Pirate and the Princess. Had this idea for a bit. And I am obsessed with her blue ball gown, I am going to attempt to make it for NYCC. And his costume is off, I know lol.
Right now, this-to me-looks better irl than it does on photo, tbh. I thought taking a picture with a camera instead of a smartphone would convey it better, but it doesn’t really. Anyway, here’s where I’m stopping today 😊
“No drops!” Hope cried, ducking out of Emma’s reach while clamping her hand over her ear.
“I know it hurts, baby, but the drops will make your ear feel better,” Emma insisted.
Tears leaked out of Hope’s eyes. “No drops.”
Though there was now less fire in her baby’s voice, Emma didn’t consider it a victory.
Four-year-old Hope had been diagnosed the day before with an ear infection and was utterly miserable. She was running a fever and the pain in her ear was so intense that she’d spent the better part of the morning crying. So far, Hope had no problem taking the antibiotics – apparently the medicine tasted like bubble gum – but she absolutely detested the numbing drops she’d also been prescribed.
Oh, the drops worked like a dream. The problem was the initial contact with Hope’s painful ear in order to get the drops in.
“Hope, you know the drops make your ear feel better,” Emma tried again.
“No drops.”
She sounded defeated now, sniffling as her tantrum wound down. A helpless and conflicted Emma looked up at Killian. She hated seeing her daughter so defeated, even though her defeat came from doing what was best for her.
When Killian nodded at her, Emma set the bottle of drops down on the end table. Apparently a little subterfuge was in order. “How about if Daddy tells us a story?”
Hope looked from her mother to her father as if trying to determine what the catch was. “Really?”
“Of course, little love,” Killian said as he scooped his little girl into his arms. “You and your mom can get comfortable on the couch for story time.”
The three of them settled on the sofa, Hope squeezed in between her mother and her father. “Once upon a time, there lived a pirate and a princess …”
And so Killian told Hope’s favorite story, the one of how she came to be. It was a story filled with adventure and monsters, of darkness and of light, of True Love and of faith, and it always ended with hope, both figurative and literal.
This time Hope’s illness was working against her. She was fast asleep before the pirate tracked down the lost princess in the far-off land of New York City. With her baby now comfortably resting against her, Emma squeezed a couple of drops into Hope’s little ear and tucked a tuft of cotton in after to hold the drops in place.
“She’s so miserable,” Emma murmured as she brushed a lock of Hope’s blonde hair out of her eyes. “I have all this magic but I can’t take away her pain with anything but these drops that she hates. I hate seeing her like this, Killian.”
“Aye, love,” Killian agreed, “I do, too. But the medicine will work its magic and she’ll be her typical rambunctious self in no time at all.”
Emma finally gave a little smile. “I know. And in the meantime, we take care of her and let her know that she’s loved.”
Killian leaned over and pressed a kiss to his wife’s temple. With the childhoods they led, they knew better than most how important love and comfort were to a sick child. “Always.”
“Oh, Mittens,” Emma sighs as she slips the plush cat from under her napping daughter’s arm, “you have certainly seen better days.”
The cat is gray with white paws (hence her name). She was a gift from Henry for Hope’s second birthday and she has been Hope’s constant companion in the year and a half since. She’s been misted with salt spray on the Jolly Roger. She’s been dropped in the muddy sheep pen and pecked by chickens at the farm. She’s even been run over by the Bug, though how she was left in the middle of driveway, Emma still isn’t sure. And no one likes to discuss the messiness that ensued during Hope’s bout with the 24-hour stomach bug. Mittens stayed by her side and practically needed to be decontaminated when it was over.
Even now, there are suspicious pink stains around the cat’s plush mouth. Emma brings the cat to her nose and sniffs. Strawberry.
Heaving another sigh, Emma slips from Hope’s room, eases the door closed, and holds the cat up to her husband. “Your daughter tried to share her Gogurt with Mittens.”
Killian swallows a chuckle. “At least she’s learning to share. I take it Mittens needs another delicate cycle?”
“That she does.” Emma reaches into the linen closet for a pillowcase and drops Mitten into it. She’s learned this trick from her mother, who used to wash Neal’s stuffed animals the same way. “Let’s hope we can get her washed and dried before our little pirate princess wakes up from her nap.”
