A/N: Sorry this chapter took a bit longer to get out - I was sick with the flu all last week and not really feeling much like writing. Anyway, I hope this chapter is worth the wait. I like this one - I consider this sort of the halfway point, but the way it's going, this could fic could end up being longer than I initially planned. Either way! I loved writing this, and I hope you all love it too.

Chapter Five
The Same Mistakes

It wasn't until after breakfast was over, and the dishes were cleared away, washed and drying on the rack on the counter (because he didn't have a dishwasher - what year was this again?) that Emma started to feel nervous. Not because of him, not like that, but because the snow was still swirling outside, and there was truly nowhere for her to go.

She never did the morning after thing - all her past "relationships", after Neal, had been relegated to one-nighters, and she snuck out before the sun came up. And yet here she was, sitting in his kitchen at mid-morning, hoping she didn't look as out-of-place and uncomfortable as she felt. Nothing had even happened last night, aside from a lot of kissing but ... it had felt more real than any of those one-nighters ever had.

It had felt more real than whatever you had with Neal, that annoying little voice chimed again, but she pushed those thoughts away as she looked at him from her spot at the table. He was sipping another cup of coffee - he seriously seemed to exist on caffeine alone - and looking through some papers across the table from her.

"Isn't the purpose of a snow day not to work?" she asked him, though she was a fine one to talk. After she'd called in to work (and realized how spotty her cell service was going to be out here), and gotten through Ruby's peals of laughter when she explained that she was snowed-in at a "friend's", she had immediately started wishing she had her laptop. At least she could make a dent on some of her files that way, and not be wholly unproductive.

He flashed her a quick grin. "Actually, I was thinking of putting you to work with me," he said, and Emma's brows went up as she tried to keep her mind from spiraling places she knew better than to let it go.

But it was really hard when he looked like that and she knew how he kissed and she wanted him in ways she hadn't wanted anyone in a long time.

"How so?" she asked, keeping her tone cautious, wary.

"I've got a few custom orders to get done this week," he said, "and if you don't mind braving a few feet of blizzard to get to the greenhouse, we can work on those. It's perfectly warm inside, I assure you."

Emma blinked, once again, taken aback by him. He really wasn't using this opportunity as a means to his own end - well, aside from the fact that now he had a hostage to use as slave labor. He laughed heartily when she voiced that out loud to him, and Emma was again stunned momentarily speechless.

Neal never thought you were funny, chimed that little voice again, always there, no matter how hard she tried to drown it out. The looming specter of her past, casting a shadow over everything she did now.

But the sound of Killian's laughter now was sort of making it all hurt a little bit less, somehow.

"I'm sure we can work out some sort of ... compensation for your time," Killian was saying then, and Emma was brought back to the present by the almost lascivious tone in his voice and she arched a brow at him.

"Getting a lot of mixed messages from you, buddy," Emma told him, but her tone was amused as she looked at him, curling her own hands around her now-cooled cup of cocoa.

"Maybe that's the point, darling."

He stood up then, shuffling his papers a bit before leaving them, crossing over to where she sat and taking her face in his hands. Her eyes were wide as she looked up at him, her heart pounding in her chest as he leaned in and captured her lips with his own. There was nothing of the sweet, gentle kisses from the night before in this - this was hunger, need, a hint of things to come. His thumb presssed against her chin, tilting her head back as his tongue slipped past her lips.

Emma moaned softly against his lips, feeling her whole body respond to the way he kissed her then, parts within her that she'd thought long-since done with suddenly coming to life again. His fingers slipped from her cheeks, tangling in her blonde hair, a groan passing his lips as he all but devoured her and all she could do was let him because God, when was the last time anything had felt like this?

He pulled back before she was ready to let him, her fingers in the front of his shirt as she hauled him back to her, her lips and teeth and tongue doing their own assailing this time.

