Archive of Our Own

The first time she sees him is at the general store.

(It’s a small town.  They have a general store.)

She knew he had moved into the small cottage a few miles past the edge of town, but up until then there had only been whispers of a new occupant who kept to himself.  Making every loose tongue in the town wag with theories and outright suspicion.

They said he was on the run from ‘bad people’.  They said he was strange and broken and not quite right in the head.  They said he was the kind of person whom they would later describe as ‘quiet’.

Emma didn’t pay attention to any of it.  It was all hearsay, because no one had actually met him.  Only seen him from a distance. And also because she is a police officer, and there are laws against this kind of conjecture.

And then one day there he is, at the general store.  Pushing a cart filled to the brim with cans and dry goods and various supplies.  She can see lightbulbs at the top of the pile. Lots of lightbulbs.

She can hear people whisper down the aisles, can see them stare from out of the corners of their eyes, and she gives each one a death glare until they back off.  If she can hear them, so can he.

She walks up to him and introduces herself.  His brow furrows when she tells him she is the sheriff.  He doesn’t say a word, just nods at her and then stands there, shuffling his feet, his eyes darting around, until she lets him get back to his shopping.  There is something odd about his posture, his movements, but she can’t pinpoint what it is.

He walks to his truck thinking he should have said something.  Anything.

She stood there like a bulwark, blocking the sideways looks and the mumbled comments, and he’d been so stunned he forgot how to speak.  Couldn’t speak, not once she looked at him, her expression open and friendly and without judgment.

She has lovely green eyes.  They dance when she talks. He should have told her his name.

Then again - she is the sheriff.  She probably knows his name.

She drives out to his cottage a few weeks later.  Summer has come, wet and sticky, and the tourists now firmly outnumber the locals.  She finds him sitting on the beach, just watching the waves.

He looks up and nods as she sits down next to him.  “Sheriff Swan.”

She smiles.  “Please call me Emma.”

He doesn’t respond, just looks at her, waiting.

She clears her throat.  “It’s about your shed.”

His eyebrows rise and his expression grows puzzled.

“It’s just---”  He should not be making her this nervous.  She is a police officer, dammit. “4th of July is coming up and we usually use this shed--” she points at a ramshackle hut at the very edge of his property, “to, uhm, store the fireworks.”

He’s still looking at her in silence.

“Could we--- I mean, would you mind if we do so again this year?”

He looks down and for a long moment Emma can feel a battle raging behind his calm facade.  In the end he doesn’t look up, but he does nod.

“Go ahead.”  His voice is quiet.

“Thank you.”

He nods again, still not looking up.

She rises, brushes sand from her pants, smiles at him.  “You should come to the celebration. It’s fun, and there’s a ton of really good food.”

He practically folds in on himself and hangs his head even further.  Again, there is something odd about his bearing, but she can’t figure out what it is.

And he’s so obviously uncomfortable that she can’t bring herself to prolong the conversation.

“I hope you have a lovely day,” she says, and it gets her another nod, and a slight uptick of the left corner of his mouth.

“You, too, Sheriff.”  It’s so low she almost misses it over the sound of the surf.  Almost.

She drives back to the station and thinks of his sad smile, his hunched shoulders, his quiet voice.  He’s carrying something heavy, and from the looks of it, he’s doing it alone.

She knows about being alone.  She can be alone in a crowd of people.  In the middle of a party. In a small town where she knows everybody.  There is something so familiar in the way he fidgets and ducks all conversation.  His eyes are not so much sad as resigned. And very, very blue. They strike a chord within her every time he looks at her.  One she’s never heard, but recognizes all the same.

Back at her desk, she gives in to temptation and looks up his records.  She finds out that Killian Jones has a driver’s license and two speeding tickets nearly a decade old and that’s it.  She doesn’t dig any further. There are laws against doing so without a warrant.

He goes back to the store exactly one month after the first time.  At the same time of day. She’s not there.

He tries to ignore the whispers and the staring, but the longer it takes to fill his cart, the more his hand starts to shake.  He has to close his eyes several times and take deep breaths more than once. It doesn’t help much. But then he pictures her, the way she nodded and smiled at him, and his hand stops trembling long enough to load up his canned goods.

