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let-it-raines · 4 years

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Catch Me If You Can (35/40)

298 days. That’s how long Killian Jones was away from a baseball field. It’s less than a year, only part of a season for him, but it might as well have lasted a decade as he alternated between physical therapy and spending an excessive amount of time sitting on his couch.

But then he came back and won the World Series.

It’s something no one saw coming, and it’s certainly not something anyone who knows about his arm would predict. Now it’s a new season with new possibilities, and anything could happen. On-field reporter Emma Swan will be there to cover it all even if she is not his biggest fan right now.

Asking her out live on-air will do that.

Rating: Mature

a/n: I’ve exercised, showered and blow-dried my hair, cleaned the house, and have both girls asleep. So that means, you know, that the rest of the afternoon will probably be some kind of disaster. At least I’m getting this chapter up for you guys now!

An absolutely GIGANTIC thank you to @imagnifika for making this cover. I mean, seriously. Look at Emma! And look at number 29! And all of it really ahhhhh ❤️ And thanks to @resident-of-storybrooke for helping me bring this story to life! Also, there’s a line in here specifically for @captainsjedi and any other botb fans 😘

Found on AO3: Beginning | Current

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-/-

Emma types a big, fat “L” into the stat sheet on her phone for the beginning of the Championship series, and she is undeniably bitter about it.

Like, seriously so bitter that she couldn’t have typed it in last night when it happened and saved it for this morning.

Damn the Red Sox.

How many times a season does she say that? It’s probably far too many times, but it’s something that needs to be said over and over again until it’s tattooed on her forehead so that everyone knows that she hates the Red Sox.

The games are simply different than against anyone else. Tension runs through everyone’s veins, and mistakes that aren’t usually made are made with frequency. The volume of the crowd is this constant rumble with a persistent murmur of excitement, and depending on if they’re in New York or in Boston, that crowd noise completely and totally changes how the players feel out there.

It changes how she feels simply watching from whatever seat the network has given her that day.

So the fact that they lost by one run yesterday afternoon on home turf has left a bitter taste in Emma’s mouth.

She’s not even a player, and she’s never been this nervous. There’s obviously time to make up for the loss. It’s best of seven games here, and a loss doesn’t mean anything. Except that, well, it can mean everything. It’s hard to come from behind if they get too far behind, and dammit, Emma wants the Yankees to play in the World Series again.

She wants to cover it and come up with those obnoxious think pieces about a team’s legacy and a player’s legacy. She wants to hype the team up and talk about the match-up with who they’re playing and everything that Killian hates about commentators and reporters.

Seriously. He hates it a lot. And yet he watches all of the shows like some kind of glutton for punishment.

He kind of is.

He’s also playing his first game in forty days today, and Emma’s nerves are nearly frayed as she has to keep her leg from bouncing up and down and her fingers from fidgeting against every single surface that she can find.

Killian is playing again.

It never sounds quite real no matter how many times she thinks it, so obviously Emma is going to think it over and over again until the words don’t have any meaning.

Except they have every meaning.

“Why are you working right now?” Killian mumbles into her stomach before shifting up her body so that his cheek rests on her breast. He totally shifted that way on purpose. Such a man.

“Because I was awake, you were asleep, and I felt like you would wake up if I shifted away.”

“Probably.” His lips wrap around the peak of her nipple through the thin material of her camisole, and Emma sighs contently as she puts her phone down on her bedside table and reaches forward to gentle run her hands through Killian’s hair so that she can feel the soft strands slipping through her fingers. “You’re a very good pillow.”

“And you were extremely tired. What time did you fall asleep last night?”

His tongue runs in a circle, and she nearly melts right then and there. Then Killian is looking up at her through those long, thick lashes of his, and she nearly melts for an entirely different reason. Along the same guidelines, though. “Late. Or early depending on how you want to look at things. I wouldn’t check your closet if I were you. It may be organized.”

“Killian – ”

He grunts and moves back to paying attention to her breasts, his nose nudging away her shirt until warm breath is making direct contact with skin and even warmer lips are wrapping around her and making her hips arch in the air looking for friction they absolutely will not be getting this morning. They don’t have the time or the privacy.

But Killian’s lips feel really, really good, little sparks of fire flickering across her skin as heat pools between her thighs, and maybe, just maybe they can…

“Emma,” Ruby yells through the bedroom door as her knuckles collide with it, “I am leaving in ten minutes. Do you want to come with?”

