Chapter Text
Emma wakes to an all too familiar setting. Steel bars, stone walls, grey ceiling. Her body tenses, her heart seizes, until she realizes she’s not in her old jail cell. What the hell happened last night? she wonders as she takes in her surroundings. There was a wolf in the road, the Storybrooke sign and then...
“Rise and shine, princess,” a snarky voice says nearby.
Emma rolls over on the thin cot and places her feet on the floor. She looks over at the woman in the next cell who is eyeing her through heavy smudged makeup. Emma might have called her pretty if she didn’t have such a miserable expression on her face.
“What’s the matter with you?” she snarks back.
The other woman merely snaps her gum loudly at her.
“Don’t mind Lacey.”
Emma’s head snaps toward the cell doors. She expects to see the town sheriff but instead, she is greeted by the bluest set of eyes she’s ever seen. Her stomach swoops unexpectedly and she tries to say something, anything, really but she can’t seem to do anything but stare.
“Are you alright, love?” Before she can respond, the man looks down and shakes his head. “What am I saying? Of course you’ve had a rough night.”
“Umm…” he continues, biting his lower lip as he pries open a cardboard box resting in the crook of his left elbow. “Pop-Tart?” he asks as he tilts the open box towards her.
Emma does not believe in stars aligning or fairytale endings – but, seriously, Pop-Tarts? She leans forward and eyes them. They are frosted blueberry, her favorite. “I love you.”
She barely recognizes that she has spoken out loud until she sees him straighten and stare at her intently. Emma freezes – she knows people say things like love flippantly all the time – but she’s not one of those people. It is like her subconscious has betrayed her. Over Pop-Tarts. She should wave her words off but she can’t. She has been pulled into the depth of his eyes, caught in his stormy gaze. Until she hears that woman again in the neighboring cell. “Killian, don’t feed the squirrels.”
Emma shakes her head. Emma Swan does not swoon over men, no matter how handsome they are. She doesn’t even know where these stupid metaphors in her head are popping in from but they need to stop.
“No need to be rude, Lacey,” Killian is saying. The woman merely snorts. “And I feed you.” As if to prove it, he reaches into the box and tosses her a Pop-Tart. It sails through two sets of bars to land perfectly on the cot, right in front of Lacey.
Emma can’t help but blink in surprise. “That’s quite a throw,” she murmurs.
Killian looks down again and scratches nervously behind his ear. “Lots of practice,” he offers humbly. “Here,” he says, tilting the box of Pop-Tarts towards her again without looking up.
Emma wonders at the blush sweeping his cheeks. He seems to be a strange dichotomy of shy and intense. It’s probably a good thing they aren’t awkwardly staring at each other still.
“Thanks,” she says as she reaches out to claim her prize. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was until he offered her the Pop-Tarts. She never had dinner last night. She didn’t even have time to enjoy her cupcake when Henry knocked on her door.
As though reading her mind, Killian says, “So, you are Henry’s mother?”
“Huh?” she says around a mouthful of Pop-Tart.
He kindly ignores her inelegance and continues as though she had responded with some dignity. “How lovely it is for him to have you back in his life, love.”
“Actually I was just dropping him off. And it’s Emma, Emma Swan. Not love.”
“Ah, a tough lass,” he replies with admiration before averting his gaze again. He pauses for a moment. “Henry’s a special boy. I think you would like him very much if you stayed.”
“Look…” She begins but decides she doesn’t need to explain herself to a stranger. “Do you work at the sheriff station? Think you could let me out?”
Killian looks extremely apologetic as he shakes his head. “Sorry, I’m just here to pick up Lacey but Graham should be here any minute now.” He pushes the sleeve back on his left arm to look down at his watch. His movement causes her to look down and she notices that his left hand is a prosthetic.
She looks up to see that she’s been caught staring. “Sorry…I…” she begins when she sees him blush again and pull his left arm behind his body. “Hey–”
“He’s usually in by eight-fifteen,” he says too fast.
As if Graham had been waiting to make the perfect entrance, he walks in. “Lacey, if I’m going to let you out, you’re going to have to behave. Put on a smile.”
Lacey gives Graham a wide insincere smile as she walks out of her cell. She reaches for Killian’s fake hand behind his back and pulls him with her. “C’mon, you’re going to buy me a coffee.”
Killian twists around to look at Emma once more. Before Lacey pulls him around the corner, his piercing blue eyes find hers and he says to her, “Welcome to Storybrooke, Swan.”