title: roots. (1/1)

rating: t

a/n: This is what I'm hoping for - slices of domesticity and real-ness that doesn't include being in danger 24/7 for Season 4... that amidst the crazy snow blizzards, that they'll get moments like this. And I really want Emma and Henry to get that place he picked out - the one with the view.

This was precisely why she'd wanted to high tail it and run back to New York. It's a never-ending story, one disaster after another, and Emma feels like a magnet that's continuously drawing bad things to her. Or maybe it's a Charming curse, she doesn't know, but she'd heard, as she was exiting the back door of Granny's, one of the dwarves, who as far as she's known has always been loyal to her parents, saying, "Don't take this the wrong way, but ever since Snow walked into our lives, its one catastrophe after another. I mean, one minute we have voting rights and hot water, the next we're back to being nothing more than servants in the Enchanted Forest with no AC and now we're back here with electricity and cars, and I am not going back. Hell no."

And the thing is, she can't really blame them for their diatribe or feeling that way. As a matter of fact, her own little sojourns to the Enchanted Forest left her feeling lacking, despite the beauty and fairy-tale quality it lends. She's had to bathe in streams – cold rushing water while furiously checking for any leeches or parasites and that is a kind of stress she could very well do without, thank you very much.

And Emma, for all her lacking knowledge in politics and running a country, knows that things are much better here, in Storybrooke, Maine, USA, than it ever could have been for commoners in the Enchanted Forest. And so really, really, is it so bad that she wants to disengage from all this nonsense and just leave?

Maybe not to New York… which is an 8-hour drive, but maybe Portland (Maine, not Oregon, she thinks with a shudder), which is a 2 and a half hour drive. That seems reasonable, and it's by the coast, and it's not like she's actually going to go through with this – tempting though it may be – after she's only just found home with her parents. She's not leaving them now, but she wonders if the wanderlust in her blood will ever mellow out, the urge to move be stamped out in favor of home, family and stability. After all these years, she's afraid she doesn't know how.

"What are you doing, love?"

Killian's voice cuts through her musings, and she turns to look at him, catching his curious gaze that's just a touched concern and mostly amused. Emma looks down, wondering what she must look like to him, sitting cross-legged on the dusty bay window of an unfurnished house, staring out into the sea as if it has the answers to her life's problems.

The unsigned lease sits on the counter in the kitchen.

"Thinking," she replies, turning her attention back to the turbulent waves as the wind picks up outside. She scoots a little to the right, inviting him wordlessly to fill the space beside her.

Neither one of them say a word as he takes a seat, his leather duster jacket fanning out behind him and onto the floor as his leather-clad legs join hers in their cross-legged posture. His legs are so much longer that the space suddenly feels cramped where it once felt too big.

"How do you always smell so good, anyway?" she asks, the question a long since held-curiosity when they'd been sweating their asses off in the Neverland jungle.

"I mean, I'm pretty sure you only own like one pair of each, so how do you do laundry?"

She hazards a sneak at his profile; the corners of his mouth upturned into a smile, hair falling over his ears (it has gotten so long, she thinks distractedly) and his fingers brushing along the sleeve of his coat as he humors her with an answer.

"Lemon and olive oil, Swan. Keeps the leather like new, disinfects and keeps the smell embedded deep. As for the rest, the shirt is thin and fast-drying. The pants, regrettably, does take time to dry," he says, shooting her a sly look as the next words spill from his mouth, "so I usually take to walking around in my shirt and naught much else while it dries."

Exactly as he intended, Emma pictures the scenario he paints so vividly with her mind, those strong thighs and hairy legs (she's never seen, but if his legs are anything like his chest…) bare for the world, muscles bunching and rippling as he goes about his chores. She'd bet her bug he goes commando too… Her mouth feels suddenly drier.

"Right," she says, clearing her throat discreetly, (she knows he's noticed, the observant bastard) and soldiers on, "suppose we'll have to take you clothes shopping, can't have you indecently flashing unsuspecting citizens."

