Work Text:
She works the late shift.
That much he knows.
And nothing else.
He spends his nights drinking. Not to excess, not diving to the bottom of every bottle he finds. And never at the same bar two nights in a row. There’s a revolving set of dives, and a steady stream of numbness, and it’s been going on for a long time.
A very long time.
It started as a coping mechanism and has since evolved into a habit and it’s been at least a year since he last tried to remember how long it’s actually been like this.
She lives across the hall from him. Sometimes he sees her when he comes home from the office. Leaving her place, looking like someone who’s just going to work. Sometimes he sees her when he leaves for whatever bar is on the rotation that night. When they share an elevator, she smiles at him, nods, wishes him a good evening as they walk out the door. It took him months to manage his first return smile, but she never minded, never missed a beat. Just smiled at him anyway. By now he manages a “you too” when she wishes him a pleasant night. It’s something.
Sometimes he sees her when he’s coming back just past two in the morning. She always looks exhausted. He’s usually nice and numb by this time, but not so oblivious he doesn’t notice just how tired her eyes, how slow her steps are. But she still smiles at him, no matter how drained she is. He holds on to that smile on those nights, and doesn’t open any of the bottles he keeps at home.
Once, she unlocked his door for him. Because once a year, on a very specific day, he does climb to the bottom of whatever bottle he can find. Last time he did, he found that he could no longer work his key when he returned home. His door lock seemed impenetrable. He had been fighting and cursing it for nearly five minutes when a pair of soft but firm hands gently pushed him aside and took hold of his key ring, and a quiet voice said, “Here, let me.”
And suddenly his front door was open, and he stumbled in a winding, complicated line all the way to his sofa. And that’s the last thing he remembers before waking up the next morning. With a blanket spread across him, and his keys in plain view on the coffee table.
He wishes he would remember more.
He wishes he knew her name.
He wishes he could tell her his.
He wishes he could tell her that her smiles are the brightest spots in his darkness.
And then one day everything changes.
It starts with a night when he returns early, and well short of oblivion. The bar he tried was too loud and too boisterous and much too full of the kind of women who accidentally spill their drinks down his shirt front in order to start a conversation. So he fled early and much too sober, and one day he will thank his lucky stars for that. But this is not that day.
Right now he is empty and sober and angry at both, and so he doesn’t notice her right away as he walks in the door. Doesn’t notice at first that she won’t turn around, won’t immediately smile at him, just busies herself getting the mail from her box.
Practically flinches when the elevator dings.
Gets on with her head down, nodding in his general direction, her lips quirking upwards, but nothing more.
That’s when he notices. She’s not looking at him. She’s not looking at anything. She’s not looking up.
They ride in silence. She doesn’t talk, and he doesn’t have anything to say.
By the time the elevator doors open on their floor he is almost desperate. Something is wrong, so obviously wrong, but he doesn’t know what to do.
At all.
When she gets to her door, and turns to unlock it, she quietly says, “Have a nice night.”
And to his complete surprise, he answers, “Are you all right, love?”
It’s probably the sheer surprise at the fact that he has just directed a complete sentence at her, that makes her turn around.
Her face is half hidden by a curtain of hair, but he can see it.
He can see it.
Her eyes are small and red and her face is swollen, like someone who has been crying. A lot. For hours.
She ducks her head immediately, lets her hair fall in front of her face, but he has seen all of it. That, and the expression in her eyes. Timid and worried and ashamed.
Ashamed.
It’s that last one which galvanizes him into action. He takes a cautious step forward and very slowly brushes her hair back.
Whispers, “What happened, love?”
She yanks her face back down and says, “It’s nothing.” Her voice is calm and detached. She turns back towards her open door.
And he says, “I have rum.”
She chuckles.
And then slowly, slowly turns around.
And silently follows him into his apartment.
“I don’t know why I’m here,” she whispers as he hands her the bottle.
He sits down next to her on the couch. He doesn’t have an answer to her question. All he knows is that he could not leave her standing out there in that hallway, or going home to her empty apartment.
