Summary: Modern soulmates AU. In which soulmates are rare, and those that have them stop aging at adulthood. Rarer still – and dangerously conspicuous – are those that have special abilities. Immortality and powers alike fade when soulmates come in close proximity with their other half. In which Emma's touch heals, and Killian's kills.

Rated: M (for later chapters)

Warnings: Language, mentions of homelessness

Notes: This was just a little idea that really grew into a bit of a monster. The entire story is finished, and it will be coming to you in six parts, one part a day. My eternal gratitude and devotion to seastarved, is-that-what-it-is, and high-seas-swan (all on tumblr) for their help and encouragement with this fic.

"Fifty years."

Emma Swan recites this to herself – a macabre mantra, if she says so herself – as she stalks along the familiar, and well-worn wooded path, the faint light of evening drifting through what leaves remain on the ancient trees around her.

"I am fifty years old."

Over and over again, tapping a disjointed rhythm against her thigh as she walks. It's late October in southwestern Ohio, and so she's swimming in four layers, ready to shed them at the drop of a hat, should a warm breeze turn in from the southwest. She works up a bit of a sweat, climbing a hill here, leaping a muddy stream there, and is seriously contemplating shucking her jacket and tossing it over the nearest bare tree limb when she makes a sharp turn…

She'd almost, almost, forgotten how beautiful this meadow was. Hidden by a jagged line of stark-white, ancient sycamores, it opens down a slope to an expansive patch of diaphanous, damn near sparkling grass. It billows in the light breeze, peppered by the remains of what, during the spring, had been tulips of every curious color and shape.

The flowers are no coincidence. Her friends, only friends – owners of the property, the small farm at the fore-end, and these sprawling woods that lay behind – Mary Margaret and David Nolan, had planted them some years ago. As more and more varieties were developed, Mary Margaret would go on the occasional wild spree, collecting the bulbs from every obscure greenhouse in the area, dragging Emma and David along with her. As much as they both complain, it's always a welcome break from working the farm during late spring, when they're running back and forth between the co-op up the road, and the food pantry in Cincinnati proper.

Storybrooke, they're called, all of them. Storybrooke Farm, Storybrooke Co-Op, Storybrooke Food Pantry. It's a little wistful for her tastes, if not a bit overbearing, the sort of blind optimism that bleeds out of every stupid little fairytale themed decoration. Now that the summer help has gone home for the season, she feels like some nice, cynical peace and quiet is overdue.

However, that's not why she's here.

Emma pauses for a moment as she reaches a particularly foggy patch in the meadow, reaching down into her boot to pull out a folding knife. There's a lonely beech tree across the way, pitiful little thing struggling in the shade of two hulking white pines. There are forty-nine marks in this tree. Forty-nine uneven slash marks running upwards from the base of the trunk. Mary Margaret, bless her plant-hugging soul, had side-eyed the hell out of her penchant for marring the bark of the sad little tree.

"Reminds me of me," Emma had explained, defensively.

Mary Margaret seemed to understand, though she wouldn't let Emma water the house plants whenever they were out of town. As if she had some kind of terrible tree karma.

Though, as she tilts her head and thumbs at the scars she's left behind, she figures vengeful tree magic is the least of her worries.

Emma tries never to dwell on the reason that she's fifty and looking like she's fresh out of college. Or on the reason that her best friends, who had had a brief taste of immortality before they ran into each other at a Home Depot, of all places, look a bit more weathered every day. That after three summers of crashing in a little shed-turned-cottage a quarter mile or so from their farm house, she can read their laughter, their labor, their feverish devotion in the lines about their eyes, their mouths.

Nevermind that she can heal people with her touch.

She tries not to think about any of this as she tucks herself between two winding branches of the beech, as she watches the waning light angle up and out with the setting of the sun.

A damp chill has settled in her bones by the time she admits to herself that's it's quite literally all she can think about. So she pulls herself to her feet, hopping in place a bit, trying to shake a bit of feeling back into her toes. Her knife is now damn near frozen to her fingers, so she reaches out, and drags it across the bark.

Emma likes to think she's not sentimental. But as the flesh of the tree curls and falls underneath the press of her blade, she wonders who she's kidding. God, she's standing in the middle of a meadow straight out of a storybook, near tears while she vandalizes a tree. If that's not the definition of sentimental, she'll eat every single one of her hats.

(She has eleven, for the record.)

