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She is so tired.
She wakes up and it’s like trying to move concrete, getting her body to respond to any kind of signal. Dawn is barely breaking, a sliver of light through a tiny window, and her limbs are too heavy for daylight, too heavy to move, especially here, now, when she’s so warm and comfortable and---
She doesn’t finish the sentence, can’t finish it, not even in the vault of secrecy and denial that is the privacy of her own head. Not even here, in his bed, with its sheets that smell faintly of hard soap and salt, not with his arm heavy around her middle, and especially not with his warm body pressed against the length of hers, soft puffs of breath tickling the back of her neck.
But she has to get up.
It’s time.
Dawn waits for no one. If only she weren’t so tired.
She slowly slides out from underneath his arm, his body, his warmth; slides out from underneath the blankets and away from those soft tickling breaths, and while her feet find the floorboards and she slowly stands up she knows she has never ever been so cold. It’s a miracle she doesn’t freeze where she stands. She remembers a freeway overpass she once hid under, on one of the many, many times she tried to run, watching a clear November dawn come up so cold she thought she’d never be able to get warm again, and yet----
This is worse.
Today she feels cold because she’s standing here, in the gently rocking captain’s quarters of his ship, not three feet away from his sleeping body, and she already misses him.
She looks at him, dark hair sticking up, breaths deep and even. He looks peaceful.
Only a few hours ago he looked hungry, tongue running over his lips as he ran his hook up her side, cold metal across her warm skin and desire in his eyes, desire and longing and that sadness he never manages to hide, no matter how hard he tries.
No matter how wide, how honest his smiles.
Emma shudders.
She puts on her clothes with a minimum of noise and quietly climbs the ladder up onto the deck. Away from the man sleeping in that bed behind her.
Away.
She tiptoes across the polished wooden boards, always scrubbed clean, past neatly lined-up crates and perfectly tied-off rigging, but when she gets to the gangplank, she finds she--- can’t.
She can’t leave the ship.
On the other side of this slip and this gangplank and this pier is a town full of people who have Opinions on how she should live her life, and she is so. Tired.
So tired of her son’s father sweeping in like a Monday morning quarterback, like he never abandoned her to feel kicks inside while staring at 50 square feet of concrete and a toilet in the corner. Like he’s entitled to a piece of her life, like she owes him a share of her future.
So tired of her parents thinking blood is thicker than water, as if the idea of a family was built on logic, on sense . Emma knows for a fact that blood doesn’t mean a damn thing, that the only family that counts is the one you choose.
So tired of sneaking around, of hands brushing by carefully constructed accident, of longing, sad glances, late-night excursions, of tiptoeing through the streets of this town just to get to this ship, to this bed, to him , warm and comfortable and wonderful and---
No. She can’t leave this ship.
She walks up to the bow, sprit pointed at the open sea past the harbour, and listens to the seagulls, the wind, and the waves lapping gently against resin and paint, and thinks of his smile, the way his face shines every time she comes down the ladder, like he’s been waiting for her all of his life.
And maybe it’s true.
She certainly has, and she knows it.
Knows he is the answer to a question she has never yet dared to ask, knows that he is safe, safe for her, that he would be careful with her heart.
That he is careful with her heart.
Knows that she wants to give him more than these bits and pieces, these stolen moments, this stringing him along, and she suddenly feels it, anger and rage, rage , at these people beyond the gangplank who are making her choose---
choose what they would have chosen
choose what they think she should choose, she should want
how dare they
For a moment she can’t feel and can’t hear and can’t breathe because the rage burns so hot inside her it colors her world red, but then a pair of arms wraps around her.
“Love,” he says. “Are you still here?”
She nods, feels his lips, soft on the back of her neck, and says, “Can we sail away?”
His arms tighten around her. Warmth starts to seep back into her cold leaden bones.
“Where to?” His voice is gentle, unassuming.
It does not have an opinion on how she should live her life.
On what decisions she should make, or how she should live, just asks, where do you want to go? and waits for the answer.
“Anywhere,” she says. “Anywhere that is not here.”
Again his arms tighten, again she feels his lips, soft and so, so careful, against her neck, her pulse point, her collar, and then he says quietly, “Don’t you think it’s time to stop running?”
And her breath stops.
This is why she is tired. All she ever does is run.
She turns around.
Looks at his smile, soft and so fond, as he pulls her in, warm and comfortable and wonderful--
and safe.
And loved.
And loved.
She puts her head against his chest so he won’t see the tears spring to her eyes, because he asked are you still here? with that note of longing, of sadness, of hope, of hope ---
because he’s waiting for her, still, always, forever, waiting for her to be honest and brave and what fucking use is a savior who cannot muster the courage to do the one thing that matters?
No.
She closes her eyes and lets his warmth flood her limbs, takes a deep breath and looks up.
“I couldn’t leave your ship,” she says. “Earlier. I was trying to leave, get back to my place before anyone sees me, and I couldn’t leave.”
He looks at her, blue eyes full of question, but he doesn’t say a word.
“Because I don’t want to leave,” she says. “I don’t---”
She doesn’t know how to say it, bites her lip instead. His hand comes up, rubs his thumb across her chin.
“Stop it,” he says softly, and she relaxes her bite as he leans down to kiss her.
It’s so right, tears again flood her eyes.
“I’m so tired,” she whispers. “I’m so tired of everybody telling me what to do and how to feel, when all I want is to be here. With you.”
He looks at her like he cannot believe it, won’t let himself fall, and she tries to smile.
And then shakes her head.
What good is a savior.
“I want no part of their plan,” she says. “And I’m done listening to them. I’m done sneaking around. I want---” she swallows hard and he’s just looking at her, still as a statue, not even breathing.
She takes his hand, folds her fingers through his, pulls it up between them.
“This,” she says, kissing their intertwined fingers. “This is what I want. This.”
He’s still not breathing, not moving, not blinking.
And she brushes her lips past his and adds, “You.”
His smile when it comes is the most beautiful thing Emma has ever seen, and she leans up to kiss him because it’s time,
because after all is said and done she belongs here, with him.
Beyond the gangplank is Storybrooke, with monsters and magic and complications, there are conversations lying in wait, with Neal, with her parents, with those who want A Certain Kind of Savior; but she is still on this ship, now, and she looks up at him, smiling and so, so happy.
“Take me downstairs,” she says.
Because dawn waits for no one, but neither does she.
Not anymore.