“No,” Emma shouts back, but Ruby doesn’t know the definition of privacy and opens the door anyways before Emma can pulls her shirt back up or Killian can even move away. The bastard doesn’t even try. He just bites down on her in the way that he knows she likes and smiles into her skin all the while Ruby stands there with an arched brow. “Oh my God, Rubes. Privacy.”

“What? It’s nothing I haven’t seen before. There’s usually not a man attached to it, though. Hi, Killian. Nice to see you here. I’m glad you guys remembered that Emma has an apartment.”

Killian chuckles, and Emma swears it makes her entire body vibrate, before he’s grabbing the covers and pulling it up over her so that he can move away from her boob and look at Ruby in all of his ruffled glory.

“Hello, love,” he smiles, reaching up to stretch his arms behind his head as he winks. She swears he is the cockiest man alive. “We do stay here on occasion. It’s just at my place nobody walks in when I’m trying to tell my girlfriend good morning.”

“I think your mouth was in the wrong place to be telling her good morning.”

“Depends on the good morning I was thinking on giving her.”

Emma reaches down to grab a pillow before smacking Killian in the back of the head with it and then throwing it at Ruby who simply catches it and cradles it to her chest. “I hate that I brought the two of you together. There’s too many dirty jokes in your heads for you guys to share the same air.”

“These are thin walls, Emma dear,” Ruby teases as her knuckles rap on the walls. “I know for a fact that you’ve got some dirty jokes too.”

“Oh my God,” she groans again as she sinks further into the mattress and pulls her comforter up over her head. Her cheeks have to be as red as tomatoes right now, and Emma is going to hide under here until they calm down. She is not easily embarrassed, but the thought of Ruby hearing her the way that she’s heard Ruby and Graham before is too much.

Maybe moving out is beginning to sound like a good idea.

“I think we’ve embarrassed her, Lucas.”

“I think we have, Jones. To think, seeing your foreplay in action wasn’t enough to send her under the covers but making a joke about her bedroom humor was.”

Emma throws the covers down and peeks up at Ruby, completely ignoring Killian. “Go to work. I will see you when I get there and maybe I won’t ignore you as you talk into my ear.”

“Love you too,” Ruby teases before blowing Emma a kiss and walking away, her heels clicking down the hallway.

“Ugh.”

“What?” Killian asks, turning over to his side and reaching over to her to toy with her ring as it rests on her stomach.

“For one,” she starts, “I’m now super sexually frustrated, but we don’t have time to do anything about it. And, also, I seriously regret letting you guys become friends. You’re far too chummy with each other.”

“That’s how I feel about you and Elsa and Anna. I’m attacked every time the three of you get together.”

“Oh, speaking of Elsa, I need to text her back and tell her that I can come up to the suite today at the beginning of the game. I’m only going on to interview you when you’re finished and to do post-game stuff.”

Killian grumbles something she can’t here before he’s wrapping his fingers around her waist and pulling her closer to him so that he can pepper his lips across her jaw and ghost them over her mouth.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Seriously.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Killian.”

“Well, you see, my darling, love of my life, sweet Emma,” he overdramatically sighs as he kisses her, “I’m just a little worried that you won’t be able to handle interviewing me now that we’re dating. I’ve found that women are incapable of keeping a professional workspace, and I’m afraid that things might get a little murky for us.”

“I have never hated you more than I hate you right now.”

“It’s funny because I swear you just told me you’d never loved me more than you had right then.”

“Right. And now I hate you as much as I’ve ever hated you, and I used to actually hate you.”

“Yeah,” he sighs, the tone in his voice quickly switching from playful to melancholy, “you did.”

“You okay?”

He shifts against her until his cheek is resting on her breast again, and Emma runs her hands through his hair to soothe both him and her. “I’m fine, love. Simply a little nervous. I haven’t played a game in a good bit, and this is an important one. I can’t believe Al is trusting me with it.”

“It’s to get you back in the rotation. They may only keep you in for an inning depending on how you do.”

“I hope I bloody well do better than one inning.”

“You’re going to kick ass today, okay? Like you always do.”

“I do not always kick ass,” he grumbles, twisting his head to look back up at her. “In fact, I often don’t kick ass. I don’t know how I’m going to handle today.”

Emma brushes his hair back, and not for the first time she notices how boyish he can look in the mornings when the day’s stress hasn’t gotten to him. The stress is starting to creep in, however, and she wishes that she could take it all away from him.

“One pitch at a time, twenty-nine. They’re not going to be perfect, and you’re going to struggle. But it’s one pitch at a time. You’ve been doing this for a long time. You know how to be a baseball player.”

“What if we lose?”

“You’re not going to.”

“But what if we do? I’ve already let so many people down. I can’t…I don’t want to do it again.”

