once-uponacaptain:

Summary: Ready for a change in their lives, Emma and Henry move from New York to her hometown of Storybrooke. But she gets a bigger change than she bargained for when Henry’s new teacher is the ex-boyfriend she hasn’t seen since college … who is also Henry’s dad, and doesn’t know he has a son. Written as part of the Captain Swan Little Bang.

Rating: T (Language, implied sex)

Word count: 14,842

Also on AO3 and FF.net

AN: After months of planning, writing, and editing, I can’t believe it’s finally time to share this not so little story of mine!

A few thank yous: First, to the mods of the @captainswanbigbang for putting this event together and giving me the opportunity to participate. I’m grateful for how this experience has challenged me as a writer, and even more so for the friends and connections I’ve made in the community over the past few months.

Second, words can’t express how lucky I was to get Tessa, aka @the-reason-to-sail-home as my beta. She’s been encouraging throughout this whole process, helping me deal with writer’s block more than a few times and giving incredibly useful feedback. I’m so glad we got paired together and can’t wait to read your own LB story soon!

In addition, I was also lucky to get paired with two artists who made gorgeous pieces for my story! Go check out @treluna2 and @polarbearmorgan’s art- I’ll be reblogging both and posting links to them here once they’re up later today!

Lastly, I have to thank @irishswanff for posting this prompt right before the LB sign ups began. I’ve never had such a strong initial connection to a story idea before, and I hope you all enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

---

She should have known this day would come.

Emma stood in the kitchen, mouth agape as she read the letter Henry’s teacher had sent home with him:

Parents,

Just a reminder parent-teacher conferences are Tuesday afternoon. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Killian Jones

This was just her luck. She couldn’t believe he was in Storybrooke, let alone working at the elementary school. How could she face him after almost ten years, at a parent-teacher conference of all things?

More importantly, how would she explain to her son that his new teacher was also his father?

Keep reading

accio-ambition:

For those, like me, who are only interested in the Super Bowl for the commercials and the halftime show, I come to you this overly commercialized day with my contribution to @captainswanbigbang‘s CS Little Bang. A super special shout out to @technicallysizzlingcloud for beta-ing this monstrosity and @mrs-emma-swan-jones for a lovely art piece. Hope you enjoy!

Summary: Emma Swan doesn’t do kids. Or, more accurately, she hasn’t done kids. But when a friend in need asks her to do kids – more specifically teach them – Emma dips her toes into the education field. Her first foray into substitute teaching is for Mr K. Jones, who proves to be a great asset in this whole “learning to teach” thing. It helps Emma understand what her friends get out of the job: that the best life lessons sometimes come from students and a nice little note.
Rated: T for language
Read it here or on AO3, whatever floats your boat

By trade – if you could call it that – Emma is a bail bondsperson. She chases after skips who’ve failed to pay her back: an irony in the fact that she has nothing, money or otherwise. She’s got an apartment the size of a comfortable closet and enough to eat takeout on occasion. Still, it doesn’t  require a college degree that she doesn’t have and it’s active enough for her. It’s great for the lifestyle she leads. She can find a gig in any city, no matter where she might find herself. It’s awesome.

Until it isn’t.

She’s sprained her ankle one too many times and this time around she’s got a broken wrist to accompany with it. Her skip decided to get a little rougher with her than usual, slamming her wrist into a granite counter. She’s lucky it was only her wrist with the heels she was wearing.

Still, a broken wrist means a cast: which means she’s out of the bail bonds game for at least the next two months, probably longer. Her office won’t pay her rent or her bills, to the surprise of no one, and she’s not moving out of the only little square of the world she’s ever been able to call her own.

That’s how she falls into substitute teaching.

Mary Margaret tells her about it one evening soon after Emma gets her cast on, taking on the role of pseudo-mother caring for her healing daughter.

(She even signs the cast, and Emma can’t quite quell the feeling of a little girl excited to have everyone at school sign her cast.)

It’s an easy way to make money, Mary Margaret insists – solid hours, a schedule that changes, yet stays the same and the properly-trained regular teacher comes up with all the plans.

“All you have to do is follow them,” her friend tells her.

She helps Emma cut the plastic bag off her arm after showering all the sweat and hospital grime of her body. A timer goes off in the kitchen, Emma’s rickety oven on the verge of catching fire with the casserole Mary Margaret’s got cooking away in it. With an thrilled little noise, she goes off to check dinner.

(Emma is consistently surprised she isn’t actually Mary Margaret’s child with her husband David. With the way they all act around each other, they might as well be.)

“I don’t know,” Emma shouts into the other room, ripping the remainder of the shopping bag off her arm. “I don’t really do kids.”

“You haven’t really done kids,” Mary Margaret corrects her. The top of her head pokes from around the door jamb to glare at the other woman. “That doesn’t mean you can’t do them.”

Keep reading