Chapter Text
Killian Jones is getting married.
Ask her a year ago, a month ago, a day ago – hell, even a minute ago and those four words would be the last words she’d think she would ever hear. But this one tops the charts:
Killian Jones is getting married to Ruby Lucas.
And it isn’t that she hasn’t seen them (her, Killian’s been MIA, but she guesses it’s her fault after all) since their studying days, isn’t that she hasn’t tried rekindling the bond the three of them used to share, not that every couple of months she doesn’t invite Ruby out for noncommittal coffee dates, so while things may not be the same as it used to be, the news is pretty much the last thing she expects to hear.
Or read.
On Facebook.
And as they’ve drifted apart, or more she’s drifted from them, having to find out that they were getting married, or even that they were together in the first place via the internet fucking sucks.
But she’s a mature adult, mind you, and as mature adults do, she asks Ruby out for lunch to catch up and from her awkward ‘haha, yeah sure!’ she can vaguely tell that Ruby can hear the bitterness masked in her voice.
And so here she sits, awaiting Ruby’s arrival with drumming fingers, a fidgeting foot and about thirty different openings as to how to bring up the ‘so, you’re getting married to Killian Jones’ conversation.
And when she does arrive, all those dozens of icebreakers vanish right from her mind because looking like that, it’s no question why Killian hadn’t put a ring on her finger sooner. It seems while time has only made Emma bitter, it’s been treating Ruby just fine.
“Wow,” It falls from her lips as she eyes her six-inch heels matched with her dark leggings and a rich maroon peplum.
And she swears that the last time she saw her, (given it was a year or two ago) she didn’t look this good, almost as though there’s the fucking sun trailing behind her as she walks. Or perhaps it’s the post-proposal glow.
Probably.
(Stop being bitter, stop being bitter.)
“Don’t wow me! Look at you!” Her cheeriness hasn’t died down the slightest since the last time (it figures) and Emma barely has time to deny the compliment before she’s being pulled into Ruby’s famous 20 second long hug-and-sways.
She’s all smiles when they settle across each other, dark red lips grinning broadly at her and boy has Emma missed having a girl friend.
And Elsa’s great fun, always being there to listen to Emma’s rants and almost always giving the best advice, (except for that one time she got Emma to deliver a bag of flaming dog shit to Walsh’s front door) but God is the woman lazy to do girly things. It’s not even that Emma craves shopping sprees and gossip sessions whilst getting manicures, it’s just sometimes nice to be forced into doing those things.
(There’s also Anna, but the girl talks far too much for her own good, and her voice doesn’t quite make for a good retail therapy playlist.)
She finds out that Ruby’s working for EDIT Magazine, a side of the fashion industry Emma didn’t expect she’d work for. Now her part-time modelling days are over (‘Since I didn’t see myself being a VS Angel, I didn’t quite see the point in carrying on’) she’s moved towards photography and editing, making Emma vaguely recall how much she enjoyed being behind the camera as much as she did in front.
She learns that Mrs. Lucas had passed a couple years back, a tiring fight against cancer of the pancreas lost, leaving only Ruby and her grandmother in the Lucas household (the place she’d often slept over at during the holidays, the whole house giving out an aura of strong women).
Emma’s told a lot – probably already caught up with the moments she’s missed, save for stories of the Ruby/Killian relationship which she makes sure to keep an ear out for, hoping that she doesn’t have to be the one to bring it up.
But seeing as their conversation drifts from what she’d hoped they’d discuss (not that she doesn’t enjoy this easy conversation going between them, it’s just – she needs answers), after deep thought, she finally plucks up the courage and edges the subject into their talk, hoping against hoping that Ruby will see and catch on.
“So, how’s Killian doing? I haven’t seen him in a while,” she adds, trying for casual, but Emma Swan has never been good with subtlety. And whether or not Ruby notices (she thinks not), she doesn’t show it.
“Jones? That old bastard?” – it was a running gag between the three of them – him having took two gap years between college and university had dragged him back a couple of years, forcing him to hang out with people two years his junior (a.k.a Emma and Ruby), which also only meant that the girls had sworn an oath to never let a ‘you alright, grandpa?’ joke slide – “He’s doing fine – quite a big hotshot in this top engineering company I can’t even pronounce the name of, and… he’s happy. He wouldn’t give it up for the world,” she mentions with a soft smile, a look of admiration glinting in her eyes, “Took over Liam’s workshop too. Whenever he doesn’t have a project at work, the only place I can find him is in there working on the newest boat he’d designed either for himself or a client.”
