Chapter Text
They end up adopting a kitten, albeit by accident.
It all begins when Emma sees a small mouse scurrying across the counter in the kitchen. She screams a bit when she notices it, more out of surprise than fear of rodents.
(She’s fought dragons. Emma Swan can handle a mouse.)
She hates mice though. They remind her of the crappy apartments she lived in when she had just gotten out of jail and (barely) on her feet. It annoys her that her house – her nice, wonderful house – already appears to have a mouse infestation so soon after moving in, and she wants to search to find from which the rodent came, but she’s already running late, and knows she can’t spend time hunting around her kitchen for a mouse.
(Her father would never let her hear the end of it.)
Killian offers to take care of it while she is at work, and then she is out the door with a kiss, giving no further thought to the matter of the mouse. (Or on instructing him on where to purchase mousetraps and the like.)
It isn’t until she returns home from the station that Emma remembers the thing. When she opens the door, she expects to find hidden mousetraps or rat poison waiting somewhere. Maybe a dead mouse, if she were lucky. Instead, she is greeted by a small ball of orange fluff that is a ten-week old kitten. Killian seems ridiculous proud by his selection, boasting that it was the most active feline in the shelter.
“He will be an excellent mouser,” he says to her, lovingly stroking the space behind the small cat’s ears. “I’ve had a number of cats over the years on the Jolly. Best way to prevent rodent infestations.”
At first, she laughs, because there is no way Killian adopted a kitten without consulting her. Except, of course, he did just that. She had no plans on adopting a pet – she could barely keep plants, herself, and really this whole town alive without drama – but Killian looks so endeared by the thing. She also can’t really blame him because as far as he knows, he really did find the best way to rid the house of mice. Besides, now that he’s adopted the thing, they can’t just return it. What kind of damage would that do to the poor kitten’s psyche?
(Maybe not a lot, because it is now gnawing on Killian’s hook, unfazed by the deadly weapon.)
So they keep it.
Henry names him Oliver, if only to parrot the movie. (Because everything in her life must be inspired by some fictional story.)
Emma still introduces Killian to the wonders of mousetraps.
Good thing, too, because Oliver is a terrible mouser.