She can kill with a smile
She can wound with her eyes
She can ruin your faith with her casual lies
And she only reveals what she wants you to see
She hides like a child
But she's always a woman to me

Emma was in a foul mood, truly tempestuous. It was a Saturday, and she had been called in to work, early in the morning no less, and on the way in received a voicemail (who leaves voicemails instead of texting these days?!) from fucking Walsh. She had been doing fine with the break up, better than fine, actually. In the weeks since their split, Emma had felt relatively at peace with things, knowing that even though she was a little bit hurt by it, he wanted things from their relationship that she just could not give him. So it was better that they end it before they got in too deep, before hearts got broken (especially hers). She had resisted calling or texting, managed to avoid seeing him, until she completely forgot that she was even trying to avoid him. Things were going well, she was healing. Until he called, and she saw his name and that stupid photo of him that she'd set as his contact picture popped up on the screen, and her heart had squeezed viciously in her chest. As she waited impatiently in line for coffee at the Starbucks around the corner from her apartment, she took a deep breath and held the phone up to hear to listen to the message.

Hey Emma, I was wondering if I could come pick up some of my stuff. I know I left some things at your apartment, and I'd kind of like them back. If you could just let me know when would be a good time, I'd really - *beep*

Bastard, she thought to herself as she shoved the phone back in her pocket, slightly more aggressively than was strictly necessary. When the barista finally asked for her order, she answered with her usual – large dark roast, black.

She had made it as far as two blocks from the office before her day took another unexpected downswing, this time in the form of a dark haired man rushing around the corner without paying attention. The two of them crashed into each other, and Emma's coffee spilled all over her cream coloured sweater and leggings.

"My apologies, love, I wasn't paying attention," the man said in a fairly heavy accent as his blue eyes assessed the damage.

"Obviously," she muttered, pulling her shirt away from her skin a little as she eyed the coffee stain.

"Allow me to –" he started, but was interrupted.

"Dad, come on, we're going to be late," insisted a boy Emma hadn't noticed before. He looked strikingly like his father, and she guessed he was nine or ten.

"One moment, Henry," he said quickly, before turning his attention back to Emma. "Please, love, is there anything I can do?"

"No," Emma snapped, and she stalked off in the direction of her office, where at least she kept a spare shirt in her desk drawer.

She pushed the door to the agency open and made her way inside, tossing the empty coffee cup into the trash as she walked over to her desk.

"What's so urgent?" she called out to August as she draped her red leather jacket across the back of her chair, pulling off her sweater and tugging on the t-shirt she had stashed.

"Just got word that a wanted con man arrived in the city late last night," her boss answered, walking over and tossing a file onto her desk. "By boat, no less. Very old fashioned." The guy smirked as though unimpressed by their quarry's chosen mode of transportation.

"And this is urgent because…?"

"He's got a reputation for evading being caught," August informed her, sitting down on the edge of her desk. "Rumour has it he set up some underage girl he was dating and let her go to jail for him so he could get away."

Emma's stomach filled with lead unpleasantly. She had a feeling she knew exactly who she was going to be tasked with tracking down. Flipping open the file, she found a blurry photo of someone she recognized all to well – Neal. Just when she thought her day couldn't get any worse.

Emma left the office ten minutes later determined to take Neal down. When she had run away from her family (no, not her family. The family that had decided to adopt her. She didn't want them. Especially not Lily.) at fifteen, she had taken up with Neal, and he had taught her how to survive on the run, how not to get caught – in short, all the things that made her so very good at catching people now.

As she strode purposefully down the sidewalk, she caught a glimpse of a dark haired man running towards her from across the street, dodging cars that honked angrily, and she felt her eyes roll almost involuntarily.

"Lass!" he called, hurrying to catch up with her, as she determinedly tried to evade him. She finally stopped walking when his fingers wrapped around her bicep gently, and she had every intention of punching him until she turned and saw him nearly doubled over, panting.

"Are you following me?" she asked, suspicious of any stranger that she saw twice in fifteen minutes.

"No!" he cried, looking genuinely offended by the suggestion. "No, I was walking home after I dropped my son off and I saw you and I –"

"And you thought you'd run after me?" Emma finished for him. "So you could do what? Ruin my day some more?"

"No, love, I thought, perhaps, I could try to make it up to you." He flashed her a smile and Emma realized that she was just now realizing how attractive he was. His blue eyes were bright, the kind of colour she had never seen anywhere but the ocean, and he had just the right amount of dark scruff on his face. "Perhaps I could buy you a coffee?"

She felt torn between her usual reservedness and his handsome face, and Emma really wasn't sure what to do. On the one hand, she really didn't need to get involved in any way with a guy who had a kid and was probably married, but on the other, her day had been crap and she did sort of feel like having someone to hang out with who wasn't all sunshine and rainbows like Mary Margaret, her "adoptive" sister. The two had met while Emma was doing her time in jail, Mary Margaret a psychology student at the nearby university who volunteered counseling inmates. They hadn't hit it off immediately, Mary Margaret's persistent optimism clashing horrifically with Emma's screw the world attitude, but by the time Emma had been released, they had managed to form a firm friendship. Still, sometimes she was a little too much for Emma, especially when she was having a bad day.

She made a split second decision as she stared into his too-blue eyes.

"Tonight, 8 'o'clock, I'm going to get dinner at Ferrulli's pizza place over on 3rd. Either meet me or don't." She walked away, and maybe she swayed her hips a little more as she did, not that should ever admit it.

