"So, how many you in for?" the man's Irish brogue tickled against Emma's hair as he leaned in conspiratorially while they both got cups of exceptionally awful coffee.

"Oh, just the one," she whispered back, "But you know, they save you from the pills and they've got you as long as they want."

The scruffy, and exceptionally handsome, man tossed her a wink before they both turned and headed back to the circle of chairs. He let her have the one closest and had to go onto the far side, managing to snag the spot directly across from her. She gave a little wave and a surprised expression when he sat down, miming "long time no see" with her mouth and earning her a fake expression of surprise and a shrug from him. At least someone at this giant pity party was worth talking to, even if they both knew they were just faking being upbeat since it felt better than the numbness they actually felt.

The leader of the group finally stood up and started talking, "Hello. My name is Doctor Archibald Hopper, you can call me Archie or Dr. Hopper as you prefer." The bespectacled and balding redhead wasn't much to look at but, Emma had to admit, his voice was reassuring as hell, "We're here tonight because you all have tried to take your lives at least once. Most of you have done this recently and your lives were saved by chance, by a friend, by family, or even by yourselves."

Emma battled down images of Mary-Margaret leaning over her and screaming her name as she lay on the floor, her fiance, David, coming in with the phone and shoving it in her hands as Emma felt him pull her up and using the heimlich to try and get the pills out of her. Looking across the circle she saw her Irish friend swallowing hard, so she pushed a smile on her face, a tiny almost-smile finally managed to take shape. Lucky enough for her, Irish managed to catch it, and return it with a tiny almost-smile of his own. Emma trapped the memory of that almost-smile, it was worth a lot more than Dr. Hopper's reassuring speech they were both missing.

An hour later and Emma was trudging up the stairs to the door of the apartment she shared with her best friend, Mary-Margaret Blanchard. She unlocked the door and slowly went inside, hoping she wouldn't inflict her presence on M&M while David was there. The two of them had enough problems, what with the whole evil stepmother schtick going on for M&M and the greedy, controlling, asshole adoptive dad on David's side, without dealing with Emma ruining the happy moments they had together with her bullshit. As luck would have it, the two lovebirds were asleep on the couch. David with his arms around M&M of course, Emma wouldn't expect anything less than that from him. She grabbed the folded blanket from under the coffee table and spread it over them as softly as she could, but M&M was psychic or something and lightly grabbed her wrist as she was retracting her hands.

"How was it, Ems?" she whispered, a sweet and caring smile slipping on her face as easy as sun in summer.

Emma paused and tried to give her a real description, once something came to mind she whispered back, "Reassuring. And I met a guy there who was nice to me, Ems." The memory of Irish giving her that little almost-smile was still in her mind, a tiny flicker of something or other.

M&M smiled wide and let her go, settling back against David. She knew Emma didn't want to talk and always let her off before it became too much, Emma still had no idea how someone could be so wonderful and kind to her. Sighing slightly, Emma headed to bed. She pulled her coat and her shoes off before crawling under the covers, who cared if she slept in her clothes, she'd made plenty of progress today already. She'd smiled for the first time in four years. To a guy, even.

M&M dragged Emma out of bed an hour before the latter had to get to work and on the way out of the door for the former. It was their daily routine, Emma still had problems waking up, but usually M&M had to actually drag her out of bed and into a mostly standing position. Today she just had to pull off the covers and give Emma a shake and seeing her wake up so quickly had definitely brightened M&M's day and seeing her best friend happy put a bit more vigor in Emma's actions as she showered, dressed, ate, and made her way down to the bus stop to get to the library.

Emma was the assistant assigned to work directly with Ms. Belle French, a lovely, brunette librarian who was just a year older than her and completely understanding about Emma's depression. Belle read constantly and when Emma had applied for the assistant position, her resume including her recent stint in the hospital and diagnosis of depression, had happily requested that Emma work with her. And so Emma's days revolved around simply reshelving books with Belle, helping her keep the library tidy, or sitting behind a desk and eyeing whoever came in and checking out books. Not to mention the perk of taking the three foot pole they had and poking apart couples who were trying to make out, or worse, deep within the stacks.

Oddly enough, the routine of that Thursday, and Friday's, passed fairly comfortably for Emma instead of the usual uncomfortable and . And she was looking forward to the next group session on Friday, maybe just because of Irish, but she was looking forward to it and that was a nice change. After work on Friday she grabbed a quick dinner at home with M&M and David before heading out to the session.

Meandering up the stairs she pushed open the door to the meeting room and looked around, the chairs were already set up but only a few were filled. She had apparently gotten there really early. Swallowing the trickle of trepidation she went over and got herself a cup of that awful coffee. She quietly sipped at it, trying to ignore the abhorrent taste while she wondered how it was nastier this time around, and waited for the room to fill up, staring at some poster talking about the steps to recovery for addictions, when Dr. Hopper spoke up behind her and scared the shit out of her.

