“No. Emma, that’s fiction. What you have is more real and more powerful than you can possibly imagine.” Emma stared at Ingrid hard. She wasn’t lying; but just because you believe something, doesn’t make it the truth.
“Great,” Emma responded. “I should have known the only person willing to adopt me would turn out to be a nutjob.”
Ingrid felt as though she’d been punched in the gut. “No, Emma…” she stared sadly, reaching for the smaller blonde.
“Don’t touch me!” Emma cried, wrenching herself from Ingrid’s reach. “I thought…” she started, but like always words failed her in that moment; and then she did what Emma Swan did best… she ran.
It wasn’t until much later that night, with her stomach empty and no idea where she was going to sleep that night that Emma began to regret running from Ingrid. She was bat shit crazy, sure, but she wanted Emma. No one ever wanted Emma, and now she’d gone and ruined it. What was she going to do? Where would she go? Minnesota was not the most forgiving of climate either.
She let Ingrid in; lowered her walls and cared for the woman who was the closest thing to a mother as she’d ever known. Well, this is what she gets. This is what she gets for believing. Cold, hungry, scared. She dropped to the ground, pulling her knees into her chest, with arms crossed over her knees, she lowered her forehead down and started to cry.
Playing ever so slightly louder than her own sobs, was a pan flute.
It grew louder and louder until it filled Emma’s ears. The lithe figure playing the instrument was across the street; a green hoodie was covering his face, but Emma could swear she saw the boy’s eyes shining like gold. She didn’t realize she had even picked herself off the floor until she was standing right in front of him. The boy, her age maybe a year or two older, stopped his music and a fog she hadn’t even realized she had been in lifted from her mind.
“Hello Emma, I’ve been looking for you.”
“Who the hell are you?”
The boy smirked, “Peter Pan.”
“Yeah, right, funny.” She started to walk away but the boy called after her.
“Your foster mom was right… about the magic.”
She froze at that. This boy had to have been on the road and overhead them, followed Emma, and was now being cruel. She was certain that at anytime, his friends would jump out and tease poor orphan Emma.
“You heard the music, it called to you. Do you know what that tells me?” Emma didn’t say anything, and the boy took it as an invitation to continue. “That you’re lost, Emma. And Lost Ones belong on Neverland.”
“Yeah well, hate to break it to you Pete, but even if I believed you, I would never be able to fly.”
“Why’s that?”
“No happy memories.”
“I’ve memories enough for the both of us,” the stilled hooded figure told her. He kicked off the ground and Emma was speechless when the boy’s feet didn’t hit the ground. He was hovering six inches off the ground in front of her very eyes and she still could not believe that it was real. He must have read the disbelief on her face because he reacted by pulling higher into the air and doing a backwards somersault in the air just beyond her reach, before coming back to land in front of her.
The aerial maneuver caused his hood to finally fall back and Emma got her first real look at Peter Pan. He looked close enough to the Disney version she supposed; he was cute, with an impish quality to him, distinctive ears, and blonde hair that was a mess from the hood. Peter freaking Pan. She believed then and immediately felt something spring to life within her. A low rumbling under her sin that vibrated through her. Pan smiled.
“Second star to the right,” he said, taking her hand in his and her feet left the ground, “And straight on through morning.”
Killian Jones is a pirate captain down on his luck after a falling out with the Evil Queen. Emma Swan just found out she is the Savior. Their shared goals bring them on an epic quest to liberate the kingdom once and for all. It’s a lot easier said than done.
“So, let me get this straight,” Emma starts, still trying to digest all the information that was just thrown at her. Killian’s hand is still a steady weight in hers. They’re still standing in the dungeons. “You managed to convince a hoard of Regina’s knights to turn over to our side?”
“Well, it was more of a -”
“Convincing them not to kill us,” David finishes Killian’s sentence with a self-aware shrug. “It’s going to be a mess to figure out, but it beat them getting down in the dungeons and distracting you and Merlin from Regina.”
“Or killing us,” Guinevere adds helpfully. “That would have been much worse. Killian might have saved all of our lives.”