Her heart breaks the tiniest bit, and Emma simply keeps brushing his hair back as his eyes flutter closed. “You’re not letting anyone down. You try so hard for this team, and they know that. If you lose, it’s not your fault. You know that. You guys are a team, and you’re not standing up on that mound alone.”

“I literally am.”

“Figuratively, you are not.”

A slow smile curves from one side of his lips to the next even if his eyes stay closed. Killian’s hand searches for hers and in his hair, and he squeezes her wrist. “Thank you, Swan. I love you.”

“I love you too,” she sighs. “We’ve got to get out of bed. It might take me a little while to find something to wear since you apparently organized my closet last night.”

“It was messy.”

“But I knew where everything was.”

Killian grins before sitting up. “I know where everything is now. I’ll help. Team work makes the dream work.”

Emma hits his head with a pillow. “I take back saying that’s the most I’d ever hated you because this is the most I’ve ever hated you.”

“That’s because you haven’t seen your closet yet.”

-/-

When Emma wraps up her pre-game filming, talking back and forth with Isaac and James who miraculously only make two mentions to her dating Killian when talking about his return to the game today and only one mention of Arthur getting a pretty hefty fine for his treatment of an “anonymous” reporter in the locker room, she quickly walks back into the tunnel behind the dugout and down the hallways until she’s getting in the elevator that takes her up to the suites. Emma doesn’t have that long to be up there, only an inning or two depending on how the game goes, and she’s supposed to keep her earpiece in so she can be contacted no matter where she is. So she’s hurrying to meet Elsa and Liam in the suite like she said she would.

Her life was a lot less hectic when fewer people liked her.

She wouldn’t change it for a thing.

Except maybe she’d give herself some more time to accomplish more things. And possibly also speed up time a little bit so that she can stop worrying about Killian and Killian can stop worrying altogether.

Those two things are contradictory, but it works.

Kind of. She guesses. She really has no idea, and all she can really focus on his how much she absolutely feels like she’s going to vomit with all of the nerves that are ferociously swirling through her stomach.

Killian is going to make her sick.

Why is love so painful? Literally and figuratively.

Emma flashes her ID when she gets up to the suites, and after she’s let in, she walks through the door. Everyone is standing out on the little balcony, so she takes the chance to grab a glass of lemon water and take a deep breath.

She really needs a deep breath. Or five.

Why has she never been this nervous before? Why is this different now?

Because everything is different now.

Everything.

Elsa turns around and sees her, reaching up her hand to wave, and it calms down Emma’s nerves as she walks out the sliding glass door and takes back in the sound of the stadium as people still filter in and all of the players begin to take their spots out on the field.

“Hey,” Elsa greets her, wrapping her arm around Emma’s waist in a half hug. “How are you?”

“Nervous as hell.”

“You’re telling me,” she sighs, not letting go of Emma’s waist. “I swear I wore down the wood floor in our kitchen pacing.”

“If Killian hadn’t been with me this morning, I would have done the same thing too.” Emma leans over to look at Liam, Kris, and Anna. “Hey guys.”

They all wave back at her with bright smiles on their faces that quickly fade back into frowns. Nerves are very obviously a present factor for everyone this afternoon.

“Where are the girls?” Emma asks.

“They are with my parents today. I’m sure Addy has the TV turned on and is watching the game. That girl is serious about her baseball.”

“Well, she does have a pretty cool uncle who plays.”

“This is true. How is he doing? I tried texting him earlier, but I didn’t get a text back.”

“He’s anxious. Like, hardcore Killian level anxious. In the locker room, I’m sure he was fine, you know? He always puts up the façade for the guys, but this morning he was really nervous. I don’t know if me talking to him did any good or if he just faked it for me.”

“Men have a harder time faking it than women, but it is possible,” Liam adds in with a cheeky smile before going back to paying attention to what Kris is saying and what’s going on down at the field as music booms out of the speakers.

Elsa playfully rolls her eyes at her husband before releasing Emma’s waist and sitting down in her chair. Emma follows suit while static moves through her earpiece.

“Ignore him,” she insists, still smiling at his bad joke. “I’m sure your talk helped. If anyone can calm him down, it’s one of the people sitting out here.”

“I hope so. I’m just…he wants this so badly, you know? And I want him to have it.”

“I know,” Elsa whispers as Killian takes his place on the mound and the murmur of the crowd quiets down. “I know.”

And then Killian is winding up and releasing a ball from his hand and Emma intakes a sharp breath.

It’s a ball. Not the best pitch in the world but not the worst. At least it wasn’t a homerun hit off of Killian’s first pitch back. That would have been demoralizing.