Reality sets in as she tucks the knife back into her boots. She doesn't want to be caught in the forest after dark, so she turns, and heads back towards the farm, though not before muttering a quiet, broken,

"Happy birthday."

Emma manages her way back to the Nolan's farm just as the last light of day slinks over the horizon. Something for which she's grateful, as a chilling fog rolls in from the north just as she walks through the door. She's met with a blast of warm air, filled with all sorts of heavenly smells.

"Oh God," she says as she walks through the hallway, shucking her over-layers on the bench, a chair, the floor even – she'll be hearing about that later. "Is that a roast?"

"Hey Emma," Mary Margaret says, brightly. She hardly looks up as she does, singularly focused on what she'd declared just that morning would be a feast for royalty. "It's got another twenty or thirty minutes."

Emma tries not to look disappointed, she really does. But she's starving, and cold, and pouting like a teenager as she flops on the nearest stool.

David appears from behind, holding a pastry box. "Bear claw? Got 'em fresh from Granny's like a half hour ago."

"Oh my God, yes."

David laughs as she nearly knocks the box out of his hand as she reaches into it.

"You went all the way into the city for these?" Emma asks.

David looks sheepish, dropping the box on the counter before rubbing the back of his neck. "Well, I needed some new drill bits anyway."

"David Nolan," Mary Margaret says, stepping around the both of them as she rushes around the kitchen. Emma knows better than to get in her way – principally because the mere thought of helping out seems to burn things – so she presses against the counter as Mary Margaret finishes, "You are a lying liar." She turns to Emma as she stirs an outrageous pot of who knows what. "What he means is 'happy birthday' and 'I love you'."

Emma laughs. "I love you too, Dad."

David ruffles her hair, placing a kiss on her forehead. "Honey, I'm so glad we decided to have a kid ten years before we were born."

Emma hums, shaking her head with a smile as she noshes on her treat. She spends several silent minutes simply watching her friends – her so fucking married oh my God friends – as they dance around one another in the kitchen. Mary Margaret has the radio on at a low volume in the corner. On a classic rock station, as far as Emma can tell. The muted chords of some ballad or another blend all the sights and smells into a pleasant blur.

"So," David breaks the silence with a tap on her shoulder, nearly startling Emma out of her stool. "Did you have fun killing trees in the woods?"

"David," Emma grouses good-naturedly. "It's possible you're the rudest person on the planet."

Mary Margaret laughs, then adds, "Did you, though?"

"Ugh, yes. Happy birthday to me. Fifty of who knows how many."

David and Mary Margaret both stop what they're doing, having a silent conversation with their eyes as they step around one another. They're almost annoyingly understanding. They had, after all, experienced about a decade of agelessness before fate brought them together in a search for cheap power tools.

"Oh, Emma," Mary Margaret says. "You'll find your soulmate. You don't look a day older, and you can still heal, so we know they're out there somewhere. Otherwise…"

Otherwise, whoever it is fucking died.

Emma rolls her eyes, the optimism a bit too much to bear when she's determined to indulge her mood, at least until dinner is ready.

"Sure, sure," she grumbles.

Mary Margaret reaches out, patting Emma on the shoulder. With anyone else, she imagines it would be condescending. But Mary Margaret has a heart of gold, so it's a small comfort. Even still, Emma can't bring herself to look her in the eye, stubbornly pulling bits off of her bear claw and stuffing them in her mouth as she bores a hole in the soapstone counter with her gaze.

Despite her mood, the rest of the evening passes in the sort of joyous haze that Emma only dreamed of in her years bouncing around in foster care. It's been three years, but she's determined not to take it for granted. She can't say she doesn't cry when David brings out a lopsided cake he'd made himself, or when he tries to get her laughing with over-the-hill jokes while Mary Margaret whacks him on the back of the head.

It's not family, not exactly, but it's something like it, something better even. And so thoughts of soulmates and eternity and loneliness drain from her mind as she falls asleep in the recliner to the gentle clanging of pots and pans, her heart – damn David and his cheesy lines from his cheesy Hallmark movies – nearly as full as her stomach.

Emma's up early the next morning, as she always is on Mondays – Mondays and Wednesdays both, in fact, as she'd volunteered to run the food pantry a couple days a week several months ago. David, bless him, is waiting in the kitchen with coffee, though he still has pillow creases on his face, and the look of a sugar coma about him as he shuffles around. Mary Margaret is already skittering around in the fields out back, he tells her, relaying her usual message of stay safe, text me when you get there, don't drink too much hot chocolate at Granny's you'll get sick.