Her lip twitches at that. A flare of pride runs through her when hearing that, and she’s so glad that he seems happy. That’s all she’s ever wanted for him.
Seeing it as the best and probably only chance to bring it up, “ So, you and him,” leaving the end hanging for her to pick up.
“Oh.” There’s a flicker of something across her face, but just a second later, a bright smile is in place of it instead. “Yeah, he – uh – proposed last week. We tried keeping it on the down low, but Will – you remember Will, right? – he got a little too tipsy and five minutes after we told him to not tell anyone, the whole of Facebook knew.”
Yeah, I was part of that whole of Facebook.
“I’m sorry you had to find out that way,” she apologises, a rueful grimace on her, and it’s either Emma was stupid enough to say it out loud or Ruby knows her just that well (even after all these years). “I really did want to call you up, but you beat me to it.”
“It’s fine, Ruby,” she takes her hand in hers, “I’m just so happy for the two of you,” she smiles and she really does think she means it. And as much as she does believe she’s genuine, she’s not ready to go into details as the their relationship as much as she’d convinced herself that that was why she was here in the first place. “Guessing Liam moved back to London?”
Ruby furrows her brows, jerks her head back the slightest with a confused look, and fuck, she knows she’s missed out on an important detail.
“Emma, Liam- Liam died.”
Whatever condolences her scrambled mind could think of is stopped by the dryness in her throat, a sudden lost of words once what Ruby says fully registers. She stares dumbfounded, unsure how she should react and if she can even do anything besides blink and gawk.
“He got into an accident when he went back to visit his in-laws, and he fell into a coma,” Ruby explains without Emma having to ask. “Killian tried to stay, but he’d have gotten fired. So he’d fly back every weekend. God, he was a mess – drank himself dry, barely slept a wink, and he smelled like shit. Took awhile, but he and Liam’s wife agreed on another month on life support before –“ she pauses, gives her a sad look and, “- you know.”
“How is he now?”
“It’s been a couple of years, and I guess he’s doing better. Going back to his normal self, but you know, there’s still something different about him –“
“Lucas!”
She knows the booming voice, recognizes the lilting accent, and she’s almost a hundred percent sure that when she turns around to the source she’ll find exactly who she suspects it is.
“I’ve been looking for your sodding arse all over town-“ his voice grows louder as he approaches, the goosebumps on her skin rise with each step he takes closer towards her, her ears ring with the sound of the metal of the chair sliding against the linoleum as he pulls up a seat, “- Excuse my language, lass,” he vaguely apologises to Emma, his gaze flitting towards her for just under a moment before, “- but as I was saying, I went all the way to your bloody place and turns out you’re right—“
His sentence halts, his whole body on pause as though he’s frozen while the world continues to move around him. She’s already preparing herself, squeezing her eyes shut in hopes that if she tried hard enough, she could possibly magic her way out of this.
But nope – magic belongs in fairytales and Harry Potter and seeing as she’s not Bellatrix Lestrange, apparating out of here doesn’t seem likely anytime soon.
“Emma Swan?”
It’s said in disbelief, almost as though he’d just seen a ghost, and it very much could be so, given how she’d up and gone without a trace, no goodbye, and (supposedly) no regrets. And while she’s to be the ghost in the situation, god has that moment haunted her even after all these years.
There isn’t a clichéd rush of old memories running through her, no last moments that she dwells about constantly flashing before her eyes – there’s only him, sitting in front of her with confused and broken eyes, him with the unsure smile and the crinkling brow. Him who she’d left all those years ago.
And despite the chatter filling the café – the clink of fork against knife, the yell of food orders being thrown about – there only remains a muted ringing in her ears. So she can only lie to say that the noise is what throws her off, it’s the conversation about college fees between father and daughter on the table adjacent to them is what keeps her unable to form an intelligible sentence.
So thank god for Ruby, oh sweet Ruby who’s been sent from above, for cutting the tension, the whatever that was, for breaking the ice, for stopping that train wreck from happening.
“I thought I texted you,” she interrupts nothing, and slowly both Emma’s and Killian’s attentions turn back to the now at the sound of her voice, both their eyes leaving each other’s to focus on Ruby.
With a little shake of his head, “Uh, no – I didn’t get it.” She watches as he takes a moment, blinking repeatedly as though he can’t believe his eyes, Ruby (not so) subtly nodding her head in Emma’s direction in a motion that she pretends she doesn’t see. “Right, uh – How’ve you been, Swa- lass- Swan?”
