Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“ God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.” – J.M. Barrie

It’s a cool October morning when she receives the call that her apartment in Boston had caught fire, destroying everything she and Henry owned. They’re in Maine when they get the call, and Emma is immensely thankful that she had made the decision to show Henry her beginnings, if only because it saved them the danger.

Emma doesn’t know why, but instead of finding a new place in Boston, she decides to start over with Henry in New York. She’s never lived in New York, nor does she have friends there. But moving seems right, and nothing is really holding them to Boston. She can work in bail bonds anywhere, and the school Henry attends is hardly the best. Besides, she’s been feeling restless lately. Maybe it is time for a profound change.

A month after she signs a new lease, and the landlord hands over the key, another profound change comes – a positive pregnancy test.

-/-

She doesn’t remember the father very much – just dark hair, blue eyes, and a lilting accent. Embarrassing as it is, she can’t even recall his name. The most vivid memory she has of him isn’t really about him at all – it’s the feeling of finally finding someone who understands her.

-/-

She doesn’t consider abortion. 

She’s always been a strong proponent of a woman’s right to choose, and wouldn’t never judge another for making that decision. Her reasoning lies with the fact that she kept Henry when she was in a more dire position, and despite the humiliation of accidentally falling pregnant twice by two absentee men, she doesn’t think it would be fair to get rid of this one when her life is more than alright.

Besides, most importantly, she wants this, wants it.

Emma considers herself lucky. A single mother of two is hardly an enviable position, but over the years she’s made a few smart investments that have created quite the nest egg.

It seems magical, really, her luck since getting out of prison, but she won’t question it, not since it allows her to provide a stable life for her and Henry, and now the newest addition to their family.

-/-

Emma waits until the start of the second trimester to tell Henry that he is going to be a big brother. She tells herself it is because she doesn’t want to get his hopes up in case she miscarries, but no small part of her delay is because she’s dreading explaining not just the inevitable mechanics of “where babies come from”, but also that she has random sex with men whose names she doesn’t remember.

Her son continues to amaze her, though, and he takes it all in stride, asking just a few entirely embarrassing questions.

What gets her is when he hugs her and says, “I love you, Mom. This is going to be so awesome.”

-/-

Henry takes it upon himself to create a list of baby names. He checks out books from the library, and explains the meaning of each one. In typical ten-year-old fashion, the names Henry picks also correspond with his favorite fictional heroes.

“We are not naming it Peter,” Emma says, her nose wrinkling in disgust. The name doesn’t sit right with her, even though her son insists that being named after Spider-Man is ‘totally cool’. “Besides, what if it’s a girl?”

Henry rolls his eyes, and hands her the list of girl names. It doesn’t escape her notices that the top names on the list are those of Disney princesses.

-/-

The day Henry comes home and announces that his class is starting a unit on Peter Pan is the day that Emma discovers that she is having a girl. They watch the movie that night, a giant bowl of popcorn between them.

“What about Wendy?” Henry asks midway through the film.

“What about her?”

“For my sister,” Henry answers, as if it is the most obvious thing in the world. “Wendy Swan.”

And it is.

-/-

She notices a furniture store just a few blocks from her apartment called The Wizard of Oak. She’s passed it a few times, but has never gone in due to not having the need. But as her stomach swells and due date quickly approaches, she finds herself wandering into the store, its bells chiming as she crosses the threshold from the outside.

The storeowner greets her, but there is something unsettling about his smile and the way his eyes linger down to her burgeoning stomach that puts Emma on edge. Trusting her gut, she leaves almost immediately.

Instead, Emma settles on purchasing a crib at Ikea.

-/-

“Did you know that in the play, the guys who plays Wendy’s dad also plays Captain Hook?”

-/-

Her labor is an eight-hour affair full of screaming and nurses encouraging her to push. As with Henry’s birth, she is alone. The realization alone hurts more than it should, but she does her best to tamp it down. She tells herself this is not the time to think of such thing when her heart is so full, because though both Henry and Wendy’s fathers are gone, she still has her children.

They are more than enough.

Finally, finally, her daughter is born. When the doctor hands her over, swaddled and screaming, Emma reaches out to count her ten perfect fingers and ten perfect toes. Tears in her eyes, she leans down to place a kiss on the top of her head, already covered with a soft smattering of dark hair.

In a flash of rainbow light, Emma remembers.

-/-

BirthdaycandlesHenryknockingonherdoorReginaMaryMargaretGrahamTheDarkCurseOnceUponaTimeParentsherparentsherparentsloveherandTheEnchantedForestyouneedmealivebeantstalksloveandleavingandNealandRumplestiltskinTamaraGregNeverlandPeterPanand…

Hook.

-/-

Emma is ashamed to admit that she spends the hours after Wendy’s birth in the daze, the combination of both it and the return of her memories too overwhelming. At some point, Avery’s mother drops off Henry at the hospital. Her son is ecstatic to meet his younger sister, and tears spring to her eyes as she watches him delicately cradle Wendy in his arms.

That night she doesn’t sleep, but instead lies in the hospital bed staring up at the ceiling. Henry is sprawled on the couch asleep, and Wendy is wherever they keep newborn babies. She loves her children. Truly loves them, so much so that a brush of her lips against their skin can break even the most powerful of curses.

She reasons that the only reason kissing Wendy restored her memories was because no one knew of her existence when Regina took away both her and Henry’s memories. Wendy had been nothing more than a clump of cells at the point, barely developing in her womb. The magic must not have taken with her. It had only been a memory curse, after all, and Wendy had no memories of which to alter.

Emma spends an unreasonable time pondering if she should change her daughter’s name. She’s spent so long referring to her daughter as Wendy that it would feel almost unfair to change it, but it feels strange now knowing that the real Wendy Darling is out there somewhere. Besides, the name now feels a little too on the nose, considering the infant’s father is literally Captain Hook.

She decides to keep it, however, unwilling to allow a world that may or may not exist dictate her daughter’s life.

Her daughter is Wendy Margaret Swan, born on the Fourth of July, weighing six pounds and eight ounces – her other True Love.

-/-

Instead of going home like most new parents do, Emma piles Henry into the back of the bug, securely fastens Wendy into her car seat, and she drives. She drives and she drives – across state lines, through the afternoon and into the night, and finally, into the state of Maine.

The stop a few times along the way, mostly for sustenance and bathroom breaks. She changes Wendy’s diaper in a truck stop bathroom, and feeds her in the parking lot of a McDonald’s as Henry devours a large order of French Fries. It hurts a bit, the way Wendy latches onto her breast. This part of motherhood is still so foreign to her. She bottle-fed Henry, though more out of necessity more than desire.

Only she didn’t bottle-feed Henry, did she?

The realization that the entirety of her memories of Henry’s life are fabricated is a painful one, and she feels bile rise in her throat that she does her best to tamp down. She’s spent so much time thinking of who was left behind in Storybrooke to focus on the fact that she’s been living a lie for the nine month. Unable to stop herself, tears begin to track down her cheeks.

“What’s wrong?” Henry asks. He’s been uncharacteristically quiet this whole trip, for which Emma has been thankful.

“Breastfeeding just sucks, kid,” she tells him. It’s a partial lie, and Emma wonders how many more she will have tell him since he has not regained his memories. It’s an uncomfortable reality they’ve found themselves in, and Emma doesn’t know how long she will need to keep up the charade. Hours? Days? Weeks? Forever?

She needs to get to Storybrooke, if not for her own peace of mind, but for Henry.

Only Storybrooke doesn’t exist.

She drives the familiar routes to where the town should be. White-knuckled, she grips the steering wheel as she nears what should be the town line. Only she never reaches it, or she does, there is no way to know. She drives and she drives, and all she passes are the dense trees of the forest.

Eventually, she gives up.

There is no going home.

-/-

She thinks of Hook often.

Wendy has inherited his hair and his eyes, as well as his ability to be equal parts maddening and charming. She doesn’t believe in sleeping during nighttime hours, which drives both Emma and Henry crazy. After a particularly awful night, Henry had grumbled that he should sell her off to Captain Hook, and Emma felt her heart seize at her son’s unknowing reference.

She wonders how Hook would have reacted if there hadn’t been the curse, if Pan had somehow been defeated at an earlier hour, and everyone had been allowed to stay within the confines of the town line. Would he have wanted to be a fixture in Wendy’s life? In Neverland, he had told her that he intended to win her heart, but another child had not been an explicit part of the deal.

Emma reasons that it is best that she does not know the answer to that question. It’s much easier to pretend that he might have wanted to be in her life, than face the reality of him choosing to walk away. She’d already faced that reality with Neal once, she doesn’t want to do so again.

Besides, this way, Wendy will never know the pain of being rejected. She will have enough love from one parent for her miss having two.

-/-

She begins a journal – two, actually – one for Henry and the other for Wendy.

She marks down their accomplishments on each page, detailing what is going on in their lives. For Henry, she writes about the subjects he is studying in school, the games he is playing, and the friends he’s made. For Wendy, she describes the tiny things: her smile, her laugh, and the tiny noises she makes.

It’s silly, really, because she’s writing down all of these things in the hope that she will one day be able to hand them over to Regina, Neal, and Hook to fill them in on what they’ve missed.

It’s all a futile effort, though. They aren’t coming back. 

-/-

Emma looks forward to the end of her self-imposed maternity leave. Catching skips was near impossible in her third trimester, and her body needed a recovery period after giving birth. Still, she misses working. It provides her a sense of fulfillment at doing something good and right. She also finds strength in serving as a role model for her children.

Every now and then, Emma checks her bank account, partially out of fear that her regained memories also broke whatever magic Regina bestowed upon her finances.

To a degree, Emma feels uncomfortable relying on the magical charity created by the Evil Queen that allows her, Henry, and Wendy to live stable and comfortable lives. It’s all unearned and unreal, but Emma can’t fault Henry’s other mother for wanting to ensure her son had his best chance.

After all, it’s what she did.

-/-

Emma dresses Wendy in pink frills and cute headbands. It’s not her style, and the feminist in her loathes the obvious gendering, but it’s something Mary Margaret would do. So Emma puts Wendy in dresses and bows to give her a piece of the grandmother she will never meet.

She thinks Mary Margaret would love being a grandmother again. Emma remembers her mother’s confession in Echo Cave, and though Wendy isn’t her own child, she’s still a new addition to the family. Wendy would be doted on endlessly, had they lived in Storybrooke. Not just by Mary Margaret, but by David, as well.

She wonders how they are doing in the Enchanted Forest. Are they ruling the kingdom? Are they happy? Do they miss her?  Is Hook with them?

It stings that she may never know.

-/-

She once said that the worst thing to give someone is false hope. She wishes she had taken her own advice. Every time her phone rings, she feels a swoop in her stomach a voice in her head thinks it could be Regina or David calling to let her know that somehow they had found a way back into her world.

That call never comes.

-/-


There’s this tree in the park that Henry absolutely loves. Emma now knows that it is his subconscious drawing him there, that the tree somehow reminds him of Regina. The selfish part of her longs for it to trigger his memories into returning, so she always brings him over whenever he requests it. It never does, however, and she is surprised whenever she feels a slight wave of relief.

It’s easier this way, his lack of memory. He’s a happy kid, and Emma knows the knowledge that his family is out there unable to find them would destroy him. As much as she wishes she had someone to share the burden of memory with, it’s for the best that is isn’t him.

She does tell Wendy, in the dark of the night, everything about her family – David and Mary Margaret, Hook, even Neal and Regina. She tells her daughter of beanstalks and giants, and of pirate ships that can fly. Emma will stop when Wendy grows older and can retain memories, but for now the infant is her only confidante. 

It’s enough for now.

-/-

It shocks her how little she thinks of Neal. She spent so many years hating him, only to find him again, that it’s a surprise how little he occupies her thoughts whenever they stray to Storybrooke and the Enchanted Forest.

It also shocks her how much she thinks of Hook. Along with her parents, it is him whom she misses the most. She tells herself that it is because of Wendy, and maybe if she says it enough time, she will believe it.

-/-

Some nights, she dreams of Neverland.

Some nights, Henry is once again taken, and other times, it is Wendy.

In these dreams, no matter how hard she tries to get them back, she fails, always fails, and when she wakes, she is drenched in a cold sweat.

As much as she misses her family, these dreams remind her that New York City is far safer than Storybrooke.

-/-

She finally begins to accept that it is best that she, Henry, and Wendy are where they are – the Land Without Magic – and that she will never be reunited with her family again. She wills herself to believe that things are better this way, safer this way, and that her children will be happier here.

And, of course, this is when everything changes.

-/-

It’s early Friday morning when someone knocks at the door.

Henry is watering the plants, Wendy is asleep in her swing, and Emma is still clad in her pajamas. It’s an idyllic morning, a normal morning, so when she hears the insistent knocking, she knows something is not right.

But she goes to the door anyway, and when she sees who is on the other side, her world shatters and suddenly it feels as if she cannot breathe. She is full of confusion, joy, fear, apprehension and oh my god, he came for us, because –

“Hook.”

Chapter Text

It’s a funny thing how easily one’s life can turn on a dime.

Over the course of her near-thirty years of life, it has happened to Emma often. From the Dark Curse robbing her of a life of royalty to Neal framing her to a small, ten-year-old boy showing up at her door – these moments all altered her life in dramatic ways.

Now as she stands in the doorway of her Manhattan apartment, Emma thinks that this is another one of those moments. 

Hook stares back at her, and she at him, and none of it seems real. Only it is, or so she believes, because she bites the inside of her cheek and feels a bloom of pain. You can’t feel pain in dreams, right?

“Swan,” he begins, and before he can say anything further, Emma plants a hand on his chest and pushes him deeper into the hallway, and shuts the door behind them.

If any of her neighbors were to step outside, they would get quite the sight – her in her flannel pajamas and him still in his pirate regalia. Hook looks just as Emma remembers – dark hair an artful mess, blue eyes bright, and chest hair on full display. The ache that’s settled in chest for the past three months begins to dissipate, and Emma wants nothing more than to pull him into her arms for a hug. But she puts a clamp on those emotions, because – 

“Henry doesn’t remember anything, so he really doesn’t need to see you right now,” she says. She leaves out that part that the daughter he doesn’t know exists is also inside.

“You remember?” Hook asks, jaw dropping and brow furrowing in confusion. “But how? Regina –”

“Can you come back in like two hours?” Emma asks, effectively cutting him off. “Henry will be at school then, and we’ll have a few uninterrupted hours to talk.”

“But, Emma – “

“Killian, I swear I will explain everything,” she uses his name for emphasis, an emotional plea that she knows is slightly manipulative, but will work. “Just trust me, okay?”

He opens his mouth as if to argue, but seems to think better of it, because the next thing he says is, “As you wish.”

Her heart contracts, and in that brief moment, Emma is taken back to Neverland, to the sweltering heat of the jungle and even hotter kisses. He’s staring at her with his too-blue eyes, and it’s so intense that she wants to look away. She stands her ground though, and waits him for him walk away. He does, and it surprises her to see him so easily acquiesce to her demands. Leaning against her door, she watches as he ambles down the hallway, any evidence of his usual swagger now gone. She takes a deep breath to summon the courage, and calls out to him.

“It’s good to see you again, Killian.”

