened. “So if you want to reconsider, I would do it now. Otherwise…”

“Swan?” no one calls her Swan. She’s paralyzed. What did she think was going to happen? How did she think she was going to react? When she paced around her apartment for three hours this morning, did she think she was going to just be okay? He would be here, he would see her and suddenly everything would be okay? “Emma…” He tries softer, less shocked, more timid.

This is the moment. In every love story, angst finds its way in, rips the reader’s heart out and although they’ve been bleeding for chapters now, they can feel nothing at this moment. Time is still, the lights are dim, and all we see is Emma and him.

He looks like himself, just more professional. He’s in well-fitted gray slacks, a navy dress shirt, his hair is longer though. He’s got more scruff on his neck than normal. His eyes are too blue, truly, for anyone to notice another inch of him. They stare at her, the same shade that’s been haunting her dreams, and she still struggles to define it. Everything. They’ve always been everything, no matter if it’s more cotton candy than blue coconut.

“Killian.” She swallows. Her throat makes this awkward gurgling sound and she wants to melt into the floor. Why is she here?

It’s suddenly so quiet but so loud. She can hear her heart hammering in her eardrums. No one says anything for a long stretch of time, maybe 2 seconds, maybe 3 hours, she can’t be sure. She just knows there is so much said in the silence.

“How are you?” She asks without thought. The look on his face is devastating.

“Sorry?” He mocks a laugh. “How am I?”

She’s not completely delusional. This is a thing humans say to one another, no? Why does it feel so foreign all at once, like she’s attempting English for the first time with a local?

“Killian” she sighs, releasing the most dizzying breath.

“I’m good” he grits, suddenly covered in constrained anger. “And you?”

And now they are strangers, all dressed up and nothing to talk about.

“Me?” Her tongue drags along her lower lip to buy time. “Good.” She nods.

“I’m just pleased everyone is good.” Belle smiles sweetly. “Now, Killian and I have a brief meeting, and afterward, if you’re still available, we can go over your rewrite.”

An exit strategy. This is quite possibly the only thing she could have hoped for.

“Swan was a bright young writer once” Killian grins, wickedly. “Why don’t you attend the meeting. We’re talking about a youth writing program.” He’s obviously bating her. How dare she show up on a day he’s here and act like she didn’t destroy him…

“Sure” she agrees. Partly because she’s too stubborn to back down from a challenge, and mainly because she did destroy him and there’s that whole thing about masochism she recently discovered about herself.

Belle looks beside herself. Her eyes narrow and she puffs her chest for a moment before leading them to a meeting space. Two more individuals join them, laptops ready to jot down notes and ideas. Her meetings are only ever with Belle so, for Emma, this seems like red carpet treatment.

He has amazing ideas. He loves the idea of bringing an artistic outlet to the children of Harlem. He was always so much more than a shelfer. He was always a dreamer, with these brilliant, compassionate ideas for helping everyone feel less alone, more encouraged.

She was always a fence, holding him back from the best parts of himself.

-/-

When the meeting concludes, Belle graciously thanks Killian for coming, makes promises of action, and attempts to say goodbye.

Killian, as good-natured and kind as he can be, has always had a persistently obnoxious side. He invites himself to the next meeting.

“This is only fair, Swan.” he smiles, though his eyes are full of darkness.

They regroup in Belle’s office after a bathroom break.

As much as Emma is dying on the inside, Belle looks absolutely disturbed by this. She can’t imagine the discomfort in being the third wheel of a breakup reunion.

“So...when we uh, when we left off, you were telling me why they broke up.” Belle sighs, knowing how awful this is. Emma smiles, hoping it lets her off the hook a little. After all, Belle told her to leave town. Emma decided to torture herself.

“Right.” Emma takes a large breath in, holding it while she pulls out her folder. Only releasing once its in Belle’s hands. Killian is studying her like he has a Chemistry final to take tomorrow and she’s the only hope. “Alysandra left Atlas for his…” She’s said it to herself. She’s made hints to others, but Killian has never had a clue. “For his own good. She’s derailed him from his journey. She’s made him less of a pirate, more of a…”

“More of a what?” Killian’s breath is sharp as it floods in through his nose and out through his mouth. “What did she do to him?”