Not like this.
She takes a long sip, and her face scrunches as she swallows. She hands the bottle back to him, not looking.
“It’s not what you think.” Her voice is still low.
He sighs. People always say it’s not what you think. And it always is.
“I lost my job tonight.”
Huh. Maybe it’s not what he thinks. But the loss of a job, no matter how good, could not justify the amount of tears she has obviously shed.
“What was your job?” He takes a long sip of rum.
She bites her lip. “Late shift waitress on that diner on 3rd.”
He’s confused. He has never known anyone to cry over being a waitress.
It must show all over his face, because she smiles a sad little smile and says, “And I also lost----” Her voice trails off and she shakes her head. “No. It’s not important.”
Then she looks at him, and it feels like he’s being scanned. “What about you? You’re home--- early.”
He is sure that she meant to say ‘sober’, not ‘early’. And that she stopped herself at the last second.
“Not my kind of bar.” He hears how brusque it sounds and adds softly, “It was too busy. I just didn’t like it.”
“I didn’t mean to pry.” She sounds sincere. He hands the rum back to her and she takes another swig. “My name is Emma, by the way. Emma Swan.”
Emma Swan. It’s a beautiful name. And it suits her. She’s looking at him expectantly and he manages to answer, “Killian. Killian Jones.”
“Nice to finally meet you,” she says. And smiles.
They sit there for endless moments, just passing the bottle back and forth between them, and he thinks how absolutely wonderful it is to be able to be silent with somebody. He hasn’t had that in so long.
Finally she hands the bottle back to him.
“I guess I should go.” She gets up. “I have to start looking for work first thing in the morning.”
He wants her to stay. Just stay, just sit with him on the sofa, just share his space.
But he doesn’t know how to ask.
When he hears the door shut behind her, it feels like loss.
-/-
He doesn’t run into her for three whole weeks after that.
Every time he comes home, he almost knocks on her door. But he never does, because he can tell that the silence behind it is the silence of an empty apartment.
He has gone to a bar less than a handful of times. Every time he goes out, all he thinks about is how she might be walking into their building this very moment, while he is drinking. All he thinks about are missed opportunities.
And then, twenty-three days after that night on his sofa, he sees her again.
He’s waiting for the elevator after another aborted night of fruitlessly chasing numbness, when she walks in the door.
She looks like a battle angel who’s gone 14 rounds.
The dress she is wearing is obscenely tight, and her boobs are somehow pushed up to her chin, but she also has runs in her hose and one strap of her dress is ripped clean through and she’s carrying her shoes in one hand. And there is dirt. Everywhere.
She’s walking around in just stockings. She’s not wearing a jacket. It’s much too cold for that.
But as soon as she sees him, she smiles.
He can’t say anything, he just nods. He’s been waiting for that smile for twenty-three days.
The elevator dings.
Inside, her smile turns self-deprecating and she points at her disheveled getup. “This evening did not go exactly as planned.”
He can’t stop himself. “What happened to you?”
She laughs out loud. It’s the first time he’s heard it. It’s… lovely.
“I have a new job.” She’s still smiling, and he finally manages to return it with one of his own. “I’m learning how to be in bail bonds. I tried honeytrapping my first solo skip tonight, and apparently I’m not very good at it, because he ran.”
There is not one part of that sentence he doesn’t need explained.
It must show on his face, because she laughs again, and then the elevator doors open. And he has less than fifty feet of hallway before she disappears again.
He’s sure that this time an offer of rum will not get her to spend more time sitting on his couch. She probably wants to shower and change and he’s nearly desperate to say something, anything, before he doesn’t see her again for weeks and weeks.
He can’t think of a single thing.
And then a miracle happens. She holds up her left hand, and dangles a plastic bag in front of him. “I have a ton of Chinese food,” she says. “Are you hungry?”
Of course he is.