One pitch at a time. That’s what she told him earlier, and she’s going to stand by that.

Emma hopes that Killian can too.

Another wind-up, another pitch, and then there’s the thwack of a woodenmetal bat against the ball as it flies into the outfield and curves far enough left that it ends up being a foul.

One pitch at a time.

The next pitch flies right inside of the batter’s strike zone, and he smacks a line drive down past third, and he manages to get on first base.

Dammit.

Emma’s hand clutches for the ring around her neck, and she bunches up the chain, holding tightly onto it while she watches the video of Killian on the jumbotron and tries to see if there’s any inclination as to how he’s feeling.

There’s not. Killian looks like he always does out there, and not being able to tell what’s going on in his mind is driving her crazy.

Suddenly, there’s a slight pressure on her left hand, and Emma looks down to see Elsa’s hand covering hers while Elsa’s gaze stays out on the field.

“You’re going to give yourself a heart attack worrying like that.”

“You’re one to talk.”

Elsa looks over at her and smiles. “I have been with Liam for as long as Killian has had a professional career, and it does get easier, most of the time at least. There have been times when he has done things to make me nearly throw up, but I never have. No matter what happens, he’s going to be okay. That’s what we told him when he came back from injury last time, and he knows it even if he has trouble remembering it.”

“He may know it, but I certainly don’t.”

Elsa squeezes her hand again. “You’re in love with him. It makes sense. As much as we all love him, it’s not the same for you.”

Emma huffs. “So, can I have my heart attack in peace?”

“Not a chance in hell,” Liam scoffs before leaning over so she can see his face. “We have our heart attacks together up here. It’s a team effort.”

“That doesn’t even make any sense,” Anna teases.

“It makes perfect sense.”

“Why would we all have a heart attack instead of just one of us?”

“Solidarity.”

“That sounds like a great way for all of us to end up dead, and then I promise you that Killian will not care what happens on the field.”

“Exactly. It’s going to keep his mind off of things.”

“It’s his job to stay focused on things.”

“You’ll get used to their bickering too,” Elsa laughs, and Emma swears that she is the very definition of an ice queen with how calm that she is. “It’s all part of the process. Kris will pipe in about three sentences too late since he focuses on the game better than anyone.”

“Wait,” Kris starts, “why are we having heart attacks?”

Elsa raises her brow as if to say “I told you so”, and all Emma can do is laugh as Killian throws his first strike of the day to the appreciation of the crowd.

Good. He’s getting there.

It’s a slow start, undoubtedly, and while Killian isn’t at his best, everyone else on the team is. Where he falls short, they pick up the slack, and Emma knows that while Killian will feel guilty about it, he’ll also be appreciative of the fact that he’s not out there ruining everything for everyone.

If there’s anyone who knows who to place guilt on himself when there’s no reason to, it’s Killian Jones.

By the time the bottom of the third rolls around, the Yankees are up three runs to one, and while it’s not the most convincing lead, it’s still a lead. And there’s a lot of game to go.

Not for Killian, though. Al pulls him when the third inning is over, and Emma and Jeff wait for him in the tunnels behind the locker room so that she can give him an interview without disrupting any part of the game.

His brows are furrowed when he first walks into the tunnel, but then he sees her and forces a smile onto his face. It’s fake and far too forced, and all she wants is to hug him and tell him that it’s okay. She can’t do that, though. Not right now. They’ve talked about this, and they’re going to be professional when on camera. It’s how it has to work.

“Hey, Swan,” Killian sighs as he steps into space.

“Hey, you did good, Killian.”

He shrugs his shoulders and then nods at the camera. Jeff motions to them that they’re about to roll, and Emma forces her own smile before beginning the introduction to her interview by talking about Killian’s stats for the game and reminding everybody that he’s coming back after forty days away.

As if they don’t know.

“How does it feel to be back?” she finally asks Killian as he lifts his hat from his head and pushes his sweaty hair back before placing it back down and scratching behind his ear.

Why is he nervous?

“Fantastic,” he answers with a cocky grin that shows all of his perfectly white teeth. “There’s nothing that can replicate being out there. Absolutely nothing. I’m so thankful to be back and to feel that crowd support. We’re in a critical part of our season if we want to make it all the way to that final game, and I’m glad to be a part of it once more. You can only be a benchwarmer for so long before you go a little stir crazy.”

The smile he flashes there is a bit more genuine, and that relaxes her the slightest bit. “Are you nervous about the future when it comes to your arm?”