“She reduced him to a caregiver,” Belle answers from what’s written in the text. “Alysandra took over the journey of discovery. She was suddenly the main character.” Belle looks up at Emma with a look she’d only be able to classify as “delayed understanding.”

“In a story about Atlas, Aly becomes the focus. Everything he does, he does for her.” Emma can feel herself losing composure, eyes stinging with tears, throat drier than a desert. Somehow, someway, she finds her way to Killian’s eyes. “He wasn’t living for himself anymore. He had no purpose but to love her. And it was destroying everything.”

She’s not sure if it’s understanding she expects, or maybe gratitude, for saving him from the needy monster that she is. She knows neither is what she received.

“Did you ask Atlas, perhaps… perhaps that’s what made him happiest?” Killian’s eyes are drilling into her like nails, pinning her against a wall.

She is less.

Speechless, motionless, hopeless…

Less sure she did the right thing. Less firm on her decision. Just so much less than she was the day before.

There’s movement after a long pause, not by her, but Belle, gently setting the files down and moving to leave them alone.

“Aly is an orphan” Emma explains and she can see his head start to shake, but she has to be firm. “Listen. She is not the strong-willed, rebel without a cause she pretends to be. Some days the sadness from being alone for so long stunts her. She spends hours upon hours laying awake wishing she could sleep forever. She can be a wreck, a mess, an impossible woman to love.”

Does it make it easier to talk about herself as if she’s someone else? She’s been doing it for so long, all the catharsis from writing herself into stories, just to unpack the things that plague her? Maybe she can have sympathy for anyone but her, maybe its the only way she can recognize how her behavior impacts others. Maybe the book is why she left in the first place.

“You make it impossible to love you, Emma.” She’s never seen his jaw trembling like this before. “And against all odds, through resilience and patience, I’ve found a way to do the bloody impossible. You can cover it up in characters you’ve based off of us, but this isn’t fiction. I was real. What we had...what we had was real. It wasn’t easy, but when you finally let me in, it was simple. We were happy.”

“You were happy?” She brushes tears from her cheeks as she shakes her head in disagreement. “Was it simple? To come home and find I hadn’t moved from my spot on the couch? Was that the ideal relationship you dreamt of, to see all of your energy, love, and time wasted on someone who couldn’t get themselves off the couch?”

“So you got yourself off the couch now.” Killian stands, eyes frantically scanning Emma from head to toe. “Well done, it only took the motivation of ending a relationship to do it.”

“I did it for you.” and she believes that, with everything in her, she left for his own good.

“Did you now?” He seems so out of breath for standing still. “Or could you have possibly woken up one day and realized the weight of a relationship was what was pinning you to the couch. Was it that Atlas cared for Aly too much, or was it the expectation that Aly would have cared for him in return? Was breaking my heart easier than just trusting me with yours?”

And all at once in the middle of the ocean, she can see Aly waking up all alone in the captain’s quarters, searching the whole damn ship for a man who did what the men she loves always do.

“Maybe there were days you thought I was miserable” he kneels before her as the ocean finds its way to this office. His eyes are ocean blue, always changing hues depending on if the sun is shining, or a storm is brewing or they’re in the deep. “But you weren’t afraid I’d die that way, always miserable, no...some part of you thought I’d leave before I let that happen. That’s the orphan I loved. You were never a mess. You were a survivalist.”

So maybe that’s their story. Aly watched Atlas change his life for her, and realized he’s going to live to regret it. Did the last seven months hurt less because it was her choice? If he would have pulled the trigger, would the bullet do that much more damage?

“I would have died miserable.”

-/-

The history she’s writing is hers and hers alone. When she was younger, when her heart was stolen and broken, when she always ended up alone. She was writing an escape plan.

This was the first time she was the one who left, and to quell the guilt of being her own worst nightmare, she forced herself to believe she was doing it for him. How many people have left her for her own good? How many times did she think that they were doing her a favor?

She’s been sitting motionless for who knows how long when Belle comes back. Killian is long gone but his words linger like those dizzy stars after a concussion. Her head is throbbing trying to make sense of it. This wasn’t just seven months spent believing the lie. Now she’s searching for the truth.

She gets anxious in monotony, like a stench in stagnant water, she is repulsed by the concept. She’s never wanted to do the same thing every day. She doesn’t want a picket fence, she wants…She does like a cute cottagey feel with a nice picket fence, she could…she could deal with a picket fence.

