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Killian Jones did not like cold weather. Emma knew this because he felt the need to remind her every day on the way to school, as they left school, and every moment in between when they were outside together.
In the five years since they had become friends, this was the norm. It began the very moment Maine weather left the realm of ‘chilly’ and entered ‘freezing your ass off’ territory, and ended well into spring, when the final cold front had retreated for the next several months.
On one such day, as Killian and Emma were walking down Main Street after school, Killian whined, “Why is it so bloody cold all the time? I can’t feel my ears right now.”
“Most people wear hats, you know,” Emma said, nudging him gently. “Shouldn’t you know by now? You’ve lived here for, like, ten years.”
“Six years, actually, but good guess. And what would I do if I started wearing hats all of a sudden?” He threw her a wink. “Then I wouldn’t have anything to complain to you about.”
She scoffed. “I’m sure you can think of something.”
All teasing aside, it did give her an idea. And the timing couldn’t have been more perfect, as Killian’s birthday was only two weeks away, and she had yet to find an appropriate gift.
They parted ways soon afterwards– Killian heading towards the docks and Emma towards Granny’s– with only a couple mild jabs. Emma hurried into the diner with newfound purpose, hustling over to the booth where Ruby and Elsa sat with their homework spread out in front of them. Her customary hot chocolate with cinnamon was already waiting for her when she sat down.
“It’s about time,” Ruby griped without looking up from a complicated math equation. “I need to borrow your notes from yesterday. I fell asleep and missed, like, half of class.”
Emma slid her notebook across the table to her friend while breathlessly explaining, “Sorry, I had to talk to Ms. French about the lit homework after class.”
Elsa looked up from a large history textbook, noticing for the first time how crazed Emma probably looked. “Is something wrong, Em?”
“Yeah, you look like you’re running from the police,” Ruby remarked. “Which would suck, ‘cause your dad’s the sheriff, so you never truly escape the confines of the law–”
Emma threw a crumpled napkin at Ruby to shut her up. “I’m fine. I just had an idea for Killian’s birthday present.”
The other girls perked up– the struggle of finding the perfect gift was a popular topic lately. “Do tell,” Elsa prodded.
Emma paused, considering for a moment that maybe it was a stupid idea. Shaking the thought away, she said, “Do you think Granny would teach me how to knit?”
///
It was with no small about of ribbing from her dear bitch friend that Emma began meeting with Granny almost daily that week. Knitting was more difficult in practice than she initially thought; there were so many steps and different types of stitches, and so much pressure to do the stitch exactly right lest she drop one.
Once Granny felt that Emma had a decent grasp of the technique, she gave Emma a pattern to follow that seemed easy enough to follow. Emma took to knitting in her mother’s classroom or her father’s office after school. It was slow work, but Emma was confident that she could finish before Killian’s birthday.
Once, she was sitting with her feet propped up on the desk at the sheriff’s station while her dad was out on patrol. She heard footsteps in the hallway and Killian’s voice ringing out, “Emma? You here?”
Frantically, she dropped her feet to the floor, shoved her yarn and needles into the bottom drawer of the desk and shouted, “Back here!”
She kicked the drawer closed and pulled up solitaire on the computer just as Killian appeared in the doorway. He leaned his entire body over the desk so that they were nose-to-nose.
“I’m boooored,” Killian whined.
She poked his nose with the tip of her finger and he scrunched his face adorably. “Shouldn’t you be at the docks?”
“They didn’t have anything for me to do.” He brightened as a thought struck him. “We should get ice cream!”
“Killian, it’s January.”
“There’s never a bad season for ice cream!”
Emma shoved him off the desk, standing to grab her coat. “How about cocoa and movies at my house?”
It wasn’t as good as ice cream, he made that quite certain, but he seemed quite content as they spent the rest of the evening watching Disney movies and getting sugar highs.
It wasn’t until the next morning that Emma realized she had left her knitting in her father’s desk, and that very sane day, Mr. Booth assigned a massive history report due that same week, so the half-finished hat sat at the foot of her bed until the night before Killian’s birthday. She stayed up most of the night, playing a movie at low volume so as to not wake her parents as she worked.