He turns back to her, and Emma can see a ghost of a smile cross his face, “Aye, Swan, you as well.”

-/-

The moment she returns into the kitchen, Henry asks her who was at the door. Emma lies by telling him that Hook had been a person she was working with on a new case. Henry takes her answer in stride, and goes on to busy himself with collecting his school things. The lies come easier now, one after another whenever something having to do with her past comes up in conversation. She wonders if Hook’s sudden arrival means that her period of lying to Henry might come to an end.

After dropping off Henry at school, she stops by a liquor store and buys a nice looking bottle of rum. She hasn’t really drank over the past year, pregnancy and breastfeeding preventing any imbibing of liquor, but she thinks it would be “good form” to have something to offer him. After all, he’ll likely need a drink once he discovers the truth.

She stresses over how to dress Wendy, and settles on a onesie printed with tiny ducklings. She places a yellow headband on the baby’s head, one adored with an overlarge daisy, and smiles as her daughter coos and kicks.

Emma feels like a teenager again, the young foster kid doing everything possible to impress a potential family. It’s desperate and needy, but as she watches her daughter squirming on the bed, Emma tries to tell herself that this is all for Wendy. She lifts the girl and looks her in the eyes, blue meeting green.

“No matter what happens, I just want you to know that you are wanted, you are loved, and no one will make you feel otherwise.”

-/- 

They’re in the middle of tummy time when Emma hears three booming knocks on the door. Wendy coos and stretches – she’s so desperately close to rolling over for the first time – and Emma whispers for her to stay put before rushing to the door. Emma pauses at the hallway closet to grab her red leather jacket, and shrugs it on as she approaches the door.

Her heart is pounding in her chest, because this is the moment of the truth.

When she greets him, Hook swaggers in, a defense mechanism if Emma ever saw one. She knows she caught him off guard earlier, and he’s doing everything possible to pretend that he still has some semblance of control over the situation. She knows the feeling well. He smiles one of his brilliant smiles, and it strikes Emma how much she’s missed him – arrogance and all. He freezes when he sees the baby, though if it is out of surprise or realization, she doesn’t know.

It’s the former.

“I know it’s been a year, but you hardly strike me as nursemaid, Swan,” he tells her with a laugh, but there’s a hint of confusion in his tone as his eyes lock on Wendy.

“I’m not,” she replies. It annoys her that nursemaid had been his first conclusion, and foregoing any careful consideration for his feelings and hasty plans made in the past two hours, Emma announces, “I’m her mother. Killian, meet Wendy, our daughter.”

It’s then when Wendy chooses to roll over the first time.

Showoff.

-/-

The first thing he says is, “You named her after the bloody Darling girl?”

The second thing is, “By the gods, Swan, if I had known I…”

He doesn’t finish his sentence, leaving Emma to fill in the blanks.

Wouldn’t have let me leave?

Would have been here sooner?

Would never have come at all?

-/-

Emma wants nothing more than to ask Hook why he is here and not in the Enchanted Forest, but she bites her tongue. Babies are more life altering than realm crossing, and this is one of the many moments she’s been longing to happen for months, one she never thought would ever come true. So, she decides to savor it.

“Do you want to hold her?”

He looks flabbergasted at the proposal, but Emma moves to lift Wendy off the floor and into his arms anyway. Her daughter coos and kicks and smiles widely, putting on a show of her very own. Emma wonders if Wendy realizes just how momentous of an occasion this is. Does she sense that she is meeting her father for the first time? Does she want him to love her too?

“She weighs hardly a thing,” Hook says as he adjusts the baby in his arms. Wendy gropes for his necklace and tugs, causing him to wince. It doesn’t seem to bother him too much, though, because he chuckles and says, “She’s strong, though. That’s good.”

“She just had a checkup last week. According to the doctor, she’s right on track with everything. Doesn’t weight too much or too little, developing like normal. Actually, she’s a little ahead of the curve on a few things, like the rolling over,” Emma explains, and she feels a little like she’s trying to prove to him that Wendy is good and worth it, and that she, herself, is a capable mother. Emma digs her fists into her jacket and sways. “That’s the first time she did that, actually, roll over.”

“Smart lass,” Hook says, and Emma swears he says the last part with a cooing tone to his voice. “It’s obvious she takes after you, love – strong, smart, beautiful.”

Emma tries, and fails, to hide her blush. She need not worry, though, because Hook’s attention is focused entirely on his daughter in his arms.

-/-

Hook asks questions. Emma answers.

Eventually, he stops inquiring, and simply allows Emma to talk.

She tells him about discovering she was pregnant, and the morning sickness, and how she couldn’t even remember his name.

She tells him that when Wendy was born, it was True Love’s Kiss that restored her memories.

She tells him about the past four months. That Wendy doesn’t like to sleep, and how playing ‘70’s funk music seems to be the most reliable method of calming her down.

She tells him how though Wendy likes to go on walks in Central Park, it is by waterfront where she seems happiest.

“She gets that from you, I think.”

-/-

Around noon, Henry texts asking if he can stay the night at Avery’s.

She responds ‘yes’ quickly, thankful that she doesn’t have to explain Hook’s presence to him.

Might as well give him one more night to be a normal twelve-year-old boy.

-/-

Eventually, he begins to tell her his side of the story. His eyes keep flicking back to Wendy, now asleep her bassinet a few feet away. He takes a generous gulp of the rum Emma offered him, and he tells her of her family’s arrival in the Enchanted Forest, and how their lives are now in danger.

It surprises Emma how much it stings that he’s here because Storybrooke needs a Savior. Since he arrived at her door, there’s been a not-so-small bit of hope in heart that he had magically appeared for her and her alone. Her life is never that easy. But she swallows down that pain, and lets him weave his tale, because she owes him that much.

“—and frankly I was bored. I had a life to get back to. A pirate’s life.”

And it’s then when a coil of fear grips at her heart, and between that and her quashed hopes, she snaps at him. Because she might be able to deal with rejection and pain, but she will do everything possible to prevent her children from feeling the same.

“Here’s the thing, you can’t do that anymore. You can’t just leave because you are bored.” The words spill out quickly, and Emma knows she’s babbling, but she doesn’t care. “You have to decide now if you want to be here for her, okay? Because you just can’t just walk away when she’s not interesting you, or boring you, or – babies aren’t always the most interesting things, you know? They just lay there, or cry, or poop, and you can’t hold a conversation with them. You’re gonna get bored, and no matter how bored you are, you don’t leave them. You just can’t.”

Emma brushes her fingers against the corner of her eyes, wiping away unshed tears. She looks up at Hook, who is staring back at her with such a hurt expression she feels a wave of guilt at her outburst. In a small voice, he asks, “Do you truly think so little of me that you believe I would abandon my own child because I grew bored?”

“Wha – no – that’s not…” Emma scrambles for words, shrinking under the intensity of his stare. She hadn’t meant to offend him, but parental instinct and the urge to protect had taken hold. She wishes that he could just get it, read her like the open book he once claimed she was. Then again, Hook’s own parental instinct could be coming into play, one that she just thoroughly walked over.

“I left your parents and everyone from that bloody town because there was nothing left there for me anymore,” he says, biting out the words. His eyes bore into hers, and Emma knows without a doubt that by ‘nothing’ he had meant her. “As long as I have a breath in my body, Emma, no level of boredom or threat could ever force or tempt me to abandon my child.”

Emma wants nothing more to believe him. After everything she’s been through, though, she’s not sure she even can.

-/-

Wendy wakes up not long after his confession, her piercing cry startling them both. Emma recognizes her wails as her daughter signaling her hunger, and when she moves to feed her, Hook blushes and looks away. Emma belatedly realizes that this is probably the most he’s seen of her breasts. Their first time, they had removed as little clothing as possible in their rush for mutual release.

“Not how you expected to see my boobs, huh?” she asks him, her voice light and teasing. She’s not accustomed to seeing Captain Hook blush, and it’s amusing to say the least.

“Not as such, no,” and then, “though from my vantage, they appear larger.”

Emma sighs. Men.

-/-

They play with Wendy on the floor of the living room. 

It’s easier than talking about missing years, cursed family members, and their own relationship. It’s easy to be distracted by their daughter, her sounds, and her many toys. Like Wendy, Hook seems particularly fascinated by the ones that make noise, astounded by the advances in technology for infant paraphernalia.

There’s a certain peace in watching Wendy and her father bond, the girl’s squeals outmatched only by his laughter. Hook looks at Wendy with nothing short of awe and wonder, and Emma can’t help but think fatherhood looks good on him.

-/-

Eventually dinnertime comes, and they realize that neither of them has eaten anything all day. Emma orders Chinese delivery because it’s easy, and apparently it’s something Hook has never tried.

She laughs when he attempts to eat his Sweet and Sour chicken with chopsticks. 

(Key word: attempts)

“Laugh now, Swan, but I seem to recall hearing about your experiences with Enchanted Forest cuisine.”

She throws a fortune cookie at his head.

-/-

She takes a shower after Wendy falls back to sleep. When she exits the bathroom, wet hair tied into a braid and wearing flannel pajamas, she finds Hook on the couch, the journal chronicling Wendy’s life in his hand. Emma settles next to him on the couch, and pretends not to notice the red of his eyes.

“I missed so much.”

“You’re here now. That’s what counts.”

-/-

Unsurprisingly, they end up in bed.

As with their first time, they don’t make love. It’s raw and desperate, just two people coming together to forget and feel and fuck. In Neverland, she had been frantic to feel something other than fear about Henry’s safety and the stress placed upon her by her family, Neal, and the whole goddamn town.

It isn’t much too different now, the months of longing and loneliness finally catching up to both of them. It’s so incredibly good to just be with someone who remembers, with whom she doesn’t have to lie and hide and protect – and it’s him. It’s Killian moving above and inside her, his fingers tangled with her own, and his skin sliding against her own.

Unlike the last time, she allows him to hold her, and she rests her head against his chest and listens to the steady and constant beat of his heart.

-/-

She awakens to an empty bed and dark room.

Panic momentarily seizes her, the years of abandonment catching up to her. The pounding in her chest doesn’t stop until she stumbles out the bedroom, wearing nothing but a t-shirt, and she sees him.

He’s standing in front of the window, bare-chested and wearing only his leather pants, Wendy cradled in his arms. She comes to stand next to him, their shoulders not quite touching.

“You can’t see the stars here,” he says.

“No, you can’t.”

He looks down at Wendy. “She should see the stars.”

“Okay.”

-/-

She packs bags for her, Henry, and Wendy in the morning. She’s apprehensive about what could be waiting for her when they reach Storybrooke, but Emma cannot help the bubble of excitement she feels when she thinks of seeing her parents again.

“You’re gonna meet your grandparents,” Emma tells Wendy as she bounces the girl on her hip. Wendy responds by tugging on her hair. “I hope my mom still has her hair cut short. She’ll be thankful when she holds this one.”

“She’ll be thankful no matter what,” Hook tells her, and Emma blushes under the tenderness of his gaze. They haven’t talked about what happened the night before, and it’s not a conversation Emma is looking toward having. She’s not sure where she stands on the thing, and with a threat looming, she doesn’t know if she has time to figure it out.

Then Henry texts that he is heading home, and the moment between her and Hook is lost.

-/-

Their plan is simple: pour the memory potion into a mug of hot chocolate, and boom – Henry’s memory will come back.

They don’t count on him clumsily dropping the mug, the ceramic shattering and drink spilling all over the hardwood.

There’s a metaphor in there about shattered hopes, but Wendy bursting into tears at that moment illustrates Emma’s feelings more clearly.

-/-

Emma knows Henry is confused by the way her hands shake as she cleans up the mess, the strangely dressed man standing in the kitchen holding his sister, and the bags piled into the living. All she can think, however, is that it’s now more lies and more maneuvering and how it’s going to be so much more difficult when they get to Storybrooke.

Why couldn’t she have pretended the vial of memory potion was some sort of candy?

-/-

“So what exactly is in Maine?” Henry asks after they all pile into the car, and begin their quest towards Storybrooke.

Hook watches her warily from the passenger seat as Emma ponders her son’s question. She ruminates over the possible answers – danger, your family, home – all things she cannot say. Instead she settles on something easy, something excited, and something not a lie.

“You’ll see.”

Chapter Text

Her fingers tighten on the steering wheel as the bug approaches where Storybrooke should be. Emma remembers the last time she did this, and the crushing pain of realizing the town was nowhere to be found. She isn’t sure she can go through that again.

But Hook says there had been another curse, and that the town should be back in Maine – her family should be back in Maine. Emma’s not sure what she will find when ( if ) they cross the town line. The last curse had stripped everyone of both their memories and identities. The second might have very well done the same.

It makes her sick to think David and Mary Margaret might not recognize her. It’s a cruel example of “be careful what you wish for,” as she spent so much time avoiding them  and their need to make up for lost years. Now all she wants is for them to do that very thing. She wants to hug them, have one of those cliché family dinners, and tease one another. She wants them to spend time with Henry and meet Wendy, and as old fashioned as it sounds, she even wants her father to give Hook a hard time.

Emma wants it all because these past few months remembering them without being able to see them have been hell. She doesn’t how she will react if she sees them again, and they simply look right through her.

She casts a sidelong glance to Hook in the passenger seat. She takes comfort in the fact that if her family lacks their memories, she won’t be completely alone in her endeavor to return them. She’s still not sure where the two of them stand, or where she even wants them be, but it’s better than nothing. Before their year apart, they were something like friends – friends who had sex once, with one party making their feelings explicitly clear, but friends nonetheless. And now, he’s come back for her again, they share a kid, and have fooled around yet again. It’s complicated. But it could be worse.

Hook could be wrong, and Storybrooke still might not exist.

Emma continues to drive into the night.

-/-

Storybrooke exists.

She drives right past the she sign she once destroyed, and Emma wants nothing more than to scream in victory. She refrains, however, cognizant of her two sleeping kids in the backseat. She settles on pumping her fist into the air.

Hook laughs.

-/-

“You’ll be fine,” she tells him as they stand outside the bug. “They’re sleeping.”

Hook’s normal blustering confidence evaporated the moment Emma announced she was leaving him to watch over both Wendy and Henry while she attempted to reunite with her parents. If they don’t remember her, she doesn’t want their first impression of her to be a crazy woman with a son, a baby, and a one-handed pirate in tow – just a solo crazy lady will do.

“What if they wake, love?” Hook asks. His eyes dart between her and the backseat of the car. “You don’t think your boy will find it odd that it is just me watching over him and the babe?”

She sighs. She knows his unease has nothing to do with Henry, and everything to do with the fact he’s technically never been alone with Wendy. He’s only really been around her for one day, so she can’t blame him for being apprehensive. But if he wants to stick around, he’s going to need to get accustomed to watching her without supervision.

“If anything bad happens, Henry has his phone and can call me. I won’t be gone long. I just need to figure out the situation. “

He still looks apprehensive, but nods to her in acceptance. As she walks away, she hears him call out, “Good luck, Swan.”

Emma is going to need it.

-/-

Her father pulls her into his arms, and it is everything .

She hears her mother’s voice, and her heart soars.

She sees the swell of her mother’s stomach, and her blood runs cold.