Half an hour later they’re sitting on her couch, eating fried rice and cashew chicken. Her apartment is a nice, open space; small, but comfortable, with lots and lots of books. She’s changed into sweats and washed up and now she’s digging into the food with gusto.
So is he. It’s been a while since he has enjoyed the taste of food. It’s been a while since he noticed the taste of food.
“What does ‘honeytrapping a skip’ mean?”
She laughs. Again. It feels warm inside him. “Do you know what a bail bond is?”
“I think it’s when other people put up the money for your bail so you can get out of jail, and in return you promise to show up for your court date?”
She nods. “Close enough. Bail is basically insurance that you’ll show up in court - because you get your money back when you do. Except some people then don’t show up and my employer subsequently gets stuck with that bill. And also the culprit can’t be brought to justice. Because he or she ‘skipped’ out. Hence the name skip. And we are charged with bringing them back.”
“Back where?”
“To the nearest police station, mostly. So they can face the music.”
He feels a slight sense of apprehension. “And that’s what you do? Track down criminals?”
She shakes her head. “Not felons, not so far - I’m not good enough for that. Yet.” She shrugs. “I hope I will be soon - they bring in the most money. You get money for each skip you haul back in. But I’m only at the deadbeat stage, you know - the one I went after tonight hadn’t paid alimony in a year.”
It sounds unsettling. “With a----”
“Oh! Right. Honeytrap.” She grins. “It means I invited him out on a date. That’s why I was wearing that outfit - to get his attention. I bought it this afternoon.” Her brow furrows. “And it’s already ruined.” She looks up. “Once I made myself known, he ran, but I chased him down. Brought him in. Got the money. That was lucky.”
“You chased him down?”
Her grin is proud. “Yup. Caught him, too, in Gramercy Park. That’s where the dress ripped and the dirt happened. We slid right down that small hillside, and I cuffed him at the bottom.”
Worry begins to take root at the pit of his stomach. What she’s describing sounds dangerous.
He doesn’t like it.
But he can’t tell her. It’s her life.
His voice is quiet when he asks her, “Is that what you want, love?”
Her eyes narrow, as if she can sense the question he is really asking. “It pays the bills. And maybe does some good, who knows? One day I’ll be good enough to go after real criminals and then it might really be worthwhile. And the pay will be better, too.” Her voice becomes so low, he has to strain to hear it. “I’m so tired of just barely keeping a roof over my head.”
All he can do is nod. And realize that worry will become part of his life now.
Then she puts down her carton and turns to him. “So what about you? What do you do?”
He shakes his head and swallows. “I’m a structural engineer.”
Her eyes go wide. “What does that mean, exactly?”
“I’m in maritime engineering. The firm I work for does offshore construction - wind farms and oil rigs and that kind of thing.”
She looks too impressed. That was not his intention.
“It sounds complicated, but mostly I sit in an office all day and do calculations. It’s not exactly exciting.”
“Wow.” Her voice is quiet. “If you don’t mind my saying, it actually sounds very exciting.”
He shrugs. “It used to be.” He has stopped loving his work a long time ago.
“What happened?” Her voice is still soft.
He just shakes his head, and she doesn’t push.
Instead she draws her hand in a wide arc, encompassing her small living space. “How come you live in this building then? It sounds to me like you could afford something much nicer.”
He shrugs again. “I like this place.” He really does. The chances of him running into anyone from work in this part of town, or the bars he frequents, approach zero.
She waits for a beat, but when he doesn’t go on she just smiles. This is truly the single most relaxed conversation he has ever had. He’s not even worried about not contributing enough, or not contributing the right things. There is no burden here. He doesn’t feel the need to be anything other than himself, taciturn as that might be.
He never wants this night to end.
When she gets up he’s afraid that it will.
But all she does is walk into the kitchen and return with two bottles of beer. “Feel like watching a movie?”
He’s so happy that she seems not to mind sharing her space with him for a little longer, he can’t answer at first.