"Pretty sure the wolf girl won't mind," Killian says, all teeth and smirks, and Emma suddenly remembers jello and 'You're quite real aren't you?' and feels the swell of jealousy coursing through her so intensely that she'd be taken aback if it didn't piss her off.

"Oh, is that what you want? Go ahead. Not going to stop you, you're a free man."

She sounds petulant even to her own ears, and damn him, because his smirk grows wider, voice deeper as he leans into her.

"We may not have defined our relationship, Swan" and her belly droops at the word relationship, but Killian continues as if he hadn't seen her breath hitch, "but I am most definitely not a free man. By choice. You know what I want, don't pretend for a second you don't know it."

"Good," she says, hands coming up to tangle in his charms as she pulls him closer, closing the gap between them and giving in to the urges that plague her whenever he's in the same room.

His lips are soft against hers – she's demanding, pulling and marking, but he refuses to open his mouth against her, choosing instead to take his time, a shallowness to his kisses that are so sickeningly adoring and loving and she knows what he's playing at, but she wants none of it; she just wants to give into the passion, take and receive with ferocity, but Killian denies her, pulling back with another chaste, sweet kiss.

"Oh Swan, you're so cute when you're jealous," he mutters against her lips, close enough so that she feels every vibration of his words, but too far to properly kiss the living day lights out of him.

"Shut up."

He moves back just enough to stare her in the eye, his ever-expressive eyebrows raised slightly, and he says, with a hint of a smirk, "Make me."

There's a second of absolute silence – it feels like someone hit the mute button on the world because the only thing she can hear is the blood pounding in her head, before all hell breaks loose and she launches herself at him. He catches her, as he always seems to do, and for the next few minutes they're so entangled in each other that Emma could no better tell you where she begin and ended than she could explain quantum physics and string theory – which is to say, not at all.

She feels the gliding of his left arm against her back, the silk blouse and the intent in his movements lighting sparks against her spine, and when the tip of his hook curls around a bit of her hair and tugs as he moves down her body, Emma groans loudly – it's an accident because he mutters a distracted sorry, but the effect is less pain and more pleasure because she's always liked it a little rough, always liked the power of being able to drive a man so wild that he forgets himself, and this is Killian, Killian, who means the world to her even if she's not quite ready to say the words (words she's known were possible the day she met him) and Killian, who kisses her like she's oxygen.

It's Killian, her Killian, so she drives her weight down on him, forcing him to fall against seat of the window, as her body aligns with his and she stops just as the apex of her thighs fit against his.

"Fuuuuuck," he drawls out, breaths low and panting, and she's sure he's not even aware of the light thrusting that brings him closer to her a little every time, that drags the friction across her tight jeans making the seam rub into her and the fourth time it happens, Emma can do little else but exhale against his chest, breathing deeply as she regains her bearings.

"Emma," Killian pants, voice wrecked and wanting, his hand and hook wrapping itself against her waist as he holds her in place, "not here."

"Why not?" she asks, voice muffled into his chest, the downy hair there tickling her cheeks and nose.

Killian lets out a ragged breath that sounds like he just took a drag of three cigarettes at once, and says, "I'm usually all for christening a new home, every room," and the heat between her legs clenches at the promise in his words, "but you're still scared to lay down your roots here Swan, in this seemingly perfect little cottage."

Emma stiffens against his chest, suddenly feeling the half-moon circle of his belt buckle digging into her hips where she'd been ignorant to it before, in the heat of the moment.

It's a testament to how far she, they've, come that her first reaction is to not bolt with a scathing remark. Instead, she consciously takes a deep breath, rolling her shoulders upwards and down, as she mulls the truth of his words. Nail on the head, as freaking usual.

"What's that got to do with wanting to …" she trails off.

"You know full well, Emma," he chastises, though there is no heat behind his words.

Putting down roots.

Not for the first time, she truly wonders if all his constant touches, the need he displays as he kisses and marks her and stands protectively in front of her is more his benefit than hers. To make sure she stays, that he isn't left alone after giving every thing he has to give. That maybe he's waiting for her to assimilate back into Storybrooke life before he does – she's noticed his hesitance around the townsfolk, at accepting Henry's old beanie when the boy had shoved it on his head because 'It's cold, Killian!'.