When he gets to the checkout, he’s prepared.  He wasn’t the first time; he fumbled the entire transaction, and it haunted him for days.  But not today. His credit card is ready in his back pocket, and he escapes unscathed.

She pulls up just as he starts to load his truck and parks in the space next to his, smiles, and says hello.  Her eyes dance again. His hand comes up to scratch behind his ear, a nervous habit he’s never been able to kick, and he mumbles his greeting.

She walks over to his side.  “Everything go OK with the fireworks?”

He nods.  Her deputy and a man he doesn’t know showed up the day before with boxes, and he just pointed towards his shed and nodded.  And then sat on his porch and watched them unload and wished she were there with them. Wanted to hear her laugh again.

And now here she is, in front of him, and she says, “Good.  Thank you again.”

She shouldn’t be thanking him.  Not when he’s so happy to stand there, just looking at her.

“You should really come to the celebration next week.”  Her voice is soft, inviting. “It really is worth it.”

He swallows hard and nods, but he knows he won’t go, not even to see her.

Not even to see her.

The 4th of July celebration is in full swing, gearing up for the fireworks display, when she drives out to his cottage again.  He’s back on the beach, staring out at the water as darkness falls, and he looks up in surprise when she plunks a basket down next to him.

“I know you didn’t want to come, but the food is really good, and most of it you only get once a year, so I thought….”  She points at the basket.

He slowly lifts the dish towel she has put on top, to reveal several to-go boxes and Saran-wrapped pastries and a small bottle of red wine.

His brows draw together.  “Is this--- is this all for me?”

She nods.  “I thought you might enjoy your own little celebration.”

He looks stunned.  “But---” his voice drifts off, and he does not continue.  Just blinks several times, his eyes on the contents of the basket.

She smiles at him and turns to leave.  When she gets back to her truck, the fireworks start, and she looks at him for a long time, just sitting there, watching the colored lights.  She wants to go back and sit with him. Wants to see that slight smile that always greets her, tentative and glad, like he wants to let her know he’s happy to see her, but won’t let himself feel it much.  Wants him to not have to watch the sky alone, even if she’s nothing but a warm body beside him.

But she can’t bring herself to intrude.

So she just stands there, watching him sit by himself, his hand on the basket.

The next morning he’s still thinking about how he should have asked her to stay.

He eats leftover funnel cake bits with his coffee and thinks about how nice it would have been to share that basket of food with her under the stars.  How they could have watched flash powder explode into showers of sparks. He imagines her sitting on the beach with him, her eyes shiny and wide, biting into fried mac ‘n cheese balls and laughing, and something inside him begins to ache.

She runs into him a few more times over the following months.

Mostly because she has figured out that he re-stocks his supplies on the last Friday of each one.  And because she makes it her business to be at the store at the same time, glaring daggers at the other shoppers, so he can fill up his cart in peace.

He nods at her each time, calls her ‘Sheriff’, and looks grateful.  And she gets his glad, crooked smile without fail.

And then winter comes.  With a vengeance.

By the time Emma parks the truck as close to his cottage as she can get - which is still almost half a mile away - snow has been falling for a day and the power has been out for several hours.  She starts to make her way through the howling wind and the knee-deep drifts, and grudgingly admits to herself that this is officially a blizzard, and what she’s doing is a very, very bad idea.

Twenty feet from the car she can no longer see anything, and the biting cold slices through each layer of her clothing like a scalpel.  She loses the feeling in her fingers and toes within minutes, and then notices suddenly that she has no idea where she is, nor where she is going.  She’s completely lost.

Everything around her is white. There is no telling the sky from the earth.  It’s all white, everything is white.  She doesn’t know where her truck is, or his cabin.  She keeps on walking, because she’ll freeze if she stands still, and the storm just blows more snow at her face, stinging bits of frozen projectiles.  She shivers underneath her jacket and her teeth start to chatter, and it occurs to her that this might actually be dangerous. But she keeps on going through this vast world of white, because at some point she has to hit the forest or the ocean, and so she stumbles and fights and wills her legs to go on.