-/-

After a brief explanation – Hook arriving with a potion – they agree to meet at Granny’s. Emma leaves out the part about Wendy. Revealing the existence of Wendy is more of an “in-person” kind of thing. Besides, she knows they will want to know everything about their granddaughter, and Henry’s still asleep in the car, plus Emma really needs a moment to gather herself.

So she says she’ll see them in forty-five minutes.

When she gets back to the bug, Killian has Wendy in his arms. He’s swaying back and forth, his lips pressed to her head. He looks sheepish when he notices her approach, almost as if he is he worried he’s done the wrong thing.

“She was upset,” he offers, and Emma takes him at his word. She doesn’t seem to be upset any longer. In fact, she looks quite content in his arms, one tiny fist wrapped round his necklace and the other in her mouth.

“Well, she’s not crying anymore,” she replies, brushing her hand over the back of her daughter’s head. “Good job, Dad.”

The smile Hook gives in response is brilliant.

-/-

“Cute kid, Captain,” Granny tells Hook, who is still cradling Wendy, when they check into their rooms – separate rooms – at the inn. “It looks like you were busy during the missing year – or, before, I suppose.”

The older woman casts Emma a meaningful look, and she blushes. Emma knows she needs to speak to her parents soon, because there’s no way Wendy will be a secret for long.

-/-

No sooner does she present Wendy to her parents that her daughter is whisked out of her arms and into Mary Margaret’s. Emma envisioned this moment a hundred times since her memories were restored and yet she’s surprised at how overwhelmed she is by the intensity of the moment. Her mother cries and her father hugs her again, and Emma wants nothing more than for Henry to have his memories and to be here, sharing the moment as one large, complete family.

But then the dwarves storm into the inn and that almost-perfect moment is shattered.

Welcome to Storybrooke.

-/-

People are missing, Neal among them.

Her parents give her a sad sort of look and assure her that Neal will be found. It’s when her mother looks down at Wendy and says, “Don’t worry, we’ll find him” that Emma puts two and two together.

They think Neal is Wendy’s father.

She wants to laugh, because the idea is so absurd to her because Wendy – Wendy just isn’t his kid, and Emma wouldn’t –

She hears Hook shuffle behind her, and she can tell by the hard set of his jaw and the tension practically radiating off of him that he’s caught her parents’ drift as well. She wants to reach out to him, but refrains. There are too many people here, and she’s too unsure of her own feelings toward him to potentially encourage his further.

Instead she says nothing at all, and pretends not to see the hurt in Hook’s eyes.

-/-

Wendy refuses to sleep that night. She whines and wails, and eventually Emma has to duck out of the bedroom she’s sharing with Henry to soothe her other kid in the inn’s den. No sooner does she enter the hallway does  Hook come barreling out of his own room, hookless but cutlass in hand.

“Is she hurt?”

Emma blinks a few times, trying to understand his meaning, until she realizes he’s mistaken Wendy’s crying to be a sign she’s in danger of being harmed rather than normal infant insomnia.

“No. She’s just crying. She does this a lot,” Emma explains to him. She doesn’t tell him that one night, when Wendy was around one month old, Emma had to lock the baby in the bathroom and hide with a pillow over her own head to keep from screaming, her daughter’s seemingly never-ending cries driving her to the point of insanity. “Um, you can put away your sword and go to bed, if you want. I’ve got this.”

He does end up putting away his sword, but doesn’t go to bed. Instead, he sits up with her until Wendy’s cries die, and she falls into deep slumber.

-/-

“It’s a good thing you’re cute,” Ruby says to the baby the next morning when her family gathers at the diner. Emma realizes Wendy’s cries might have aggravated both Ruby and Granny’s enhanced hearing, and she winces. Ruby turns to Henry and smiles, and says, “Because I’m sure you also had a helluva night, here’s a hot chocolate with cinnamon.”

She places the drink in front of him, and Emma stifles a laugh as her son’s eyes grow wide. Her amusement is brief, however, because then her son asks how Ruby knows he like cinnamon, because of course that is something he would wonder.

She wants nothing more than for him to have his memories back. Emma is sick of lying to him about her past – his family –  and her interest in Storybrooke.

Emma is startled by the shattering of glass, and she turns to see Regina staring open-mouthed and broken-hearted in their direction. Emma takes a deep breath.

It’s another lie she’ll have to tell Henry.

-/-

The day she spends with Regina, Emma leaves her kids with her mother and pretends not to notice Hook’s put out expression.

That night, she hands him a cell phone she purchased earlier that afternoon.

“I couldn’t have you watch her without any way to contact you, so here. It’s a phone. It’ll allow us to communicate or whatever.”

He nods, but it’s obvious that he doesn’t quite know what exactly a cell phone is. She spends the next hour in his room attempting to show him how it works.

Things might not be perfect, but it’s a start.

-/-

It’s when they’re hiking through the woods in an attempt to find out who broke into Regina’s office that the penny drops.

“Tell me, love, just when are you going to inform your parents of our daughter’s true parentage?”

They had just been talking about Hook’s exploits during the missing year, so his question throws her. Maybe that had been his point, but Emma can tell by the undercut of annoyance in his voice and the way he’s glaring that the issue has been bothering him for quite some time.

“Look, I’m sorry. That was unfair and wrong of me, but – ”

He cuts her off. “But you were put on the spot and the bloody dwarves can’t give anyone in this town a second of peace. I understand that part. I’m quite perceptive, you know. What I’m interested in knowing is when you’ll correct their assumption.”

“I don’t know,” she tells him. There’s no use in lying, not to him, not about this. He looks hurt, but he does his best to mask his pain. He shouldn’t. She knows she’s not being fair to him. “Can I just…can we just solve this crisis and then deal with my mom and dad? I swear I’m not trying to keep her from you, and it’s not intentional, but I can only handle so much at once.”

He doesn’t look happy, but he agrees.

-/-

Emma, unfortunately, doesn’t get the chance to tell her parents the truth about Wendy. Hook, it appears, is not the only perceptive person in her life.

“You know you can tell me anything, Emma,” her mother says as the two of them sit together in the loft.

“What do you mean?”

It’s a strange statement, one that comes out of the blue, because they had been discussing flying monkeys and how those now nix a potential zoo theme for the baby’s nursery.

Mary Margaret takes a delicate sip of tea before answering.

“Wendy has Hook’s eyes.”

-/-

It’s her father who talks to her next. They’re in the woods searching for some more clues about the witch, when he awkwardly starts of the conversation.

“So you and Hook…”

She doesn’t meet his eyes, which is fine, because she thinks he doesn’t really want her to. Emma can feel her cheeks heating in slight embarrassment – is this really a conversation she once looked forward to having? – and she sighs, “Mom told you, huh?”

“Ah, yeah, she did, but I figured it out for myself,” he says. When Emma makes a noise of inquiry, he explains. “He looks at Wendy like I look at you, or how I hope I look you.”

Emma knows the look. She’s seen it on Hook’s face many times since he knocked on her door in New York. She’s seen it on her own father’s face once his memories returned after she and Henry broke the original curse.

“Don’t worry, you get the look.”

“Good.”

They continue to walk in silence a little longer, and Emma wonders if he’s going to push her further. He doesn’t, and it’s like he planned it, because she snaps.

“It’s not that I didn’t want to tell you guys. It’s just – the dwarves and the witches and I worried you were going to run him through with a sword in the middle of Granny’s.”

“I’m not going to run Hook through with a sword.”

“Oh?”

“Your mother wouldn’t let me.”

-/-

Hook takes to sitting up with her during Wendy’s nightly feedings and tantrums. She tells him he doesn’t need to, that he needs his rest in case the Wicked Witch attacks, but he shrugs and tells her this is more important.

“I’ve missed enough.”

They don’t always talk during these late nights. Sometimes they do. He’s intentionally evasive when she asks about his missing year, but she doesn’t press, doesn’t want to disrupt the delicacy of their relationship and the situation. When they don’t talk, he tends to read Wendy’s journal, almost as if he’s trying to imprint the words she had written to memory.

-/-

She gives Regina the journal she wrote about Henry. She pretends not to notice the tears in the other woman’s eyes as Emma explains it contents.

Things might still be rocky between the two of them, but they both can agree on their shared love of their son.

-/-

“Killian’s Wendy’s dad, isn’t he?” Henry asks one evening, catching Emma off guard.

She considers deflecting, but she’s so tired of lying to her son. Besides, since Hook insists on being a part of Wendy’s life, there is no use in not telling the truth. So she doesn’t.

“Yeah, kid. He is. Does that bother you?”

He’s quiet for a moment, and he looks down to study his hands. “No. I’m glad Wendy’s dad came back for her.”

Emma doesn’t miss the unspoken “ even though my dad didn’t for me ”. She takes her son into her arms and kisses his head. She hopes against all hope they find Neal. If only so her son could find peace.

-/-

Later that night, all Emma can think about is how Killian came back for her, and Neal never did.

-/-

Emma’s ashamed to admit it, but it takes far too long for her to notice Killian’s been avoiding wearing his hook, even when Henry isn’t around. It’s strange, and it feels a little unsettling and wrong for Captain Hook to be hookless, so she tells him as much.

“I…I don’t want to hurt the lass.”

It breaks her heart a bit, the uncertainty and fear he has surrounding himself and Wendy.

“Well, you won’t,” she assures him. “Besides, it’s a part of you, and she should know that.”

He allows her to click the hook back into place.

-/-

Emma pretends it doesn’t hurt that Mary Margaret seeks out a midwife to instruct her through the end of pregnancy, and what to expect during the first few months of her younger sibling’s life.

She gets the need to have a doctor, but – she’s been there herself recently. She’s dealt with having no idea what to do or what to really expect, the first fever, and the fucked up things that happen to one’s body after childbirth. She has her false ones with Henry, and her real ones with Wendy, and though Emma’s not an expert, she’s been there. She could be useful.

So it stings that her mother doesn’t ask, not really, about any of it.

“With the Wicked Witch running around, maybe she doesn’t wish to burden you,” Hook offers after she vents to him one night in Granny’s den during another late night feeding.

“Maybe,” she agrees, even though this is something that wouldn’t be a burden at all.

-/-

“Hey, kid, you don’t feel like I replaced you with your sister, right?”

“If I said yes, would you get me an X-Box?”

“No.”

“Then, no. People have other kids, Mom. It’s not a big deal.”

-/-

Emma finds herself looking at apartments in the classifieds. When Henry gets his memories back, she knows  he’ll want to move back. She wants to moves back. The four months of remembering her family and this town were absolute torture, and she spent her nights with Neal’s words ringing in her ears.

“That's how you know you've really got a home: When you leave it, there's that feeling that you can't shake. You just miss it.”

They’re home now, and Henry needs to remember it.

-/-

The midwife is the Wicked Witch because of course she is.

-/-

Neal is found. Or, rather, he finds them, stumbling into his father’s pawn shop in a panic.

As with everyone else in the town, he is devoid of memories from the previous year.

He asks about Henry, and later, he escapes from the hospital – the latter action so quintessentially Neal that Emma isn’t surprised at all. Then he asks about her.

“So, how’d your year go? You remember it, right?”

She considers evading, but doesn’t. There’s no point, and she might as well have this conversation now.

“I had a baby – a girl. Her name is Wendy, and she’s pretty amazing. Um, she’s how I got my memories back, because apparently kissing your baby works as True Love’s Kiss. So, it’s been a good year. Mostly.”

“Wow, Em, a baby,” he looks at her in awe, like he can’t quite believe what she said. He doesn’t look mad or upset, though. Instead, he smiles at her, the wide, happy smile she once fell in love with. “How does Henry like being a big brother?”

Emma smiles, the memories of the past year fond. “He loves it. I was worried he’d be jealous, but he’s not. You should see him. He’s great with her.”

It’s easy talking to Neal about Henry. He’s the best thing to ever come out of their relationship. Talking to Neal about other things, however, still hurts. She wonders if it will ever stop hurting. She tries not to think about how it never hurts to talk with Killian, about Wendy, their past, anything.

“Hook’s great with her, too.”

Neal’s smile fades considerably. It might be unfair to bring up Hook so quickly, especially when they had been talking about Henry. But Emma reasons the best way to peel a bandaid is to rip it off, and talking about Henry is evading. This is going to be the part that hurts.

“That’s good, I guess.”

He doesn’t talk to her the rest of their search.

-/-

Neal dies.

Emma mourns.

She mourns for a life lost too early. She mourns for a man she once loved. She mourns for her son, who never got to say goodbye. She mourns because it’s unfair, and even if she wished him to be dead, it’s something she wants no longer.

And despite it all, she wonders if she could be sadder.

-/-

The Wicked Witch is Regina’s sister because of course she is.

-/-

Hook spends time with Henry after the funeral. It’s strange how quickly her son takes to him, and he to Henry, but it’s nice.

Henry comes back smiling, his first real smile since Neal’s death.

During Wendy’s 2:00 a.m. feeding, she fills Hook in on what happened between Regina and Zelena. He tells her about how Henry reminds him of a young Neal.

After Wendy gets her fill, Killian holds his daughter until she falls to sleep.

Fatherhood looks good on him.

-/-

During Regina’s grueling training, Emma wonders if Wendy might also have magic.

She hopes not. She really, really hopes not.

-/-

That night when Wendy wakes, Killian does not join them. The next morning, she considers asking, but refrains from doing so. There’s no use in making him feel badly for likely sleeping through the baby’s cries.

-/-

It’s Belle who discovers Zelena’s plot, and Emma struggles to wrap her mind around the whole thing.

Time Travel.

Only she doesn’t really have time to think, because everything turns into a whirlwind of trying to protect her family because Zelena apparently needs a baby to complete the spell, and that baby is her yet-to-be-born sibling.

“Why ours?” her mother asks, and Emma holds Wendy closer in her arms. She wonders if it makes her a terrible person that she’s glad her daughter doesn’t seem to be the target, even if it means her little brother is.

“Your baby is going to the product of True Love. It’s likely that’ll be of more use for the spell.”

As much as she wants to, Emma doesn’t look toward Killian.

-/-

She, Henry, and Wendy stay at her parents’ loft that night. Regina casts numerous wards over the place, and everyone feels safer knowing the kids would be magically protected.

Emma calls Killian in the middle of night. She’s surprised he answers.

“Wendy’s awake, and I’m sorry you aren’t here.”

“It’s for the best, love.”

“I know you like staying up with her, though.”

He’s silent on the other side of the line for a moment.

“Swan, I hope you know I would do anything to ensure the safety of you and our child. A night away is nothing compared to knowing you are protected.”

“I know,” she says. She does. And it’s true.

-/-

She’s not sure how, but she finds Henry’s storybook in her old bedroom in the loft. She traces her fingers over the lines of the book, feels its weight in her hands, and smiles fondly at the memories of her son toting the thing around to get her to believe.

It’s then Emma realizes what she needs to do.

-/-

There are gunshots, flying monkeys, and Zelena attacks.

But her son remembers and Regina’s kiss breaks the spell.

Emma tells herself she needs to focus on those two things, those two very good things, because if she looks at Hook a second longer, Wendy wailing in his arms, her blood may actually boil.

She doesn’t care for his excuses. She doesn’t care he was trying to keep her kids safe. All she cares about is that her kids were in danger, and he attempted to steal them away because he couldn’t fucking trust her or even tell her the truth.

She wrenches their crying daughter from his arms, does her best to soothe her as she  walks away.