Her face scrunches up. “You don’t have to stick around,” she says, her voice uncertain for the first time. “I was just going to watch something anyway, and I thought maybe you--- but you can go back to your place any time, I don’t---”
He nearly snatches the beer bottle from her hand. “No, no, I’d love to watch a movie.” With you. I’d love to watch a movie with you.
She sighs in relief and it’s preposterous to him. When he’s the one who’s allowed to stay.
“So, I feel like something good and mindless and 80s,” she says, plunking back down on the couch again. “How do you feel about the first Lethal Weapon?”
For a moment he has to fight the urge to hug her.
The next night he works up the courage to knock on her door. There is no answer.
There is no answer the following night.
Nor the one after that.
On the fourth night he gives up, opens a bottle and settles in for a long night of rum. An hour later there’s a knock on his door.
When he opens it, Emma is standing there, holding a pizza box. He says yes before she can even ask if he wants to come watch a movie.
She smiles.
-/-
It becomes a thing.
Knocking on each other’s doors and seeing if the other is home and then spending the evening together. Just sharing space.
She introduces him to all of the Mad Max movies, with a lengthy explanation of why they will absolutely not watch the third one - something she calls Thunderdon’t. He introduces her to Monty Python after he makes a quip involving the word “Ni!” and sees her blank face in return. So they watch Holy Grail and when they get to the Black Knight she has to wipe tears of laughter from her eyes. The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch nearly kills her.
It makes him happy to just watch her laugh.
He always asks her about her work, and it’s not just because he’s interested.
He’s trying to assuage the constant worry inside him.
It doesn’t work.
She is going after more and more dangerous culprits and he knows she can take care of herself, knows he can’t tell her how to live her life, would never presume to do so, but he absolutely hates thinking of her in constant danger. He is glad for every evening they spend together, and some of it is simply because that means she’s not off somewhere chasing down men three times her size.
And he also loves their evenings together because she just lets him be.
Sometimes he tells her about his day, and sometimes he can’t talk at all, just nod, and she never minds, never pushes, never asks for anything more.
Just hands him a beer and puts on a movie and smiles.
And then one night she does ask.
She’s about to introduce him to something called the MCU, which he has never heard of, because apparently he lives under a rock. According to her, it spans a lot of years and a lot of films. She is excited to show him.
He is happy because it means there is no end to their movie nights in sight, at least not yet.
But before she hits play on something called Iron Man, she puts her beer down and looks at him.
“Are you better now?” Her voice is soft.
He is confused. “How do you mean, Swan?” He likes calling her ‘Swan’. It suits her.
“Well, when I first met you, you were kind of---”
Her voice trails off, and he finishes for her. “Drunk?”
She doesn’t laugh. Her eyes widen. “I was going to say ‘unhappy’, but drunk, too, I guess. I had to let you into your own apartment one night.”
He smiles. “I never thanked you for that. Did you put a blanket on me?”
“It was October and freezing. It was the right thing to do.”
He meets her gaze. Her eyes are clear and so very green. “Thank you anyway, love. Sorry. I should have said it sooner.”
“You’re welcome. It was no trouble at all.” She bites her lip. “It seemed like you were dealing with something. And don’t worry, I won’t ask what it is. It just seems like--- like maybe you’re better now?”
He leans back and thinks about that. Because now that she mentions it - it’s true. Somehow while he wasn’t looking, while he wasn’t drinking, while he was spending time with her just being himself - he has started to heal.
It’s completely unexpected. The fact that the pain no longer consumes him. The fact that it’s dulled now and no longer cuts like a scalpel every waking moment.
He smiles. “I guess I am.”
She returns his smile and he wants to wrap it around him like a blanket. Save it for a dark day.
She leans forward for the remote, but he catches her wrist. She stills and looks up at him and he realizes that it’s the first time he has touched her. Ever.
Her skin is warm.
Her expression is pure confusion.
Like he’s violating a rule he can’t remember making. And then he remembers that she patted his arm on two separate occasions, and both times he shied away. He’s still sorry about that. About his knee-jerk reaction to closeness.