Emma just smiles in reply, shaking her head as David helps her load several crates of apples and late fall vegetables into the truck. They work in a gruff silence, neither of them awake just yet, despite the caffeine boost. Once they're finished, he bids her farewell with a familiar pat on her back as she hops up into the truck.

The drive into Cincinnati is heinous, as per usual, fraught with mysterious backups and patches of rain. Typically, she blasts the radio. But she's still feeling a bit melancholy, certain she's at least earned the right to dwell on the current circumstances of her life for at least as many hours as years she's lived. Besides, the city as a whole seems to be having one of those days, an ache blooming at the small of her back and jolting up her spine as she drives.

It's not only that she can heal. She can feel hurt as well. Something about sickness, illness, death even, it calls to her. A siren song. Dangerously alluring, pleasurable pain that crawls along the inside of her skull. Nearest the city center, it's almost unbearable. At the pantry, at least, she can slip through the cracks.

"Alright, Swan, get a grip," she tells herself as she finally – finally – pulls into the alley behind the pantry. Between her birthday, the gloomy weather, and the funk she'd settled into in the meadow yesterday evening, she's just about over herself. And so, as she unloads the crates in through the back door, she surrenders to routine.

Killian Jones wanders the soggy streets and alleyways of Cincinnati on a rainy afternoon in late October. His hands – real and prosthetic alike – are stuffed in his pockets, black leather gloves buckled to the sleeves of his black leather jacket. His vest, too, is leather, buttoned neatly over a thin, durable, shirt that stretches up his throat, nearly up to his chin. He's found the combination – the layers, the buckles, the zippers, and the gloves especially – protect against any…accidents. It's been many years since he was careless enough to touch someone without a substantial barrier. Since he was foolish enough to believe that he could slip away, as if one could forget a man who kills those he touches.

Nevertheless, he's not immune to the occasional bout of clumsiness, and he's not about to take any unnecessary chances, particularly when he falls a bit too deep into the rum. Hence the armor.

As he walks, he breathes deep, sorely missing the smell of salt in the air. He's arrived just a week ago from a two-month stint in a small town just northeast of Boston. The beaches were prim and the harbors were well-ordered. Though, the traffic was murder, the tourists tended to grate on his nerves, and the alcohol was outrageously overpriced. The life of a vagabond in such a place is unsustainable. The seaside residents of New England are viciously protective, and he'd begun to see too much suspicious recognition in their eyes as he roamed.

And so he left. As he does. Oh, he could have stretched it out for at least a few months longer, but it feels good to be capricious, after so many years as Gold's puppet, caught in the demon's formidable strings. Helpless to do his bidding, slave to the compelling lilt of his voice, just like all the others.

Now free, though short a hand, he tends to leap when least expected, run when nothing's chasing him. Then settle, until the urge bubbles up once more.

This is his vicious cycle.

Killian likes to think it's not quite as terrible as it must sound. Often the centuries he's endured feel like nothing but a series of moments. The years fold in on one another, like an oversized road map, and the decades between one event and another are reduced to a blink, a turn of the page. He fills them with beautiful things, beautiful scenery, sculptures, paintings, miles and miles of endless sea…all as he pilfers, pickpockets, and otherwise pirates his way across the world.

Though, sometimes, the time weighs and stretches, and the burden is nigh unbearable. A decade can seem a millennium – even one day can feel like the rise and fall of empires between the rising and the setting of the sun. He longs to feel sand beneath his feet, the brine of saltwater between his toes, quiet evenings along the harbor, any harbor – the ships a bittersweet reminder of the life he would have happily died for.

But something, an itch deep under his skin, had pulled him away. He'd turned westward, on a whim – bus stop to bus stop, train to train on occasion – until he'd stopped in Cincinnati, The Queen City. He'd meant to move along, jump a train towards the Pacific. But he'd spotted the river out the window on the last bus he'd taken, shimmering in the moonlight, the city lights twinkling on the horizon. So he'd stayed, weak to the site of a full moon on the current.