And then, more than half an hour later, the squat outline of a building starts to solidify before her, and she nearly cries with relief.  It’s his cottage. By the time she knocks on his front door, tear tracks from her watering eyes have frozen on her cheeks, and she can no longer feel her limbs.  Any of them.

When he opens his door, a gust of wind blows half a snowdrift straight into his living room, and he shrinks back from the onslaught.

“Sorry.”  Her teeth are chattering hard, but it comes out halfway intelligible.

“Swan?”  He doesn’t call her sheriff this time.  And then he takes her arm and pulls her into the room and closes the door behind her with force.

It’s only in the quiet that follows that she notices just how loud the wind was outside.  The room is dim. Faint daylight shines through the windows, and a few candles are lit, but everything is shadowed, including his face.  And it’s warm.  The fireplace is lit and large logs are crackling.  It sounds nice.

She pulls her hat off her head and just stands there, dripping, and feeling stupid.  This was definitely a very bad idea.

He squints at her.  “What are you doing here, Sheriff?”

And they’re back to sheriff.  Emma tries to stop shaking. “T-They say this storm is going to last a f-few days.”

He just looks at her, puzzled again.

“The power seems to have gone out in most of the s-state, and it probably won’t come back up until-- until the b-blizzard passes.”

He still looks confused.  It’s no wonder. She’s not being very clear.

“I just t-thought, since you’re so f-far away from town, and you haven’t come in for supplies this m-month, I don’t think---”

His eyes widen.  “Were you worried about me?  About me?”

She bites her lip and nods, preparing for a lengthy explanation of how it’s her duty as sheriff, and how this kind of weather kills people as a rule, not an exception, but before she can launch into any of it, he says, “You’re freezing.”

Well, yes.  Yes she is. She bites down hard on her chattering teeth, but it’s no use.  She’s cold.

“Come with me.”  His voice is soft, but determined.  He’s not asking.

He leads her to the bathroom and tells her to take off her coat, walks away and then returns a few moments later with dry clothes.  They look almost indecently warm and inviting.

“I don’t---  You don’t----”  It isn’t fair, the fact that he makes her so tongue-tied.  She takes a deep breath. “There’s no need for any of this.  I came to check on you, but since you’re fine, I should get going.”

“Sheriff.”  He looks at her, his expression grave.  “There is no way you can make it back to town in this weather.”  He swallows audibly. “It’s a miracle you made it here in one piece.  It was a hundred to one you’d get stuck out there and freeze to death in a ditch. You’re nearly frozen now.”

It’s the most he has said to her.  Ever.

“The water in the heater should still be warm,” he goes on, putting the clothes on the edge of the sink.  “Go ahead and use it all.” He nods at her and backs out of the room, pulls the door closed with a quiet click.

And then it hits her.  The odd stance. It’s his left shoulder, which is permanently pulled back.  And his left arm, which is either hidden behind his body, or tucked into his coat pocket, but always that left shoulder is far behind his right.  It gives him a lopsided, tentative stance, and it looks forced and uncomfortable. And he just literally walked backwards out of a room, instead of turning.

Her teeth start to chatter in earnest as ice cold rivulets start to run down the inside of her collar and drip down her back, and she hurries to get in the shower.

Twenty minutes later she exits in a cloud of steam, wearing sweatpants and a henley, both faded and soft from hundreds of launderings.  There are more candles now, and the room is bathed in a beautiful warm golden glow. He’s standing in the kitchenette, a kettle over what looks like a small gas camping stove.  When she walks up he turns slightly away from her and points at the couch.

“Have a seat.  There’s a blanket if you want it.”

She walks over to the sofa and curls up in one corner, under the softest blanket she’s ever had the good fortune to touch.  She sighs in contentment. It feels like heaven.

“Better, Swan?”  His voice behind her is soft.

“Much.”  She wants to tell him again to call her Emma, but at least he’s not calling her sheriff, and here, now, warm and comfortable on his couch, she’ll take any kind of progress, no matter how small.

He walks over to her, and now that she knows what to look for, the awkward posture is unmistakable - his left shoulder pulled back so far behind his right, the left arm hidden behind his back from the elbow down.

He offers her a mug of something steaming that smells delicious, and instead of “Thank you”, she blurts out, “What’s wrong with your arm?”