She definitely does not want a husband though, or to be barefoot and pregnant, or…

There were times, she’d look at him fresh out of the shower, or in his sleep and he’d look so much younger, she’d wonder what their kids would look like. There have been times she’s searched her fingers as they moved across her keyboard and realized her ring finger would look nice with a natural stone set in some brass band. It was never anything he did that scared her. It was that she thought about more. The concept of more scared her, and the fact that she was greedy and foolish enough to want it.

Four years is a long time to not talk about marriage, but after they moved past her initial anxiety attacks over having a boyfriend, he never really pushed for much again. Moving in together was her idea. He kept enough stuff at her place and with Elsa moving abroad, it made sense to do it. That’s as far as she was going to take it. Another few years piled up and she was busy writing and he was busy being supportive of that, she recognized she was his sun. When he made sure she ate during the weeks she barely left the house, when he kept her house plants alive, when he did her laundry, reminded her to shower, and told her he’s proud of her too often to quantify, she knew she was his ship. An inanimate object, something someone can love so much and not receive the love back in return, and sure, he’s as silly as a pirate to believe a ship that holds itself together while he’s sailing on her loves him, and that’s just her role.

Hold yourself together Emma, that’s always been your role.

She started to get bitter and insecure. What is she contributing to this relationship? How is she making him any better? Has he even written many songs since they moved in together, has she gone to see him perform, has he performed? Some days she was so enthralled in her writing, she didn’t realize he wasn’t home all day. It was his day off and he was gone for longer than a workday. He could have been having an affair for all she knew. For all he did, he deserved to be having an affair, falling in love with someone who would be there for him, encouraging his dreams, and dedicating herself to him.

After that day, she started her drafts. Killian, you’re so much more than I deserved…Or Killian, your life paused the day you met me. And finally, after months, she left him with I need this to be over.

She’s a writer, a published author, an English major and an avid reader yet, through years and years of literature and just terrible romcoms, she never learned how to break up with someone. She never knew the words to say to him, so she said nothing. He called for three-five days, she’s not sure as she was in a sobbing-induced coma. He sent texts, he sent freaking carrier pigeons, and she locked herself in a hotel room with her laptop and her broken heart. Finally, an email came in.

Emma, I’ve moved out. Everything I’ve left is yours…among the worn t-shirts you liked to sleep in and the novels we’ve collected over the years is my heart. Goodbye Love.

“Emma,” Belle brings her back to the present after a very long, painful trip into her past. “Are you okay?”

Why is that word even used to describe how ‘good’ something or someone is?

“No.” She glances over at Belle, she thinks to ask if she talked to him in the hall after he left, if he said anything, if he seemed ‘Okay’ himself but she settles back to a business mindset. Work is the only constant. “Aly left because she didn’t want to get left again.”

“And that’s how it ends?” Belle hands her the folder back. “You can do better.”

-/-

“The concept of fiction isn’t a lack of reality, it just hasn’t happened exactly that way yet.”

She hears his voice cascading down the ramp she’s sitting at the bottom of. It's been a week since Belle’s meeting and she made her way back to the library. Back to their roots. There’s so much history in this building, but the history she’s looking for lives within her. There’s a group of teenagers huddled together like they’re on a tour. Her fingers shake as she looks back down at her laptop.

“Don’t be afraid to use your own daily vernacular. It’s just as likely as any well-researched, powered by thesaurus dialogue, but it will come to you much more easily. That’s your voice.”

His voice sounds increasingly close. She wants to look but if they lock eyes now, while he’s busy, she’s back to being the center of attention. Why did she come here? Does she want to get back to being the center of his attention?

“Swan?” her stomach flips violently. She really didn’t think this through. Her neck trembles as she cranes to look up at him. “Hi.” He clears his throat, the group of teenagers studying them closely from behind him.

“Hi” she breathes. “Uhm…”

“Do you want to meet my junior author group?” He cuts in quickly.

“Hi.” She repeats, only this time her eyes travel across the young faces. “I’m Emma.”

“Emma Swan?” A young girl in the back pipes up. “You write Cap Zeph.” ‘Cap Zeph’ is a very popular Tumblr tag, Emma’s been told. She is now a mild-day D list celebrity with the news of the screenplay adaptation. She never published under her real name until this one, Killian’s idea.