He can't say he regrets it. It's nothing like the coast. There's a thick, still humidity in the air, sifting through his hair, the strands hanging limp against his forehead. It's nearly six in the morning, and yet the streets feel empty, tired, peaceful even, at least by comparison. He quite likes it. And while the river is hardly the Atlantic, the familiar smell of water and exhaust makes him feel lighter. Enough to grin disarmingly at the occasional passer-by, delighting in their expressions – ranging from cowed to lecherous – as he rifles neatly in their pockets.

Come seven, he has more than enough cash for a decent meal. But, he's found, money is better hoarded for a rainy day. This city is flush with food pantries, which, in his experience, tend not to ask questions.

In fact, there's one in particular…

On his first visit to this pantry the Monday before, it had been late in the afternoon, and something about the sign hanging above the door –

"Storybrooke Food Pantry," he'd read aloud, rolling his eyes at the pastoral scene behind the lettering. "How quaint."

– had caught his eye, drawing him in. He'd nearly left the moment he'd walked in, the tight space and warm bodies sending him into a bit of a panic.

That is, before he saw her.

Emma.

That was her name, overheard as an older gentlemen prattled on about something or other. Words lost to the fall of her hair against her shoulders, to the emeralds peeking out from beneath her lashes.

Emma Swan.

It was all he'd managed to learn before another person had walked in, the bell above the door driving him out of his hypnosis. He'd been less than an arm's length away from a young woman, he'd realized, and he'd startled towards the door, though not before snatching an apple.

He'd spent the remainder of the afternoon in a library just up the street, turning her name over and over again on his tongue.

Now, days later, he stands on the steps of the Storybrooke Food Pantry once more. He'd taken note of the hours last week, hoping to catch her outside of the rush. To just look at her, to listen to the sound of her voice, to remember what it's like to talk to someone. He almost hopes she guesses his secret, has had a dozen conversations with her in his mind where she does, a dozen more where she doesn't. Then, he convinces himself, then he can forget her, run back to the sea, shake her like sand from his boots.

(Leave her before she can leave him – one way or another.)

Anticipation curls in his belly. He fiddles with the buckles holding his prosthesis in place, pops his collar to hide the back of his neck, pulls at the neck of his shirt. Then, with a deep breath, he walks up the stairs, boots thudding heavy against the landing, and pushes open the door.

It's seven in the morning on a Monday. This alone puts Emma in a mood. She's arranged the crates on the shelves, placed the appropriate labels, and turned the 'Closed' sign over to 'Open'. She's shuffled around the room, half in a daze as enough calories to keep her going for the rest of the week still sit heavy in her stomach. She's almost looking forward to having someone to talk to, if only to distract her from the overwhelming urge to curl in the corner and nap until the uneven floorboards press permanent creases into her face.

But it's seven in the morning on a Monday.

She hardly expects any foot traffic this early. So she's playing Solitaire – actual, cards-everywhere (missing an ace, Goddamit) Solitaire – and texting back and forth with Mary Margaret about how she's not going to some obnoxious Halloween party in the city this weekend, thank you very much.

She's surprised when the bell above the door chimes. It's a stupidly shrill little brass thing, something David had hung up while pretending he didn't think it was the coolest thing ever. The door slams shut with a whoosh and another tinny clang and oh God, it's him again.

Emma had noticed him the second he'd walked in just last Wednesday. All sorts of people at all sorts of points in their lives come wandering through the Storybrooke Food Pantry.

But this man, he's like a study in beautiful juxtaposition. As he was before, he's clothed head to toe in black leather and cotton, dark and purposeful. Even his hands are covered. The angles of his shoulders, of his face, they're severe, but offset by dark hair that she's tempted to describe as fluffy, falling into his eyes, flipping out at his ears, over the long neck of his shirt. There's something terribly earnest about his expression, color high on his cheeks, eyelashes curling against his cheeks as he stares resolutely at the floorboards.

Her fingers itch with urge to reach out and touch him. She bites down on her tongue, glances back down at her game. But she can't help but to look back up. She wants to stare at him forever.

(She wants to run away and never look back.)

He seems as though he's about to make for the shelves in the back, eyes down, hand rubbing at the back of his neck. But then he meets her eyes, a crystal blue glinting sharply underneath the muted, yellow factory lights. She's holding a nine of spades in her hand and she nearly drops it.

He walks towards her, slowly. In fact, Emma's sure that time itself begins to unwind, that decades are rolling over and over again in the space between them as he crosses the wooden floor. Each step is a resounding thud. And something about the way he's looking at her – like he's reading every notch in that damn tree in the meadow each time his eyes flit from one of hers to the other – it stills her breath.