His hand reaches up to rub at his right shoulder, and Emma wonders if he even knows that he does it. But then he’s tilting his head and smiling at her like he does with every interview he’s ever been in before something changeschanges, and his lips become a little less curved and his eyes the little bit softer.

“The future’s nothing to be afraid of, love. Not when you’re happy with your life regardless of if things don’t always work out the way that you hope. My arm may mess up again. It may not. I can’t know. But I have to be okay with whatever happens and know that my life is pretty damn great no matter what happens on that field. Even if I damn well want to win.”

Emma’s breath hitches, and her brain has suddenly forgotten words.

Like, all words except for the actual word “word.”

Shit.

“Wrap it up, Emma,” Ruby speaks into the earpiece. “You’re staring at him like he just told you that he loves you for the first time. Wrap it up.”

So she does, mumbling something that she’s sure makes no sense, but then Jeff is turning off the camera and lowering it from his shoulder so that Emma can take a deep breath and try to compose herself. She doesn’t really get a chance to before Killian is wrapping his arms around her shoulders and pulling her into him while he buries his face into her neck, the sweat from his body and his uniform clinging to her clothes. It takes her by surprise at first, honestly and truly, but then she’s wrapping her arms around him too and simply breathing him in, sweat and all.

There are probably twenty people in this tunnel right now who can see the two of them, but Emma doesn’t care. The world knows, and everyone can think what they want about she and Killian’s relationship. None of their opinions matter when the two of them know the truth behind the smokescreen of lies the world is putting in front of them.

She may not be ready for them to hug or kiss on National television, but she can do this.

People have tried to tell her who she is her entire life, and she’s punching back and saying no. She is who she wants to be.

“You did it,” she whispers to him. “You’re back.”

“I would not have gotten off of my couch and back out onto that field without you, Swan.”

“You would have.”

“No,” he murmurs, his scruff scratching at her neck. “I wouldn’t have. You don’t know how much you’ve changed things for me. When I was out there and felt like I was about to pass out on the mound, I thought of you and how I knew that you were cheering me on. It’s a hell of a lot better than thinking about thousands of people I don’t know cheering me on when the only person who really matters is you.”

“What about your family?” Emma teases, the words rolling off of her tongue immediately. There are still times when she’s not good with affection, when she can’t take a compliment like that without freaking out, and sometimes words escape her before she can stop them.

Killian pulls back from the hug then, just a little bit, and rests his forehead against hers, his hat long since toppled to the ground, while his hands run up and down her biceps. “They obviously matter, love. Don’t go telling them what I said because they will give me shit about it, but you know that it’s different between you and me.”

“I would hope so. I don’t want to be treated in the same way as Liam.”

Killian laughs and softly pecks her lips. “Am I freaking you out making big declarations like this?”

“Not at all.”

“You’re a liar.”

“Only a little bit.”

He smiles, and her heart settles back in its regular spot while there’s the sound of cheers outside. “You’ve got a game to cover, and I best let you back to it. Pull them through.”

“Sounds like a plan, Stan.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing,” Emma laughs as she pulls back from him. “It’s just a little phrase I heard. I thought I’d try it out, but I don’t think it quite works for us.”

“Maybe it’ll catch on.”

“Or we’ll have to come up with a better phrase.”

“What about ‘you’re looking fine, twenty-nine?’”

“A little egotistical for my taste, darling, but I think it’s got potential.”

Emma pushes at his shoulder and shakes her head. “Go get that shoulder massaged and take a shower. You smell horrible.”

“All for you, my love.”

An absolute dork.

-/-

They win that night, and Killian’s spirits are at what has to be an all-time high.

The fact that they lose two nights later when they’re in Boston only tampers those spirits the slightest bit.

They’re behind two games to one, but there’s still time to come back from it and survive this series.

And if Emma knows anything, Killian Jones is a hell of a survivor.

-/-

Tag list: @authorarsinoe @stunningswan @eala-captian @galaxyzxstark @xellewoods @mariakov81 @ultraluckycatnd @royalswan @shey-starsfury @superchocovian @sals86 @iam2307 @ashley-knightingale @karenfrommisthaven @scientificapricot @captswanis4vr @ultimiflos @jamif @idristardis @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke @tiganasummertree @bmbbcs4evr @onceuponaprincessworld @jennjenn615 @mayquita @captainsjedi @teamhook @notoriouscs @kmomof4 @ekr032-blog-blog @cs-forlife @andiirivera @jonirobinson64 @qualitycoffeethings @carpedzem @tornadoamy

#catch me if you can #cs fic #cs ff #captain swan ff #captain swan fanfic #captain swan fic #captain swan

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