“That I do.” Emma feigns a smile.

“Emma Swan” Killian begins, chest swelling “came up with the idea in a small town library.”

“Really?” another girl with wavy blonde hair tumbling around her shoulders asks.

“Yes, and Killian Jones worked there. He’s…evidently the inspiration. Hair as dark as night, eyes as blue as the sea he sails upon.” Every girl and one boy in the group glance at Killian, amorously. Still handsome as ever. He looks down, scratching behind his ear and chuckling dryly. She wonders if his throat burns the same way her eyes do or if this feels so natural he’s happy to fall back into it.

“Why don’t you all find some books to research personal voice from in the YA section, hmm?” He dismisses the group quickly. They share assuming glances and move to leave in pairs, surely gossiping on the way.

Being alone again is terrifying. She doesn’t know what she’s doing here. Why does she always go looking for him? What does she want? How can they come out of this okay? What is okay?

“What brings you?” Killian starts. He isn’t looking anywhere but her and the look in his eyes leaves frost on her flesh. His expression is so blank. She has no idea if he even wants her here after their last conversation.

“I was just looking for inspiration.” He nods.

“There are study rooms.” He adds, motioning in the direction she may find them. “My office is actually at a different location, or I’d…suggest…”

“Do you hate me?” it comes out without warning.

“No.” He winces. She’s not sure if it’s because he’s lying or because he wishes he were lying.

“Why not?” She asks. He flinches.

“Christ, Swan. Stop it.” He grabs a seat across from her at the small bistro-style table she’s been working on. She closes her laptop to remove barriers between them. “I hated myself for a while. I thought maybe I should have never lost sight of who you were. You’ve always been guarded. I thought I had broken down some of your walls. I should have never assumed I tore them all down.”

This voice within her tells her that it's no man’s job to do the work for her. Her walls are her own to remove.

“What about your walls?” Emma counters. She didn’t come for an argument, but Killian had trauma, he was damaged in theory, but always presented himself as such a well-adjusted, forgiving, kind, loving man. “Maybe you had to go brick by brick, but you knew they were there. I just watched you for years never act like anything troubled you.”

He laughs, loudly.

She’s startled more that she laughs in return than questions it.

“Emma, my love...of course I was troubled. I still am. I drink far too much and try to solve all of my problems myself without anyone’s help.” He’s still smiling as he confesses.”Hell, I didn’t tell anyone we broke up for months and it wasn’t because I thought you were coming back. I just knew I wasn’t going to let anyone worry about me.”

“You’re not troubled” she shakes her head but thinks back to every time he came home frustrated and sealed himself up before she could get a good glimpse of it. “Are you?”

“I spent an entire day at the marina grieving my dead brother, over a decade after losing him. Every time I went to leave and come home to you, I’d get upset again. I used to stay away until I could pull myself together.” His smile slips into something dark and Emma realizes all the ways they failed at communicating. “I loved you just enough to only show you my best parts. I never trusted our love enough to show you everything. And it’s not because you were sad every now and then.”

And she sees the orphan in him the moment she realizes being left behind were his worst fears, too.

“You thought I’d leave…”

“I think the term is ‘best-laid plans.’” His smile is back “Convince an author to fall in love with you, live forever. Only, with my luck, I get to read my heart get broken in the exact same way whenever I’d like. I was looking forward to your book, knowing I’d get to see us in love again.” She considers the part about him looking forward to her book.

“It’s as much my book as yours.” She means that. When she first wrote the Cap Zeph short stories, she had no plan of publishing. Killian pushed for her to immortalize this, to believe in herself and sell it. When the first went well, he convinced her to meet with Regina. “I mean, you are the entire series, after all.” He shakes his head and sighs.

She doesn’t have a response and the seconds tick by. It only takes a few before they reach an awkward silence where one person makes an excuse to leave. And then when do they see each other again?

“I should get back to my writers.” He moves to stand and she wants to jump up, but she doesn’t know what words follow that. She writes fiction. It's why this book has been so damn difficult. Writing their personalities into a fantasy of pirates and fairies, that's one thing. Writing history is another. She can build on what has already happened. This in-the-moment dichotomy, will they? Won’t they? Can they make it work? It’s disturbing.