Especially now, that he’s holding her wrist.
Very slowly he rubs his thumb across her pulse point and then tightens his fingers before he lets go. It’s to tell her that he meant to touch her this time, that it wasn’t an accident, that he doesn’t mind. He’s not sure she gets it, but it’s the best he can do.
He sighs. There is only one more thing he can offer her. The truth. “I lost my brother and my sister-in-law and my fiancée in the same car wreck three years ago. I wasn’t in the car.”
It’s as much as he can bear to say. He doesn’t say, TheyWereComingToSeeMe, doesn’t say, IShouldHaveBeenInTheCarWithThem, doesn’t say, WhyAreTheyDeadWhenI’mStillAlive?
She looks at him, just looks, and then covers his hand with hers. She doesn’t take his hand, doesn’t squeeze, doesn’t intrude. Just covers it, soft and warm as her eyes as she says, “I’m so sorry.”
That’s all she says.
And the way she says it sounds like she truly is sorry. Not for the loss of people she has never met, but sorry for the hole it has ripped in his life.
They stay like that for long, long moments.
Until he nods.
She falls asleep halfway through the movie. Ends up leaning against him. He lets her lie on his shoulder for the rest of the film while he tries to remember to breathe. When the end credits roll he goes to grab the remote and she wakes up.
“Sorry,” she mumbles, wiping her face as he presses the stop button.
“It’s all right, love,” he says, and looks at her.
Sleepy and rumpled and smiling up at him, and he just leans forward and kisses her smile.
She goes stiff as a board.
When he pulls back, her eyes are large. And sad.
He cups her cheek. So very soft. “I’m sorry. I--- ”
“It’s OK,” she whispers. “I just--- I thought I could keep this for a little while longer.”
He’s completely confused now. She’s not making sense.
It must show on his face, because she sighs and leans back. “I just--- I liked having you around.”
That does not clear things up in the least.
“I know how this goes,” she says, her voice low, her eyes downcast. “We’ll go to the bedroom and have sex and tomorrow morning you’ll be different. You’ll have a really good reason for leaving before breakfast - work, most likely - and then you’ll stop knocking on my door. And stop coming by. And you’ll smile at me when we see each other in the hallway, but it won’t mean anything. And we’ll see less and less of each other, until one day you’ll walk in with a woman on your arm. And introduce her as your girlfriend. And then you’ll move out and the next time I see you on the streets it’ll be with a wife and a dog and a baby.”
She smiles. It’s the most brilliantly sad thing he has ever seen.
“I’m always the one before they meet The One.” She smiles again, and the sadness in it is gut-wrenching now. “I just thought-- I just wanted to keep you in my life for a little longer, that’s all.” She takes a deep breath, as if she’s pulling herself together. “On the bright side, you get to meet your soulmate now. So I guess that’s lucky for you.”
He can’t speak. Everything is all upside down in his head. Silence stretches between them like a physical barrier.
“Well, I guess I fucked it up no matter which way you turn it,” she finally says, her voice quiet and defeated. “I guess this is good-bye whether we sleep together or not.”
He doesn’t want to say good-bye. He wants to tell her that. He wants to say that he doesn’t want to leave. That he wants to keep spending his nights here, even if it’s just on her couch watching movies. He doesn’t know how to say any of it.
Just looks at her, trying to come up with the words, until the silence becomes too big for him to break.
She shrugs and leans forward, presses her lips to his for a brief, fleeting moment, and gets up.
“Good-bye, Killian,” she says. “It was lovely knowing you.”
And she disappears into her bedroom. The door closes with a quiet click. And leaves him on the couch, his thoughts in an uproar, his feelings all jumbled, and his body unable to move.
He knocks on her door night after night.
She is never home. He can hear the silence behind her door, and once again it is the silence of an empty apartment. He spends an extraordinary amount of time checking his mailbox, sometimes several times a night, and going on errands just to be able to come home more than once in an evening, but he never runs into her.
