Finding Home With You

Chapter 5

He can feel his mind floating towards the edge of consciousness and wedges his nose farther into the smooth, delectable smelling pillow he's sleeping on, trying to fight his way back to sleep. He's just about to drift back off when he realizes that what he thought was a pillow is in fact a person. A person who is wrapped quite perfectly in his arms and warming him up quite nicely.

Part of him wants to welcome back the warmth of sleep, but the other part of him is wondering who in their right mind would want to sleep in his small, uncomfortable hammock with him below deck.

He opens his eyes to see that the wonderful smelling pillow is covered by a messy mop of blond hair. It all hits him then; the lad and his mother, his heart being completely captured by a certain green-eyed beauty, and being stabbed, quite painfully, by afore mentioned beauty's father.

Leaning his head back slightly, he watches her sleep for a few moments, reveling in how peaceful she looks. That she would trust him while so vulnerable, that she would let her guard completely down- well it simply overwhelms him. He cannot decipher this young mother and that somehow draws him to her even more. Not in the sense that he wants to figure her out and then throw her out, but rather to come to know the inner workings of her mind and heart, to be able to understand when others don't because she allows him to be that close to her, emotionally.

And he does rather fancy the way she allows him to be close to her physically.

He has one arm wrapped under her, his hand splayed over her back to keep her close. It was something he had done unconsciously, but he now uses this position to draw her even closer. He is rewarded with a sweet sigh as she nuzzles her head farther into his chest. He continues to lay on his back, loving the way one of Emma's hands gently cradles her face, sandwiched in between her head and his chest, while the other hand lays flat over his heart.

He presses a light kiss to the top of her head, before resuming his place of having his nose buried in her hair. He likes to watch the ripple his breath causes in her hair, timing his breaths to that of hers, which blows across his chest.

"Knock, knock," a loud voice bellows and Killian lifts his head to see a boisterous middle-aged woman barge right into the room, carrying a tray with her. She glances down at Emma whose still sleeping on Killian's chest and her cheeks burn red. She giggles and says in a hushed tone, "Ah, mustn't wake the missus."

Killian is shocked into silence and blinks sleepily at the older woman, trying to understand. She thought Emma was his wife? They were in a rather compromising position, but that was a mighty big conclusion to jump to.

"Yeah, my mom's real tired," Henry's voice comes from the other side of the room. Killian cranes his neck to look over Emma's sleeping form at another bed that he hadn't yet noticed. Henry sits up, propping his pillows up against the wall and leaning on them. "She spent most of the night looking after my dad."

A heat rushes through Killian's cheeks. Did the lad just refer to him as his father? It explains why the round woman in the middle of their room called the Swan girl his wife, but it raises numerous other questions in its wake.

"No need to be embarrassed, sir. It's quite alright to be looked after by your own wife, every once in a while. Gives her somebody to look after, since your lad's about grown and you haven't given her any other little ones to tend to," the lady chastises.

Killian's flush only grows. To think of him and Emma having children-

"Here's your breakfast, then," the woman says, placing the tray down on the small table next to Killian's side of the bed. "Already paid for, so eat up."