He’s the quick thinker. Always a come-back, a pun, a literary quote…

“The only thing worse than a boy who hates you…” She opens her laptop nonchalantly, as if it won’t wound her for him to leave. “...a boy who loves you.”

Among the many novels they shared, “The Book Thief” was one of Killian’s most treasured.

He stares at her with wonder glazing his face. “If only she could be so oblivious again, to feel such love without knowing it, mistaking it for laughter.”

Maybe she’d burn every book in this library, for a chance to experience falling in love with Killian all over again, as if it weren’t a moment in history.

The screenplay would read ‘They share a look of longing’ and she’s not sure that’s how she’d describe it. ‘Longing’ seems more cliche and not nearly as descriptive as her quickening pulse would use.

This feels like a pivotal moment where she realizes that they don’t necessarily have to not be in love anymore. They could take a slow pace, like windchimes waiting for a breeze to bring them together. That’s all a Zephyr is.

“My number hasn’t changed.”

-/-

His number has. She gets a text around 1am. Are you up? It's odd, because Killian isn’t a booty-call kind of guy, but who knows what a breakup can do to a man.

I rarely sleep before 2. Her phone rings moments later.

“Hello?” her tone sounds like a question, but she knows it’s him.

“Swan, it’s Killian.”

“Yes, Grandpa, I’m aware.” She can’t help but chuckle. Almost too elated that he’s on the other end. She can hear him laugh on the other end.

“Do you remember the first time we started speaking on the phone? You wouldn’t give me your number until maybe the 18th date.” She didn’t trust herself then. They took things so slowly.

“You know I like a clean getaway.” Is it too soon to joke about always having one foot out the door?

“What's the escape plan this time?”

“Probably the West Coast since you chased me here”

“I did not!” His laugh is vibrating against her ribs, setting the tempo for her heart.

Could it be easy all over again? One quote and he’s calling her? One call and they go see a movie? One date and…

And thinking about the end is how she got there, isn’t it?

“Did you plan on seeing me again? Knowing you were moving here?”

“Of course. I planned on seeing you no matter where I lived...I prepared for you to come into focus and the rest of my world to blur.” He sighs and she can hear his mattress settle as he moves. “I didn’t plan on seeing you in my library again.”

“Where else would I get inspiration. You’re my muse.”

They talk til 4am. She’s rethought every word she’s said these last seven months. She rarely moves without tension tugging at the back of her neck. Her thoughts are never clear and simple, not since she left. And here, in the darkness of her bedroom, with nothing but a familiar voice on the other end, she hasn’t second-guessed a word.

-/- She’s not sure if she should call it a date. He invites her to a scholarship meeting and sure, they’re dressed up, but because it's a business meeting. He talks to the team, Belle is in attendance, and she barely says a word.

But he asks her out for drinks afterward and suddenly she’s all he’s focused on, laughing about old times, discussing the interesting twist in literature they’ve both read recently. She asks him if he’s written any songs and he beams brightly when he tells her ‘only recently, Love.’

Sometimes love is familiar, like a book you’ve read a dozen times. There’s comfort in knowing everything and loving it anyway.

-/-

“Are you dating him?” Belle watches her from the doorway as Killian moves down the hall to his meeting. They came to the office together this time, maybe a peck on the cheek occurred before his departure, and maybe Belle witnessed it.

“I don’t know.” Emma tries not to think logistically about what’s going on. It’s been 4 weeks, she’s written 8 chapters and Aly is about to find Atlas again. “For the first time since I started, I know how book 4 will end.”

They go over the recent chapters and Belle seems subtly impressed but she’s holding back. Emma knows it's Killian-related. She just knows she can’t pry without being pried open in return.

“You don’t like it?”

“No, it's beautiful. From tragedy to triumph is the Captain Zephyr way.” Belle hands the work back to Emma with a sad smile. “What makes it different this time? True love always finds its way back to one another, but how do we know they won’t split up again?” Emma knows this isn’t about the novel. They haven’t yet gotten back together to split up.

Does she know they’ll never separate again? Of course not. Killian is dedicated, devoted like a priest to the cloth. She is very aware that his heart is not yet healed, but eager to love her all over again. A few dates and late-night phone calls don’t make forever a promise anyone could keep.

“We don’t.”

