Ctrl. Space. V. V. V.

V to goddamn infinity.

That wouldn't work. That's not how the game worked. Eventually her character would have to do something except quick attack and Ruby would yell at her if Emma just kept punching air in some kind of misplaced effort to work out whatever emotions were coursing through every single inch of her body.

She was going to kill all of them.

V. V. V. V. V.

God, was she still holding a keyboard? Oh God, she was. She was holding a keyboard and some asshole reporter and his photographer friend, who couldn't seem to stop laughing, were still staring expectantly at her like they just thought she'd start spilling her metaphorical guts.

On record.

Oh, shit, she'd have to talk on record.

That was part of the deal. Or that was the way Mary Margaret had explained it the week before when she'd cautiously approached Emma about being featured on The Daily Caller for a goddamn, fucking full year.

Emma was going to strangle Mary Margaret. She couldn't do that. She'd have nowhere to stay if she did that. Ah, well, David wouldn't make her move out. Although if Emma murdered her sister-in-law, she was fairly positive her brother would be a little bit put-out.

The reporter was still staring at her.

She was still holding a keyboard. And wearing a headset.

God.

"You alright, love?" he asked and Emma's neck actually cracked when she snapped her head up. He didn't seem worried by the look on her face. She assumed there was a look on her face.

She also didn't answer immediately, just shifted her weight on her heels and heard a pair of footsteps behind her and Emma didn't even have to look up to know that she was being flanked. Ruby had some kind of wolf-life sixth sense that seemed fine-tuned to react whenever Emma was feeling a very particular type of emotion.

Emma was half convinced it was because of Mary Margaret and some sort of friendship deal with the Devil that was a bit more jaded than it probably should have been, but Emma was also kind of jaded and she hadn't ever really allowed herself to believe in friendship until she met the once-named Mary Margaret Blanchard.

She couldn't kill Mary Margaret – Blanchard or Nolan – even in some kind of video game dream-world.

"Swan," Killian prompted, widening his eyes slightly and shit his eyes were blue. That was distracting. It shouldn't be. "Still with me?"

"She's killing you in her head," Ruby supplied and that got him to react. His eyebrows shot up his forehead and the photographer was laughing again, cameras hitting up against his thighs as his whole body seemed to convulse with sound.

"I'm sorry, what is she doing?"

"Killing you."

"Right."

"It's all virtual," Ruby shrugged. "You'll get used to it if you stick around. You are planning on sticking around, aren't you?"

Killian smirked, tongue pressed into the corner of his lip and he nodded slowly. "That's the beat, or so they told me yesterday. Why is she killing me, exactly?"

"Oh that's just a way to work out her frustration without actually breaking anything. And Granny will actually kill her if she breaks anything in this restaurant."

"You're a very violent group."

"Those video games, doing us in from the very beginning."

He barked out a laugh, running a hand through his hair and the smirk was almost something that looked nearly genuine. Emma's breath hitched in her throat, mouth going dry and she knew she was staring again.

A hand.

One hand.

He had one hand.

Oh, shit.

Killian blinked, gaze tracing across her face, like he was searching for something and just a bit disappointed when he couldn't find it. The photographer had stopped laughing. And might have moved a bit closer to Killian's side. That was unexpected.

"You know," Killian whispered conspiratorially, leaning towards Ruby with a specific type of look on his face. "This seems like a very involved murder. Any chance you might be able to explain to me what's going on?"

Ruby scoffed, rolling her eyes and if Emma wasn't still so frustrated she probably would have laughed. As it was, she felt something she wasn't quite certain she appreciated shoot down her spine, vision turning red around the edges. She stepped in between Ruby and Killian, pushing her palm flat against his chest.

That was a mistake.

He was warm and questionably solid and staring right at her like there was an actual electric current rushing up her forearm and straight in between his ribs.

"And she's still standing right here," Emma hissed, cringing internally when she actually started to refer to herself in the third person. "Crazy as it may seem, plotting your murder does not mean I've lost my ability to hear."

"That is crazy," Killian grinned. Emma dropped her hand, resting the keyboard she was still inexplicably holding on her hip and swiping her tongue over the front of her teeth. She huffed slightly, trying to refocus the questionable amount of emotion she was feeling into something she could control.