It’s like a shutter dropping down in front of a window that wasn’t exactly open in the first place.  His face freezes into a mask completely devoid of expression as he sets the mug down on the coffee table.   Not even hard. Gently, carefully. When he straightens back up his eyes are empty. Not angry, not hurt, not distressed - empty.

Emma has never wanted to go back in time and erase an action as much as she does right now.  She has also never wished for the floor to open up and swallow her whole with quite so much fervor.  Mortification and guilt run through her like searing hot flames.

He just stands there, unmoving, staring at the floor.

“I am so, so sorry,” she finally whispers.  “I don’t know what---- please forgive me.”

He’s still staring at the floor, unmoving.

“It’s none of my business, I’m--- I’m really sorry.”  She gets up and turns towards the bathroom to get her clothes.  “I’ll go.”

“Don’t.”  He’s still not looking up, but now he’s shaking his head.  “You can’t beat this storm. And it’s getting dark.”

He’s right.  Night is falling fast.

He slowly makes his way over to the couch and lowers himself down on the opposite corner.  His left arm wedged between his thigh and the arm rest. He doesn’t want to look at her.

Doesn’t want to see pity in her eyes.  But he can’t leave her standing halfway to the bathroom either.

“Come and sit back down, Swan.”

She does, and pulls the blanket all the way to her chin, like armor.  “I’m really sorry.”

Here it comes.  He knows how the faces change, knows the eyes full of shame and the spines that grow rigid and the goddamn squirming.  Discomfort rolling off of stiff shoulders in waves.

He exhales a long breath and closes his eyes.  “Drink.” He points his chin towards the mug, eyes still pressed shut.

He really can’t bring himself to look.

She picks up the cup and takes a sip.  It’s hot tea with honey and a generous shot of rum.  

“Wow.”  She takes another sip and smiles.  “This is amazing. It’s like drinking liquid sunshine.”

The corner of his mouth quirks up.

They sit in silence until the mug is empty and she sets it back down with a clink.  At that he opens his eyes and looks at her.

She squirms.

“It’s all right,” he says softly.  “You did nothing wrong.” And with that he lifts his arm and slowly deposits it in his lap.  Lets her see the empty sleeve.

Listens to her breath catch.

He knows what’s coming next.

His eyes drift to the window.  “Malfunctioning heavy machinery,” he says, before she can ask.  “And a manufacturer who preferred to pay damages rather than be dragged into court.  So in short, I used to have no money and a hand, and now I have money and no hand.”

He keeps it short and succinct.  Anything to avoid getting caught somewhere in the snares of his memory.

“Is that why you’re here?”

He nods.  “Might as well be useless in a place I like.  And I like the ocean.”

And then she shakes her head and blurts out, “Is that all?”

He can feel it, can feel himself being pulled back into the room, into the Here and Now, into the present of this conversation.  Can feel his eyes snap to hers. Emma’s expression is open and full of empathy, and there’s not an ounce of pity in it.

“It’s just--- I’m sorry.  It must be awful. I can’t even imagine how awful.  It’s just--- why would you say it makes you useless?  It doesn’t make you useless.”

He can’t breathe.  He bends over double until his head almost touches his knees and still he can’t breathe.

She knows nothing.  Nothing.

This is his life now, his life; six months of hiding and shame and those goddamn green eyes of hers that look at him like he’s a person, a person, not the damaged husk that he has become; who brings him food and smiles at him and keeps the gossip at the store at bay.

Her eyes did not change when he showed her, not one bit.

She cannot see that he’s worthless.

Just looked at his mangled arm and asked, is that all?

For a long moment he hates her.  Hates her so fucking much.

And then he laughs.

And then her stomach growls, and he laughs even more.

“Hungry?”

She rolls her eyes and bites her lip.  “Starving.”

He wipes tears from his eyes and nods.  He could eat, too.

She smiles and doesn’t ask what he was laughing about.

And then something very strange happens.