When he does reach her, she chokes on a sigh, covering with an awkward cough.

"Can I help you?" she says.

He tilts his head, looking down at her game of Solitaire for a few moments before looking back up at her.

"Can I help you?" he counters. And oh God, his voice, honeyed and accented, a delightfully rough scrape against her ears. "You appear to be missing an ace."

Emma laughs, loudly. She laughs because it's absurd. She's just had the most intense staring contest in the history of the human race, and suddenly they're talking small over a game of cards. He seems a bit taken aback, but then he smiles, and her breath hitches in her chest.

"Might I suggest a replacement?" he says. "A post-it perhaps?"

She scoffs. "Why? Game's more interesting this way."

He quirks a brow, teeth peeking out from behind his lips as he tilts his head. "Aren't you a stubborn lass."

Emma makes a disbelieving noise. Not because of his brashness – although she's one comment away from flipping him off – but because of the curiosity that colors his tone. Like she's a puzzle. Like, in the minutes that have passed, he's taken in the sight of the walls she's built around herself over the past several decades, and has already begun surveying them for gaps.

It's unsettling. As is the way his stare is boring into her. Dragging heavily over her face even as he holds this lighthearted, completely ridiculous, non-conversation with her.

"Whatever," she says, clearing her throat. "I just cheat anyway."

He tuts good-naturedly. "Bad form, love. You're only cheating yourself."

"Yeah, that's the point."

He opens his mouth to reply, but is cut short by the dinging of the bell above the door. The guy – fuck, she doesn't even know his name – steps aside. And she can't help but notice that – where, seconds ago, he'd stood tall, arms hanging loosely, feet apart – now he shuffles away, meek almost. He shoves his hands into his pockets, shrinking at least an inch or two as he tucks his chin into his chest. It's a complete one-eighty, and it has Emma reeling.

At least until Granny Lucas walks over with two hot chocolates.

"There you are, young lady," she says, plopping the to-go cups on the counter before crossing her arms over her chest. "Missed you at the diner this morning."

Emma wants to gripe at the phrase young lady, but Nameless Brooding Guy is still in the pantry, having wandered towards the back. Granny may know her secrets, and Emma knows rumors about her abound, but there's no sense in shouting it from the rooftops.

"Yeah," Emma says. "Still in a food coma from dinner last night. David and Mary Margaret cooked enough food to stuff a city block."

Granny's reproachful expression fades, and she smiles, reaching out to pat Emma on the shoulder.

"Well, that's why I'm here. Closing early for the day, but I didn't want to miss you the day after your birthday."

Emma blushes, still nonplussed by the random acts of kindness sort, even after three years of living with the Nolans, paragons of virtue.

"Thank you," Emma says, picking at an imaginary thread on her sweater.

"Happy birthday, dear."

Emma smiles, looks up, about to reply when she notices an angry red burn mark on Granny's forearm. Not that this is unusual in and of itself. Working long, oftentimes frantic hours in a diner, there are bound to be accidents. All of which she's taken to healing over the past couple of years. And yet,

"Didn't I…" Emma glances over at Leather and Eyeliner before she leans forward, finishing on a whisper. "Didn't I heal that?"

Granny hums. "Thought so. Must have been an off day."

"Right…" Emma trails off, her breath stuttering. She reassures herself – it's fine, probably just forgot, it's fine – and reaches out, taking hold of Granny's hand, watching as the burn shrinks a bit…

But it doesn't fade.

"Off day number two, looks like," Granny says, though she's eyeing her suspiciously.

Oh God.

Suddenly, Emma's stomach lurches. She can feel sweat breaking out on her palms. The distant noise of traffic outside the door ratchets up to a roar in her ears.

Everyone knows how it goes. Everyone. One in ten thousand even have a soulmate. Not even one in a hundred of those have any abilities whatsoever. The downside is public contempt. The upside – depending on who you ask, of course – is that, when they get close for long enough, the power fades. So when they're nearby, you know.

You know.

Oh God, oh God.

Emma attempts to disguise the fact that she's one grating noise from a full blown panic attack by taking a measured sip from the hot chocolate. It burns her tongue, but it grounds her.

"Thanks," Emma says, quietly. "For the hot chocolate, I mean. But I really ought to get to work. We're super busy today."

Get the hell out of here so I can have an episode in peace.