Emma can only gape, trying to picture the scene and failing. Killian has always been good with speeches – the night he told her he loved her is still burned into her mind, it’s as much of a steady source of strength as he promised to be – but the fact that he miraculously managed to prevent dozens of guards from going at his throat with the sheer power of his accent and her parents’ input is a little much to swallow. She turns her head to look at Killian, but his eyes are on his shoes and the tips of his ears are a familiar shade of embarrassed red.
Emma watched him, re-evaluating her assessment of him as a gentleman. He certainly did not sound like one, nor did he look the part. As it was, he was covered in mud, his hair a mess, and he had a wide, improper grin on his face. Nevertheless, as he drew near, she found herself assessing his countenance anew and found him not merely handsome but remarkably so.
There’s an epilogue happening, but the main two parts are finished. Remember when I just wanted to write Olympics smut and it turned into a two part THING plus an epilogue??
Super thanks to @idoltina for buzzing through a quick beta for me to make sure limbs were correctly portioned and things weren’t clunky. :*
Killian was moving her other leg up, trying to press her against the wall and hold her against him at the same time, and Emma was happily complying, when someone down the hall cleared their throat loudly and pointedly. Emma’s heart leapt into her throat as Killian broke off their kiss immediately, though he still held her up by her thighs and her arms stayed around his neck. He glanced down the hall and seemed to relax ever-so-slightly in recognition. “Liam.”
Happily, Liam appeared to have chosen to wait for him down the hall, sidestepping any awkwardness with introductions or explanations. Killian slowly, gently unwound Emma’s legs from around his waist, gritting his teeth against the urge to rut his hips into hers as her body slid lazily down along his. God, he was sure he’d never been this hard in his life and they’d hardly touched one another. He ached for her, longed to feel her toned, athletic body under him and around him; he was sure he’d fit inside her perfectly, hot and wet and tight around his cock, but more than anything he’d wanted her to wrap those glorious long legs of hers around his waist and never release him again.
He took several breaths to try and calm his heated blood, arousal battling against the surge of irritation he felt at his brother’s untimely arrival. “Apologies, love,” Killian murmured, then frowned at the out-of-place sloshing sound as her feet hit the floor. He glanced down and saw what clearly used to be an ice pack wrapped up around her leg but was now mostly water. “Emma, what happened?”
Ever been working on a semi-important fic that stresses you out to the point that you put it aside to write pointless fluff instead? Yeah, me neither. Can be seen as the unofficial sequel to Little Princess.
Word count: 537
It’s dark when Emma wakes up, the clock on her nightstand reading 3:38 in the morning. She rolls over to cuddle up to the person beside her, an involuntary habit she’s developed over the past few years, only to find the other side of the bed empty and the sheets cold.
Emma doesn’t panic like she might have once before, when trust was nonexistent to her. She knows exactly where he is.
Dressed in one of Killian’s shirts and an old pair of pajama shorts that have seen better days, she quietly steps down the hall. She has to remind herself there’s no need to stick her head in Henry’s room, and sighs. Her son had moved to Boston for his freshman year of college just the month before, and adjusting to this new change had been much harder than she ever anticipated. Despite how proud she is of him and his accomplishments, her heart is now in three pieces, and she can’t help but wish one of them wasn’t under a different roof several hours away.
On her 27th birthday, Emma Swan blows out a candle and makes a wish, not believing it will come true. The next morning, a man named Killian Jones shows up in her kitchen and claims he’s there to deliver her happy ending. Emma has two choices: sign the client contract and take the allotted year to make up her mind about what she wants her happy ending to be, or opt out of the whole thing and go on with her life as if nothing happened. If she accepts Killian’s offer, there’s really only one rule they can’t break. Emma’s happy ending can be anything she wants–except him.
Future CS family fluff. Follows canon through 5A finale and then goes into future AU territory. Killian’s not above eavesdropping but he can’t ignore what Emma just said.
rated: t for the tiniest bit of swearing word count: 2,185
———
Killian stepped out of the bathroom, hair still wet and feet bare, wearing jeans and a faded shirt. The house was quiet – Henry was spending the afternoon with a classmate building a volcano (the why still escaped Killian) – but he heard Emma’s voice.