Swallowing down nothing, she uses that to buy time, not that the time bought even help build a strong answer anyway. “Yeah, I’m good, good,” she manages, and that’s about all he’s getting since her brain isn’t quite working too well all of a sudden. Her eyes roam everywhere except for where his are, glancing once at Ruby who now gives Emma a helping nudge. “Right, yeah – work’s been good, bruised my knee trying to get this one asshole,” she mentions, noticing how Killian’s eyes squint at that, but them clears up when Ruby nudges him and says, ‘she’s a bails-bondsperson!’
Conversation passes easily afterwards, almost as though things remain unchanged from how they’d left it when she’d gone, with inside jokes being brought up and old memories being revisited.
And it’s wrong, but when he smiles, instants of vertigo hits her, buried feelings even after all the years, resurface and she’s right back to forcing herself to leave, unwilling to drag him into her mess. And this is exactly why she’d called up only Ruby. God, she’d need ten more years to be ready to talk to Killian again.
But he’s getting married – to Ruby. And it doesn’t hurt her – it shouldn’t, at least. She shouldn’t also be feeling anything for her, for exactly the said reason. Ruby remains to be the best friend she’s ever had, and as much as her gut tells her there’s something wrong here, she can’t feel these things.
Her phone buzzes and she feels another pair of eyes dart to the screen.
When are you coming home?
When her eyes meet his again, he squints the slightest, busying himself with trailing the whirl of the coffee he’d ordered. She bites at her lips when the second message comes in, Killian not bothering to looking this time.
Can we order pizza tonight?
“Bloody hell,” she hears Killian say suddenly, glancing up to see him looking at his watch. “I didn’t quite realise how much time had passed – I’ve got to get back to the workshop,” he excuses, tucking in his chair. “We’ll see you at the engagement party, yeah?” he turns to her, a tight smile thrown her way, she barely has the time to nod or remotely respond before he murmurs a, “See you later, love,” pressed atop Ruby’s head, turning on his heel and walking away.
Her gaze trails after him, watches until after he disappears along the street.
“Oh! The engagement party!” Ruby squeaks, making Emma jump the slightest. “It’s next Friday and the theme’s white, but –“
She doesn’t quite listen after, giving vague ‘oh’s and ‘mhm’s, and it doesn’t need to be said for Emma to know how bad of a friend she is.
Ruby doesn’t deserve any of this, but it’s already been proven that Emma’s a crap friend anyway.
-/-
Later at night, she allows herself to do what she’s been avoiding for the longest of times, scrolling down their timelines and looking through their pictures and posts and little comments on Facebook.
Maybe she was wrong. Maybe she was just being a spiteful ex-something, who can’t be happy for her friends.
They kiss in pictures, she sends him flirty links and he makes suggestive comments.
She’s a bails bondsperson and part of her job is finding out information on people. She doesn’t need to be doing the job to see it’s real.
After all, it is her specialty in knowing lies from truths.
-/-
“Morning,” he mumbles, eyes squinted in attempt to shield off the 11 am sun as he leans in and kisses her on the cheek. “When did you get in?”
“Two hours ago?” she shrugs, “Granny made you some breakfast – it’s on the counter,” Ruby nods towards the door, flipping through Vanity Fair or Harper Bazaar, or whatever it is she reads with the reasoning that she’s scoping out the rivals, when really he knows she’s just a freak for fashion magazines.
He cracks a smile before making his way back into the house to get the food, appearing on the patio later with a paper bag and two cups of coffee balances precariously with one hand. “Do tell the loveliest Lucas that I love you, will you?”
“Yeah, yeah,” she hums, taking a sip of the caffeine, “With all that sucking up, it’s no wonder she didn’t even bat an eye when we told her we were getting hitched.”
“About that – I really am sorry that you have to lie to her – I didn’t mean to drag you—“
“Jones, she’s a modern woman – she’ll understand when I tell her. But now… she’s just so happy,” a soft smile breaks on her face, “She hasn’t been like this since mom.”
“I know – I still am sorry,” he sends her a rueful smile, “And talking about lies-“ he adds.
“Emma.”
“Emma,” he nods.
“We have to tell her.”
“Aye.”
“At the engagement party,” she suggests.
“Ahh, that’s in under a week, lass – I think we should—“
“At the engagement party,” Ruby presses, lips tight, eyebrows arched, and yup, okay, they’re going with her plan.
-/-
He’s chatting with the master of the house herself when Will’s booming ‘Emma Swan!’ echoes through the walls and into the living room, and with the forewarning he’d received from Ruby that she’s bringing someone with her, his hand clenches and unclenches in preparation of the handshake he’s ready to give to the bastar- to her plus one.