Granny hums once more, looking around at the shop, then down at her game of cards. But she doesn't protest. She walks towards the door, though she pauses with her hand on the handle, and looks over at Adorably Scruffy. Then, because Granny never could resist,

"Maybe this tall drink of water over here can help you."

Then she's gone and fuck, Dark and Handsome is still being weird in the corner, though he loosens and saunters over as the last echoes of the bell above the door fade. He leans over the counter, smiling down at her. He's close enough that she can hear his intake of breath, can hear the sound of his tongue sliding over his teeth as he prepares to speak. Emma's desperately trying to find a diplomatic way to tell him to leave before she throws up. She opens her mouth, ready to talk over him if she has to, when a spastic movement of her hand pitches one of her hot chocolates forward, and all over the leather stretched over his hand.

"Shit."

Killian's disappointed, to say the least, when the older woman – clearly a close friend, perhaps a family member – interrupts their conversation. Not that they were saying much of anything. But he's found it's much more difficult to keep track of two people than one, so he backs away, extricating himself before he can make a shrinking fool of himself. It's hardly commonplace, but more than once has someone reached out to pat at his cheek, or flick at his ear, only to be met with a shock that ultimately drives him out of town.

Nonetheless, the warmth between the angel before him and the elder woman has a smile flitting over his face, and growing to a smirk when the latter of the two eyes him from head to toe,

"Maybe this tall drink of water over here can help you."

He smiles, genuinely amused, and winks in reply. The door shuts behind her, and he breathes out a sigh, pulling his hands out of his pockets, and standing up straight. He's found the posture is off-putting at best. But the siren at the counter wears a guarded – if not frantic – expression, so he forces an easy swagger into his step as he closes the distance between them once more.

He means to ask her name, his right hand turned up and open in what he hopes is an encouraging gesture. A gentle plea, to ease her as she fidgets. He smiles, and inhales.

But before he can speak, her hand twitches, knocking her hot chocolate all over the counter, and all over him, as it were.

"Shit," she says. Then, again, looking so devastated at the loss of her drink that he can't help but smile, "Shit, I'm sorry."

He laughs. "No problem, love. Worse things – "

She reaches forward, suddenly, taking hold of his hand, which startles the rest of his sentence straight off his tongue. He means to pull back, he really does, can hear his mind screaming at him to run. But he's frozen, staring at her fingers as they slide against the wet leather. And before he can come to his senses, they slip around the buckles by his wrist, and through the gap between his glove and the cuff of his jacket.

The press of her skin against his is a shock itself. It's been years since he'd intentionally touched another, even longer since he'd unintentionally allowed another to touch him. Each person – they are all unique, a particular feeling, a chorus of memory and hope and yearning that buzzes over his skull as he drains the life out of them.

But with her…nothing.

Nothing.

He's frozen once more, and by the looks of it, so is she. What she's feeling, he hasn't an inkling. But the longer they touch, the more it becomes painfully obvious.

It's not working.

His knees threaten to give out. He has to remind himself to breathe. Emma pulls back, expression flickering from curiosity to concern as he backs away, nearly falling over a wooden crate.

"Wait," Emma says, pushing back from the counter, hopping off the stool.

His heart is beating painfully in his chest. The walls around him press inward. Many lifetimes of experience have taught him the subtle differences between cowardice and raw self-preservation. But never before has he felt such overwhelming fear.

Thus, he's not certain which is winning out as he turns, and runs.

During her mid-twenties, Emma had had a three-year stint as a bail bondsperson in New York. It was by no means glamorous, but it afforded her a slew of useful, if not random skills. One of these being that she can run at impressive speeds in impractical shoes. Her boots are trusty, but flat in the heel.

Still, as he turns sharply at the street corner, then again in an alley, she nearly loses him.

"Wait!" she shouts, repeatedly. She wishes she at least knew this guy's name as she runs after him – like an idiot, what am I even doing – leaving all sorts of vile cursing in her wake as she comes close to knocking at least six people over.

But now she's committed, and she'll be damned if she doesn't at least punch him in the face for starting this in the first place.

Although, that would mean touching him again. And as warm as the skin of his wrist had felt against her fingers, there had been something unnerving about it. A gentle buzzing that had vibrated all the way up her arm. Not entirely unpleasant, but certainly unexpected. And judging by the expression he'd worn – fear and shock, anger and loathing, all flitting across his face as he'd backed away – he'd not been expecting it either.