He's still scared I'll run and leave him, she thinks suddenly, the guilt slamming into her as it blends into irony – wasn't that what she'd been afraid of all along, before 'I give up my ship for you'?

Still, she's truthful, because she doesn't know how to lie to him, doesn't want to.

"Before you came, I was thinking."

"Aye."

"About how… crazy Storybrooke is. And I know New York was a lie but…"

His body tenses at the word New York, the pressure of his hands on her hips increasing before releasing completely as his hands fall to his sides. He sighs, defeated.

Emma brings her right hand to grasp at his left, gripping his forearm just above his brace.

"I'm not running away, Killian, not from my family, not from us," she says, never hesitating at 'us' even if she doesn't quite know what 'us' is, "but you have to admit that it's never-ending, and I need a break. I can't do this for the rest of my life, jumping from one villain to another. I can't."

She let out a humorless laugh, and feels his palm rub gently on her back, a soothing gesture now that he seems convinced she's not about to bolt to New York. Again.

"Not even if we're all here, next to you, every step of the way?"

"Especially then!"

She rests her chin just above the v-neck of his shirt, tangling her legs in his as she catches the dark blue of his gaze.

"You have no idea," she says quietly, "how often I wake up to cold sweats at night, seeing Henry's lifeless body on that bed, or your matted hair as you didn't breathe when Zelena tried to drown you, or my father lying on a hospital bed without family…"

"Emma," he begins, both arms wrapping around her tightly, but she cuts him off.

"Or the people I couldn't save, like Neal, like Graham."

"Graham?"

"The sheriff before me," she says, her voice catching as the shoelace weighs her wrist down. She's never forgiven Regina for that, she realizes with a start, the bitterness weaving its way through her heart because until she lets it go (ha, irony, because she'd just seen that movie and now Elsa is tucked away at Granny's, recuperating), she's never going to be at peace.

"He meant a great deal to you," Killian says, watching her carefully. He says it so surely, without a hint of jealousy or accusation, and Emma feels a rush of gratitude and warmth for his understanding.

She raises her shoelace-clad hand, catching his attention with it before dropping her arm on his shoulder. "He did. He's a story for another day."

"As long as there's another day," Killian says, and it brings back the rush of fear she'd tried to stamp down.

"That's exactly what I'm worried about. If this pace keeps up, one of us isn't going to see another day, and I can't bear if it was any of you."

"There's an saying in my native tongue that goes beidh sé mar a bheidh sé, which basically reads what will be, will be."

Despite herself, she chuckles, amazed that people are so much more similar than they are different, across realms and languages and time.

"We have an exact saying like that here, we say, que sera sera."

"In that case, you know you can only live in the moment, whatever it may be, with whom you choose, because if you can control your happiness, you should, and if you can't, then there is little reason to worry about things beyond your control, yes?"

"When'd you get so smart?"

"Somewhere between my second century in Neverland," he jests, but Emma detects a hint of truth in those words, as if there is a (another tragic) story there. Another day, maybe.

She lets her eyes rest on his, allowing them to travel languidly along the length of his face, taking note of the dusting of red at his cheeks, the kiss-swollen lips and scruffy jaw and can suddenly see this being their every Sunday morning activity, lounging lazily, lovingly, by the bay window that overlooks the sea. Provided there isn't another total disaster looming on the horizon, of course.

"So… this place… pretty nice, huh?"

"Are you asking my opinion on real estate, Swan?"

"I'm asking you your opinion on my home."

She both loves and hates the way his eyes inextricably soften, the way his head tilts fondly. It's too much, sometimes, and she doesn't know how to reciprocate, because nothing will ever be enough.

"It's perfect, Emma."

"Good," she says, nuzzling into his neck, content to just lie there for a few more minutes, basking in the good moment, thinking that maybe not now, but one day, that it'd be his home too.

The idea doesn't scare her as it usually would. And that's when she knows.