By the time they both pulled back, they were both panting, cheeks flushed. His pupils were dilated so that their beautiful blue was almost completely eclipsed by the dark desire there. He pressed his forehead against hers, a breathless chuckle leaving his lips.

"Never said I didn't want you, love," he told her, adding, almost inaudibly, "when it's right."

She heard what he wasn't saying, the same thing she was thinking - he didn't want to mess this up. Not this time. Somehow, she could feel it in her bones - whatever hell she'd gone through in her past, he'd been there too. Did that explain this ... inexplicable connection they seemed to have, like some sort of invisibe cord attached to them both that had led them to be right here, right now?

"Feels pretty right to me," she said honestly, the words slipping from her mouth before she realized she was going to speak out loud.

He laughed, kissing her again, much more gently this time. "Don't tempt me, Emma."

She wasn't sure, but that sounded distinctly like a challenge to her ears. She grinned at him, before patting him on the chest and giving him a little push backward, enough so that she could stand up. "Got it," she told him, all wide-eyed and guileless, trying not to smirk when she noted the way he'd narrowed his eyes at her then. "You said something about flowers?"

He shook his head, smiling at her wryly, his hand on the small of her back as they walked out of the kitchen. She moved over to the sofa once more, sitting down to pull her boots back on, taking her coat from the back of the chair she'd draped it over the night before. He was still eyeing her out of the corner of his eyes, as if he half-expected her to pounce at any moment. From the way he licked his lips absently when he glanced her way, she could tell he was hoping as much as she was.

There was something kind of ... wonderful about it all, if she was being truthful. The build-up and the anticipation ... the way every look that passed between them seemed so heated, so full of promise of things yet to come. She'd never had that before, not with anyone.

Not even Neal. She'd been young and stupid, convinced that the only way to keep him would be to ... She shook her head at the memories, not wanting to go there, not now. In the end, it hadn't even been worth it, and she'd lost a lot more than she'd ever gotten from that "relationship".

"Here," Killian was saying then, holding out a pair of gloves and a stocking cap to her. "You didn't bring any, and you'll need them for the walk out there."

Emma smiled, taking them from him with a small nod of thanks as she slid the gloves on. "They're a little big." She made a face, pulling the knitted hat on over her head.

"Sorry, I don't keep spare gloves around for the random crazy lass who finds her way all the way out here," he retorted dryly, smiling as he walked to her, helping her straighten the hat on her head. His fingers brushed over the rise of her cheek, his gaze dropping to her lips once more. Emma bit her lip in anticipation, her eyes wide as she looked up at him again.

He cleared his throat instead of leaning in, tapping the tip of her nose with a cheeky grin. Oooh, he knew what he was doing, didn't he? Bastard.

"That hat is quite adorable on you," he told her, before stepping back, pulling on his own coat and leading them to the back door. "You sure you're okay going out in this?" he asked her, hand stilling on the doorknob. The sound of the wind whistling outside the door was a little alarming - this was as bad a storm as they'd had around here in the past few years.

"If you can do it, I can," Emma retorted, and he rolled his eyes.

"Says the lass who lives in the city where they plow everything. I'm warning you, it's only a few hundred meters from the house to the greenhouse, but it'll feel like a kilometer in this."

Emma made a face at him, wanting to tease him about his use of the metric system in America, but she was quickly silenced from making any smartass remarks when he opened the door. The snow had to have been falling since sometime the previous night, because it was well over her ankles as she stepped out into it. "How do you live like this?" she shouted at him over the sound of the wind, squinting to see him through the swirling flakes.

He laughed, reaching for her hand and pulling her along. "Do you want to go back in the house?" And she swore it sounded like he was taunting her, the little city slicker.

Oh hell no.

"No, thank you," she told him smartly, and she could see him shaking his head in amusement. Bastard.