The end result was less than impressive. The navy blue yarn formed a lumpy thing that vaguely resembled headwear, with a few weird gaps where she had dropped stitches. She very nearly decided not to give it to him, to trash it and buy him something later, but her mom stopped her as they drove to school in the morning.
“Emma, honey, it’s not perfect, but he will love it,” her mom said in a gentle voice.
“How do you know?”
“Because it’s from you, sweetie.”
She chewed her lip and stuffed it into her backpack so she wouldn’t have to look at it anymore.
Killian arrived only moments before the first bell rang, and their next two classes were on different sides of the building. By the time she saw him again at lunch, she had debated saying to hell with what her mother thought and talked herself out of various forms of shitty-hat-destruction, if only because she had no backup plan for a birthday gift.
She was putting away her books when Killian appeared and leaned against the locker next to her.
“Hey, Swan,” he greeted cheerily.
Emma managed a smile. “Hey. Happy birthday, old man.”
“Ha, ha.” Killian rolled his eyes. “You’re very clever.”
“Gotta start my stand-up comedy career sooner or later, right?”
“Mhmm.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulder, arm dangling so that his fingers brushed her arm. He fixed her with a concerned state and hesitated a moment before asking, “Are you okay, Em?”
“What makes you think I’m not?"
“Well, you’re sort of tense. And you looked worried when I saw you this morning.” He paused. “Is it your parents?”
“My parents– oh, no, I swear it has nothing to do with them.” After all, not every foster family had been so kind, and certainly none of them had ever wanted to adopt her. David and Mary Margaret were different, but Killian knew Emma was still fearful of that changing, of losing the only family she had ever known. He did that sometimes, asking her if everything was okay at home, even though she didn’t think it could ever get better than it already was, and she loved that about him.
Emma stopped in the middle of the hallway, thankful that almost everyone else had gone to lunch so that no one else had to see her poor craftsmanship. “It’s your birthday present,” she answered, finally meeting his eyes.
Killian visibly relaxed. His shoulders dropped and a smile tugged at his mouth. “Is that all? Swan, you know I don’t expect anything, and whatever it is, I’m sure it’s fantastic.”
“I wouldn’t be so optimistic,” Emma mumbled. She dropped her backpack to the floor to read into the pocket, then felt the soft yarn at her fingertips and looked up at him. “Promise you won’t laugh?”
“On my honor.” He dramatically crossed his heart and batted his eyelashes.
Emma scoffed. “Just close your eyes, moron.”
“Yes, milady.”
The hat somehow looked even worse now than it did a few hours ago, but she took Killian’s hand, turned it over, and dropped the hat into his open palm in spite of her reservations. “Okay. Open,” she breathed.
Killian obeyed and stared down at the dark blue thing she had given him. “It’s…”
“A hat,” she finished, nervously. “I, uh, thought that you could use one so I asked Granny to show me how to knit, so–”
“You made this?” He was grinning ear-to-ear, turning the hat over in his hands.
Emma groaned. “You said you wouldn’t laugh!”
“I’m not laughing! Swan, this is brilliant.” He worked it over his messy hair– God, how could it possibly look even worse on?– and grimaced when it barely fit past his hairline.
She honestly wanted to take it back and find something else. “Killian, it’s too small and it looks like you’ve got a cone head or something. Just let me get you a different gift.”
“No!” Killian said, sounding somewhat offended at the idea. “Emma, I love this.”
“Seriously, Killian, you don’t have to lie–”
He gripped her shoulders and made her look at him. “Emma. I mean it. It was important to you so you took time to make it. How could I not love something you went to such pains for?”
Emma felt a smile tug at her mouth. “It’s just a hat,” she protested weakly.
“Aye, and it’s a bloody fantastic Emma Swan hat,” Killian said firmly, and that was the end of it, as though he were ready to fight tooth and nail for the defense of a stupid hat she made. He sealed the declaration with a quick peck of his lips against her cheek, a fleeting burn on her skin.
If anyone ever mocked her shoddy work on that hat, she never heard of it. Killian wore it proudly and often, until the very last of the cold was gone from Storybrooke. But the moment a chill rolled back in during the fall months, it came back out.
That hat followed them to Boston when they left Maine for college, but no matter how ragged and frayed it looked, Emma never forgot the burning kiss Killian left to her cheek for it.
So maybe it wasn’t so bad.