“Our Emma Swan?” Granny asks as though she was ever remotely his.
He forces a smile pretending that it doesn’t affect him, “Aye, the Emma Swan,” he corrects, but she doesn’t notice, instead huffing about how she’s going to give that girl a smack on the head after hugging the life out of her.
He lingers, starting up conversations with idle guests, buying his time before he has to face both Emma and the music. But even talking to others, his ears prick every time he hears the lightness in her laugh echo through the house
And after enough torment on his part, he excuses himself, vaguely saying he has other guests to attend to and finding his way towards where Ruby’s uncontrollable laugh is. Because where that is, Ruby is, and where Ruby is – seeing as she’d been more excited about Emma’s return into their lives than he’d been – Emma is.
And indeed that’s where she is.
She’s got her hair down this time, and it’s much longer than what it was way back when (obviously, Killian), the locks of hair coming down in wavy curls instead of the straight blonde he’s used to. She wears a beige sundress, one with lace at the hem that ends just under her knees, sandals that looks very much like a pair of Ruby’s Steve Maddens (they’ve been friends long enough for him to know these things without it being weird), and bloody hell, if she’d worn a lighter colour, he suspects she’d look just like a goddamn angel.
He’s gawking probably, his mouth likely hanging open with dribble possibly leaking from his lips, and if not, she sure makes him feel like he is. But he mustn’t have been, since when her eyes meet his, he catches how a wider smile twitches at her lips.
He takes it as invitation, sliding himself between Ruby and Granny, and he swears he doesn’t mean to make Emma jealous or anything, but when his arm slides easily along Ruby’s waist, there’s a flash of something that crosses over her face.
“Tell them how you’re a bails bondsperson!” Ruby chimes in, all too excitedly.
Emma lets out a modest last, eyes flitting down momentarily and it reminds him how she never did like too much attention on her. “Yeah, I track down people for a living.”
“More like she’s a badass bounty hunter!” Killian’s ears perk at the excited voice, the distinct sound of pride and admiration laced in the words. “Tell ‘em how you chased that one guy for blocks, and then you cut him off and then you used the waiter’s tray to knock him out! Oh! And tell them how we have a gun at home too!”
A choir of laughter fills the room at that, and just as Killian’s about to join, the chuckle gets stuck in his throat when his eyes dart to the source of the voice.
It’s a boy who stands just above Emma’s hip, a mop of dark, unruly brown hair that’s won the battle again hair gel, wearing a white dress shirt with dark pants that Killian notices are a little too long on him. He’s got a large grin on his face, one that he feels he recognises, one that he feels has been inherited from Emma herself.
He tenses at the realisation and Ruby feels it, her thumb drawing soothing circles on his hand.
“Seems like you told them just fine, kiddo,” Emma grins at the (her) boy, but it begins to fade when she glances up at him, it being replaced with the same tentative look she’d worn that first day.
He schools his features, keeping a plain face on, as if this isn’t news, as if he wouldn’t have gotten a heart attack had Ruby not been there to calm his left hand from seizing up.
He wants to say something, reassure Emma that this doesn’t change anything, but just as the thought even comes into his mind, he’s saved by the bell.
It’s Jemma at the door, standing with a nostalgic smile, holding her boy with one hand and a neatly wrapped gift with the other. “It’s good to see you,” she says, pressing a kiss to his cheek before carrying the boy into Killian’s arms.
“’ello, little lad,” Killian grins, following behind as Jemma makes her way into the house, “How’s my favourite boy?”
“Missed you, Killy,” Charlie mumbles into his chest, the long drive straight from the airport seeming to take a toll on the little guy. “And Ruby and Granny too!”
A laugh rumbles in his chest, “Alright, alright – but promise me one thing?”
“Mhm?”
“When you see Granny, be sure to call her ‘Greatgranny’, okay? That’ll right piss her off.”
-/-
“Hey!” he bumps into her at the shoulder of the corridor, “I’ve been meaning to catch you alo- oh, hey there buddy,” a smile breaks on Emma’s face at the sight of Charlie in Killian’s arms.
“Say ‘hi’ to your Aunt Emma, lad,” Killian bounces him on his arm.
“’ello, Aunt Emma,” he repeats, sticking his hand out for a handshake that she takes with a grin. But his attentions are quickly deterred when he hears Ruby’s voice, squirming out of Killian’s arms and running towards the sound, am ‘Aunt Ruby!’ echoing behind him.
“Was that-?”
She doesn’t finish her sentence, but it’s ‘Liam’s boy?’ that she means to continue with.