He tries to reach out and stop her, but she evades him.

“Just stay away, Hook. Stay away.”

-/-

Hook doesn’t stay away. He’s at the hospital when her mother goes into labor. Emma ignores him and hands Wendy over to Granny. It’s petty, but she’s so incredibly angry she can’t deal with him.

It’s her father who talks her down, her father who should be celebrating the impending birth of his second born, but is still seeking her out. Still soothing her.

“I know he made a bad decision – ”

“He made a terrible fucking decision.”

“– but he was trying to protect his family. We all make stupid decisions when we’re worried about the people we love.”

Emma doesn’t point out that her father suggested Hook just might love her.

When she goes to find Zelena, it’s also her father who suggests she take Hook with her. She doesn’t know when he became President of the “Killian Jones Fanclub,” and Emma isn’t sure she likes it.

-/-

The rules of the spell are simple. If she kisses him, she loses her powers.

So, she won’t kiss him. She hasn’t kissed him since that night in New York, and she’s too angry to kiss him again.

It’s simple. They’ll stop Zelena, and save her little sibling.

-/-

It’s not simple.

-/-

It’s not until she pulls Killian out of the water and she realizes he’s not breathing that Emma’s heart stops.

“Come back to me,” she begs, and Emma can’t stop the pinpricks of tears at the corner of her eyes. He can’t die. He can’t leave Wendy.

He can’t leave her.

So, Emma does what she needs to do: she presses her lips against his in the hopes it will bring him back to life, her magic be damned.

She isn’t sure if she meant it to be CPR or a kiss. All that matters is that it worked.

-/-

She receives a call from her father as they hike back to the hospital.

Emma answers, and her world shatters. She vaguely hears Killian ask what’s wrong, but everything sounds so far away. He sounds so far away even though he is right there, right next to her. She thinks she drops her phone, but she isn’t sure. She can hardly breathe.

“Swan! Swan! Emma, what’s wrong?”

She opens her mouth, and she’s surprised she can formulate words.

“Zelena,” is all she says, and she’s trying to explain, but she can’t. She doesn’t know how, and she’s drowning and –

“What did she do, love? What did your father say?”

Emma looks up at Killian, and she wishes the panic in her eyes can convey what’s wrong, but he can’t read minds, and he stares at her with worry, so she has to formulate the words, say them aloud and make the whole thing real and –

“She has Wendy.”

Chapter Text

It’s a dream.

It has to be a dream. It must be a dream, because this can’t be happening again. One of her children can’t have been taken by a monstrous villain again.

But as she digs her fingernails into her skin to keep from screaming, she feels the tiny pinpricks of pain blooming into her palm, and she’s know that it’s not – it’s not a dream, and somehow Zelena has taken her daughter and Emma has failed.

She failed at the one basic task of keeping her kids safe because first Neal’s fucking fiancé took her son, and now Regina’s fucking sister has her daughter, and Emma is angry, upset, and so terribly afraid.

She doesn’t know how she and Killian manage to get back to the hospital, but they do. She has her fingers wrapped around his, and his rings are digging painfully into her skin, but she doesn’t care because their daughter is missing and if he lets go, she may fall apart.

She ignores the sympathetic looks she get from the dwarves, the Merry Men, the nurses, and all the goddamn people who were too busy protecting her newborn sibling to save her daughter. And Killian must feel the same way too, because he’s yelling. He’s not letting go of her hand, but he’s yelling, his hook swinging wildly and violently, and people look scared, but Emma doesn’t care, because she is scared, and she has more of a reason to be scared than them.

Then Henry runs to her, and she wraps her free arm around him in a hug, and she holds him tight because at least one of her kids is safe. Then it’s her father, who should be with her newborn sibling, but he’s here and swearing that they’re going to get Wendy back.

Of course they are going to get Wendy back, because there is no alternative to getting her back.

They will save her.

But the question is how?

-/-

How is Regina.

Regina, who still has her magic. Regina, who used light magic to restore Henry’s memories.

Regina, whose hands in which Wendy’s fate lay.

-/- 

“I thought you said she needed the product of True Love!”

“Who says she doesn’t have it?”

-/-

Over the past few months, Emma has familiarized herself with her daughter’s cries.

She can differentiate between Wendy’s hungry wail and when her daughter simply wants attention. She knows the sleepy cry, the scared cry, and even the “Henry dropped me on my head” cry. She’s heard them all.

All but this one.

It’s a cry that turns her blood to ice and causes Emma to tighter her hold on her gun. It’s a cry that tells her that her daughter is afraid and hurt and in complete danger.

It’s a cry that almost forces her to break ranks, ignore their battle plan, and run toward her crying girl.

But she doesn’t, if only because she knows her party is stronger together, and that their strategy is the best way to ensure that Wendy never cries like that again.

-/-

The ground is hard beneath her, and it feels as if all the wind has been knocked from her lungs. Emma feels Killian stir next to her, and he groans in pain. Somewhere to their left, she hears the yells of her father and Robin Hood, the screams of flying monkeys, and the sizzle of magic meeting magic. 

Wendy’s cries ring out above them all.

She looks up toward her daughter, and can make out the pink of her hat and the flailing of her small arms. Her daughter is scared, so very scared, and might be in pain and Zelena needs to be stopped now. Her eyes flick to her father and Robin, to Gold, to Regina and Zelena, and then back to Wendy.

She tries to estimate if she could reach Wendy. The last time she tried, Gold had flung her and Killian against the barn wall. He’s distracted with her father now, so maybe – 

But no, even if they grab Wendy, it solves nothing with stopping Zelena and Gold, and as long as Zelena has the dagger, she is a threat and Wendy is in danger.

Regina needs to finish this now.

But it’s taking too long and Wendy keeps crying, it’s closer to screaming, and she’s never sounded so scared or so hurt and her kid is in danger and she needs to be safe and not hurt and fine and –

– and Emma sees it.

A few feet away is her gun.

She reaches for it, fingers wrapping around the shaft. She looks to Wendy, to her father, to the distracted Gold and then to Regina and Zelena, Regina who is wielding light magic and holding off Zelena but not fast enough and Wendyisscreamingherdaughterisindangerandisscaredandandand

Emma aims, and then she pulls the trigger.

-/-

Emma remembers in flashes.

She remembers the way Zelena’s body lurched as the bullet impacted her chest.

Regina’s scream.

The flying monkey morphing back into Little John.

Feeling as if she was floating, floating, floating.

But then Killian places their daughter into her arms, and she is grounded.

-/-

Upon their group’s return to the hospital, the doctors insist on checking Wendy for any injury. 

“We can do a few tests, make sure she wasn’t harmed. It won’t take long,” Whale tells her, his voice strangely assuring. “She’s safe now.”

Emma remembers what happened when they thought Henry was safe in Hook’s cabin, and she pulls her daughter closer to her chest.

She won't make the same mistake again. 

-/-

They visit her brother.

Her mother’s smile upon their entrance to the room is bright, and she immediately launches into questions asking if everyone is okay and what happened with Zelena and “would you please get my granddaughter over here so I can see her for myself?”

Emma complies with the last question, but her father deflects on recounting the events at the barn with a pointed look and a promise of “later”. Emma’s cheeks burn red and she feels a wave of nausea at the memories, the sound of gunfire still ringing in her ears. She pushes it down, unwilling to allow her actions and emotions ruin this moment.

“Hey, Wendy, let’s meet your uncle.”

-/-

There’s this moment when it’s just Emma, Wendy, her mother, and brother in the room. Henry has gone to see Regina, and her father has recruited Killian on a mission to find her mother’s favorite snacks. It’s quiet as the two women take comfort in holding their youngest children in the arms.

Wendy has finally fallen asleep, and Emma studies her long eyelashes, the rose of her cheeks, and her dark hair peeking out from under her knitted hat. When she looks up, Emma notices that her mother is not admiring her little brother, but instead is looking at her, tears on her cheeks.

“I never got this with you,” Mary Margaret says when their eyes meet. “I never got to hold you like this, when it’s quiet, just you and me. I never got the chance.”

“Mom…”

“I know it’s selfish of me, because if it wasn’t for the curse, we wouldn’t have Henry or Wendy or this little guy right here, but Emma, I want you to know, I wish so much I could have had this, if only for five more minutes.”

Emma reaches out and grasps her mother’s hand.

“I wish we could have had that, too.”

-/-

It’s night when they get back to the inn – her, Wendy, and Killian.

Killian walks them to her door, and bids them goodnight. He lingers, though, eyes still on Wendy, and it strikes Emma that he might be just as affected by what had transpired that day as she. She feels guilty for not realizing sooner, still not completely used to sharing this kid.

“You can come in,” she offers suddenly, not quite thinking through the implications. “Since Henry’s at Regina’s, there’s not reason this has to be goodnight.”

He doesn’t hesitate, and she leads him into the rented room. They end up on her bed, Wendy between them. Their daughter coos and kicks and smiles, and it’s almost as if nothing terrible happened that day. Almost. She watches Wendy grip Killian’s index finger, and he grins widely.

“Was she ever as small as your brother?” he asks suddenly, wiggling his fingers as Wendy grabs for them with a squeal.

 “A bit smaller, actually,” Emma replies a little wistfully. It’s a little crazy to her how much her daughter has grown in four months, and how much bigger she will get.

“I wish I could have seen her then,” Killian says, his voice a little bit sad. “Swan, you don’t know how much I wish you didn’t have to go through everything alone.” 

She reaches over and grabs his hand. “I know.”

-/-

They eventually move Wendy back to her travel bassinet. Emma knows that soon she will need to find a real bassinet to put into a real apartment, but the thought of what comes next in her life is too overwhelming at the moment. Exhaustion weighs heavily on her, and her body screams for rest. But, she ignores it, contenting herself with scrolling through pictures on her phone of Wendy’s early months.

“This is her and Henry at the hospital the day she was born,” Emma says, holding up the phone to him. It’s one of her favorite pictures, and she had it as her wallpaper for the longest time. She thinks, maybe, that she should print a copy for her parents. “I can text it to you, if you want. Or any of the others, really.”

An awed expression crosses his face, and he quirks an eyebrow. “You can send images from these devices to others?”

“Well, yeah, it’s the 21^st century,” she replies, knowing that she is goading him. He rolls his eyes. She’s surprised, though, when he gets off the bed and crosses over to where his coat in hung. He digs around the pocket and pulls out his own phone.

“Would you desire for me to send you past photographs I have taken?”

His question throws her, because she doesn’t even remember showing him the picture app. But somehow, either on his own or by someone else’s help, he has figured it out and looks quite pleased with himself for doing so.

“As long as they’re not dick picks, sure,” she tells him with a laugh. The bewildered expression tells Emma that her joke fell flat, and she watches as he mouths the words. 

“You mean to tell me that men photograph their – “

“You know what? Just forget I said anything, and show me your pictures.”

“Do the women of this realm –“

“Killian, stop,” she warns, and she plucks the phone from his hand and gasps.

When she had gotten him his own phone days ago, she had set his lock screen to a picture of Wendy. He had since changed it to something else: a photograph of both her and Wendy, clearly taken without her knowledge, but beautiful nonetheless.

In the picture, they are in the loft, and she has her forehead pressed to her daughter’s, noses touching and smiles on both their faces. She feels the pinpricks of tears on the corner of her eyes, and does nothing to hide them.

“Nice picture.”

“You said that the photograph on the screen should be something I wouldn’t mind seeing every day,” Killian says by way of explanation. He scratches behind his ear and joins her on the bed. “It felt more appropriate to have something of both you and the lass.”

Emma wipes at her tears. “For future reference, you really shouldn’t take pictures of people without letting them know first.”

 “Apologies, love, I –“

She cuts him off with a kiss.

-/-

They don’t go further than kissing.

Wendy is still in the room, and the day has just been so overwhelming that Emma isn’t sure they have the energy for more.

So they kiss.

It’s different than the past few times they’ve done this – all heat and passion and the need to feel. This is softer, sweeter. It’s almost pure, the way their lips move in a gentle dance.

Emma’s never been good with articulating her feelings, so she hopes this says it all.

I want you. I need you. I think I just might love you.

-/- 

That night she dreams of bullets and blood, of magic and monkeys, and of trying to save Wendy, but failing again and again and again.

-/-

It’s the next morning that she realizes she’s yet to see if her magic has returned. Emma closes her eyes and flicks her hand, and smiles in triumph when she hears Killian groan. She watches as he crosses the room to relocate his transported hook, an exaggerated frown on his face.

“It’s back,” Emma whispers with a smile.

-/-

“Miss Swan.”

The greeting stings, because Emma had felt they had moved beyond that. But standing here now, Emma feels very much like she did over a year ago, the bail bondswoman staring down the Evil Queen-turned-Mayor. 

So much for checking in on a friend… 

“If you’re here to kill any more of my relatives, I afraid to tell you I’m all out.”

“Regina,” Emma begins, but she doesn’t know what to say. She didn’t expect Regina to be so hurt, so cold, and the guilt washes over her. Emma has no other explanation but the truth, so she says, “She had Wendy. I did what I had to do to save my daughter.”

Regina laughs, a hollow sort of thing. “So you say, but I’ve spent so long hearing how heroes give second chances, that maybe I thought the Savior would believe it, as well.” 

-/- 

Killian finds her at the docks.

“Where’s Wendy?” she asks when she notices that he is alone. She tries to ignore the momentary panic, but it must show, because he raises his hand and hook in assurance. 

“The Widow Lucas demanded some time with her,” Killian says. He sits next to her, but doesn’t reach out to hold her hand or wrap his arm around her shoulder. It surprises Emma how much it disappoints her. “Wendy’ll be safe, love. We can’t hide her forever.”

“Maybe.”

He studies her for a moment, and Emma wishes to shrink under the intensity of his gaze. “I take it your visit to Regina did not go well.” 

“No.”

“Do you wish to talk about it?”

She nods, and begins her explanation. He doesn’t interrupt her, just listens. At the end of her speech, scrutinizes his hand and flexes his fingers. “Did I ever tell you the story of how I procured these rings?” 

Emma shakes her head.

“You see this?” he raises a finger. “Belonged to a man named Barnaby. Called me ‘One Hand Jones.’ I killed him in front of his wife, took his ring. This one, Edgar. Fine sailor. I caught him drinking the captain's wine. I drowned him.” 

“Oh.”

“I’m not telling you this to scare you away,” he says, finally reaching out to take hold of her hand. “I just want you to see that I know what it is like to kill men for frivolous, unimportant reasons. What happened with Zelena… you might have taken a life, but you did so because you truly believe by doing so, you were saving one. Regina is hurting now, yes, but eventually she’ll understand.”

“Will she?”

“Have hope, love. It will work out in the end.”

-/-

Emma visits Mary Margaret that afternoon, but not before retrieving Wendy from Granny. Her mother is going a bit stir crazy in the hospital, Emma can tell, and welcomes the visit.

“I get that medicine and patient care is better here than in the Enchanted Forest, but keeping me in this place for two nights really is too much,” Mary Margaret complains. “Is it really so dangerous for me to want to sleep in my own bed?”

Emma thinks back to when she had given birth to Wendy, and how she wanted nothing more than to leave, if only to see if her family had returned like her memories. “It’s frustrating, yeah.”