-/- He’s walking her home after another fun night at a bar near her apartment. They’ve been casually seeing each other but nothing more than a kiss on the cheek or a hug goodnight has occurred. They get to her building in record time, too preoccupied by the conversation on who in Hollywood would make a handsome Captain Zeph. “Johnny Depp doesn’t have blue eyes.” Emma laughs. “You can’t just pick the most popular actors, and he’s already a pirate in another franchise.” They’re at the doors of her building and his eyes are boring into her. “Do you want to come up?”

And maybe it's because they haven’t had a real kiss in what’s very close to being a year now, but he seems almost nervous.

“I’m afraid I miss you too much.” he scratches behind his ear and looks down the road. When he looks back at her he seems shy.

“Chris Wood,” she comments. She liked him on Supergirl. “Come upstairs.”

It's the look on his face when he studies her apartment that makes her remember they broke up. As if she had forgotten months of trying to hold herself together, he reminds her that she broke him when his face floods with that loneliness.

“Killian...”

“This is a very nice place you have.” his eyes are darting from one corner to the next, lingering on the most significant differences. “So ‘New York’ it's almost as if you’ve never lived anywhere else.”

“Your apartment isn’t ‘New York?’” it's so weird that they’ve never seen each other's place when they’ve seen each other's souls.

“It’s just a place to lay my head.” He glances back at her with something almost accusatory when he says “You’ve gone ahead and made yourself a home.” And it has never felt like that, not once, when she was hiding away, when she would run home to it.

This place, this city has always been a foster home she feels like she’ll get kicked out of if she gets too comfortable. It wasn’t like their home together. Their home felt like roots. Here she feels like an implant that won’t take to the soil.

“The designer furnishings don’t mean shit to me.” Emma moves to the bookshelf, all new and shiny but it's just a box to keep what matters most. “Only what I’ve come here with is all I care to take. She pulls out a few books, “Wuthering Heights,” “The Book Thief,” and “Emma.” She hands them to him knowing they were always his.

“I wanted you to keep them.” He starts to give them back when she waves her hand.

“What do you need to not resent this place? To know I have everything you left tucked away in all these new places?” she motions for him to follow her to the bedroom and he slowly drifts behind, setting the novels on the coffee table. Her bed is covered in pillows dressed in his t-shirts instead of pillowcases. She keeps his cologne on the bedside table as if it were some expensive aromatherapy pillow spray. The blanket Granny from the local diner in Storybrooke made them lay at the foot of the bed, an anchor crocheted into the loops.

“I only drink whiskey you like. I only sleep in your t-shirts.” she sits on her bed, reaching for his hand to pull him down with her. “I don’t know what we are, and I can’t promise you I’m not a tragedy waiting to happen. I just know that I haven’t been able to erase an inch of you.”

He kisses her then. It's not on her terms, and he has only ever waited for everything to be on her terms. So when he pulls her in, hand cupping the back of her head, mouth open and adventurous, she gasps.

His other arm wraps around her waist, pulling her closer to him, her hands pressed flat against his chest as his tongue enters her mouth with desperation. She fists his shirt in her hands, pressing even closer to him as her tongue reacts in kind. It has been the longest year without him and he’s kissing her like they’re running out of time.

All at once they’re falling as he lays her down on her back, continuing to claim her mouth as his property. Her hands start moving, tugging and fumbling with buttons and zippers and just much too much fabric for her liking. When she moves for his briefs he tugs back from her lips.

“Is this what you want?” Her response is to slip her dress over her head. Any questions to follow are puffed out in a husky tone against her ear.

Sometimes love is erotica, so she catalogs every second of it because nothing has ever happened quite like this before.

-/-

They spend the next few months together and she bangs out the rest of the book in record time. Regina and Belle throw her a submission party. She dodges questions about their future and tries to focus on the book.

“So Aly and Atlas together again,” Robin questions her as Killian returns with a drink for the both of them. She knows he’s not talking about the story. Killian has been very careful to not assume much about their status. Both of them have just stuck to ‘seeing where it goes.’

But it's not like they just met six months ago. They have history, they have four years of standing together at parties and being a couple. Do they have the luxury of casually dating? If all happiness is fleeting, do they dive face-first in it or wade in the shallow end.

