Somewhere Down The Road

Chapter Twenty-seven

These last four months have been like she's been living her life on Groundhog Day. She feels stuck in a sense, repeating the same miserable day over and over again, searching for a way to wake up from the nightmare but every door to reality is locked tightly. She is allowed to come up for air once a month when she sees Regina and Henry for a holiday but then she's swept right under the damn hole all over again.

Although, they are halfway through the year and hopefully at the end, Regina will want to talk about the next step which she's hoping will mean they get to move in together. Luckily, this halfway mark comes with an added bonus of an extra week together. That means two whole weeks with her family.

"She's gonna kill ya," Killian laughs to himself, helping her lift Henry's Christmas present into the back of her truck.

"Nah, she loves me too much," Emma proudly says but her eyes drift back to the toy and she nibbles on her bottom lip. "You think she'll be mad?"

Killian laughs, shaking his head as he slams the tailgate closed. "I'll be sure to wait at least a month after your funeral before I respectfully swoop in and try and steal her."

Emma punches him in the arm, hard enough that he actually stumbles and rubs his bicep furiously. "She didn't want you then and she ain't gonna want you now."

Killian just grins, never really was the type to allow things to bother him or offend him. She truly believes most men would bitch and moan and say all kinds of disgusting comments if they lost a woman to another woman but Killian and Neal were wholeheartedly her best friends and were simply happy for her when Regina liked her back.

She slides into the driver's side as Killian climbs into the passenger side. She cranks up the heat because Jack Frost is especially bitter this year about something.

"Hey," she begins, slowly backing out of her spot, "how is The Little Mermaid?" He flinches, his head jerking back to eye her cautiously as if she just lost her damn mind. "Oh, come on, the redhead you're seeing in Mano. The quiet one that hardly talks. Yeah, that girl's a modern day mermaid, isn't her name even Ariel?"

He huffs, readjusting in his seat like he's anxious about something. Well hot damn, he might actually have feelings for this one. "She's...sweet."

"Sweet means you're gonna break her heart."

"Shut up," he laughs, rubbing the back of his neck. She peeks over at him and sure enough, she can see a red stain crawling up the back of his neck toward his cheeks.

"Awe, Killy, you don't want to break her heart, do you?"

"Well, to be fair, I never intentionally want to crush 'em but yeah, I'm putting in the extra effort not to hurt her."

"Awe shit, I didn't know you were in love," she gushes dramatically just to watch him squirm again.

"Get that l-word outcha mouth. Unless you're using it for Regina."

"Ugh, I do love her. It's actually ridiculous how much I love her."

"I know," he chuckles, tugging at the brim of his Brewer's baseball cap. "I'm tired of hearing you go on and on about her." And even though she knows he's kidding, she feels like maybe she's been a bit obnoxious lately, so she quiets down. Killian immediately fires off his mouth again because he hates silence. "So...like how serious are you? We talkin' moving status or wedding bells?"

Emma's grip subconsciously tightens around the steering wheel from the anxiety that fills her from merely thinking about the future with Regina.

"Honestly," she meekly begins, glancing over at him, "I want our future to start now. I would like to give her a fancy ring and have this huge wedding but...I owe my daddy so much and I need to pay something off."