“Your father told me what happened with Zelena.”

“Cutting to the chase, huh?” Emma asks, looking down at Wendy, who is currently making a show of stuffing her fist in mouth. “I did what I felt I had to do.”

 “I know that, baby,” Mary Margaret tells her, her tone so motherly that it hurts.

“Regina doesn’t think so.”

“And Regina is entitled to feel that way, but that doesn’t mean you were wrong, either.”

“I guess,” Emma says. She places her lips on the top of her daughter’s head and inhales her baby scent. “But I can’t help but wonder if she’s right, like if there was some other way, or if I had waited, and everything would have ended differently with Wendy still safe.”

Wendy squeals, earning a soft smile from both her mother and grandmother. Mary Margaret then purses her lips, as if carefully considering her words.

“Emma, sometimes there are decisions you have to make as a parent to protect your child. You might not want to do it, but you do, because you want to give your child their best chance. You can go over in your head a million different things you could have done differently, but it will drive you crazy if you do. You just need to tell yourself that your daughter is safe and happy and good, and that’s all that matters in the end.”

Emma tightens her arms around Wendy, and hopes her mother is right.

-/-

She has dinner with Henry that night.

She’s thankful to spend time with her son, his memories intact. Everything feels right to hear him talk about the people they love with affection in his voice. Even better, he doesn’t ask about Zelena.

Instead, he asks her something greater.

“So…we’re going to move back, right?”

Emma takes a deep breath. She thinks back to first arriving in this town, and then being forced to leave. She remembers Wendy’s birth, the return of her memories, and wishing so desperately to return back to Storybrooke, only to be crushed when it was still gone. Now she’s here, her kids are here, her entire family is here, and there’s only real answer to Henry’s question.

“Yeah, kid, we’re coming home.”

Chapter Text

Dinner with Henry is a success, calming Emma’s frayed nerves.

She loves her son’s exuberance for all things – apartment hunting included – and even before desert (Granny’s pecan pie) is brought out, they have a few leads.

As Emma walks back down the darkened streets of Storybrooke after she drops Henry off at Regina’s, she revels in the quiet of the night and the stillness of the air. Regina might still be upset – she had only said a clipped “Thank you” as Henry bounded into her house – but that is a manageable problem. It can even be described as a painfully normal problem, even if the root of it is decidedly not. Interpersonal drama, Emma can handle. Flying monkeys, Wicked Witches, and kidnapped daughters are a different story, one she doesn’t wish to repeat.

And so, Emma allows herself to breathe. In the morning, she will set up a few appointments to view apartments, maybe even introduce Killian to the wonder that is a bearclaw donut.

With a smile on her face, Emma walks hopefully toward her future.

That hope is short-lived.

-/-

Wendy is in a particularly fussy mood that night, and no amount of feedings, Killian’s sea shanties, or ‘70’s funk can calm her. Emma’s read about the four-month regression, but she worries the latest tantrum is instead a result of their ordeal with Zelena.

“It’s okay, baby. No one’s gonna hurt you,” she soothes, swaying to and fro as Killian watches almost helplessly from his perch on the bed.

They’re both so distracted, they hardly notice the flicker of the bedroom lights.

-/-

They do notice when the light bulb shatters at Emma’s brother’s homecoming.

The baby – whose name has yet to be revealed – had started crying, as most newborns do, triggering a similar tantrum in Wendy, who apparently loathed to be outdone.

“It’s probably a power surge,” David says uneasily as he sweeps the shattered glass from the floor, both Emma and Snow exchanging uneasy looks as they hold their children closer.

-/-

“It’s my brother. It has to be. I have magic, he has magic,” Emma reasons to Killian as they walk back to the inn, Wendy fast asleep in her stroller. “That way makes the most sense, right?”

He only offers a smile that doesn’t quite meet his eyes.

-/-

It’s Wendy.

That night as they prepare her for a bath, she giggles, and every faucet in the bathroom turns on, water spraying from the shower, tub, and sink. Even the toilet flushes loudly.

Emma’s not sure who is more terrified by the show of magic – Wendy, who startles at the loud noises, or herself.

-/-

They have their first real fight that night – she and Killian.

They’ve fought before – physical things like in the Enchanted Forest or occasional biting words – but this is different. This time it’s over Wendy and how best to approach the discovery of her magic.

Namely, the fact that she wishes to seek out the advice of Rumplestiltskin. 

Her reasoning is sound, or so Emma believes. Rumplestiltskin had been the one to know about her own powers, years before she was even born. Could he know something about Wendy? Beyond that, he could also prove to be beneficial, as he is the most knowledgeable magic user in this town. It’s not like Emma completely trusts him, but she’s willing to do whatever it takes to give Wendy her best chance.

Only, Killian doesn’t see it that way. As far as he’s concerned, the Dark One will forever be the man who killed his first love and stole his hand, meaning –

“You are not taking my child to see the bloody Crocodile!”

Emma’s not used to having her parenting skills challenged when it comes to Wendy, least of all from him, and it rankles her a bit. So maybe that’s why she doubles down and says a few things she might regret.

“Your daughter? You haven’t even been in her life for two weeks, so don’t tell me how to raise her.”

The flicker of hurt that crosses his face does not surprise her. That is, after all, why she said it. It had been a below the belt attack, one that wasn’t entirely fair, but an easy retort to make as her blood boiled under his scrutiny and her inner voice chanting “not good enough, not good enough.”

“Ah, I see now. I can stay around for the feedings and changings, but when it comes to raising her, I’m to remain mum, is that it?”

She doesn’t immediately answer.

 -/-

Killian sleeps in his own room that night. When Wendy wakes, as she inevitably does, he rejoins them, but he barely says a word to Emma. And when Wendy falls back into rest, he leaves. 

And no matter how brief his absence, Emma misses him.

-/-

Emma cancels her apartment tours scheduled for that day.

Instead, she stays in her room with Wendy, reading aloud a book that Belle had gifted them. Wendy seems more concerned with gnawing on the thing than listening to her mother read, however, and Emma takes comfort in the normalcy of the moment. 

“You’re just a baby,” Emma whispers to the air. “You shouldn’t have to deal with this.”

Wendy’s response is to tug on Emma’s hair and kick at the book. Apparently, she doesn’t want to deal with the book either.

-/-

She’s still playing with Wendy, trying to formulate a plan for what to do next when Emma hears a knock at the door. Her heart swoops thinking it is Killian wanting to fix things. She regrets the way their argument went the night before, but is too stubborn to seek him out to admit any wrong. Still, she wants to see him, to apologize without being the first one to admit fault.

She is disappointed, and somewhat apprehensive, when Regina swoops into the room instead.  

“Just so you are aware, the next time your boyfriend attempts to knock down my front door before 9:00 a.m., I will not hesitate to see to it that he has two hooks instead of one.”

Emma stands dumfounded, the door still open, as Regina crosses the room to where Wendy is laying on the bed. “Why are you here?”

“Because Captain Guyliner informed me of your incomprehensibly stupid plan to seek out help from the Dark One for your daughter. Seriously, Emma, are you insane? You come to me about these things.”

“I didn’t come to you because the last time we talked, you slammed a door in my face,” Emma counters, feeling annoyed at everyone questioning her for a plan she hadn’t even gone though with yet. “And I get that you and Hook have bad blood with Rumplestiltskin, but he’s changed…somewhat. You of all people should understand that.

“You’re right, I of all people understnad. You saw what I became, who my sister, my mother all became because of him. Regardless of how I feel about you currently, I won’t let him do that to anyone else,” Regina says, and her voice turns uncharacteristically soft. “Emma, changed or not, trust me when I say that you don’t want Wendy anywhere near him.” 

Regina’s words hang heavy in the air as the two women regard one another.

It is Emma that breaks the silence.

“So what do I do?”

 -/-

Regina talks. Emma listens.

When she leaves, Emma knows things aren’t completely healed between them, but it’s a start.

-/- 

She goes across the hall to Killian’s room.

She knocks once.

Then twice.

Three times.

He doesn’t answer, and Emma feels unbearably alone.

-/-

She finds him on the docks.

He’s sitting on the bench where he found her days ago, staring out into the sea. He looks how she feels, his shoulders slumped and mouth drawn into a thin line.

“Hey,” she greets, waving meekly, her other hand pushing Wendy’s stroller.

“Swan,” he replies, his tone lacking its usual exuberance whenever he says her name. Wendy squeals when she hears his voice, and Killian smiles at that. “There’s a lass.”

Emma takes Wendy out of her stroller, and hands her to Killian. Wendy likes this change. So does Killian, his smile growing wider and crinkles appearing at the corner of his eyes. Had it really been a day ago that shared that same smile with her? It feels silly to be jealous of the way Killian smiles at his – their – kid, but she is, especially after a fight.

“I fucked up.”

“You told me not to use such language around the babe.”

“Quit being an ass,” she scolds. Emma huffs, and takes a deep breath as Killian eyes her warily. “I’m scared, okay? In just a few days, she’s gone from being a perfectly normal baby to getting kidnapped by the goddamn Wicked Witch to us finding out she has freaking magic! She’s my baby, and I can’t protect her, and I’m fucking terrified about that."

“So am I.”

Emma moves to sit next to him.

 “For most of my life, it’s just been me. And then, for a year, it was just me taking care of Henry and her. And so when I got scared, my walls came up, and when you questioned my plan, I felt like you were also saying I wasn’t a good enough mother, so I said some things which weren’t true.”

“You’re a fantastic mother, Swan, you have to know that.”

 “I don’t feel like this week. But that’s not the point. And while I’m still kind of pissed off at you for going behind my back to speak to Regina, you were right, okay? And I’m sorry it took you going to her to make me see that.”

“My own biases against the Crocodile aside, I only want what’s best for her, love.”

“I know you do, and I want you to continue to want what’s best for her. I want you to parent her, and make decisions on what to do with her, and talk to me when you disagree. I want you to be her dad.”

“I want that, as well.”

“Good.”

-/- 

They stay on the bench. Emma fills him in on her talk with Regina, and he listens, providing input when he deems it necessary.

At some point, his arm goes around her shoulders so that he’s holding both her and Wendy.

Emma rests her head on his shoulder, and for a moment, they feel like a family.

It’s nice. 

-/-

“Does your earlier speech mean I can now curse in front of our darling daughter?”

“No. One time thing.”

"You've said that before. It never is. I would consider Wendy evidence of that fact."

"Still no." 

-/-

“You know, we should take Wendy on your boat sometime,” Emma says as they ready themselves to leave the docks and head back to the inn. “We could go sailing – me, you, Wendy, Henry.”

 “It’s a lovely thought,” he tells her, just as Wendy begins to fuss in protest at being returned to her stroller.

Too focused on soothing her daughter, Emma misses the wistfulness of his tone, and how he didn’t agree to go.

-/-

That afternoon she leaves Wendy with Killian, and picks Henry up from school. She had sensed that he needed one-on-one time with their daughter, a feeling she understood and respected. Besides, she hasn’t had much time to spend alone with Henry, just the two of them, and she’s excited for the chance.

He’s sullen when he meets her, head bowed down and hands fisted in his jacket. She decides the let Henry open up to her in his own time, but takes him to get milkshakes as a little nudge. He does seem to brighten up as he drains his glass, and Emma refrains from alerting him of his whipped cream moustache. It’s too cute, and it makes him appear more like a little boy than the teenager he’s becoming.

At some point, her phone lights up with a text. She smiles when she sees it’s a picture of Wendy and what appears to be a small, stuffed rabbit – a new toy.

“Hook was at Mom’s house this morning,” Henry says suddenly. “He woke me up. He was pretty loud.” 

She resolves to talk to Killian again about indoor voices.

“So Wendy has magic? Like you and Mom?” he asks. He swirls his straw in his shake, and doesn’t meet her eyes.

“Looks like it.”

“Cool,” he says in a tone that indicates anything but.

She puts two and two together, and realizes just what – or who – he might be upset about.

-/-

She drops Henry off at Regina’s. He insists on continuing to stay at her place where he has his own room, and can sleep through the night without being interrupted by his crying sister. Emma furthers her resolve to begin her apartment hunt as soon as possible, if only so she can tuck her son in at night again.

On the walk to the Mayor’s Mansion, they pass a few townspeople who wave happily in their direction, clearly happy for Henry’s memories to have returned, if only so they would no long have to play pretend.

“You know, if it wasn’t for you, they’d all still be cursed,” Emma says, nudging into Henry’s side.

“I guess,” he replies, but Emma doesn’t miss the uptick in his tone, a slight hint of happiness at the reminder.

When they get to the mansion, she gives Henry and extra-long hug.

She really needs to find her own place.

 -/-

Emma doesn’t immediately seek out Killian and Wendy when she returns to the inn.

Instead, she takes a shower, and allows the hot stream to wash over her. She’s tired and slightly overwhelmed, the past week weighing heavily on her. Between Killian showing up at her door, everything with Zelena, and Wendy’s emerging powers, she hasn’t had a moment to breathe and take everything in.

She wants it all to slow down, but this is Storybrooke, and she knows it won’t. It terrifies her a bit, because all she wants to do is keep her kids safe and happy, and she doesn’t know how. During her period of remembering and Killian showing up at her door, she had romanticized coming back to Storybrooke, downplaying its dangers.

She wonders if that had been a mistake.

Within the week, Wendy had been kidnapped and Emma had taken a life, and it is all so much to consider.

Her first instinct is to take her kids and run away. Wendy wouldn’t be able to use magic there, and both her kids would be less likely to be kidnapped or threatened. Besides, she could kiss them goodnight every night.

She tamps down that thought, knows that it ultimately wouldn’t be best in the long run.

Their family is here, and Emma remembers the pain of being separated from them.

All she wants is more time to breathe.

-/- 

She eventually finds Killian and Wendy in his rented room. They’re both sprawled on their stomachs on the floor, and he is entertaining her with the bunny from his earlier picture. 

“Swan,” he greets, and this time his blue eyes sparkle when he sees her. She likes it better this way. “Did you enjoy your time spent with Henry?”

“Yeah,” she tells, because despite his jealousy, she always enjoys her time with Henry. Especially since it is now limited. “What about you two? Have fun?”

“Aye,” he says, and he looks so happy.

This, too, is why she can’t run away. She’s fairly certain he’d follow her if she asked, but she doesn’t want to put too much on him. He might be able to acclimate in Storybrooke, but New York City would be more difficult.

She joins them on the floor and makes a silly face at Wendy, who squeals in response. She looks over to Killian, and catches his eyes. He waggles his eyebrows, and it’s Emma’s turn to laugh.

Yes, she thinks, she can do this. She can stay.

 -/-

She works at the station the next day, fielding calls and catching up on the paperwork that piled high while Zelena had distracted everyone.

Killian visits during her lunch hour, a Granny’s bag in hand and Wendy strapped to his chest.

He brings fries instead of onion rings, but she reasons not everyone can be perfect. She tries very hard to focus on the beauty of this moment as a reminder that it’s worth it.

-/-

David drops by in the later afternoon, looking frazzled and every bit like a new father. She remembers those first few days with Wendy, how tired she had been compounded with the shock of her memories returning. At least her parents don’t have to deal with that. 

“Are you coming tonight?” he asks, and Emma raises an eyebrow in the confusion. 