Focus on the mission. No side quests. No solo journeys. Team first.

Control.

If there was one thing Emma Swan absolutely loved – and maybe needed just a bit more than she was entirely willing to admit with a reporter standing right in front of her – it was control. It was why she thrived in front of a computer screen.

She could control that world. Every single move she made, no matter what piece of garbage game she was playing, was a controlled decision, a set of hits and keys that made absolute sense given the circumstance she was in.

If she died, there was no one to blame but herself. It helped, of course, that she came back to life and got to try again until she perfected her attack and took out whatever asshole she was playing against, but that was neither here nor there.

She wasn't obsessed with winning.

She wasn't.

She liked winning.

She was due to win something.

And that was incredibly melodramatic – particularly when she was only winning on some virtual level without a single degree to her name or her own place in New York yet.

One thing at a time.

"Why are you here?" Emma asked and that was good, direct, straight to the point. In absolute control of the situation. "And why is your photographer flanking you?"

"What?" Killian stammered, genuine confusion coloring the few letters. Emma nodded towards the short-haired man behind him.

"Flanking you," she repeated. "You know, covering your back, checking your six. That second one didn't really make much sense actually. He keeps moving though, like he's worried you're secretly under attack in the middle of this restaurant. And as a follow-up, did you guys buy your jackets together or is it just happenstance that you both wear leather in August?"

"It's a look," Scarlet mumbled, shifting the cameras on either shoulder and Emma hummed in agreement.

"Of course. How come you're so defensive?"

"I'm not."

"You brought an entire photo studio's worth of equipment to a practice. We were told that this was just supposed to be some kind of meet and greet with the writer. I didn't even know photographers were showing up."

"Will," he said and Emma shrugged. "Name is Will. Scarlet. And I'm only here to make sure that your writer showed up to the meet and greet. He'd never leave his hotel room otherwise."

Emma tilted her head, appreciating the slight blush that appeared on Killian's cheeks and the tips of his ears and maybe she was in more control than she realized.

And then Killian Jones smirked at her.

Again.

Left shift. E. Q. R. Bang both sides of the mouse until the stupid thing cracked in half.

"You're living out of a hotel room?" she asked, doing her best to keep her voice from sounding nearly as interested as she was. Interested was generous. Intrigued. Definitely intrigued. Curious. Just generically curious.

It didn't mean anything.

She'd probably have to tell Ruby that twenty-two times. And then tell Mary Margaret another forty-four times, doubling up for every time Ruby told her.

"How do you know Gina?" Killian countered sharply. Emma's eyes widened, gaze darting back towards Ruby and they'd drawn a crowd. Granny was bound to show up at any moment, banging glasses just to prove how much she wasn't eavesdropping. "Regina," he corrected quickly. "How do you know Regina?"

"How do you?"

Killian sighed. "Is this a bar?"

"What?"

"A bar. Preferably one that has alcohol in it."

"It's ten-thirty in the morning."

Killian shrugged, but Will rested a hand on his shoulder and Emma got the distinct impression she was missing something. "Deep breaths, Hook," Will muttered. Killian rolled his shoulder, frustration lingering in the air around him.

Emma tried not to blink.

A crash sounded behind the counter and she spun on the spot, nearly slamming into Ruby in the process. "Anna, what the hell?" Ruby sighed, wrapping an arm around Emma's waist and trying to support her weight. It didn't really work.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry," Anna sputtered, voice coming from where she was crouched on the floor, trying to pick up pieces of broken glass with her bare hands. This was a disaster – a distinct lack of control and an even bigger distraction.

They had to practice.

That was the point of commandeering Granny's restaurant before she opened for lunch and Emma tried not to dissolve into frustration immediately.

"We just thought we'd make tea or coffee or something," Belle explained, a gentle, encouraging smile on her face and Emma could feel some of the tension fall off Ruby. Jeez. They should have made a rule about that. No intra-team dating. Or flirting. Emma wasn't sure if they'd made it to dating yet. She'd have to ask Mary Margaret about that later.

"Or maybe something a little stronger," Elsa added, glancing at Killian over Emma's shoulder. She twisted her neck, wincing slightly when it cracked again and she wished her eyes would stop just widening of their own accord because they were starting to get dry and the last thing she needed to do was to try and push her way into a Times Square drugstore to buy overpriced eye drops.