Also not expecting her as she finally catches up to him. It's probably unnecessary, the force with which she throws them both to the ground. But she's pissed as hell, and even as they skid through a puddle, she can't help but think it was worth it.

"Bloody hell, woman," he says.

He groans as he picks himself up off the ground. Half of his hair is wet, sticking up at all angles, droplets falling from his chin as he straightens his jacket. He's still cagey, shifting from foot to foot, stepping carefully around her, but the open air seems to calm him a bit. There had been warmth in his eyes before. Guarded, but open enough that she could see a kind soul peeking forth. She's seen enough stereotypes with actual hearts of gold to know the difference.

But now, his eyes are steel. The blue dulls, a cold grey overtaking as he looks at her from underneath his lashes. He's throwing up monumental walls even as they carefully regard one another. And Emma…

Well, she can respect that. She's doing the same thing. The world is fucked. Still, though,

"Why the hell did you run?"

He grits his teeth. "I hardly – "

"Why the hell did you run? And, God, who even are you?"

Fear appears to melt away, and he stands tall, scowling. "I hardly think you would understand."

Emma scoffs.

"And besides," he adds. "Why did you give chase?"

"Oh no. Don't turn this around on me. You can't lurk around in my pantry, steal my apples – yeah, I saw that, I'm not stupid – run off, and not expect me to chase you. If nothing else, you owe me a hot chocolate."

His face seems to run the gamut of emotions, but it settles on fatuous amusement. Another wall.

"And I believe you owe me a new set of leathers, love."

Is she this frustrating when she's deflecting? Emma decides she's had enough. She'd felt the jolt when her skin met his, and she suspects that's what threw him so off kilter.

So she reaches for him again, for his hand. Her movements are slow, calculated, as she looks, unblinking, up into his eyes, which are hooded with fear and mistrust once more. She figures he has every right to wrench it away, and that's what she expects.

And yet, as she closes the distance between them, he clenches and unclenches his fist at his side, but he does not pull away. He watches her, expression now beyond unreadable, something harrowed and untold in his eyes as he allows her fingers to glide over the leather, slick yet with remnants of hot chocolate, whipped cream, and dashes of cinnamon. He does pull away after a moment, but only to reach up, and to pull the glove off with his teeth.

This is when she notices it, the stiffness in his other hand, the way the fingers are pressed together, and the curious way the leather stretches over it, puffing up at the knuckles. It's a fake hand, she realizes, with some shock.

The thought falls away – all thought falls away – when she feels his fingers brushing against the skin of her cheek. She looks up at him and his mouth falls open, a strangled gasp escaping his lips as he moves from her cheek to her jaw, there to her chin, back up again.

Emma can hardly believe herself. Allowing his hand to stroke the contours of her face, seemingly of its own accord as he watches her with something like awe. But his skin is warm, and – she notes with no small amount of awe herself – that she's already addicted. He stares into her eyes, a deep cobalt that drags her headfirst into another world entirely. And, though she was roiling in anger and frustration just moments ago, the possibilities dance behind her eyes. Possibilities born of the fact that, the longer he touches her – fingers now dancing along the shell of her ear – the more the voices fade. The atonal chorus of pain that echoes in the city streets, that calls to her morning to night – it fades. And though she feels she knows who he is, really knows, she can't help but ask, quietly,

"Who are you?"

He hesitates, fingers stilling just beneath her lips. But he seems just as enraptured as she, lost in the way her hair is tangling around his thumb. She feels like this is what compels him to answer.

"Killian Jones," he says. It catches on his voice, and she can feel his fingers trembling against her cheek. His touch is feather-light, barely there, a whisper on her skin.

"Emma," she says. And it's all she means to say. But then she adds, impulsively, "Swan."

"Swan," he repeats. Then, softer, "Emma. Just let me run, love. If only for a while – "

She opens her mouth to protest – if anyone runs, it's her. But, God, she at least wants to know him before she does. To know why he tucks his tongue in his cheek as he tilts his head, to know why he curls his pinky around a lock of her hair as he thumbs at the dent in her chin, to know why she feels like she's stepping out and into the light of day for the first time in decades. Decades.

But then, as suddenly as it seems this all began, it all shatters with the sound of a loud boom. A backfire, a bullet, it's hard to say. It's a bit distant, perhaps a half block away, but this man – Killian – drops his hand from her face as she turns on instinct. And when she turns back, he's gone.