“No, Dad, I’m totally going to skip my baby brother’s name celebration ceremony. I want to get him used to disappointment early.”

“Emma!”

“It’s a joke, Dad,” she stresses, and stifles a laugh when he visibly relaxes. “I’m going to be there. Henry’s going to be there. Wendy’s going to be there. The whole damn town is going to be there. We’re all excited to finally stop calling him Baby Boy Nolan.”

“You know, if you had been born in the Enchanted Forest, you would have had one. Henry and Wendy, too.”

 It’s not the first time he’s said this, and Emma knows how much it bothers him that he missed her infancy. It’s how she feels about Henry, so she can’t blame him. Instead she offers him a soft smile and says, “It’s okay, Dad. We’re all together now.”

It’s only after her leaves that she realizes she never told him about Wendy’s magic. 

-/-

She had been right when she said everyone in the whole town was going to be at the party – they are.

It amazes her how this town can come together for her parents, even more to see the warm greetings they provide her. She’s never felt at place in the world before, and now she has all of these people who are happy to see her.

When she’s able to weave her way through everyone to her parents’ table, she finds them reading from Henry’s book.

 “Really? I can't hear the kid's name yet, but I have to hear this story again?”

 “Well, my son should know where he comes from,” her father says. Then, he gestures to Wendy, who is nestled in Killian’s arms. “Wendy, too. She should know her grandparents’ story.”

“She does,” Emma insists, casting a look to her daughter who insists on tugging Killian’s necklace, flinging her arm wildly. 

“It’s true,” Henry cuts it. “Mom used to tell the real story of Snow White and Prince Charming when we were in New York.”

Both Mary Margaret and David look to Emma, soft smiles on their faces, and the unmistakable look of tears glistening in the eyes.

-/-

They announce the baby’s name – Neal.

For a second, Emma forgets to breathe.

But for Henry’s sake, her parents’ sake, hell, for her brother’s sake, she smiles and hopes it is enough.

-/-

She takes Wendy outside under the guise that the baby was being fussy. Wendy wasn’t, but she makes a good enough excuse.

 “I owe you one, kiddo,” Emma whispers as she sways with her daughter. Wendy babbles incoherently, enjoying being held in her mother’s arms.

It’s a cool night, and Emma knows they can’t stay outside for long. Looking up, she sees the stars and remembers the first night with Killian, and his wish for Wendy. She waves her hand and point up, hoping Wendy’s gaze will follow. She knows that Wendy won’t understand a word of what she’s saying, but she can try.

“So, um, I know you probably have no idea what I’m talking about, but you see how those set of stars make a spoon shape? That’s the Big Dipper. Or Little. I’ve never been good with differentiating the two,” Emma explains, belatedly realizing that Wendy might not know what a spoon even is at this point in her young life.

“It’s the larger of the two – an asterism of Ursa Major.”

 She turns to see Killian coming up behind her.

“You know your constellations. I’m impressed.”

“I’d be a poor sailor if I didn’t, love.”

He comes up next to her, invading her personal space. Emma finds she doesn’t mind. Without preamble, her takes her hand and guides her.

“If you follow the line from the bowl, you will find the tail of my favorite constellation,” he explains, her voice low by her ear. “Cygnus – the swan.”

-/-

“You said you told her stories about your parents. Did you – did you tell her any of me?”

“Of course. I told her my favorite story involved you.” 

“Oh?” 

“Yeah. Ours.”

-/-

Eventually, the party winds down. She gives Henry a kiss goodbye, and bids her parents and baby brother farewell. If they notice she doesn’t say the name ‘Neal’, they don’t mention it. 

With Wendy now fast asleep, she and Killian slowly make their way back to the inn. They don’t talk until they settle her in her bassinet, and for a moment they watch her. She’s so peaceful when she sleeps, and Emma can hardly believe the power she holds. It’s amazing. It’s terrifying.

“We can do this. We can keep her safe,” she says, and the surety of her tone surprises her a bit. “We’ve got this – you and me. Together.”

He looks at her with the strangest expression, half-awed and half-stunned, like he can’t quite believe her words. Finally, he finds his words.

“Aye, love, together.”

Chapter Text

Emma has never considered herself a reader.

She’s read Harry Potter, of course, but again, who hasn’t? But she’s never been one to curl up with a book at the end of a long day, nor has she actively sought the latest New York Times bestseller. She prefers the film version to the text, and would pick Colin Firth over the actual Jane Austen book any day. As for textbooks, well, researching has never been her thing.

Now, as she pores over the ancient texts Regina had lent her referencing magical children, she wishes she had honed those researching skills. 

Killian helps. He lives up to his claim that he’s “surprisingly good at research.” He is. He makes notes, tabs pages with Post-its, and even reads aloud while she’s feeding Wendy. 

The only problem is that they don’t know what they’re looking for. 

-/-

Her parents remain hopeful, giving them their patented “Charming Family speeches” that Regina oh-so loves to mock. But Emma can’t help but wonder how they would be feeling if their roles were reversed, and it was her baby brother, not Wendy, with the surprise magical powers. 

-/-

They’re not sure exactly why Wendy has magic. 

The magic could be a side-effect of Zelena’s spell, the Wicked Witch’s magic falling to the nearest vessel when the woman died. 

It could be something she’s always had, inherited from Emma, but since she had been born in the Land Without Magic, her powers had been latent until now. 

Since she was conceived in Neverland, her magic might be similar to that land’s.

It could be something else. 

The words “Product of True Love” remain unspoken, but always linger in the air as Emma does her best to ignore it. 

She’s not a particular fan of any of the theories, each scaring her in different ways. 

-/-

“So how are things with Hook?” her mother asks over breakfast.

It’s just the two of them at the loft, a suggestion from her father that the two of them deserved mother and daughter time, sans infants. Emma’s not sure what her father and Killian are doing with the babies, but she appreciates the time spent with Mary Margaret. 

“Things are fine. He’s great with Wendy,” Emma says absentmindedly as she butters a piece of toast. “He’s a bit freaked out about the magic thing, but we both are.”

“I wasn’t talking about how things are with him and Wendy. I want to know how things are going with you and him.”

Emma nearly chokes on her toast. 

It’s not that she doesn’t want to tell her mother about her and Killian’s thing. She just doesn’t even know what that thing is. It’s almost as if they’ve regressed, going from sex, to sweet kisses, to nothing over the past few days. Longing glances, hand-holding, and occasional cuddles, sure, but those do not a relationship make. Or do they?

As much as Emma loves having her parents, she sometimes misses Mary Margaret, the roommate. She wishes she could have someone to discuss her strange situation with Killian without the awkwardness of delving into her sex life – or lack thereof – with her mother. Killian is without a doubt her best friend currently, but it’s not as if she can discuss him with, well, him. She and Regina don’t have that kind of relationship, and even if they did, the other woman’s anger about Zelena’s death still permeates every conversation. Wendy’s magic and Henry are the only real safe topics.  

“It’s…going,” she says finally, albeit lamely. At her mother’s pointed stare, she sighs. “Here’s the thing, I don’t really know what’s going on, so it’s not like I trying to avoid telling you anything, it’s just that I really have no idea.”

Mary Margaret hums. “He likes you, Emma.”

“I know.”

 “Do you like him?”

“Mom, I know you work in an elementary school, but we both know relationships go far beyond who likes who,” Emma tells her as she rolls her eyes.

“They do,” Mary Margaret replies, hiding her smile behind a mug of tea, “but it’s a start.”

-/-

She likes Killian, okay?

Emma is even willing to admit that she more than likes him. She’s not emotionally stunted enough to deny any of that that. 

It’s just…things are infinitely complicated between them. They’re in a good place right now, she and him. They make each other laugh, and he gives nice hugs, and the most recent time they kissed, it was great. She feels as if she can talk to him about everything – from her fears regarding Wendy’s safety, to her struggles with her parents, to mindlessly bitching about the dwarves. And he’s so good with Wendy. He loves their kid, and it willing to do anything to be with her. He even wants to be around Henry, and bond with him, and it’s just so wonderful that it makes her lo– like him more.

And that’s the problem. 

Because things are good for them – so very, very  good – and Emma worries that if she puts a label on whatever they have, things might change. She doesn’t want things to change. Emma wants things to continue to stay good and happy and comfortable.

Because that’s the thing – she’s happy. 

-/-

She distracts herself from whatever it is with Killian by looking at apartments. 

Only she doesn’t do that great of a job, because one of her first considerations is finding a place that doesn’t belong to Gold. Unsurprisingly, it is a difficult and limiting task. 

Her decision isn’t entirely because of Killian. It would be silly to make living concessions due to a guy she isn’t even in a relationship with. Wendy factors in too, of course, Regina’s warning ringing in her ears. Keeping more barriers between her daughter and the Dark One, no matter how insignificant, sounds like a solid plan. 

-/-

The first place she and Henry visit is a definite “no”. The floor plan is strange, the rooms full of awkward angles. She doesn’t even think she can fit her bed into what is supposed to be the master bedroom without getting creative. 

The second place is much too close to the school for Henry’s liking, and though she teases that is a silly reason not to live there, she agrees to continue to shop around. 

The third place is nice, but she is distracted the entire tour by what sounds like a yipping dog upstairs. 

“Oh, that’s just Evita,” the landlady says with a wave of her hand, clearly not bothered. Emma wonders if she is insane.

She doesn’t remember it being so difficult in New York, but situations were different then. She now has two kids and a pirate with an archenemy. It’s a strange conflation of factors, but it’s all worth it, she thinks.

But when she drops Henry off at Regina’s that night, she knows she needs to find a place fast.

-/-

“Of all the delicacies in this realm, pizza might actually be my favorite,” Killian says as he steals his third slice of meat-lovers from the box. He hums when he takes a bite, and Emma stifles a laugh, because it’s actually kind of adorable. 

“It’s everyone’s favorite. You’re a lizard person if you hate pizza,” she tells him, enjoying the way his brow ruffles in confusion at her reference. “Don’t worry. Lizard people aren’t real. It’s a joke.”

“I think you enjoy referencing things I don’t understand,” he replies, his voice taking a conspiratorial tone. “That’s bad form, love.”

“It may be bad form, but it’s fun.”

And it is fun.

Emma enjoys teasing him, and talking to him, and introducing him to new things. It’s only later that she realizes that when she moves out of the inn and into her new place – whenever and whatever that may be – she won’t get this every night. She’ll be there and he’ll be at the inn. The thought makes her a little sad.

She wants to have it all, but Emma doesn’t know how. 

-/-

With Henry at Regina’s, Killian hasn’t been going back to his rented room, opting instead to stay in hers. Nothing untoward happens, not that if anything happened it would be untoward.

But with the exception of the night after Wendy’s rescue, he sleeps in what had been Henry’s bed, and he acts every bit the gentleman he once claimed to be.

-/-

It strikes her that Killian doesn’t hit on her anymore.

If Emma thinks about it, really thinks, she has been the one to initiate everything between them since New York. 

She had been the one to kiss him most recently. He reciprocated the kiss, sure, but it had been her who moved in first.

And when they hooked up in New York, she had been the one to start things. Of course, that had been more of a “one minute they were talking on the couch, and the next minute they were naked and fucking” sort of encounter, but Emma remembers being the one to take the plunge then too.

Even when she feeds Wendy, he doesn’t even blush anymore.

It’s honestly a bit disappointing. 

-/-

“For just five minutes can we pretend that you aren’t my mother, but instead my old roommate?” Emma asks Mary Margaret the next time she’s at the loft. 

“Oh, honey, is everything okay?” her mother asks, and she sounds so concerned and motherly that Emma almost backs out of the conversation. Almost. 

“Everything’s fine. It’s just that—remember how you asked me about how things were between Hook and I?” Emma can feel her cheeks flush as her mother nods. “It’s just that’s the thing – nothing exactly is happening.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, nothing has happened. We kissed –“

“I think you did more than kiss.”

“Yeah, and that’s the thing. Hehasn’tbeenactinglikehewantstodomorethankiss.” Emma spits out the last part quickly, and she knows her face is burning red, because even though she’s pretending this is her friend, Mary Margaret is still her mother and – oh, God, this is a mistake. 

“Well, it does make sense,” Mary Margaret says evenly, tapping her chin in thought. “You do sort of have final say over whether of not he sees Wendy. Maybe he thinks if his advances aren’t well received, you might limit how much he sees her?” 

Emma gapes at her mother. “That makes me sound like a monster. I wouldn’t do that to him.” 

“I know that, and I’m sure deep down he knows that, but fear is a funny thing.”

“But I want to have sex with him!”

It’s then when her father chooses to walk back into the loft after a diaper run. The only thing redder than his face might just be hers. Mary Margaret simply laughs.

-/-

On her walk back to the inn, she considers her mothers words. Could Killian actually think that if he tried anything that she might take Wendy away? It’s an insulting thought, because she had already told him that she wanted him to be a fixture in their daughter’s life.

But the more she considers her mother’s words, the more it begins to make sense. Because, in a way, isn’t that why she hasn’t been pushing to move things forward with him?

-/-

It’s only after a short detour that she decides they are both idiots.

And she resolves to him that when she gets back to tell him as much.

That is, if she doesn’t chicken out.

-/-

She chickens out.

-/-

He joins her and Henry on their next apartment tour. Wendy is strapped to his chest, and the sight is honestly one of the hottest things she’s ever seen. Not that she’s going tell him that, because she’s chicken.

(But so is he.) 

-/- 

The place is perfect. 

It’s two bedrooms with a den that can easily be converted into a nursery. There’s hardwood throughout, with large windows that let in a large amount of natural light.

And it’s by the water.

Killian mentions takes note when he stands by the window in what could be Wendy’s nursery. 

“Look, little love, you can see the waves from here. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

Wendy, despite having no idea what her father is talking about squeals with delight.

It’s that which makes her decide to request a rental application. 

-/-

Moving means going back to the New York to get their things.

Her father insists on coming along, because someone has to drive the moving van.

“Hook doesn’t have a license, you know.”

Emma tries to talk him out of it. He has a newborn baby at home, but even her mother insists that he do this.

“Let him, Emma. Helping you move is one of the few things he can still do for his very adult little girl.”

Emma can’t say no to that.

-/-

The day they head out to the city, Killian surprises her by showing up in new, modern clothes. 

“Since we’re going back to your world, I thought it would be best to blend in,” he says simply, as if his change in attire is the most obvious conclusion in the world.

“That’s a good idea,” she replies, when all she really wants to say is, “You look fantastic.”

-/-

Henry opts to ride with David on the ride to New York, leaving just Emma and Killian alone in the car with Wendy. Killian spends an inordinate amount of time playing with the radio.

“I swear to God, Killian, if you get it stuck on a country station, I will push you out of this car.”

He winks.

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

Insufferable, hot, pirate bastard. 

-/-

It’s weird being back in her old apartment.

It’s also strangely emotional, because she does have so many good memories here – movie nights with Henry, bringing Wendy home, introducing her to Killian.

But in Storybrooke, they can make more memories. Happy ones.

Emma goes for her first box.

-/- 

Packing with a baby is less than ideal. More often than not, Emma, David, Killian, and Henry all end up taking turns from to break from boxing things up to entertain Wendy. 

“On the bright side, she isn’t crawling yet.”

“Yet.”