Mary Margaret probably had them in the apartment anyway.

Emma should stop depending on Mary Margaret for everything.

"My sister-in-law," she said quickly and Killian's gaze snapped back to her immediately. She nearly ran into Ruby again, stumbling over her own feet in an effort to take, at least, three steps back from the force of his stare and whatever it was his face was doing – something not quite serious, but not quite joking and in between didn't make total sense either.

He looked interested.

Honest to goodness interested.

"You've lost me, love," Killian laughed. He took a step back towards her and Emma had run out of places to go.

"I know Regina through my sister-in-law," Emma explained. "Mary Margaret's a teacher. Regina's son was in her class last year and he's in her summer program. I've never actually met her though. Regina, not my sister-in-law."

"Yeah, I figured."

Emma nodded slowly, chewing on the side of her tongue. She wished he would blink. And that he hadn't worn a leather jacket in August. "So, uh," she continued, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her jeans in some kind of desperate attempt to control her limbs. "You know the great, big media mogul that is Regina Mills?"

Killian and Will laughed at that – a loud, easy sound that didn't seem to match up with how this first impression, backtrack or otherwise, was going. "I'm going to tell her you called her that if only because the obvious sarcasm in your voice might actually bring her down a few pegs," Killian chuckled.

She was definitely missing something. Several somethings. She'd like to play another game.

"And you know about those?" Emma asked, digging herself even deeper into a conversation she was barely treading water in. "Her pegs. Or whatever."

"Definitely whatever."

He flashed her a smile – an actual smile and Emma swore she could feel it in her toes, opening her mouth to say something equally witty and entertaining and, maybe, on the record so the people who actually clicked on headlines on The Daily Caller would realize how goddamn fantastic she was, but she didn't even get a word out before a shrill and vaguely scandalized voice started yelling at all of them. "What the hell do any of you think you're doing?"

"Anna's fault," the whole team yelled and it wasn't exactly the lie it usually was. Anna groaned from her spot on the floor.

"It is not," she whined. "I dropped a glass. Or, you know, a couple glasses fell when I knocked them over because I was trying to make this whole situation less awkward and now everyone is making fun of me and I think I cut my hand."

Granny rolled her eyes, pushing her way back behind the bar and actually muttering shoo under her breath as she grabbed a first aid kit from underneath the counter. "Anna Magisno," she said slowly, snapping open the container and grabbing a roll of gauze. "We have rules in this restaurant. What is the number one rule in this restaurant?"

"Never go behind the bar," Anna mumbled. Emma squeezed her eyes shut – this all felt painfully familiar and she could have been in the midst of her thirty-seventh impression with Killian Jones and she wouldn't ever want him to know why. That was, absolutely, not on the record.

Granny hummed in agreement. "Exactly. Now, would any of you young ladies care to explain why you were all so intent on breaking the rules. Shouldn't you be playing?"

"We've got guests, Granny," Ruby supplied, nodding towards the two men behind Emma, both of whom looked slightly shellshocked at the scene unfolding in the middle of goddamn Times Square.

The restaurant went silent, everyone waiting for Granny to issue some kind of decree as to what happened next. She finished wrapping Anna's hand first, muttering something about making sure it didn't get infected, before walking slowly around the bar and staring at Killian and Will like she was appraising them.

"Why the leather?" she asked and Emma sighed loudly, letting go of the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

"Oh my God," she groaned, dropping back onto a stool. Ruby rested her chin on her shoulder, toying with the ends of her hair and smiling fondly at her grandmother.

Granny shrugged. "That's an honest question. It's August. They have names?"

"Killian Jones and Will Scarlet," Emma said. "They're those reporters we told you about. The ones Mary Margaret set up."

"Oh, right, right to make you all famous."

Emma's cheeks flushed, but she resisted the urge to groan again and that felt, almost, grown up. "That's his call. Not mine."

"That's not really how journalism works, Swan," Killian said softly, something just on the edge of his voice that sounded like disappointment or frustration or the tension she could feel sitting in between her shoulders like a dead weight.

