Dirty Swan-Dancing

Chapter 6

AN: more dancing... I'm in love with this story myself and I had such great fun writing this.

Chapter 6

The next morning, Emma awoke with butterflies in her stomach. She could not believe that she had been persuaded to dance in front of Regina Mills and that if the resort owner gave the thumbs up, she would soon be dancing in front of a large room filled with people she did not know. It freaked her out a little; even her mother had been one to talk her into doing it. As she still lay in her bed, she started to think about who she would be dancing with, and she groaned into her pillow. Killian Jones was a man she could picture herself falling in love with, but her still-shattered heart was just not ready to do anything about it. She hoped that she would be able to keep a cool façade through the dance and hopefully no one would notice the tension between them.

Emma got out of bed, took a shower, and dressed in one of the few skirts she had brought to this vacation. It was knee length and had a nice swish to it, so she thought it would do okay for dancing. She went out to her family and had breakfast, but she was not left alone. Her mother started talking about her dance audition right away.

"Mom, could we just leave it? No need to make such a big deal out of it," Emma pleaded with her mother. She focused on her breakfast so she would not have to concentrate on her mother's look of excitement.

"Oh, Emma, sweetie, I think it's a great opportunity for you. You've met some nice new friends and you get to dance at this charity event Regina is planning," Mary Margaret said excitedly.

Emma rolled her eyes and stated, "Well, let's see how well I do when I dance with Killian this morning. I might suck big time and Regina will not let me dance."

She hoped this would shut her mother up, but then her mother said, "Oh I'm sure you will... oh can we come watch too?"

"NO! Nope not a chance in hell you ain't..." Emma exclaimed and put her fork down glaring at her mother, and then turned to her farther for support.

"Look darling, I think we need to let her do this on her own," David tried to reason with his wife. He knew that she often tried to get a bit too involved in their daughter's life. It was all fine when she had been a kid, but for some reason Mary Margaret sometimes forgot that Emma was in fact a grown up now. Mary Margaret huffed, a little annoyed at her husband's reasoning, but finally gave in and wished Emma good luck with the dance.

Emma thanked her and decided to leave the cabin to be alone for a while before she had to meet up with Killian and Regina in the dance studio. She needed to clear her head and heart of all feelings and focus on the dance. She hummed to herself while trying to picture herself dancing. This turned out to be more difficult than expected because her traitorous mind kept wandering to the man she was supposed to dance with. "Shite..." she mumbled to herself as she finally walked up to the studio. How was she ever going to get through the next half hour?

When she walked inside, Killian was already there, though there was no sign of Regina.

"Good morning, Killian," Emma greeted, trying to sound cheerful and not at all in a slight panic.

Killian turned to her and broke into a big grin, "Hello there love, ready to show the Evil Queen that you know how to dance?"

Emma smiled and shook her head, "Nope, not sure I'll ever be ready for this, but I'm doing it for my new friend Ruby."

"I'm your friend too, you know," Killian said quietly as he walked over to her, his eyes trying to catch hers.

Emma tried to keep her face calm, but feeling slight heat rise to her cheeks, she knew she failed miserably. She shrugged and said, "Sure we're friends Killian, it's just all of this sort of freaks me out a little, dancing in front of total strangers. It's one thing to do it in Ruby's class where everyone else is also learning the dance, but this is me... and you... alone in front of people who will be able to spot the small mistakes I make." Emma knew she might be rambling, so she hugged herself and tried to walk off the uneasy felling settling inside of her.