He closed the door midway, enough to allow the shower steam to seep into the hallway but not so wide that the smoke detector’s shrill alarm would pierce the air. Killian walked down the hallway but stopped outside their bedroom door. Her words carried clearly through the hallway.
“I don’t know. We never talked about it.”
From the silence, Killian assumed she was on the phone. He waited. Eavesdropping was hardly an offense to his sensibilities (not after years of piracy) and his curiosity was piqued.
“It’s a baby.” Emma let out a heavy sigh, but Killian’s ears were ringing so loudly that he didn’t hear another word.
So, I said this would be a two parter, but I’m a lying liar who lies because it has grown to three. Modern AU where Emma and Tink are used to their friend Ruby’s crazy ideas so when she signs them up for belly dance lessons they both just shrug and go along with it.
Jasmine’s voice rose over the music, giving the class the cue to begin the dance. Emma watched herself in the mirror that ran the length of the room, moving through the steps along with the other students. A few people from the first day had already dropped out and there were some who didn’t show up for every class, but a core group had developed over the past few weeks. Ruby and Tink shimmied next to her, one on each side, while Belle was one row back. The brunette now brought her own scarf to wrap around her hips instead of using one of Jasmine’s – Hermes, of all things, to the freaking gym. It would be easy to dismiss her as nothing but a brainless golddigger with a rich husband, but she was probably the most well-read person Emma had ever met and she was just so…sweet. It was impossible to hate her.
“Bend those knees and keep your chests up, ladies!”
Emma shook her hips, following Jasmine’s arm movements as best she could. They’d learned the basics, belly rolls, walking shimmy, hip circles, and a movement Jasmine called a reverse figure eight that was very sexy and snakelike when she did it. Now they were working on a short routine that combined all the moves.
“Very good, Ruby!”
To neither Emma nor Tink’s surprise, Ruby had taken to belly dancing like a duck to water. She had even dragged them to the Moroccan restaurant where Jasmine put on a show for the customers every Friday and Saturday night, and had happily joined her on the small stage when she asked for an audience volunteer.
Written for @cutieodonoghue back in February for the CSSV exchange to the prompt of: “I just came out of surgery and I’m convinced you’re my partner but you’re the just the long suffering (and super hot) trainee nurse” AU.
Pairing: Captain Swan AU (also features Snowing, Ruby, mention of Mulan Rouge and a cameo by a certain doctor)
Rating: PG-15
Summary: It should have been the simplest of skip grabs, but clearly her life wasn’t meant to be simple. Now she’s banged up and stuck in a hospital bed in the care of a disturbingly attractive male nurse who sees her as a captive audience for his terrible puns. Like she said, her life clearly wasn’t meant to be simple. (mention of minor injuries)
Notes: Chapter One is HERE. This chapter contains some mild angst and a whole lot of Charming family feels.
CS AU Week…This was supposed to be for Day 2, Canon Divergence, but it’s a few days late.
Canon Divergence from 4×9. After Ingrid casts a spell that sends Emma to an alternate version of reality, someone needs to smash the Snow Queen’s mirror and break the spell.
Outside the clocktower window a cloud of blue-black smoke was moving closer, sending off sparks of light.
“Is that it?” Mary Margaret peered through the binoculars. She pulled them away from her face, extending her hand to David. “I thought it would be…”
“Bigger,” David finished, taking the binoculars. The cloud was ominous but barely wide enough to cover Granny’s diner.
Elsa turned to Emma, the hem of her blue gown swirling around her legs. “Do you feel it?”
Emma nodded. “Yeah.” She felt like she was being pulled out to sea.
“Feel what?” Killian’s voice rose over her parents. He wrapped one arm around her elbow. “What are you talking about Swan?”
Emma shook her head. “I don’t know. I just…” The magic seemed to be draining her strength, or maybe it was the adrenaline fading and exhaustion taking over. Emma swayed on her feet, trying to maintain her equilibrium.
“Emma?”
“Swan!”
She was tired, so very tired, and standing upright felt nearly impossible.
Their voices faded as darkness overtook her vision. Emma pitched forward, one hand reaching for Killian’s elbow, but she only found air.
It All Starts With a Dance 