V. V. V. V. V.

"You're doing that thing with your face again, love," he continued and he was in her space before she could move. She couldn't move – Ruby still had her chin hooked over her shoulder. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't actually murder me before we got to have an actual conversation."

"Is that not what we're doing now?" Emma challenged, pressing her lips together tightly when Ruby pinched the back of her shirt. "And I'm not actually killing you. Just kind of...mocking it up in my head."

"I'm not sure that's better."

She laughed, quiet and nervous, but a laugh all the same and she hadn't objected to love the last two times he'd used it. Not like she was keeping track.

Obviously not.

"So," he continued. "Thoughts?"

"On the pros and cons of virtual murder plans?"

"No. On that conversation. And maybe a bit of background. On you and the team and the game in general. Scarlet was right, that's kind of the point of this. Meet and greet or something a little less ostentatious sounding and, like you said, you're the leader here."

Ruby let out a strangled noise, somewhere between a guffaw and a cackle and Anna dropped another glass. "Oh my God," Emma mumbled again, doing her best to ignore Granny's very loud string of curses.

She was a bit surprised to see Will – or Scarlet or whatever – practically leap towards Anna, only pausing long enough to rest his cameras on the bar top. Killian rolled his eyes. "He thinks he's some kind of dashing gentleman," he grinned.

"Which makes you what, exactly?"

The smile got bigger. "I'm always a gentleman, love."

"Yeah," she said, just a bit more breathless than she wanted. Ruby made another noise. "Rubes," Emma hissed, moving her elbow quickly. "You think you could make that tea or whatever?"

"Whatever," Ruby repeated skeptically.

"Yup. Whatever."

"Does our intrepid reporter still want to get drunk at a questionably early time in the morning?"

"I think I have reigned in that particular urge," Killian said. He was still far too close to Emma. She couldn't really breathe.

"Color me impressed. Although, for future reference, if you do show up at some time after noon, or get crazy, five o'clock, Granny does make a pretty mean Irish coffee."

"Isn't that usually Bailey's?"

"Obviously. What were you looking for?"

"Rum," he said simply. Ruby's eyes darted towards Emma and she tried to shrug without actually making it too obvious that she was trying to make sure she wasn't being obvious. Killian laughed.

"Yeah, that's not how Irish coffee works," Emma said.

"Well acquainted with the bar stock, Swan?" Killian asked.

"Granny lets me pick up extra shifts when I'm in New York."

"In New York?"

Emma groaned, rolling her head back towards the slightly ancient ceiling that Granny had to have redone a few years before. "Off the record," she muttered and Killian mumbled a quiet of course she barely heard. "Alright. You've got ten minutes counselor."

"I think you're confusing metaphors."

"Cutting into your time."

"Should I set an alarm?"

"That's ok," Emma said, glancing over her shoulder when he didn't immediately follow her towards one of the booths in the far corner of the dining room. "Belle's some sort of human computer, so when Ruby inevitably reports back to her…" Emma pushed up from her seat, glancing at the edge of the bar to find the two women just a few inches apart, heads huddled together. She nodded. "I knew it," she laughed. "Good news does, after all, travel fast."

Killian made a noise in the back of his throat, lower lip stuck out and Emma tried to push a string of wholly inappropriate thoughts out of her mind. Jeez. She had no idea where those came from. Probably Boston. If she had to guess.

"We've jumped from metaphors to clichés, Swan," Killian said. It sounded a bit like an accusation.

"Having trouble keeping up then? Don't you have a degree in English or something?"

"Journalism."

"From?"

"Hunter."

"I have no idea what that is."

"CUNY school. Uptown. Good journalism program."

"Speak English."

He laughed, resting his elbows on the table and propping his chin up on his hand. His one hand. God, she was staring again. "City University of New York," Killian said slowly, emphasizing every single letter of every single syllable. She was thinking those horrible, no-good, vaguely dirty thoughts again.

Get a grip, Emma. Primary fire. Secondary fire. Reload. Attack. Attack. Attack.

"So," she said said slowly. Why was she still talking? "You're from New York then?"

"I feel like we're doing this backwards."

"Was that an answer?"

"No," he admitted. "But, yes."

"I'm confused."

