He arrives at the house at about two-thirty, arriving earlier than they set up through email and phone calls, but he was in town and he figured he should just head over. The driveway is long and winding, turning in small twists up to a large, cabin-esque home, wrap around porch, a two car garage with a small living quarter above it off the side and disconnected from the house, grass around it needing to be trimmed. He's been a private investigator for a few years now and he's done his fair share of missing person cases, most of which they were found alive and unharmed, often times some were dead, but it's not often, it's not like you see on a tv show, it's not as gruesome as it's made out to be. Some people just...leave.

There was the thirty-one-year-old mother of three who just left one night and never came back, found months later living with a man. She didn't want to come back, said her husband was suffocating her.

There was the fourteen-year-old boy who fled an abusive household, a stepfather who snuck into his room every night after his mother went to bed.

People leave desperate situations all the time, but something about this one...it already wasn't sitting well with him.

The porch steps creek in protest as his boots hit them but they feel sturdy enough, so he doesn't stop to be more cautious. The door opens before he gets a chance to try the doorbell that hangs on a few wires, he's doubtful it would have worked anyways. A man stands there, green eyes and dark blonde, almost brown hair, peppered generously with grey.

"You must be…"

"Killian Jones." He says and the man steps back to let him in. He doesn't know his name, he only really corresponded with his wife, Mary Margaret.

"David Nolan." He says softly as he closes the door, "Mary Margaret is in the kitchen, I'll go get her, would you like anything to drink?"

"Water is fine, thank you." He says already looking around, eyes scanning the pictures on the wall, framed in varying colors, thick black frames, thin white. He doesn't hear what David says in response, eyes grazing over the woman in one particular photograph, dressed in red, blonde curls up in an elegant style, stray strands framing her face. She's posing with another woman, long brown hair with streaks of red, curled to perfection, a tight black dress accenting her curves.

"Senior Prom." A woman says next to him, he turns to her. She has dark hair, cut short, wearing a snug light blue sweater and a skirt. She has dark circles under her eyes, long lashes only seeming to make them more known. She looks like…

Well, she looks like hell.

"Mrs. Nolan."

"You can call me Mary Margaret." She says softly, "Come sit." She leads him to the dining room, separated from the living room by an archway, chestnut color table, longer than what they needed but he assumes they have guests over from time to time. David sets a glass down in front of him, setting a mug down in front of his wife, steam rising from it and she cups it in her small hands, he thinks maybe it's so David doesn't touch her. He takes a seat next to his wife, folding his arms over his chest because he doesn't know what to do with his hands.

"David doesn't think this was a good idea." Mary Margaret says softly, sipping her drink.

"I don't."

"We have to do something." She says softly, "The police already gave up."

"They didn't give up, they just-"
"They're looking for a body." She snaps at him, clearing angry that he would even think that they wanted to find her, "She's not dead, I would know if my daughter was dead."

"I'm not saying she is but she's been missing...she's been missing for a really long time." He's looking at Killian, who already knows because he researched the case. Emma Swan, orphaned at three along with her infant brother, Henry, separated from him until the age of thirteen when she was adopted by Mary Margaret and David, who eventually adopted Henry as well. She went missing at nineteen, her twenty-fourth birthday passed a few days ago. Her car was found abandoned several weeks later at a park, the driver side door hanging open like she made a run for it. She had a long history of running, running from foster homes, running from law enforcement, she never seemed to stop running. The police didn't search the car fully, her things were missing, nothing seemed amiss. There didn't seem to be a struggle, so they made the assumption early on that she had just run off.

"When was the last time you saw her?" He asks.

"When she went to pick up Ruby." David says, "She left in the afternoon, we didn't think anything was wrong until a few hours later when Ruby called to see if she had left yet and then she wouldn't answer her phone, she always answered when one of us called."

"She didn't even answer Henry." Mary Margaret says softly, "She never misses a call from him, no matter what." Mary Margaret runs her hands over her face, a heavy sigh on her lips.

"Who was the last person who saw her?"

"Henry."

"I'd like to talk to him, do you know where he is?"

"He and Violet just went out, they should be back soon. If you'd like to wait." David says softly and there isn't much for them to talk about, every question he asked is met with bitter why-are-you-asking-we-told-the-police-all-of-this-already from Mary Margaret, the truth is, he can't get a hold of files if he isn't invited into the investigation. And he doubts they'll let him in.

So, David tells him about Emma, her personality, stories about what life was like here with her and how these last few years have been a whole lot of awful.

Henry came home sometime later, occupying himself with moving heavy boxes in the garage, a tarp covering the yellow bug in the corner, dust settling on it.

"That was her car...is her car." He says as he sets a box down on top of another, he's broad shouldered but scrawny, dark hair and dark eyes, a polar opposite of Emma's light blonde and green eyes, but he has her dimples, sees them in the way that he smiled at Violet when he walked in the door, took one look at Killian and it was wiped away but he agreed to talk to him, letting him know he didn't have much information to offer but if it would help he could tell him whatever he needed to know. He just turned twenty-one in August.

"Mind if I.."

"No, go ahead." Henry says and then helps him lift the tarp off, revealing a beat up yellow VW, dents in the back door, the paint is scratched on the hood and Henry runs his finger over it, "Sometimes I come out here and I sit in it." He shrugs, "Even after all these years, you can still smell a faint hint of her perfume, it sounds weird but it's almost like she's still here somehow." Killian nods, he gets it, more than they know. He opens the driver side door, it screeches loudly and he leans in. The seats are leather, a black interior, cracks in the seats from years of wear and tear. He opens the glove compartment, but there isn't much in there, just old receipts and a photograph of her and Henry when they were little before their parents decided they didn't want them. He sets it aside. Henry goes back to moving boxes around, busying himself from whatever thoughts he's having. There's something shining on the floor under the seat, and when he picks it up he sees that it's a necklace, chain broken but the pendant is still in place. A circle with a swan in the middle. He runs his finger over it and gets out, closing the door with a little force to get it to close.

"She never took that off," Henry says softly like they said, the cops didn't search the car well enough.

"Is it okay if I take this?"

"Yeah. I don't know how it'll help…" He shrugs and Killian pockets it. They put the tarp back on the car.

"Your parents said that you were the last one to see her?"

"Yeah." He nods, "I ran into her when she was leaving to pick up Ruby, she had stopped at the Diner uptown."

"Did she seem...different, stressed out?"

"No, she was acting like Emma." He says softly, "She was fine, but she's good at hiding her emotions. She had to for a long time, so if there was something wrong…maybe I should have noticed, but I didn't."

"It's not your fault."

"She was in a hurry, talking fast, but I thought it was just because she was late to get Ruby." He tells him more, how he tried to call her and it's obvious he blames himself even if he won't come right out and say it, he feels like he should have picked up on it. If she was planning on leaving, if she was being followed, if something was wrong it was his job to know.

Ruby doesn't offer much in the scheme of new information. Just tells him she was supposed to pick her up so they could look around dorm rooms and check out other colleges, but she never showed. She shows her old texts from that day, prints them out for him and he puts them in his folder.

"You're not like the other officers, right? You'll actually look for her?" She asks, looking at him from her seat at the Diner, her uniform stained by a man who got a little too handsy. Killian nods.

"Of course."

"Good." She smiles softly, "I miss her, dead or alive you have to find her."

"I will."

"Promise?"

"I promise." Once he puts his mind to something, he doesn't stop until it becomes a reality and he's finding her, come hell or high water.

Emma Swan is coming home.