"You seem eager to be here, Miss Swan," he remarked.

Emma jumped, nearly spilling her coffee all over herself an spluttered on the sip she had in her mouth. Dr. Hopper quickly offered a napkin along with a at least half a dozen startled apologies, all of which Emma brushed off. "No, no, I'm okay. I just didn't hear you, Dr. Hopper," she cleared her throat before replying to his earlier remark, "I don't know why you think I'm eager, I'm just early. And avoiding everyone."

He chuckled sheepishly, "So you're gonna tell me you're here almost half an hour early, when I know you're late for everything and that includes last meeting, and you're not eager? And as for avoiding everyone, that's a little difficult to claim when you're waiting for someone."

Emma simply stared at the shrink. The other before him had always bought her lies, her admissions of failures in places to cover up the truth, all those things. And he'd been her doctor for months, he was supposed to know her, but Dr. Hopper had figured out two real things about her in ten seconds.

"I noticed your conversation with Mr. Jones last time, and how you two paid more attention to one another than you did you did me or anyone else who spoke," Dr. Hopper continued.

"I'm-I'm sorry," she mumbled in reply.

"No, no. Don't apologize, I'm glad," he immediately reassured her, "The fact that you and he formed a connection is fantastic, not something I would ever chastise. You both have trouble forming new relationships, especially after all that happened for both of you. Yet you both spoke to each other right away, that's fantastic."

"It's...we just were...we were being sarcastic, that's all," Emma muttered, shifting uncomfortably at the man's words.

"And...?"

"And we...we smiled at each other," she admitted, hunching her shoulders and trying to hide.

"Uh-huh," Dr. Hopper remarked more than a little smugly. He turned and poured himself a cup of coffee, stating rather nonchalantly, "Mr. Jones has shown up to all three meetings he's been to at exactly 7. And he's never spoken to anyone, only looks at people when they aren't looking at him, and has never once smiled." He walked away, sipping his coffee, smiling slightly as he saw Emma turn to look at the clock in his peripheral vision. It was 6:50.

Five minutes later, Emma was pretty sure she had memorized all the steps of recovery, the warning signs of alcohol abuse, and had ignored the poster about suicidal behavior it might as well have been a jilted ex-lover. She heard the door creak open and like a middle-schooler with a crush, and like she had done every other time, she looked over towards it. This time, however, she was rewarded for her persistence with Irish walking in. Well, slouching in would be more accurate, just like dragging would be an accurate descriptor for how Emma went anywhere. Emma felt a tiny thrill of excitement race through her, he was here and not only that, he was early. His gaze searched over at the circle of chairs where everyone else was and his brow frowned, he turned over towards where the coffee pot was and saw her. Emma felt herself make an almost-smile as their eyes met, Irish's brow smoothed out and he quirked an almost-smile as well as he walked over, getting himself a cup of coffee and refilling hers before speaking.

"Hullo, blondie."

"Hello, Irish."

"You're here early," he stated as he made a face over the coffee.

"So are you. I probably should've warned you about the coffee today, someone made it with a boot as a filter." she quipped, then for some reason took a sip of the stuff herself and made a face of her own.

Irish smirked and then plucked her cup out of her hand and unceremoniously both of theirs in the trash. "I would rather drink a boot."

"Well a boot would probably go down easier," she shrugged, "But I would hate to see you walk home barefoot."

"Well if I weren't such a gentleman, I would have suggested we try drinking your Chucks. They seem much nicer."

Emma was about to reply that her ratty old Chucks would taste about as good as the coffee when she glanced down and noticed. She was wearing a brand new pair of red ones, not her ratty old gray pair. M&M had bought these weeks ago, trying quite unsuccessfully to get Emma to wear them, and nicer clothes in general. But now she was wearing them, and a pair of nice jeans, her favorite gray blouse, and a red leather jacket. She hadn't noticed that she had switched out of her normal old jeans and dark hoodie routine, she actually looked nice. She looked up and saw that so did Irish, he was wearing dark blue jeans that looked as new as hers, his black boots were shiny, and instead of the tattered gray sweater from last week, he had on a nice looking red hoodie and black canvas jacket. They had both dressed up a bit, and she guessed that neither of them had noticed doing so.

Just then, Irish looked over her shoulder at the clock, and took her hand. "Come on, it's about to start, we can still get a seat next to each other." he said a little hopefully.

Emma squeezed his hand a little, feeling a nervous buzz in her stomach over it, and nodded in reply. They walked over to the chairs, hand in hand until Irish pulled one out for her and pushed it back as she sat down. He really was a gentleman. After he sat down, Emma turned towards him and whispered quietly, "Emma Swan."

He locked eyes with her and replied, "Killian Jones."

They both smiled again, little smiles yeah, but they weren't almost-smiles.