That grin was infuriating. And distracting. And kind of overwhelming. It was very hot in that very air conditioned restaurant all of the sudden. "No, that wasn't an answer," Killian said. "But, yes, I'm from New York. Originally."

"So the Boston sponsorship was…"

"A job," he finished sharply and the tone of his voice left little room for anymore questions. Emma found some anyway.

"A reporting job? Did you write for another Mills site? I didn't know they had more than one."

His gaze shifted slightly, a departure from the joking and the teasing and Emma wondered if time travel was possible in the real world and if she'd have to sell her entire soul to get in on that action. The blue in his eyes turned darker, tongue darting out between his lips and he pulled his left hand off the table, dropping it without much ceremony, and a very loud thump, onto the side of the booth.

"What would you do?" she asked quietly. She really needed to learn when to shut up. She'd never learned that lesson. It drove David insane. It drove her teammates insane. It drove opposing players insane, each of them regularly cursing her out in the middle of games and then, usually, falling right into her plan and, promptly, dying.

Emma talked until she knew what to do.

Killian pulled his eyes up slowly and Emma bit her lip as soon as he looked at her, something that felt distinctly like feeling settling into the space between them. He didn't move his hand back onto the table. "When?" he mumbled.

"When dealing with a particularly difficult source?"

He barked out a laugh, shoulders drooping just a bit. "I apologize," he said. "I'm not trying to be a difficult source. In order of your questions – yes, no, they don't."

"Can I follow up?"

"Sure. But only because you've used appropriate jargon."

"I can't believe you just used the word jargon in an actual conversation."

"To be fair, I'm not sure I've ever really had a conversation quite like this," Killian smiled. "But if my journalism 101 class is to be trusted, jargon is the appropriate term."

The muscles in Emma's cheeks were starting to cramp up. This was the strangest conversation she'd ever had. Ruby was staring at her. "I don't know that I trust a class that's just called journalism 101. Seems kind of basic."

"Try something new then. Trust me on this one."

They were walking some kind of conversational tight rope – while carrying, at least, seventeen swords. And Emma wasn't convinced they weren't already nursing several critical wounds.

She narrowed her eyes, lip back between her teeth and tried to snuff out the anger she could feel boiling in the pit of her stomach.

Trust was not a term Emma was particularly familiar with – or particularly comfortable with. Especially when it came to strangers and multiple attempts at a first impression and tight ropes. She could count the number of people she trusted on her hands and most of them were standing at the far end of the bar, trying to hear what she absolutely was not saying.

David would tell her to think of something happy to close her eyes and remember home, but that felt a little bit like cheating since the home he was always talking about had only really ever been his and she'd been a teenage disaster that his mother had agreed to foster when the house in Portland shut down because of budget cuts.

And then he'd left – he had a life to live, after all – and Mary Margaret had gone with him and Storybrooke was never really Emma's home.

Nothing was.

So she'd left too. Seventeen years old and wandering through New England with the hope of finding something that would feel like somethingand she did.

Not really.

She thought….well she thought a lot of things, but that had all blown up in her face and they didn't have video game consoles in jail.

Emma Swan didn't do trust.

"Swan," Killian said, fingers tracing across the back of her wrist and she knew that wasn't the first time he'd tried to get her attention. She pulled her hand away quickly, nearly elbowing herself in the spleen in the process and he looked like he was a bit nervous she was going to actually attack him in the corner of Granny's.

"Yeah, still here," she announced. "Sorry, sorry."

"You don't have to apologize, love. You just went all glossy-eyed for a few minutes. I was curious where you went."

"Hmmmm?"

"Memories have a very specific type of look to them."

"You're trying to interview me," she said, voice low and accusation obvious.

Killian shook his head and they'd jumped from metaphor to cliché to serious so quickly, Emma was certain she had whiplash. That wouldn't help her keep her balance on that tightrope. Back to metaphors. "I'm not," he promised. "Just genuine curiosity and concern. I didn't even bring a pen with me."

"That's kind of shitty for a journalist."

And that was another love without a contradiction.

"Yeah," he agreed. "I'm afraid I can't guarantee that your team is going to immediately find fame and fortune because Gina decided this was something I should be doing."

Oh. He hadn't agreed to this. He probably didn't even want this. And he kept calling Regina Mills, executive editor of The Daily Caller by some kind of weird, familiar nickname.