“I love Killian.” She says firmly. It’s never not been true from the moment she realized it, in a foreign library miles and miles away from home. He is not easily erased, and it has become glaringly obvious it will only destroy her to try. “I always have and I always will.” Killian’s eyes have never been so doe-like. She’s never been so bold.

“I…” Robin’s face flushes, certainly not expecting her to speak so proudly.

“And I love Emma, if it isn’t ardently clear. She’s everything to me and I’m happy just to exist in her life.” He raises his whiskey to her and she follows suit like a gentlemen’s agreement has just been formed: To love one another without concern of what it means. As she takes a sip she realizes what everything means. He hasn’t pushed aside his dreams in the slightest this go around. He’s been focused and driven, ambitious and busy. Somehow, he’s still considering her ‘everything.’ Maybe what she thought was sacrifice all that time ago was really just love.

So they stay in love.

-/-

Another year goes by and the first film is set to release. Although Emma and Killian still pay rent at their separate apartments, they spend every night together. Sometimes it's downtown in Killian’s studio, and other nights it's in the heart of the city at Emma’s. Commitment isn’t measured by who gave what up. It has shifted to who stays. They both do, and every day they make the decision to stay, when it's 5 months since Killian has slept alone or 10 months since Emma had dinner without him. They stay together with one promise in mind. They love each other. And for as long as Love is Present, they will choose each other.

Love is History

“Art imitates Life right?” Belle closes the folder encasing a rough draft of her first few chapters.

“All good things come to an end.” Emma shrugs as if the concept of him being just a ‘good’ thing ending doesn’t devastate her. He was the best thing.

She thought she’d never write their break up.

“What’s the history?” Belle squints her eyes, nose crinkling as she watches Emma. Belle has been Emma’s ‘Editor’ since college. Now more official. She gets a paycheck, as Emma gets advances from a publishing company that started as a small mom and pop establishment. In the last four years, this little wagon wheel of a company is now a fleet of office buildings all over the US.

“You read book 3: “Wind’s Ally”” Emma leans back in her chair, studying Belle right back. “You know their history.”

Belle keeps her eyes on Emma, relaxing the tension in her face and suppressing a smirk. They’re at a bit of a stalemate here because Emma isn’t sure what more info is needed and Belle isn’t sharing her thoughts at the moment.

“Emma, I knew their history. They finished book 3 in a ‘happily ever after’ kind of way. What underlying issues could have brought them to this point? Why did Alysandra leave?” Emma considers the question. Why did she decide to destroy the happiest relationship she’s ever written? Why would a character who fell madly in love just change their mind? “Maybe, ask yourself why you left.”

-/-

The sun is setting over the Manhattan skyline when she gets back to her apartment. She doesn’t know where she went after the meeting but her mind just got back to the present and she’s pissed.

Emma flings her keys across the kitchen island, kicking her heels off in a huff before stomping over to her bar cart. She pours his favorite whiskey into the anchor-etched old fashion glasses he got her one Christmas.

“History is a stupid word” she grunts to no one but a tilted glass, muffling the sound as the amber liquid meets her lips a second after. She’s taken up talking to herself these last few months. The first four were spent crying and avoiding her reflection. The loneliness finally set in one night and she made herself her own best friend. So she asks her best friend ‘why did you do it?’ as she feels the tension in her shoulder blades ease. Why? Why did Emma Swan leave Killian Jones seven months ago?

“Wouldn’t we all like to know?”

-/-

The nightmares finally stopped and she no longer wakes with a startle when she finds her bed bare of him. Its been 216 days. She’s cried herself to sleep at least 180. She’s been broken before, boys have left in more ways than one, and she has managed to wake up one day finding herself less damaged than all the others. Today might be that day for the Killian Jones saga.

Today is they announced the upcoming film and casting begins in a few weeks. She knows she needs to finish this novel, but she hasn’t finished much. She barely finishes lunch on most days, barely finishes a thought that isn’t dripping in Killian. It’s been seven months and he is everywhere, in everything. She thought progress was a slowly-operated escalator but she was finally on her way.

And then the congratulation calls come through. Text after text, email, voicemail and she’s sure in a week or two, she’ll get a card from Mary Margaret. She sorts through them looking for something she’ll never find and she has to rewind.

She left him. It wasn’t mutual and it wasn’t obvious. He had no clue. All the calls and texts he was going to send her were sent months ago when he was breaking down in voicemails and begging her to just tell him she was okay.