Somehow, Emma already suspects Wendy is going to be a terror once mobile – especially if she takes after her father. 

-/-

They order pizza for dinner. She’s not sure who is more excited by the meal – Henry or Killian. 

-/-

“I can’t believe you like pineapple on your pizza. Weirdo.”

“Better that than a lizard person.”

-/-

Bedtime is a frustrating and complicated affair.

Henry goes to his room, and Wendy sleeps in her bassinet. Her father claims the couch, which leaves Killian.

“You can bunk with me,” Emma offers, because it’s not like they haven’t shared a bed before. Besides, it’s not as if anything would happen with their daughter in the room, and David in the room over.

David, of course, gapes at Emma’s suggestion

“Or he could sleep on the floor.”

“Your father’s right, love. I can sleep—“

“This is completely stupid,” Emma sighs, throwing up her arms. “Dad, Hook and I have a kid. Whatever you’re trying to prevent, we’ve done. Killian, you are not sleeping in the floor. I need you ready and able to load all of this shit, and I’m am not having you complain about a sore back.”

She feels a surge of pride and the way both Killian and David’s jaws drop.

-/-

Of course, it is now when Emma finds her confidence, blanketed in the darkness of the bedroom, Killian laying tensely beside her, and her father in the next room over.

She’s never been one with good timing.

She rolls over to face Killian, trying to make out his features in the dark room. He’s laying on his back, and she’s sure his eyes are closed. She can tell by his breathing that he’s not yet asleep.

“Killian?”

He hums in response, but does not move towards her. She opens her mouth to say something, but she hears David snore, and she knows now isn’t the time, no matter how much she wants it to be. 

“Sleep well.”

-/-

At some point in the night, they gravitate toward one another, their legs tangled and his arm curled protectively around her waist.

-/-

The next day is a flurry of more moving boxes and piling things into both the bug and van. Killian and her father seem to have some sort of macho “who can move the heaviest boxes” thing going on between them, and she rolls her eyes. 

“Boys are silly,” she tells Wendy. 

-/-

She’s been so caught up with moving things, that she doesn’t notice that there hasn’t been any magical activity from Wendy since they crossed the town line until Killian mentions it. 

“When we first found out, I thought about running away back to here, so she wouldn’t have to deal with magic,” she confesses.

“Do you still want to?”

“Honestly? A little,” she says, “but I know running away wouldn’t solve anything. Not really.”

If she says it enough times, she’ll believe it.

 -/-

Eventually, everything is packed and moved into the van.

Emma takes one last look around the apartment, and closes the door. 

-/-

Emma spends the drive back regaling Killian with stories from her year in New York. It’s therapeutic, and he appears to sense that, because he continually asks her questions that allow her to talk more.

“So, like, the day you showed up, I was actually going to take Wendy to this ‘Mommy & Me’ session thing,” she tells him. “I didn’t really want to go, but I thought it might be good to introduce her to more baby playmates, or at least try to make more friends. It sounded so cheesy, though, so I was dreading it a bit. So, in a way, you saved me from that.”

“Glad to be of service, Swan.”

She’s quiet for a moment, thinking about that day. He had been so confused when she opened the door and instantly recognized him. She’d been too overwhelmed then to really think on it then, but now that she remembers his first surprise, she can’t seem to shake it. 

“Wait a second, you expected me to not remember you!”

He shifts in his seat. “Aye.” 

“And you only had one vial of magic.”

“Aye.”

“So there would have been no way to get back both mine and Henry’s memories.”

“Unfortunately, no." 

“So what was your plan to get me to take the vial of memory potion? We’re you gonna spike it like I did with Henry?”

 “I hadn’t though that far in advance,” he says, and Emma knows he is lying. She just isn’t sure why he’s lying about his plan, because it makes no sense. It’s something that didn’t even happen, so there’s no reason to obfuscate.

“That’s a lie. Superpower, remember? What were you going to do, True Love’s Kiss my memories back or something?”

Oh. Oh.

-/-

 They don’t talk for awhile after that. Emma’s head is spinning at Killian’s confession, or lack of confession. She’s trying to wrap her head around the fact that he thinks they’re True Love, or at the very least, at one point, had hoped they were True Love.

She had not been prepared for this conversation, and all she wants to do is run away, but she can’t. Maybe she should be grateful, because being in the bug means that she can’t chicken out of this, as much as she wants to, because they’re on the freaking interstate.

“It wouldn’t have worked,” she says finally. She glances over to him, but he’s not looking at her. In fact, he seems to be trying to look at anything but her. “True Love’s Kiss doesn’t work when memories are altered. It’s in Henry’s book.” 

“I did not know that,” he says, and he seems to relax little by little. She’s being a bit unfair to him, because he’s more or less put his heart on the table – or rather, she forced him to do so – and she hasn’t said anything back. 

She wants to though. She’s just not sure how. She wishes she had been prepared, and silently curses herself for chickening out all those times before when she was. She’s never been one with words, and it’s not as if she can kiss him behind the wheel going 80 mph. But she needs to say something. 

So, she tells him what she’s feeling now.

“I’m glad you wanted to try.”

-/-

If her father and Henry notice a subtle shift in her and Killian’s relationship by the time they roll into Storybrooke, they don’t comment on it. Everyone’s too tired to upack the van, so they settle on moving everything in the morning.

David kisses her on the cheek, and rushes back to the loft to see Mary Margaret and baby Neal. Henry goes to Regina’s.

That leaves Emma, Killian, and Wendy to head back to the inn.

As with previous nights, he follows her into her rented room. This will be the last night she stays there, the last she will have with him immediately close by. She hands Wendy off to him, allows him to hug his daughter a bit closer.

And when they put the baby down, and she crawls into bed, she takes his hand and urges him to join her. Unlike the previous night in New York, they don’t stay on opposite sides, but immediately gravitate into one another’s arms.

They sleep.

-/-

Unpacking is easier than packing, if only because Emma has magic.

“That’s cheating,” Killian teases, but she can hear the relief in his voice that he doesn’t have to carry the sofa up the stairs and into her living room.

Magic isn’t so terrible after all.

-/-

Though it took considerably less effort, Emma rewards her family with ice cream for the moving help.

The woman behind the counter is nice, and gives them all free cones, despite both Emma and David insisting on paying. 

“You’re the Savior, Emma,” the woman, Ingrid, says. “You’ve saved us so many times, it’s the very least I could do.”

It’s a strange sort of charity, but Emma takes it.

-/- 

Henry goes to bed early that night. Emma is happy to have both of her kids under one roof again, finally feeling at home and settled. She knows she won’t get him every night, but this is better than nothing. Of course, this also means she doesn’t see Killian every night either, which is sad in its own right. 

He stays late that night, playing with and cuddling Wendy. Even when Wendy finally falls asleep, her continues to hold her, sprawled longwise on the couch.

“You know, you don’t have to stay at the inn anymore,” Emma says, curling up on the loveseat. “I mean, since Henry has his memories back, and we’re not staying anymore, there’s no reason why you can’t go back to your ship. Besides, the harbor is closer to here than the inn.” 

He looks at his strangely, brows furrowed. “Swan, have you been to the harbor?”

“Yes,” she replies, not quite following. She hasn’t thoroughly explored the area, but she’s been.

 “The Jolly isn’t there, love.”

She feels a bit stupid for not realizing sooner. She had always assumed that a cloaking spell had been placed on the thing to hide it from the witch, or from Henry so he wouldn’t ask why a giant pirate ship was hanging out in Storybrooke’s harbor. “Then where is it?”

He shrugs.

“Killian, where’s your ship?”

“Likely in another realm,” he replies, and his voice is somewhat sad. He looks down at Wendy in his arms, and strokes a finger down her back. “Don’t worry yourself over it, Swan.”

“But why is it in another realm?” she asks, because the Jolly Roger is Killian’s most prized possession. She’s heard the way he talks about it. He’s a pirate, and it’s his ship. He can’t be a pirate without his ship. “Killian, what happened to your ship?” 

He looks uncomfortable, trapped, and very much like he doesn’t want to be holding a baby right now. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. “I had to get rid of it, make a trade.” 

“You traded your ship? What could be so valuable that it’s worth a ship?”

“A magic bean.”

And, oh, this hits her harder than anything else he’s told her. He came back for her. He wanted to try True Love’s Kiss with her. He—

“You traded your ship for me?”

“Aye.”

She wishes he weren’t holding Wendy right now. She wishes that Wendy was in her bassinet, if only so she can grab Killian and kiss him, because he gave up his ship for her. He didn’t even know Wendy existed, and still he gave up his ship to find her. 

“You really love me, don’t you?”

He licks his lips, and looks into her eyes.

“Aye.”

-/-

Eventually, he moves Wendy to her bassinet, and in no time at all, they’re kissing.

They’re standing in her apartment in Storybrooke, in her home, and they’re kissing.

He loves her, maybe truly loves her, and he wants to be with her, and she wants to be with him.

Her son is sleeping in his bed and her daughter in sleeping in the cradle, and she’s home. She’s home, she’s home, she’s home.

And for a moment, Emma believes she’s found her happily ever after.

Chapter Text

The stairs to the Queen Anne house creak under his boots, and he notes it will be something he’ll need to fix. The keys are a comfortable, yet unfamiliar, weight in his hand. He runs his thumb over the cuts, nervous as he is, as he approaches the front door. Should Emma be amenable to this proposal – but not a proposal – this be the last time he approaches the glass-paned entrance as the sole owner of the home. 

He takes a deep breath, and spares a glance to the baby strapped to his chest.

“Shall we, Cygnet?”

Wendy kicks and bounces in the carrier, her movements uncomfortable, but a hopeful sign of the excitement to come.

Killian Jones unlocks the door, and crosses the threshold what he hopes will be their future. 

-/- 

Weeks ago, Emma had confessed in a faraway land that she longed for a “picket fence life”. At the time, he hadn’t known what she meant, another reference on the long list of references he didn’t quite understand, but Killian had vowed to provide her that life.

He likes to think he’s kept that promise.

The house he found has both a picket fence and a yard. Though Emma has never expressed too much interest in a yard, Killian knows they are important. Dave speaks highly of them, as they make for a good place for children to play and for families to barbeque.

He’s not so sure about the barbequing thing, but Killian imagines chasing Wendy a few years from now, her laughter ringing out, and Emma watching from the wraparound porch, a soft and beautiful smile on her face.

-/-

He almost didn’t get the chance to even get to this point.

Killian can still recall with distinct clarity his heart in the Crocodile’s hand, the pain as his enemy squeezed overshadowed by his own guilt.

Guilt at failing Emma. Guilt at failing Wendy.

It had all been his fault too.

Killian had been foolish to think he could blackmail the Dark One – and for what? His hand?

It had all been because he had accidently cut Wendy with the tip of his hook. Though it was superficial thing, easily healed by Emma, he had hated himself for it. And he thought, so stupidly thought, if he had two hands, he wouldn’t hurt her again.

Killian had only wanted to be a better father – and he’d almost died for it.

-/-

The walls of the house are bare, and the hardwood gleams. He envisions toys scattered across the floor and photographs lining the walls, just as they are in Emma’s apartment.

Killian notes that come the holidays, there is enough space in the front sitting room for a Christmas tree – a large one like Emma had professed to wanting, but couldn’t fit into her current abode. And since there is a fireplace, she can hang stockings with care, one for each of them – herself, himself, Henry, and Wendy. He doesn’t quite understand all the holidays in this realm, but he appreciates the ones with emphasis on family. And, well, now that he has a family, he wants it all.

He delights in the fact that furniture would not have to be cramped so close together, leaving much more space for Wendy to take her first steps. And he would be there for her firsts this time around, not at the inn like he had been the first time she had crawled.

He hopes and prays Emma will like it.

-/- 

Killian hates living apart from Emma and Wendy. 

He had grown accustomed to having them across the hall, and later, in the same room at the inn. As exhausting as it had been, he’d enjoyed waking up at odd hours when Wendy cried, usually in want of food, to spend time with both her and Emma. In those moments, it had just been the three of them, ensconced in their own tiny world away from the demands of the town. And though he had always known it was a temporary arrangement, it didn’t mean he had to like it when they left.

It isn’t as if he doesn’t see them regularly. He watches Wendy during the day while Emma works as the sheriff. He enjoys those moments, just him and Wendy. He knows it won’t make up for missing the first few months of her life, but perhaps…

He wants to not just see his daughter when Emma works, or the odd nights he keeps her at the inn, or even the few times he stays over at Emma’s apartment. He wants to tuck her in at night, and greet her when she wakes, and not miss any more moments or milestones. 

And it’s not just Wendy he wants to see day in and day out, but Emma, as well. 

They go on dates, he brings her lunch, and they work together to stop whatever bloody villain has chosen to attack Storybrooke. But Killian wants more. He longs to wake up every morning with Emma curled into his side, and not just when Henry stays with Regina. He wants to make her coffee using her infernal machine, and not just bring it to her on their morning walks. He wants a life with her, even more than what they’ve cobbled together. 

It’s just that he wants.

-/-

The house has three floors, and an equal number of bedrooms – two on the second, and one on the third. The master bedroom is larger than any room Killian has slept in before, an admittedly easy record to break considering he’s spent most his life upon a ship. But still, it is large and has its own washroom. The washroom even has both a shower and tub, which Killian thinks is somewhat of a waste of space. However, Emma might not think so, and that’s all that matters, really. He knows she takes showers most days, but every now and then, she enjoys a bubble bath to relax. This allows her both.

A second, smaller bedroom shares a wall with the master room. This room, Killian thinks, would make for a perfect nursery – one fit for a princess. Wendy’s nursery now is small, and in a few years, she’ll likely outgrow it. Emma’s noted the same thing, so Killian knows he’s not wrong in his assumption. This room could serve Wendy very well into her teenage years. Killian relishes in thought of providing his daughter a permanent home, something neither he nor Emma had in their own childhoods. He wants so terribly to right by her, and this very well could be the correct start.

With the assumption that all will go according to plan, Henry has already laid claim to the third floor bedroom.

“Yeah, there is no way I’m sharing a wall with you guys,” Henry had said the first time they had visited the house prior to making a formal offer. “I’m trying to have as few life-scarring moments as possible.”

And, well, Killian can’t begrudge the boy that.

-/- 

Sex, Killian has learned, is difficult when one has an infant.

It’s almost if, on top of her already-existing magic, Wendy has developed a sort of psychic ability to sense whenever he and Emma are about to partake in certain activities. No matter how short or long of period it has been since they’ve placed her down for nap, she will almost always wail before even the most exciting pieces of clothing are removed.

It’s enough to drive a man mad. 

He had thought that the night in New York when he had shared a bed with Emma as her father slept in the next room was fraught with tension – Gods, he had wanted nothing more than to roll over and rut her into the mattress just as they had done the night they reunited – but, oh, that had been nothing.

Balancing a child, living at different residences, and Henry bouncing from her apartment to Regina’s means that they experience a number of dry spells. As it stands, despite her earlier protestations to the contrary, Emma does apparently like “dick pics”, and has requested him for some on more than one occasion. “Sexting”, as she calls it, has gotten them through lonelier nights, but he much prefers her presence. 

They do have sex – make love, fuck, whatever they can get at this point – but it’s nowhere near the frequency they would like. 