Well, fuck.

"Can I ask my follow-up now?" Emma pressed, trying to keep her voice even.

Killian blinked. "Yeah, of course."

"What did you do in Boston? Honestly."

"Have I not been honest this whole time?"

"You're deflecting," she groaned. "And I've got, like, eighty-two questions I want to ask, so you're getting off fairly easy here." He did something ridiculous with his eyebrows, one side of his mouth quirking up and Emma rolled her eyes. "Oh God, ew."

"Alright," Killian said, tapping a quick rhythm on the imitation wood of the table. "No more deflecting. And I'm being totally honest with you. I worked in Boston for several years after I left a string of other reporting jobs that were increasingly less and less what I wanted to do when it came to reporting jobs. I was the crime reporter for The Boston Herald, covered breaking news, shootings, deaths, lots of blood. The shit no one else wants to cover because it's absolutely depressing. You can ask Scarlet for his opinion on that, if you'd like to confirm your sources."

Emma shook her head slowly, not quite sure what the appropriate response to that kind of soliloquy was. "No, that's ok," she mumbled. "I believe you."

"Good."

They didn't say anything for what felt like several eternities or, at least, a few sunlit days, the only sound in the restaurant the quiet murmurings coming from the bar as Will said something that made Anna cackle and Elsa crack a smile behind a well-placed hand.

What was that one control? Healing and something about buffers? X?

It might have been X.

X. X. X. X.

"Are you playing the game in your head again?" Killian asked suddenly and Emma nodded before she could come up with a better excuse.

"How could you tell that?"

"You're something of an open book."

"What?" she shouted, the flush creeping back into her cheeks and up her neck until she was certain she was actually sweating on her side of the bench. "No. That's insane. You've known me for, like, two seconds."

"I think you're timing might be a little off there, Swan. Should we get the human computer over here to confirm?"

"You knew I was being sarcastic about that before."

"I did. And you're proving my point."

She sighed, breath rushing out of her nose loudly and quickly and, probably, less-than-attractively. That last one didn't matter. She wasn't trying to be attractive. She had a game to play. And win. And a career to get started.

Stability.

That was the point of this.

Play the game, get out of David and Mary Margaret's apartment, get David and Mary Margaret to stop acting like she was their twenty-eight-year-old kid and then, maybe, find a home. Or something.

At least make enough money to buy more than Pop-Tarts.

"Fine," she grumbled, eyes doing something totally unfair when Killian shrugged out of his jacket. "What are you doing?"

"Getting comfortable?"

"Why?"

"This interview, Swan."

"Oh, God."

He grinned at her – all blue eyes and teasing and the curve of his mouth was stupid, as if that was a thing that mouths could actually be, curved or otherwise. "Why are you only occasionally in New York?" Killian asked.

"Turning the tables, huh?" He shrugged. "Um," Emma said, trying to consider an answer that would let her save a little bit of face. "Well, I've been gaming for as long as that's been a term that people don't automatically laugh at when they hear it and I'd been playing some other things, mostly with Ruby, but then we heard about them starting this tournament and calling it a League and the money and we figured...why not?"

"Just like that? You become a professional video game player overnight?"

"No, God, you really have no idea how this works do you?"

"If I actually answer honestly is that going to ruin my credibility completely?" Killian asked.

Emma shook her head. "No. Why'd you agree to do this story if you don't know anything about video games? M's said Regina wanted this to be like a whole thing. An entire year just following us around."

"It's a good story," he said sincerely, looking straight at Emma like...something she couldn't quite define. Her vocabulary wasn't that extensive. She probably needed a degree to come up with another adjective.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," Killian repeated. "So you've been playing professionally for awhile then? This is going to sound like an asshole question, but how…."

"Do I pay for anything?" He laughed under his breath, tugging on a piece of hair that curled around the back of his year and nodded once. "At first it wasn't easy, but at the risk of also sounding like an asshole, I'm really ridiculously good at video games. And absurdly competitive."

The tightrope seemed to widen just a bit until it was maybe a slab of wood or a two-by-four and Emma, finally, felt like she'd found her balance. "Confidence isn't a bad thing, Swan," Killian said, pulling both his hands back onto the table.