—–
No such luck. Hope wakes with twenty minutes still left on the dryer. “Where’s Mittens, Mama?” she asks, still blinking away sleep.
“Mittens is having a bath,” Emma tells her gently while preparing herself for the waterworks to start.
To her surprise, Hope doesn’t cry. She simply frowns up at her mother. “Cats don’t like water.”
“Mittens seems to like sailing the Jolly Roger well enough,” Emma reminds her. Not wanting to linger over the missing cat and give Hope a chance to cry, Emma picks her still sleepy daughter up and carries her over to the sofa.
“But she’s not in the water when we go sailing, Mama,” Hope argues.
Sensing that his wife needs a hand, Killian smiles at his pirate princess. “Even though she doesn’t like water, Mittens knew her bath was important. She was very brave and now she’s having a lie-down in the sauna.”
Again, Hope frowns. “What’s a sauna?”
“It’s a room that’s very hot.”
“That doesn’t sound like fun. I don’t like being hot.”
“Cats like being hot, though,” Emma reminds her. “They sit right in the sun, remember?”
“Oh yeah! Can I have Mittens when she comes back from the hot room?”
“Of course, little love,” Killian assures.
And when the dryer cycle finishes, Emma hands a warm, toasty, and clean Mittens back to her daughter. “She smells like the towels,” Hope says, smiling as she hugs the cat to her chest.
Which is apparently a much better scent than hours-old strawberry yogurt.
Killian and Emma are colleagues, friends and they’re madly in love with
each other. If only they could work out that their feelings are totally
requited. But then, if they still haven’t figured out that they work
together as superheroes in their spare time, there’s probably no hope
for them. Probably.
Inspired by @katie-dub‘s fantastic fic “The Masks We Wear”. Happy birthday Katie!
Notes: Did I actually finish a story? Yes, internet, I did. And if you’re reading Once and Future and Playing Off Foul, I promise I will get back to it soon before I post my law school au. Anyway, this has been a wild ride and I have honestly loved all the responses I’ve gotten on this, particularly all of the panic and questioning of whether this last bit would be as angsty as the last bits. I’m going to say….you can be relax. This isn’t angsty at all. In fact, I think you’ll quite like it. Anyway, a special thank you to @katie-dub and @shireness-says for being so supportive. A thanks to @cssns and @drowned-dreamer whose gorgeous art will feature at the bottom of this epilogue. And as always, a huge thank you to @aerica13, my amazing beta. I couldn’t have done it without you babe! Word Count: 4,100+ AO3: [LINK] Chapters:Prologue | One |Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Epilogue Rating: T+
The Vineyard Sound was calm, the surface of the water almost as smooth as glass as Emma Swan sat down on the front porch of the yellow beach house. There wasn’t a single soul on the beach across the road, but it was only May and she could only imagine how crowded it got once the vacationers arrived. She knew from what Granny Lucas had told her that the beach was a private one and meant only for the residents of the neighborhood but Emma assumed the majority of the houses here were rental properties and soon the street would be crowded with strangers.
Emma hadn’t expected to remain on the Vineyard past November but something had felt wrong about returning to Maine, especially with Killian in tow. Nothing was waiting for her there while Memensha was full of ghosts, full of history that she had yet to uncover. So, she had given up her shitty loft apartment and decided to stay. She had appealed to the Lucases to remain in the house, offering to pay extra in rent. Ruby and Granny were more than willing to let them stay in the house but had refused their money, claiming that the property should have been hers in the first place because it had been Ruth Nolan’s before it had fallen into their possession. Granny had even forced Ruby to return the rental money, something that Emma was certain had more to do with her guilt than the debatable ownership of the beach house. Feeling awkward about the situation, she had insisted on paying utilities which they relented on.
Emma had taken to working shifts at the diner over the winter on top of working as a freelancer investigator alongside Killian. The majority of their work was on the mainland but Emma sensed that he enjoyed their near daily-ride over to Hyannis, his eyes glued to the ocean. He had yet to go near the water since he had lost his hand. More than once she had caught him looking out over the Atlantic with a mixture of longing and anxiety.
“…And I will win in.” OUAT and Captain Swan have burrowed into my heart and nested. It really has changed me as a person and an artist and for that I’ll always be grateful. Watercolour painting, about 20 hours from design sketching to finish.
It All Starts With a Dance 