Archive of Our Own ^beta

On a lovely day in May, Emma Swan finds herself gripping the car’s roof handle and contemplating that she may be in the middle of the worst idea she’s ever had.

Well, that’s probably not strictly true. Letting Henry eat that apple turnover was a horrible idea. Taking on the Darkness was a horrible idea. This is just mildly unfortunate in comparison.

Then again, she thinks as Killian takes a corner far too fast, this is starting to be right up there.

This adventure in risking her sanity started innocently enough, if you can believe it. Henry was turning 15 in a month, and like the generous mothers they were, Emma and Regina had decided to let him take a few tentative turns behind the wheel before Driver’s Ed began.

“I don’t want look like an idiot, driving for the first time with other students in the car!” he’d begged. “C’mon, just a few times. Please? I promise I’ll do everything you say and that it will help in the long run!”

And really, he’d had a point. What would it hurt? So, the two women agreed to take him to cruise around the school parking lot the few Saturdays before his birthday and permit test. Though Regina provided her nice, new sedan for the effort, it was decided Emma would take the lead on teaching. Better to learn from someone who was taught the traditional way, instead of via curse. Empty lot, low speeds, decent teacher – what could go wrong, they thought.

With Henry, the answer was absolutely nothing. Despite the mailbox incident with David several years prior (the main argument against allowing any early lessons now), their son took to driving like a duck to water. It seems that years of observing his various family members finally paid off. Quicker than Emma anticipated, Henry graduated from taking slow circles around the parking lot to creeping down back roads. He’s confident and proud of himself, she’s proud yet about to cry about the fact that her little boy is growing up, and Regina is just relieved she doesn’t need to replace any more mailboxes – yet.

No, Henry isn’t the problem. The real problem is Killian.

As Henry turns the Volvo back into the high school parking lot after a final, successful run on the roads, Emma gets to thinking. Killian has been in Storybrooke for nearly three and a half years now. She’s proud of him every day for the way he’s adapted to things in the Land Without Magic – it can’t be easy, having to learn so many new things after three hundred years inhabiting one way of life. He’s better on the stove than she is, adores Netflix, and has even stopped referring to her laptop as the “portable magic information box”. It really might be time he learns to drive, and be able to get places of his own volition. Now would probably be the best time, as long as she’s teaching Henry anyways. As she mulls the matter over in her head, she really can’t see a downside, and when she brings it up to Killian, he’s excited to try. Really, what’s the worst that could happen?

Famous last words.

As it turns out, Killian hasn’t paid nearly as much attention to her driving as Henry had, and she has to teach him the basics about the controls before he can even think about shifting into drive.

“Ok, what’s the lever on the right do?”

“Um… direction indicators.”

“No, windshield wipers. They take the water off the glass in front of you. The ‘direction indicators’ are actually called ‘turn signals’, and are operated by the level on the left. Now, which way for right and which way for left?”

“Up is left?”

“Down is left. Up is right. Right, like the direction you’re lifting it towards. And where are your headlights?”

“The switch on the left, underneath the vent. Please tell me that’s right, love.”

She nods begrudgingly. “Which pedal is which?”

“The right is go, the left is stop, and you have a third pedal in your car that I don’t need to worry about right now.”

Well, at least he’s got that down. Foolishly, she goes for broke, and points to a dial on the dash. “And what does this do?”

“…Temperature control?”

It’s the radio knob.

This is going to take a while.

------

After a nearly embarrassing amount of time – really, it takes him over a week – she’s finally confident that he understands the basic controls enough to be allowed behind the wheel. She drives out to the local high school again one Sunday, ready to try and teach a three-hundred-year-old pirate how to operate a piece of heavy machinery. But she always feels like driving is somewhat instinctual, a matter of feel more than anything, the car an extension of one’s body. He’ll pick it up quickly. Surely, the worst is over, right?

Wrong, on so many counts.

The lesson gets off to a bad enough start, with Killian consistently overshooting and undershooting the ‘drive’ position on the gear shifter. Then, once he finally gets it into drive (smoothly, five times in a row, on Emma’s insistence), he demonstrates that he has no concept of how to operate the gas and brake pedals. First, he puts way too much pressure on the gas, the car leaping forward far faster than safe or comfortable, then slamming on the brakes when Emma tells him to slow it down. Which leads to this moment – clinging to the ceiling handle, borderline praying for her life.

It’ll be a miracle if I don’t have to fix any dents on Regina’s car, Emma thinks, as the car finally jerks to a stop. Desperately, she tries to come up with something positive to say, but keeps drawing a blank.

“Well, that was… a good start. You’ve definitely figured out which pedal does what. Maybe we can try just using one foot to operate the pedals, instead of two?”

Killian just looks confused. “But why? There are two pedals, shouldn’t I use both feet?”

God, it’s like pulling teeth. “You just don’t, ok? In some cars, you need the other foot for other things. And when you’re using both feet, you tend to press the pedals too aggressively. Does that make sense?”

That confusion morphs into frustration. “Not particularly, but I’ll trust you, love.” He shifts the car into drive again. “I thought you said it should feel natural, controlling the speed?”

Yeah, I thought so too.

It’s only by some unheard-of miracle that by the time they leave, two and a half hours later, Killian is finally able to control the Volvo at a crawl.

At this rate, she’s not sure she’ll survive teaching Killian to drive.

------

A few weeks later, they’re finally able to hit the open road – and she truly means the open road, choosing to let him take the wheel on a stretch of practically forgotten pavement. On the one hand, Emma is pleased that her lessons in controlling speed have finally paid off. On the other, Killian now refuses to drive the car above a snail-like 15 miles per hour. It’s simultaneously endearing and frustrating, leaning more towards the latter. But at the same time, he’s just so pleased with himself, narrating every action he takes.

“And now, we’re taking a right turn, so I click this lever upwards… and there appears to be dirt on my windshield, so I pull the other lever in towards me to spray the fluid and activate the wipers… now Swan, it appears we’re driving through a very shady area, shall I activate the headlights?”

Ok, maybe he’s more endearing than frustrating.

------

The final stage of his driving education, after a month and a half carefully driving around town, is the dreaded parking maneuvers, and Emma ends up closing off an entire street for the purpose. She just doesn’t trust him not to bump into other parked cars. As it turns out, this is the one part of driving that he seems to be a natural at.

“Well, Swan, after having to carefully maneuver the Jolly for years, this little car isn’t so hard. It was really just a matter of mastering the speed control.”

Huh. Who’d have thought.

It still doesn’t stop a crowd from gathering to watch the dreaded Captain Hook maneuver a mid-size sedan between two orange cones. Emma will admit – there’s something inherently entertaining about the very idea.

------

Finally, in November, six months after their hellish lessons began, Killian Jones earns himself a Maine driver’s license. Regina presides over the test, and exits the Volvo shocked and impressed.

“Well done, Ms. Swan, I’d actually trust him on the roads of Storybrooke.”

To celebrate, and grant the new driver a modicum of independence, they purchase a small SUV he promptly dubs the Jolly Landship. (He thinks it’s funny; she thinks it’s awful.)

Henry earns his own license the following May, to the surprise of no one. He’s proved to be just as excellent a driver as first impression suggested.

After the successful tests of both students in the Swan-Jones household, there’s really only one thing left to do.

“Road trip, Swan?”