It seemed like it took them an hour to get to the door of the greenhouse, but Killian assured her it had only been about five minutes. She was frozen through, that much she was sure of, and she tried rocking on the balls of her feet to stay warm as he fumbled for the keys in his pocket to unlock the door. The snow made it a little difficult, so she ended up sort of just bouncing in place, much to his amusement.

He pushed open the door and ushered her inside. "Quickly, can't let too much of this cold air inside."

She hurried inside and nearly lost her breath. The heat and humidity inside was tangible - thick and wet and heavy. She immediately peeled off her snow covered gloves and the hat, shaking out her hair and shrugging out of her coat, which Killian took from her, hanging it alongside his on one of the hooks at the back wall of the first room.

The light inside was bright - a mimickry of sunlight, and as believable as Emma had ever seen it. And the flowers - Emma had never seen so many, all in one place like this. Killian explained how different parts of the greenhouse were kept at different temperature levels and moisture levels, in order to grow all manner of plants inside.

Emma was used to seeing greenhouses, all one big room with this that and everything else all growing side-by-side. She'd never seen one split up into different rooms like this one was. "Do you grow all the flowers you sell in your shop, then?" she asked him, her fingers lightly brushing over some delicate white thing that looked almost like lace.

"Aye," he told her, and she knew he was watching her, watching her take it all in. "The greenhouse was Liam's doing, but the idea comes from our mum." He smiled sadly. "So this room is your normal garden perrenials and annuals, the kind that pretty much anyone can grow. The roses are toward the back, we have some lilies over there - others are in the next room, the tropical plant room, along with the orchids and whatnot. Your stargazers are in there. But most of the work for the shop comes out of this room here."

"What's over there?" Emma asked, nodding her head in the direction of a closed off room to the left.

Killian scratched the back of his neck. "That's ... kind of like Frankenstein's laboratory, to be frank." Emma's brow furrowed.

"You're not going to cut me up and use my parts to build a woman, are you?"

He laughed then, shaking his head. "No, no, it's not women I'm creating in there, although ... " He looked at her thoughtfully, his fingertips reaching out to brush over the curve of her cheek, his thumb and forefinger pinching a lock of her hair between them then. "I could use this."

Emma's brow creased even more, and she watched his face, eyes searching for any sign of what the hell he was talking about. "You could use what?" she asked him, her tone a little bit sharper than she'd intended.

"That's not ... that came out wrong." Killian blew out a breath, shaking his head. "Just ... follow me," he said, pulling back and heading into the so-called "laboratory". Emma hesitated for a moment, not really sure what was going on, before her curiosity once again won out, and she followed him.

She didn't know what she'd been expecting, but a room full of plant cuttings and assorted pots full of varying levels of soil, rock, sand and other things Emma couldn't even name was not at all anywhere on her list. "What is all this?" she asked, picking up a beautiful, vibrant orange lily that lie on the long "table" that really just consisted of two sawhorses and a wooden plank between them.

"I've been ... working on something for ... awhile now," he said, almost sheepishly. "I'm trying to cultivate a new breed of flower - a lily." That explained the various types scattered about the room. "Liam and our mum were so good at that - the orchids I sent you were a type Mum created, before she died, that we managed to keep going all these years." Emma felt her eyes pricking with tears then, touched even more that the flowers he'd sent her were that special to him.

She felt kinda bad for chopping them up in her garbage disposal. She probably wouldn't tell him that part.

"And Liam, he made countless variations of all sorts of flowers. I just ... I wanted to do one, something so that I could leave some sort of legacy." He sighed, a little helplessly, and Emma reached out for his shoulder. "I just hadn't been ... inspired, really. Until I met you." He looked at her then, and Emma swore all the breath left her then.

"Me?" she asked, though she wasn't entirely sure she'd even spoken out loud.