Congratulations, Emma, you saved him...from ever having to care about you again.

-/-

She doesn’t leave the apartment again until the 245th day. It is easy to stay inside with the modern advances in technology. People will bring literally anything to your front door. Except, maybe inspiration. That she has to go out and find.

She finds herself in Harlem. The Harlem Public Library. She has to get back to her roots. Sure, this isn’t Storybrooke, and no, she’ll probably never meet a pair of eyes as blue coconut as...but her work needs her to find a way to write.

She thinks of his face.

Three hours pass and all she has in a google doc is ‘why?’

-/-

Despite the first failure to launch, she finds she quite likes that library. She’s giving herself a pep talk this time, before she finds herself staring at a blank screen wondering why again.

“I left because I had to.” She looks at her reflection in her bathroom mirror. That’s the only statement she’s made to anyone, herself included. When her friends, her agent, her editor, and her heart ask, she tells them she had to.

She makes her way through her apartment, recounting the moments, hours, days leading up to it. There are very few things her mind makes enough sense to share. Everything else is so convoluted, so tangled up in self-loathing and years of agonizing loneliness, the average person wouldn’t get it. Some days, as she’s matured and healed, she finds even she has trouble understanding it.

There’s not a day that goes by she doesn’t spend half of it feeling nothing but regret. That’s the healthy part of her, the well-adjusted adult who grew from the little lost girl. She’s sane enough to know she threw away the best relationship she’s ever had. She’s sane enough to know she saved him from future hardships with her.

The sound of the empire striking back stirs her from her thoughts. Regina gets the Darth Vader theme as a ringtone so Emma never forgets who really owns her career.

“Hey,” Emma answers as she reaches her apartment door.

“Nice of you to finally answer your phone.” She can hear the glare in Regina’s voice. “You know you pay me to do this right? Not the other way around. Get your money’s worth, why don’t you.” Emma rolls her eyes as she packs her laptop in her messenger bag.

Regina Mills is a fierce woman, as charming as she is aggressive. She can pretty much get anyone to do anything she wants. Emma doesn’t practice in the ways of the force, but she’s certain Regina knows a Jedi mind trick or two, and as her agent, that comes in handy.

What doesn’t come in handy is her tie to Killian. Regina’s husband Robin happens to be Killian’s cousin. Emma avoided Regina’s calls for months after the break-up, afraid she’ll have to answer the same question she’s been asking herself all afternoon. Once she finally started accepting calls again, it seemed Regina had moved on to bigger and better things: A movie deal.

“Right” she sighs. “What’s my money bringing me today?”

“This isn’t money related, so much as a word of warning.” Regina’s tone doesn’t seem as sass-filled as before, so it’s clear she’s not the one wielding the threat. She actually sounds a bit sympathetic. “Belle and I pulled straws to see who got to break this to you, and I, unfortunately, pulled short this time around.”

“There’s a point here.” Emma urges, feeling ill-fated all of a sudden.

“Killian just moved to NYC.” Like ripping off a band-aid. Emma braces herself for pain, but is met with an absence of feeling altogether. Her knees buckle and she finds purchase against her kitchen island. “Emma?”

“When?” She whispers.

“Just a couple of weeks. He took a job with the NYC public libraries, he’s actually doing really well and has just approached Belle with an idea to get the youth excited about writing. There’s a chance you’ll run into him at the office, so I just...we both thought a heads up was necessary.”

“Which library?” because Fate is a nosy bitch and has no business showing up and guiding her to the man she ran from.

“Emma?”

“Which library”

“I think...if I recall correctly, his home base is in Harlem.”

“I’ll call you back.”

-/-

She thought about leaving the country. At the very least, the state. She is overwhelmed, without a question just so damn overwhelmed. She has gotten so used to tears these days, she’s a little shocked she didn’t cry the minute she heard his name.

Her body had other ideas, because although she definitely meant to get on a train going the opposite direction, she found herself in Harlem 25 minutes later.

She sits in the middle of the library at an open table, clickity clacking as loudly as she can. Part of her really believes that maybe if she saw him, she’d remember why she left.

Another part is certain that masochism is her new favorite hobby.

He never appears.

-/-

“Hey” Emma answers her phone going off for the eighth time today.