"I don't believe you ever told me your name," he said, sliding into the seat across from her at the pizza place, precisely at 8. Emma wasn't normally someone who was early to things, but she had panicked a little about her decision to meet him, and the only way she could even guarantee that she was going to be there, was if she showed up early.

"Emma Swan," she answered, rather business-like, offering him her hand to shake. He did so, though somewhat awkwardly, and Emma noticed for the first time that his left hand was a prosthetic. "And you are?"

"Killian Jones, m'lady," he grinned with a mock bow in her direction. "Has your day improved since this morning?"

"Actually, yeah," she replied, smiling to herself. She had busted Neal in record time, and earned herself a pretty fat paycheck in reward. "Sorry for being so… well, such a bitch earlier. I wasn't having a great morning."

"I had gathered as much. May I ask why?" Once more, Emma found herself deciding whether or not to indulge this handsome stranger, and all it took was once glance at his earnest blue eyes for her to dive in.

"I got a call from my ex this morning, asking if we could meet so he could get some of his stuff back," she told him, grimacing and downing some more of her beer.

"Exes are the worst," he said, and she nodded in agreement.

"Plus I got called in to work on a Saturday, which always sucks," Emma added as the waiter came and placed a pizza and two plates between them. "Hope you don't mind meatlovers'."

"It's fine, love," Killian answered with a grin as he grabbed a piece from the tray. "So this ex-boyfriend, he broke your heart?"

"More like I broke his," Emma confessed with a sheepish smile. "He wanted serious, a real commitment, and that's just not something I do."

"Why not?"

"I dunno," she squirmed, feeling as though she were in the hot seat. "I've never really had a home or a family before."

"You regret leaving him then?" Killian asked, trying to make sense of why the phone call would distress her.

"Oh, god no," Emma laughed, shaking her head. "No, I just don't like when people from the past come back into my life once I think they're gone."

"It sounds like there's a story there, but I won't pry," he said, and she smiled gratefully.

"Thanks. So what happened to your hand?" It wasn't exactly a tactful question, she knew, but Emma was feeling rather vulnerable after sharing so much, and she needed something in return to feel more comfortable.

"Ah, that. An unpleasant encounter with a rather disagreeable fellow," he joked, but Emma gave him a playful glare that clearly said he wasn't going to get off that easily. "Rather vengeful bloke discovered that I had… had a dalliance with his wife. Didn't take it to kindly."

"So he cut your hand off?" she replied, incredulous. "What is this, medieval times?"

"Not quite, love," Killian answered with a chuckle. "He drove a steak knife through my wrist. They tried to save it but, alas, an infection decided otherwise."

"Was this your kid's mom?" Emma asked quietly, wary of pushing too far. She was seldom worried about anyone's walls but her own, but she could just tell that he had as much reason to be guarded as she did, and she didn't want to push too far.

"No, that wasn't Milah," he said tightly. "She came later."

"And are you still…?" she let her question drift off, not sure where she was with it. Together? Married? In love with her?

"No, she died, rather a long time ago," Killian answered with a sad sort of smile, the kind when you think about someone you used to love very much.

"What happened there?" Emma asked, curious about the expression on his face.

"It's a bit of a fairytale story, actually." He looked up at her with sad blue eyes and Emma felt something in her heart squeeze. "She found me in a bar, turned me into an honest man, gave me Henry, and then died when he was a little less than two. Pneumonia."

"You weren't an honest man before?" she inquired, raising an eyebrow at him. Surely his past couldn't be more dishonest than hers.

"I was… I was a man who took great pleasure in finding pretty women at bars and seducing them," he said, looking rather uncomfortable.

"But not since Milah?" she clarified, half teasing him.

"No, not since Milah," he smiled. "Well, not since Henry, really. It was for him that I really got my act together, stopped being irresponsible. Speaking of Henry, I should probably be getting home to him in the near future. I promised him an episode of Doctor Who before bed."

"Funny, you don't strike me as the Doctor Who type," she grinned, pushing back her chair and getting to her feet.

"Believe me, I'm not," Killian laughed as he gave her an exasperated look, "but he loves it, and we all do crazy things for our kids."

They left the shop together, ambling down the sidewalk together slowly. He hadn't asked to walk her home, and she didn't know if they just happened to be going in the same direction or if he was intentionally following her, but she didn't mind either way, content to keep joking lightly as they walked. He programmed his number into her phone rather than asking for hers, telling her to text him if she ever wanted to take him up on the coffee offer, and she thought privately to herself that she just might. She stopped outside her building and he followed suit, turning to face her with a big, goofy grin on his face that she found almost irresistible.

"This is me," she said pointlessly, and he smiled wider.

"Right, well, I'm just a few blocks further then," Killian answered, shuffling an inch closer.

"I guess I'll see you around then, Killian," she replied, smiling mischievously.

"Perhaps for coffee," he quipped and they both laughed a bit.

Killian leaned forward ever-so-slightly, and every reservation Emma had had about meeting with him flooded through her mind all at once, and she stepped back from him. He played it off casually, rocking back and forth on his heels for a moment, before turning away.

"Night, Swan," he said with a final glance, and then he rounded the corner, and Emma climbed the stairs to her third floor apartment and shut the door, leaning her back against in for a moment and closing her eyes. What a day.

Notes: The title is a reference to Billy Joel's song by the same title. Every chapter is not going to contain scenes set in Italian restaurant. It'd be clever if I did that, but I didn't. Alternate title was "It Just May Be A Lunatic You're Looking For", but that seemed too long.
The lyrics at the beginning are from Billy Joel's Always A Woman.