He’s not fond of the fact that they’ve resorted to asking Emma’s parents or Belle to babysit so they can come together. Not that they tell them that. No, they’re taking a much-needed date night, they say. And the first time that he and Emma went on a date, it was a proper date. She wore a stunning dress, and he planned a lovely evening, and he returned her to her apartment where her parents had been watching Wendy and their own young son.

The prince and princess did not need to know that his and Emma’s second through sixth date consisted of him whisking Emma back to his rented room at the inn, where they both raced to see who could remove their clothing the fastest.

And while living together might not solve all of their problems, it has to improve things, right? 

-/-

He and Wendy inspect each room. Killian narrates each action for Wendy’s benefit. He’s read that conversing with a child, no matter how one-sided it may be, is beneficial for their development. She babbles as he goes, not quite making words. Killian pretends she is sharing her excitement for his new home.

There’s a running bet going within the Charming family just what her first word will be. Dave swears it will be ‘Grandpa’, no matter how improbable the guess. Emma’s mother believes she will say “Mama”. Emma thinks it will be “no”, their daughter being the spirited thing that she is. Killian, however, selfishly wishes that it will be some variant of “Papa” or “Dada” or whatever she chooses to refer to him as. 

Maybe, if she says that first, it will mean that he didn’t fail her the first few months of her life with his absence. Maybe 

-/-

He had honestly never truly envisioned being a father.

“A life at sea is not fit for a child.” That had been Milah’s mantra when the guilt of abandoning Bae threatened to drown her. Killian had always felt some helplessness in those moments, promising that when the lad grew older and more capable, they’d go back for him. He’d known of no other way to assure her. He’d been the abandoned one once, and knew how it felt to be left behind. He loved Milah too much to lie to her, so he kept his promises to ones he thought he could keep.

She had never wanted any other child. She had been adamant that she couldn’t have other children. Her coward of a husband had made a deal, she’d explained, and she never knew if it would apply to her.

“I don’t want to risk damning a child to that fate, Killian. I won’t do it,” she’d sworn.

And he didn’t mind, not really. As she’d said, “A life at sea is not fit for a child.” Whenever they’d make port, they’d pay for the requisite potions and took the proper precautions, and that had been that. He didn’t need children while he had her. Milah – beautiful, gorgeous, spirited Milah – had been enough.

And then she died. And later, he’d buggered up what he’d thought would be his only chance of fatherhood with Bae. From then on, fatherhood had been completely out of reach as vengeance consumed him.

And then – Wendy. 

-/-

He loves her.

Gods, how he loves her.

She’s part him and part Emma. She’s wonderful. 

And he has so bloody idea what he’s done to deserve her. 

-/-

It terrifies him, his past and how it relates to his daughter.

Right now, she looks at him as if he’s her world. She smiles when she sees him and squeals at the sound of his voice. She falls to sleep in his arms. She is at peace with him. It’s astounding. 

“She’s definitely a Daddy’s girl,” Emma says often, and that makes his chest swell with pride. But, he often wonders how long that will last. She reaches for him now, but when she learns of his past, the bloodshed he’d caused and the lives he taken, will she continue to be such a “Daddy’s girl”? 

Emma says she’ll still love him. 

“I know about all these things, and I still love you,” she tells him. It’s different, though, and he wishes she can see that. Emma’s always known who he is and what he’s done, and she’s loved him in spite of that. Wendy will grow up believing him to be a good man, her hero. She will find out he is a killer, not know that going in. Killian dreads the day when Wendy’s worldview of him is shattered, and he’s knows it will never be the same. 

-/- 

The first time Emma told him she loved him, it had been before she was swept away in a swirl of darkness – his selfless, sacrificing Savior.

The second time she had told him, he had just given her a ring – it hadn’t been a proposal, but a ring nonetheless – before she went away with the wizard to find a flame. 

She is still hesitant with sharing her feelings often, only in near-death experiences or deep emotional discussions, but she loves him, and that is enough. But it’s her hesitance that worries him about this admittedly grand gesture.

He knows, however, if he didn’t do something drastic, his dream would never come to be. There’d be another villain, another realm, something upon something that would cause Emma to be distracted and delay. He doesn’t regret his decision, but gods is he terrified. 

-/-

He is going to ask her tonight. 

Belle will babysit while he takes Emma on a date – a real date, not one where they fuck each other in oblivion. 

He will wine and dine her, and then he will suggest that they take a walk. The walk will conveniently lead to the house, his house, where he will surprise her with a key. 

Then, he’ll ask her.

And after she says yes – gods, he hopes she will say yes – he’ll take her inside, and then they’ll fuck each other into oblivion. 

-/- 

Killian locks the door when he leaves.

It’s a strange, surreal feeling – settling down with a home. For centuries, his life has been at sea. He’s fallen to sleep to the gentle waves of the ocean, spent days and nights surrounded by nothing but the open water. He’s gone wherever he’s wanted whenever – different lands, different ports.

Now, he’s grounded. He has roots binding him to this land in the form of his name on a paper. But even without the paper, he has been tied to Storybrooke for far longer. Emma and Wendy are here, Henry too. And though he now has his ship back, he’s hardly sailed on her.

He knows it worries Emma. She fears that the sea and adventure may call out to him, leaving her behind like others before him. But he won’t. He’d never.

He hopes this will be proof enough for her.

-/-

He’s an American, or rather, he has a tiny slip of paper that says he’s one.

“It’s a Social Security card. It has an identification number and everything. Regina was able to work her magic, and bam, you’re legal,” Emma had explained gleefully after she handed it over to him. “Welcome to U.S.A. Yay America!” 

“Swan, a pirate swears no allegiance to any land.”

Ah, but then she’d explained it. 

Having a Social Security number apparently means he is a citizen of this country, and it allows him to have a photo I.D. It also gives him permission to sign legal documents that apply outside of Storybrooke. 

Such as an acknowledgment of paternity form.

“This way, no matter what happens, you’ll always be Wendy’s dad. This means you can have legal rights. She’ll still be yours,” Emma had said, her eyes brimming with tears. Killian did not know how to respond to that, so he’d simply taken her into his arms and kissed her.

That being said, he still refuses to call himself an American.

-/- 

Killian wonders often what Liam would think of his life. His brother had always been a better man than he, a shining example of “good form” and all that it encompasses. So while Killian knows that his older brother would be ashamed of the pirate, the lech, and scoundrel he had become, he hopes desperately Liam would approve of the path he’s taking now, a hero’s path.

Emma calls him a hero, and though he’s loath to believe it, others seem to think so, as well. Charming speaks fondly of him, and for everything he’s done to her, Belle also claims he’s heroic in nature.

“We all fail every now and then, Killian, what matters is that we get back up and do right again.”

He hopes she is right.

Killian wishes so much he could introduce his older brother to Emma and to Wendy, to share with him his family. He would tease, of course, and scold Killian for falling for a lass above his station – “A princess, little brother!” – but oh, Liam would love Emma and Wendy. Killian knows it.

And, for once, it would mean Killian could his brother something that would make Liam proud. 

-/-

They go back to Emma’s apartment.

Emma had long since given him a key, and since Belle will be coming here to babysit Wendy, it makes the most sense. He settles Wendy into her play area, and they spend the next hour or so reading books and playing with her favorite toys. It’s easy to distract himself from his nerves around her. She’s at the age where she requires more maintenance than when they were first introduced. Then, he could leave her on the floor or in her crib to see to a quick task without worry that she would end up at the complete opposite side of the room and wreaking some havoc. Robin says it will only grow worse, especially once she becomes a toddler and develops an aversion to listening.

But Killian enjoys spending time with his daughter. Fatherhood is a different sort of adventure, one in which he is constantly learning. Emma says he’s often too soft with her, averse as he is to letting her “cry it out”. It’s not that he’s too soft, it’s simply that he doesn’t wish to see his child in any distress, and if Emma thinks he’s spoiling her, then so be it.

Wendy continues to thoroughly impress him. She’s at the point in her young life where she enjoys pulling herself up, but can’t quite find the balance to take those first few precious steps. She’s determined, though, that daughter of his. She doesn’t let the fear of falling dictate her goals, even if it means she does so often. Every now and then, when she falls, she cries. He recognizes much of these cries as those for attention and because she has him wrapped around her tiny fingers, he lifts her anyway.

He’d do anything to keep her tears at bay and a smile on her face. Anything.

-/- 

When Emma had been the Dark One, Wendy had cried whenever she was placed in her mother’s arms. It was as if she had sensed something was wrong, that her mother had been infected by something dark and insidious, and she wanted nothing to do with it. And though Emma had looked as she always did, it seemed that Wendy considered her to be a stranger, and not her mother. 

-/-

Henry texts him after school lets out. He will be staying with Robin and Regina for the night, but he still demands that Killian send him the “play-by-play” of the night. 

It had been with Henry that Killian had first devised his plan. It had been important to Killian to have Henry’s blessing. Being Emma’s son, Henry was, and forever will be, a fixture in Emma’s life. Without the boy’s approval, Emma would never assent to any life-altering plans. Besides, he is fond of Henry, and hopes the lad sees him as an adequate enough figure in his life.

It makes him uncomfortable sometimes when Emma calls him a “father figure”, not because Killian doesn’t want to fulfill that role, but the guilt of replacing Bae in Henry’s life is consuming. He’s told Emma as much, and he assured him that it would never the case, but it still worries him occasionally. Nevertheless, it seems that Henry does like him well enough, because he had been completely on board with the plan when Killian had suggested all those weeks ago in Camelot.

The fact that the plan, Operation: Light Swan as the boy had named it, had kept Killian sane those in weeks is something he never hopes the boy to find out. 

-/- 

Emma arrives back to her home shortly after five, greeting both Killian and Wendy with a smile. She kisses him, a small chaste thing, before scooping up their daughter into her arms, laughing as Wendy squeals. 

These are the moments Killian lives for, these tiny slivers and peace they’re able to find amid the chaos of the world in which they live. He’ll be forever content to live like this, to watch the woman he loves hold his child, both happy and safe. 

-/-

Belle shows up to the apartment promptly a seven, a bag of books slung over her shoulder. Killian greets her with a hug, and welcomes her inside.

When she notices that Emma isn’t in the main area, she turns to him and asks, “Nervous?”

He shrugs noncommittally, because though he is, he doesn’t want to let on too much. Belle, the perceptive woman that she is, sees right through the act and assures him everything will be fine. 

“Emma will love it.”

“Love what?” the woman in question asks, sweeping into the room and proceeding to take Killan’s breath away as he admires the cut of her dress and the curl of her hair. 

He struggles with his words, and it is Belle who saves him. “The restaurant. Their mushroom risotto is fabulous.”

If Emma notices the lie, she doesn’t say. They then take turns proceeding to hug and kiss Wendy goodbye.

And so, their date begins.

-/-

Dinner is pleasant.

They drink wine, talk, and laugh. Emma orders the mushroom risotto. Belle had been correct in her lie, because Emma does, in fact, love the risotto. She makes him try a bite, and giggles when he pulls face. Mushrooms have never been a favorite of his, but he’ll try anything for his Swan.

It’s easy, courting Emma Swan. Well, easy might not be the correct word, but there’s something simple about being around her. He’s always at ease in her presence, and he relishes at how easy it is to draw a smile or laugh when she isn’t burdened by the nature of her destiny. 

“Thanks for this,” she says after her pays, and they leave the venue hand-in-hand. “I needed it.” 

-/- 

In the aftermath of Camelot and her struggle with the darkness, she’s been sullen, quiet. She smiles, but they don’t always meet her eyes, and he knows her walls are creeping higher. He tries to be there, he really does, and maybe that’s why he’s doing this – to give her another bit of hope, something light to hold onto amidst the pain and guilt. 

Killian doesn’t wonder why Emma feels the way she does. He knows, and the blame lays squarely on Merlin’s shoulders for all her put her through.

He recalls the horror on Emma’s face, her joy at uniting the blade so short-lived, when Merlin told her what she needed to do. The darkness had to be transferred into a vessel and be killed, and that vessel was to be the wizard, himself. 

“I’ve lived a long enough life, Emma,” Merlin had said. “This is the only way we can rid ourselves of the darkness for good.” 

And so, with tears streaming down her face, she’d killed him and the darkness was gone. Killian wishes he could have saved her from it all, be the one to take the life of the wizard so she’d be spared. 

But he did not, could not. So, Killian gives her all he can, all he knows how.

 -/-

 “Where are we going?” Emma asks as he leads her down in what is, to her, an unfamiliar street. 

“Patience, love, you’ll see,” he responds with a wink. 

Emma rolls her eyes, but squeezes his hand tighter as they walk down the sidewalk. The concrete is decorated with chalk drawings, silly things like hearts and stars and stick-figures. He wonders if someday Wendy might make drawings such as these.

He stops in front of the house with a picket fence, and tugs Emma closer to him. He takes a deep breath. It’s now or never.

-/- 

“You bought a house,” Emma repeats back to him for the third time.

They’ve long since moved from standing outside to inside the kitchen. Emma has said little since he made his announcement, instead repeating his statement over and over again. She spins around the room, almost as if she is unable to believe such a thing. 

“It has a picket fence,” he supplies, and she looks at him strangely. It strikes him that maybe she hadn’t been literal when she described a “picket fence life”, that maybe she had been caught up in the metaphor of what it had meant, and actually hates the things in reality.

“You bought this house for me,” she says, and it phrased as a question, but more of a realization. Killian is quiet as he allows everything to sink in for her. He plans on formally asking her, but he knows Emma needs to at least come around to the idea, take it in. “After I said I wanted a picket fence life in Camelot, you bought a house with a picket fence for me.” 

“For us,” he corrects, because he feels as if that part is important. “For our future. Yours, mine, Henry’s, and Wendy’s, if you’ll have it.”

He waits, his heart beating wildly in his chest for Emma to answer, to say something. He’s been patient until now, so terribly patient, but it’s all running out as he awaits the moment in which his heart will burst or break, and –

 “Of course I’ll have it.”

-/-

They spend the rest of the evening talking about their plans for the house. Emma is excited, quite possibly the most excited Killian has seen her in ages. 

“We can paint the walls any color we want.”

“Aye.”

“And we can line the walls with bookshelves.”

“That we can.”

“And we can have a huge Christmas tree!”

 Killian grins. “Precisely.”

-/-

They make love on the carpeted floor of what will be their bedroom. After, she curls into him and rests her head on his shoulder. 

“Killian?” 

“Hm?”

“Thank you for buying us a house.” 

-/-

They don’t move in until nearly a month later. A new villain rolls into town, Wendy comes down with a cold, they paint the walls, and it takes some time to pack everything up. But then the day comes, and with the assistance of Emma’s family, Robin and Regina, and few unruly dwarves, they move everything from Emma’s apartment and into the house. 

-/-

That night, they sing Wendy songs in her nursery. Emma sits in her new rocking chair as Killian leans again the doorframe.

He remembers, not very long ago, how he had watch the woman he loved drive across the town line, believing he might never see her again. He recalls a year after that, knocking at her door, and standing in shock as she gasped his name, recognition in her eyes. And he can still feel the overwhelming wave of fear, surprise, and love washing over him as she placed their daughter into his arms for the very first time.

He watches them now, his two loves in their home, and for once in his life, Killian Jones is at peace.