He knows what to say now. Knows that he wants to tell her that she makes his life better, that he wants her in it. Her, just her. Nobody else.
That she is not a stepping stone, that she is the finish line.
But he never sees her, and he can’t bring himself to write her a note. He wants to tell her. He has to tell her. In person.
And then one night he gets a phone call. It’s Mercy Hospital. It turns out one Emma Swan has his number as her emergency contact. He flies out the door.
Doesn’t breathe until he gets there.
Asks for her while his voice does somersaults.
Finds her in an emergency room bed, already sitting up.
“Emma.” He exhales for the first time in twenty minutes. “God, what happened, love?”
She looks mortified. “Killian. I’m so sorry,” she says, and he almost laughs. She’s sorry? “I put your number in my contacts and I just forgot to take it out. I’m so sorry they called you.”
Her arm is in a serious-looking sling. His knees turn to rubber and he has to sit down on the small stool standing next to her cot. He takes her hand, the one not bandaged up.
“I knocked.” What an idiotic thing to say. But he can’t stop. “I knocked and I knocked, but you were never home.”
“I took a case that required a lot of surveillance.” She bites her lip. “I didn’t think you wanted to see me again, after what I said.”
He shakes his head. “How could you think that?” And then he remembers that he let her bare her heart, open and raw, and never said a word. Of course she thought that.
“What happened?” He whispers, points his chin at her arm. Doesn’t let go of her hand.
“I chased down a loan shark,” she answers, matter-of-factly. “Turns out he was disinclined to come with me. And armed.”
“You got shot?” He’s so very glad that he is sitting down. He feels like his legs might never work again.
She smiles. “It’s just a flesh wound.”
Hysterical laughter wants to bubble up inside him. But he can’t laugh, not now, not when he’s so terrified.
“He shot you?” he whispers.
She nods. “But he didn’t hit anything vital. Went straight through the muscle. I’ll be fine. They’re about to release me.”
I’ll be fine. He didn’t hit anything vital. He wants to scream.
Instead he leans forward. Brushes his lips over hers. They are soft and lovely and god how he missed her.
“Emma,” he says, and pulls back to look straight at her. “I want us to go home. Your place or mine, it doesn’t matter. And wherever we end up, I don’t want to leave.”
He takes a deep breath. “I want to stay.”
Tears spring to her eyes, and she opens her mouth, but no words come out. She just looks at him. The tears do not fall.
He leans his forehead against hers. “I want to stay.”
And a lifetime later, she nods.
“Is that what happened the night that we met?”
They are sitting on the couch in her apartment. He held her hand in the cab, wrapped his arm around her waist the minute they got out, held on to her all the way up to her door. Pulled her against him the moment they sat down.
She shifts to look at him. “Is what what happened?”
He runs his fingers down her cheek. Soft and so warm. “The night we had rum. You’d been crying. Did you run into somebody with a wife and a dog?”
She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “And a baby, yes.”
She awkwardly sits up, turns towards him, but still doesn’t look at him. “It’s not his fault. He promised me nothing.” Her voice is quiet. “It’s just--- he was just the latest in a long line of ‘friends’. And then he walked into the diner not even a year later with a whole happy family, and I guess I just snapped. I ran into the back and refused to come out and serve them. So I got fired.”
She shrugs and then groans. “Fuck. Have to remember not to do that.”
He lifts her chin. He wants her to see him.
“He doesn’t know what he’s missing,” he says, and his voice is clear, and strong. “I’m glad he’s somewhere else with someone else.”
Her eyebrows rise and he smiles. Leans forward to kiss her, soft and slow, like a promise. A promise.
“I would never have found you otherwise.”
She smiles at him and he no longer feels like he has to save it for his dark days. Because the true darkness is leaving his life.
“And now that I’ve found you, I’m not letting you go.”
She looks at him for a long moment, and then smiles again. Leans forward herself and kisses him back.
And then says, “I believe you.”