She follows him into the kitchenette and watches as he pulls cans from the cabinet and looks for a pot that will work with the smallest camping cooker in existence.  She opens the cans while he rigs the makeshift stove, as if it’s a matter of course, as if they have a system, and when he pulls bread and cheese and condiments from the fridge she simply grabs a knife from his one drawer and starts making sandwiches.  He stirs their baked beans and she looks up and smiles and merely asks how many sandwiches he wants.

It’s like they’re performing a dance, a routine they have practised many times, and he’s comfortable, and unashamed, and his left shoulder relaxes for the first time in hours.

When their baked beans are hot she finds plates and bowls and cutlery while he puts on the kettle, and then carries everything to the coffee table and sits down cross-legged on the floor.

He pulls out two mugs and pours a large shot of rum into each.  “Don’t sit on the floor. It’s too cold.”

She gets up, shivering.  “Yeah, I just noticed that myself.”

He looks at her bare feet.  “Would you like some socks?”  He should have thought of that before.

She smiles.  “No need. I’m fine with the blanket.”

They eat in comfortable silence, each one huddled into a corner of the couch, and when she takes her first sip, she coughs.

“That’s a lot of rum.”

“Yeah, well, it’s supposed to keep you warm.”

She laughs.  “So it’s there for science?”

He grins.  “Precisely.”

They fall silent again and then he says, “It’s getting late.  Is there someone you need to call?” He’s fishing for information.  He can’t help it.

She fixes him with a knowing look.  “I already battened down the hatches.”

He raises an eyebrow in question.

“I texted my deputy before I took the shower.  He knows I’m stuck out here. And the town is pretty much closed down.  I don’t think anyone is leaving their house until the power comes back on.”  She sighs. “Which apparently includes me.”

He doesn’t know what to say to that, but then she adds, her voice soft, “It’s lucky, actually.  If I’d been stuck at home, I would have been in the dark. And cold. I don’t think I own a single candle, and I definitely don’t have a fireplace.”  She smiles. “So thank you, I guess. I’ll try not to eat all your food.”

He thinks of her alone in a dark apartment, wrapped up in blankets and trying not to freeze.  He thinks of how this blizzard would have played out for him if she hadn’t come by, knows he would have sat on this couch for hours, listening to the wind howl outside.  Lonely.

“I have enough food,” he whispers.  What he means is, I’m glad you’re here.

She takes another sip, sighs in contentment, and then bites her lip.  “Good.”

He smiles, because he knows she heard him.

She falls asleep a little while later, eyes falling shut while her head leans against the backrest of the couch, before he can offer her a second cup.

He stays where he is.

She wakes up a few hours later.  It’s almost pitch dark. The candles are out, the fire is only low-glowing embers.  Parts of her are cold - there’s a draft from a window blowing across her face, and the blanket is no longer covering her feet.  Other parts of her are incredibly warm, because there’s a body behind her giving off heat like a furnace. A heavy arm lies across her middle and a nose is buried in the hair at the back of her neck, soft puffs of breath whispering across her skin.  Killian is fast asleep.

It’s strangely comfortable, the way they’re curled up together in the darkness.  The way they fit together like puzzle pieces. It feels almost… familiar. She runs her hand down his arm and then encounters--- nothing.

Because it’s his left arm.

Slowly, very very slowly she cups his empty sleeve until her hand is wrapped around his blunted wrist, and he makes a low, sleepy sound behind her, but he does not wake up.  She wiggles her feet back under the blanket, and then she pulls up his arm until it rests under her chin, her hand still folded around it, and closes her eyes.

By the time she falls asleep they are breathing in rhythm.

He wakes up with his nose pressed against warm skin.  Skin that smells like his soap. He’s warm, and oh so comfortable, and he spends a few long moments just breathing it in.  And then his eyes snap open.

Emma.

He is lying on his couch wrapped around Emma.  Her breathing is deep and even, and her feet are tangled with his legs, and certain parts of his anatomy are enjoying it very much.  He takes a deep, centering breath, and carefully tries to extract himself out from behind her.

And only then does he realize she is holding his arm.

His left arm.

Her hand is wrapped around his blunted wrist.  It’s a mass of scar tissue and severed nerves and he has almost no feeling in it, and that’s why he didn’t notice.

But her hand is holding it, and his first instinct is to yank his arm out of her grip and bolt from the couch.  And yet he doesn’t. He takes another deep breath, and closes his eyes, and then gently tries to pull himself free.

