Once Upon A Happy Beginning

Chapter Five: An Old Friend

Killian

"Alright, love?" I say as casually as I can. Emma's been acting strangely for the last week, and she was being unusual when we went out to Granny's today. The moment that Emma Swan-Jones chooses fries instead of onion rings with her grilled cheese is the moment that you know there's a problem. Part of me wants to push it, to make sure she knows that I have never and will never abandon her just as so many have done before but another part of me juggles the idea that she's Emma. It's kind of her thing to put up walls, no matter how many have been torn down; she always hides what she's really feeling but then always comes back around to us...

"Of course," My wife says from the kitchen where she's cooking dinner, I can't see how she's acting but I know she's not. Okay, that is. I have an ingrained Emma lie detector and now, she's not telling me the truth. "Why?"

"Just missing you over here."

"Well..." She tells me, stepping through to the living room part of the house, "I have 20 minutes until the next part needs doing..." Swan trails off as she makes her way towards me. I spread my arms out and pull her into my embrace. Emma curls up next to me in the way that I know she loves, apparently I'm a better teddy bear than any one she's had in her life! I kiss her forehead softly and murmur into her hair how much I love her. "I love you too."

"Em?" I decide to ask, testing the waters around the touchy subject of not being open, "Are you alright? I just... I guess I have this feeling that you've I don't know... been distant since we saw each other at lunch, you didn't order onion rings so I guess I'm just concerned..." I try to throw off a bit of humour around the matter, "I'm not asking you, no, I'm never asking you, to tell me anything, and I'll always appreciate that you need your space but know that I'm always by your side through everything."

She's silent. She's still holding onto my hand and is stroking it slowly with her thumb. "I'm just thinking, that's all." Swan whispers before turning around with a smile on her face. I'm not going to interrupt whatever happiness she's feeling now to try and get her to open up. Whatever is playing with her mind, she'll tell me, when she thinks it's is the right time. I can only hope it's not too late. "I hope you're ready to go away next week. A fortnight of you, me, the sun and the sea and no interruptions..."

My heart quickens as Emma bites her lip seductively, she knows how turned on I get and she knows she has the control. My mind flashes back to when we first started dating and of how sheltered she was. How I led the relationship, granted by letting Emma make the decisions, but I led it. Now, it's her. I'm a puppy dog on a leash and she's my owner. "Aye."

I comb my hands through her loose curls and I press my lips against hers. When I pull back, I adjust Emma so that she's precisely as I like her. The right position so that I can watch the way the lights twinkle in her eyes and the way that she smiles with just that perfect amount of pure beauty. She's the most stunning woman I've ever met, and don't I know a few women, but Emma is incredible. Always. My hand entwines with hers and I twirl her ring around it. "Belle kept it safe, didn't she?"

"Yeah..." Emma's word fades quietly as she gazes at our interlocking fingers and the two symbols of our undying love that adorn them. "That wasn't really the truth, Killian. Today at the docks, I mean. I wasn't looking for Belle, I was looking for Gold."

"I thought you didn't trust him too find your ring?"

"I didn't," She's looking at the window, not at me, and I'd be terrified if it weren't for the safety net of her thumb drawing circles on my palm. "I had to ask him for help with a spell."

"Why did you go to the bloody Crocodile then?" I almost yell at her. "Not Regina. Not Zelena. Hell, Maleficent might be better! But never the Crocodile!" When Emma's tracing stops abruptly, fearfully, I realise how scolding I'd been, making note to lower my tone, I ask my wife why. Why she was possessed to go to that villainous man for help?

"I went to 'Gina and Zelena first," She says softly, "You know how I've been trying to get that psychic passport for you?"

"And you know I've been telling you that we don't need to go far, so long as we're together, love."

She squeezes my hand gently, "We weren't doing it well and the only person who's ever successfully done it was Gold." I hear her soft exhale before she continues, "My parents gave me the idea of going to him and taking the price with me. Offering him hairs from them, myself, you and my brother. The strongest bonds of True Love, the strongest magic he can use — even stronger than all the Dark Ones combined in that damn dagger of his. I offered him the trade, magic for his help but he didn't accept." She pauses, I squeeze her hand gently so that she knows I'm listening, that I'm there. Letting her explain. "He said he would help
me because he's trying to become a changed man for Belle and Gideon. But he didn't change, he got worse. He wanted the same magic I offered him... but in a different form."

"What form?" I murmur, almost certain I know the answer. The only form cruel enough for Rumplestiltskin to accept as payment.

Emma hesitates before saying quietly, "The child of the product of True Love and her True Love." I intake a short breath. My child. A child that I'll have with the love of my life, and I need to give it away to the bloody Crocodile. She wouldn't do that though, this is Emma, she'd never sign away our future child. Would she? Does she even want another child, it's not like we've spoken about it? "I couldn't believe him. I don't know what I was thinking Killian, I know it's not something we've discussed but I could never give up any family we might have. Nobody should. So... So I slapped him. And then stormed out the shop with everything I'd brought and my ring."

"That's my girl," I declare when she tells me what she did to Rumplestiltskin. She giggles slightly and I let her curl back up next to me.

"That's why I've been distant. Because I hated lying to you today, when I knew you'd never let me try and bargain with Gold. Because I want to and know I should tell Belle everything that happened, because she's my friend and because she deserves to know, but I don't want to be responsible for destroying their marriage. And because in my rush to leave the shop I accidentally took something of his.

"A map and some notes. There's magic outside of Storybrooke, Killian. In the place I had planned for us to go to. Not much of it, but enough so that we can take a bean there and avoid all this stuff. And enough so that Gold believes that Robin is there... alive."

The plot thickens... I'm sorry that these chapters aren't really going anywhere but I promise things will get interesting soon enough.

Where do you think Emma will take Killian?

Will she tell Belle?

And what do you think about the rumours of Robin?