“Aye.”
“He’s got the curls,” she mentions, her smile lingering on her face.
“That he does.” He speaks the truth, but it still hurts sometimes to look at Charlie – to look and see a replica of his brother smiling toothily at him.
“About kids—“
“Is Henry why you left?”
He’s not in the mood for dancing, jumping straight into it. It haunted him for years, the reason behind why she’d up and gone, and seeing her boy next to her, he doesn’t bother for sugarcoating.
“Partly,” she says and it’s the truth. It’s also all he’s getting today. He knows this for a fact.
“Do you know who the father is?”
Her eyes flit from her fidgeting feet up to his, a forced smile being pulled on her face. “Neal.”
“Cassidy?”
She nods.
“Is he helping out?”
She shakes her head. “He did for a while, but – you know,” she shrugs.
“Never did like the bastard,” he murmurs as he feels his jaw clench and his fists tighten.
“Hey, hey,” he catches how her hand makes a move up, almost as if she were going to try sooth out the tension in him – but it hesitates and falls back to her side. “We managed fine. Ingrid helped out and he turned out a great kid either way. We didn’t need him for Henry to grow up well.”
“I don’t doubt that, love,” he shakes his head, “but you must know that we- we would’ve helped, we would’ve been there for you.”
“I know.”
There’s something else in her voice, something that tells her that there’s more than just that.
He doesn’t press.
-/-
They decide not to tell her, not yet.
Well, Ruby protests, he decides.
-/-
He wakes up to a slap in the face. Ruby’s slap, his face.
“Jeez, wake up.”
He blinks a couple times, acclimating his eyes to the morning light before sitting up with a grumbled, “I’m up, bloody hell woman.
“I told Granny,” she lets out in a breath.
“What- why?”
“Because,” she presses, shoving Killian to move further into the bed so she can settle next to him, “I said I’d do it after the party – and I for one, keep to my word.”
He groans, but ignores her jab nonetheless, “What did she say?”
Her lips twitch, somewhere between a frown and a smile, “Said she understands, but she looked… disappointed. Like she really wanted this for me.”
“It’s not too late to cancel the whole thing – I don’t want you to—“
“Jones, I’d do anything for you – Let me do this for you.” Her voice is soft and he knows this Ruby, knows the tone she uses shows her sincerity – a Ruby she hides most of the times, but when it peeks out, it’s a bloody gem. “I just—“
“I know, love.” He pulls her closer, lets her head fall on his shoulder as his lies atop hers. “I really am sorry though.”
-/-
They’re telling her today. They’re telling her today.
And before Ruby claims he’s being melodramatic, he swears he fears for his life. If there’s one thing he knows, even after all these years – it’s Emma. And he very well knows how she deals with lies – how she runs at even the sight of the word.
He’s worked far too hard over the past two weeks to get their friendship almost back to where it used to be all those years ago for it to go down the drain over this.
“You’re sweating,” Ruby throws him a box of tissues that he fumbles to catch.
“Thanks,” he mumbles, dabbing off the moisture on his forehead.
“We’ve been putting it off far too much with you finding the worst excuses not to tell her –“ (The first time they’d invited her over to supposedly break the news, he said they couldn’t do it since she’d brought Henry along. The next time, he wasn’t feeling too up for it because of a bad day at work, which ‘may lead him to being cranky and not handling the situation too well’. This time, he’d tried getting away with saying that he’d cut his hand and he couldn’t possibly tell her news like this with him bleeding—) (She’d stopped him there, disallowing him from concocting whatever bullshit he was about to) “- so, I’m putting my foot down. We’re doing this today.”
He wants to argue, but Ruby’s a woman on a mission when she sets her mind to something. “Fine,” he caves with a petulant frown. “How would we even bring it up? ‘How’s dinner? Good? Good. Hey, also, we forgot to mention, but we’ve been kind of lying to you this whole time. But the chicken tastes great, dunnit!’” At the empty look on Ruby’s face, he guesses she’s unamused, but he’s an idiot, and so he continues, “Or maybe something like—“
“What’re we lying to me about, again?”
He watches as Ruby’s face drops, how when she turns her head, an exasperated look replaces the previous one. When he turns, there stands Emma with arms folded and something much less than happy on her face.
“How did you—“
“Granny let me in.”
He half wants to curse Granny, half wants to kick himself all the way back to London. But Emma just fully wants an explanation and he’s not sure he’s able to voice one out for her.
“Are you guys going to tell me, or?”
He very much considers the blank latter.
-/-