Which wakes her up.

She turns with his movement until she’s on her back, looking up at him, and god.  The flat dawn light shines muted colors into his living room, but her skin looks rosy, and her green eyes shine, and her sleepy smile is wide underneath eyes slowly blinking open.

“Hey.”  Her voice is a whisper.

“Hey.”  His is hardly audible.

“I guess we fell asleep.”

“Yeah.”  What an absolutely inane thing to say.

“Must have been the rum.”  Her smile widens, and she’s still holding his arm.

“Emma----”  He can’t make his voice work.  He can’t make his brain work. He can’t process what is happening.  At all.

Her brow furrows.  “Are you all right?”

He tries again.  “Emma----”

She just looks at him, waiting, and he points his chin at her hand.  Her fingers tighten around his wrist before she realizes what she’s doing, and her eyes grow wide.  But she doesn’t let go. Just relaxes her grip.

“Is this hurting you?”

He shakes his head.

“Is this OK?”  Her grip tightens a little.

“I don’t know.”  He really doesn’t.  None of his self-imposed exile has prepared him for this.

He lowers himself back down and she turns onto her side to face him, and they just lie like that, for endless minutes.

Just breathing.  Just looking at each other.  In silence.

“Is it still snowing?”  Her voice is back to a whisper.

He doesn’t take his eyes off her.  “I think so.”

And then her stomach growls again.  They both burst out laughing. She lets her head fall against his chest, and he presses his nose into her hair, breathes her in.  When she looks back up, her face is so close, all he would have to do is lean forward...  

But the moment passes.

They both end up smiling, and then there’s an awkward, fumbled attempt to get up, and as soon as Emma is standing, she shivers.  She can’t help it. It’s cold without the blanket, and her feet are still bare.

He looks at her and puts his hand on her arm.  It’s warm. “I’ll get you some socks,” he says.  “Why don’t you sit and get back under the blanket?  I can make breakfast.”

She’s grateful for it.

He puts two logs on the fire and comes back with wool socks, and then he somehow manages to make coffee on the camping stove.  Emma looks out the window, but all she sees is white. The blizzard is still going strong and there is definitely no power.

“Call.”

They’re playing poker.  There is not much to do, snowed-in as they are, so Emma asked if he had a deck of cards, and he did.  The fire is crackling again, and the room is warm, and they have emptied his change jar for currency, and she is having a really good time.  He’s sitting across from her on a couch cushion, his smiles becoming less guarded and less tentative, and also, the river has just given Emma a flush. 

“Read ‘em and weep.”  She puts her cards down.  “All diamonds.”

He rolls his eyes and pushes two nickels her way.  “I had nothing.”

And then he looks at her expectantly, but she just puts down her cards and nods at him.  “It’s your turn to deal.”

He squirms, and Emma feels a small spike of guilt when he says, “I can’t shuffle.”  His voice is quiet.

She shakes her head.  “Of course you can shuffle.  Just mix them around on the coffee table.”

“That’s not----”

His head is starting to duck, and she’ll have none of that.  “Not what? Not cool enough?” His eyes are glued to the floor.  “Killian Jones.” His head snaps up. “If you don’t deal, I will have to start cheating.”  He’s looking at her strangely, one corner of his mouth quirking up, and it’s confusing. “What?”

He smiles.  “So you do know my name.  I was wondering.”

She has to laugh.  “Well, I had to go and look it up.  Since you never cared to mention it.”

“Sorry about that.”  Then he shakes his head.  “Is that even legal?”

She huffs.  “Well, I am the sheriff.  I have access to some records.”

At that he laughs.  Out loud.

And then starts to shuffle the cards on the coffee table, just like she suggested.

“How did you become the sheriff here?”

It’s several games later, most of which she has won, and she sighs.  This is not a great story. But then she looks at him, and sees it’s just an honest question.  His face looks nothing like the faces of the people who tell her she’s too young, or too pretty, to be the chief police officer of a small coastal town.