"You said you liked lilies, stargazers, and I thought ... maybe I could make something more beautiful than that, something ... something that would be worthy of you. I wasn't ... I wasn't going to say anything until I had anything to talk about, but you're here now and I can ask you properly ... I was, out there, I was saying I could use your hair - just a tiny bit of it, as part of the fertilizer. I know that's completely daft, and sounds like something a madman would say, but it's been proven that it works marvelously and ... I thought it would be fitting, being as it's your flower ... " His cheeks were bright red, he couldn't meet her gaze, and Emma couldn't be certain, but if it was possible to pinpoint the exact moment she started falling ...

This would be it.

She wasn't sure how to process this ... no one had ever done anything like this for her. Maybe it was a little out-there, a little unorthodox, but that was what made it special to her. "I don't know what it is you see in me," she said, shaking her head and looking down, twirling the lily she still held absently between her fingers.

"Everything," he told her, without missing a beat.

"Killian ... " Emma looked at him, feeling completely lost to him, in a way she'd never felt for anyone or anything before. Her breath was caught in her throat, her eyes bright with unshed tears.

"I lost everything," he said then, still unable to meet her eyes, his voice thick with emotion. "My mother, my brother - I wasn't always alone here either, you asked before and I ... I was married. She got pregnant, and there were complications and ... " He shook his head. "That was five years ago. Five years, and nothing's been right since then. Not until I looked up."

Emma wasn't sure when she'd started crying, but her cheeks were wet as she listened to him, her heart going out to him, and realizing that the two of them were more alike than she'd ever thought possible. The circumstances weren't exactly the same, but ... close enough that it made no matter. "I'm so sorry," she told him, even though she knew, if he were like her, he wouldn't want her pity.

He leaned over then, thumbs brushing the tears off her cheeks before he kissed her again, a new kind of desperation there. She pulled back a little, hands resting on the front of her shoulders, her lips still brushing his. "Okay," she whispered softly.

"Okay?" he asked, confusion riddling his features.

"You can have some of my hair," she told him, laughing a little at how that sounded. "For the flower." She sighed a little, grinning softly, her fingers threading through the hair at his temples. "I'm pretty excited to have my own flower."

He smiled at her, a little crookedly. "It's entirely possible that I'll just fuck the whole thing up, and it will all be for naught," he told her, pulling back a little to look at her better.

"But you're trying, which is a whole lot more than anything else has ever done for me." She flicked her hair over her shoulder, finding a somewhat hidden shorter layer. "Try not to bald me."

He laughed, reaching for a pair of shears and clipping the small piece of hair, tucking it into a small brown bag and setting it next to one of the pots. "I don't think anyone will even notice," he told her, kissing her again. "Thank you. Not just for that."

Emma didn't answer - there were a lot of things she wanted to say to him, but it didn't feel like the right time. She didn't want to take his pain and somehow turn it into hers. But for the first time in a long time, she wanted to tell someone everything ... all the crap she'd been through, she wanted to share it.

And that was no small thing for her.

They spent the rest of the afternoon in the greenhouse, and God love him, he tried to teach her what he was doing, but she was pretty hopeless. "You might actually be worse at this than I was when I started out," he teased her.

She threw a clump of peat moss at him.

"Maybe I'll just pot you," she muttered at him, watching as he carefully snipped away dead leaves and blooms and repotted this plant and that. She was more than content to just do that all afternoon. At least she wouldn't ruin someone's arrangement that way.

He laughed, shaking his head at her, plucking a daisy and tucking it behind her ear with a cheeky grin, stealing a kiss before returning to his work.

"So," she ventured, feeling her cheeks going warm and desperate to take the focus off of that little fact. "Are you going to let me name my flower?"

He shook his head. "Afraid she's already got a name," he told her, looking at her over the top of the tall plant he was working on now. "That much at least I have figured out."

"Oh?" she asked.

"I'm naming it for you. The aeterna lily." He looked at her, seeing her confused expression. "Estis lux mea aeternum," he said in Latin, sighing softly as he moved to stand in front of her. "It means 'you are the light of my life'."

"Oh ... " Was all Emma got out before he was kissing her again.