She puts down her cards.  “I worked Vice in Boston for a few years.  And one day we got a call -- shots fired in a downtown basement.  It was a suspected gambling den, and it had been on our radar for a while, and when we got there---” She can still see it. Blood spattered across the wall as if someone had let loose a centrifuge.  It wasn’t the squalor of the barren apartment with its filthy mattresses and boarded-up windows and glass pipes everywhere. It was the two people lying on the floor, their faces shot to a pulp, their faces.  She shivers.  “It was bad. It was so bad I threw up for days.  And then, a few days later, my friend David called about an opening for a town sheriff, and I took it and ran.”

He reaches over and takes her hand and doesn’t push for details.  Just squeezes her fingers. “I’m sorry I asked. Are you all right?”

She looks up, into his worried eyes, and manages a smile.  “I’m fine.” He doesn’t look convinced, and so she repeats, “I really am fine now, I promise.”

He nods, squeezes her hand one more time, and lets it go.

And then he grabs the bottom hem of his sweater and immediately drops it again.

“Killian?”

He’s not looking at her.

“Are you too warm?  You can take off your sweater.”

He’s still not looking.  His shoulders have gone stiff.

She gets up and walks around the table to sit down next to him.  “What is it?”

He shakes his head.  His voice is a whisper.  “I’m only wearing a t-shirt.”

She wants to ask “So?” and then it hits her.  His arm. It’s been hidden in long sleeves all this time, hell, it’s been hidden behind his body and inside coat pockets and even in his lap those times on the beach, and this is a Big Thing for him.  She puts her hand on his back on instinct, feels him go rigid, but leaves it there.

“You can show me.”

He stares at her blankly.

“It’s OK,” she whispers, softly patting his back, “I promise it’s OK.”

He inclines his head the tiniest fraction. She slowly reaches out, slowly takes hold of the bottom of his sweater, and very slowly starts to pull it up.  He doesn’t help, but neither does he resist, and when she gets to his shoulders he hesitantly lifts his arms, almost against his will.  She doesn’t stop, keeps pulling instead, and then his left arm comes free.

His jaw clenches as she takes it and looks.

His forearm is a mass of red lines, and the blunted wrist looks like it’s all scar tissue.  She runs her hands over it, remembers holding it in the night, remembers feeling it through the fabric of his sleeve, remembers thinking this should not be enough to ruin someone’s life.  She thinks it again, now that she sees it.

Thinks he is so much more than this.

Once again, he can’t breathe.  His eyes close, and he can sense more than feel her hands on his ruined arm, soft and warm and somehow sure.  Not shying away.

When he opens his eyes she is looking straight at him, without hesitation, her expression open and tender and still without a shred of pity.

And then she smiles.  Her voice is low and sincere when she says again, “It’s OK.”

He leans forward and presses his lips to hers.

His eyes close again.  All he can feel is her.  All he wants to feel is her.

Her hands lets go of his wrist and it feels almost like loss.  But then one of them winds into the hair at the nape of his neck and pulls him closer.  Her mouth opens and his world becomes her soft lips, and her gentle fingers playing with his hair, and she tastes so good.

He wraps his arms around her waist and he has never wanted his hand back this much.  But then a soft moan escapes her and he forgets all about it and just pulls her in until she’s in his lap, pressed against his body, and god, he’s so hard.

She pulls back to look at him and smiles.

Runs her hand down his side and leaves a trail of fire in her wake.  And then she moves her hips. Right there.

He lifts her with him as he gets up, her legs wrapped around his waist, his arms wrapped around her waist, and he’s not thinking about his hand at all as he carries her to the bedroom.

The blizzard lasts the whole day and most of that night.

When the next morning dawns with ridiculously blue skies, the sun rises on two people wrapped in a blanket, huddled in an open doorway, looking at a wide expanse of untouched snow.

“Beautiful,” the woman says.

The man behind her kisses her neck.  “Gorgeous.”

The woman laughs and half-turns to swat his shoulder.

Then the man leans his forehead against her hair.  “Are you leaving?”

She nods.  “I have to.  Make sure the town is still standing.”

He takes a deep breath.  “Are you coming back?” His voice sounds apprehensive.

She turns in his arms and gives him a kiss.  Long and soft and full of promise. “Always,” she says.  “There is nowhere else I’d rather be.”