"Yeah, it doesn't surprise me that you'd think that." His eyebrows moved again, but he almost looked amused and Emma was half a second away from sticking her tongue out before she remembered who she was. "Whatever," she muttered, a picture of adult responsibility. "Anyway, I'd been playing the game on and off since it was being beta tested and when they announced the League, I told Ruby I wanted to form a team and here we are."

"Where?"

"What?"

"Where are we?" Killian elaborated, smile still etched on his face and Emma found herself staring at those crinkles around his eyes when he looked at her more than she probably should have.

"A rag tag team of six-degrees-of-separation friends who are all questionably good at playing Overwatch and fairly determined to make a shit ton of money."

"That's not a bad place to be," he said. "Money in New York helps a lot."

"Hence the shifts at Granny's when I've got two seconds to breathe. My brother would kill me if he knew I was trying to pay him to sleep on his floor, but he and Mary Margaret have done just about everything except actually roll out a red carpet since I got to the city. They deserve a bit in return."

"I thought you got a base salary?"

Emma pursed her lips, alternating between that metaphor about planks of wood and keeping her balance and being undeniably impressed that Killian Jones had done, at least some of, his homework. "So you do know some things," she smiled. "Yeah, there is and it's, let's say, generous, but we still have to make the cut in two weeks and get some sponsors and there's a lot of red tape. Still. Especially since we're….you know…"

"Unexpected professional video game players?"

"Yeah, exactly that. That's why Mary Margaret, in her infinite wisdom, thought mentioning the team to Regina would be some kind of fantastic publicity idea. She likes to imagine she's our manager, publicist and PR hack all rolled up into one."

"A lot of responsibility for one person," Killian mused.

"If anyone could do it, it would be Mary Margaret."

He tapped his fingers again, the rhythm slowing slightly like he was thinking. "Ok, so if I'm keeping track here, Mary Margaret is your sister-in-law. Teaches Henry, I'm assuming?" Emma shrugged. "Ok and she's married to your brother. David?" Another nod. "How did we end up with the six-degrees-of-separation squad?"

"That's not actually our team name you know."

"I didn't."

"You're not going to demand an answer? You're really a shitty journalist, you know." The joke fell flat – again. She should really stop talking. And trying to make jokes. She was trying to get him to smile again.

That was insane.

"There are more than a few people who would agree with you, Swan," Killian muttered, self-loathing practically rolling off him in waves. It probably matched up with hers. "But, in this case, I'll repeat myself. I'm not here as a journalist, just an interested meet'er and greet'er. And you can tell me whatever you want."

"Widow's Wail," Emma said. Deflecting. Again. Killian smiled. "That's the team name."

"Yeah, I got that. Why that though? Joffrey was the worst character in that entire series."

Her eyes were going to sustain permanent damage, Emma was positive, jumping between surprise and joy and something that felt a bit like understanding. "Agreed," she said. "But, you know, Valyrian steel is Valyrian steel and also there's a character in the game called Widowmaker. So, puns above all else."

"Obviously."

"How did you know about Joffrey?" she asked, only realizing she'd started to lean forward when she felt the table push into an internal organ.

"Is Widowmaker your character, Swan?"

"Soothsayer."

"Open book."

She rolled her eyes, but her stomach might have flipped or flopped or twisted into several naval-grade knots and Emma kind of wished she'd agreed to that drink at ten-thirty in the morning. "Are you a secret nerd, Killian Jones?"

Definitely amusement. He leaned forward, fingers finder their way back to her hand and her palm and a very prominent vein that he seemed determined to trace in its entirety. Emma tried to will the goosebumps on her skin to go away, so, naturally, more appeared and oxygen was, suddenly, very difficult to come by in the back corner booth at Granny's.

"It's a very popular show, Swan," he said, voice low and husky and she hated that she even knew the word husky let alone used it to describe a relative stranger's voice. "And incomplete book series."

"You say that like you're personally offended."

"Maybe."

She laughed and, fuck all, pulled her hand away. No more goosebumps. Killian dropped both his hand back to his side. "So, uh," Emma stuttered, staring at a notch in the wood. "You asked about six-degrees?"

"I did."

"Ok."

She told him – how Ruby and Mary Margaret had gone to college together and, essentially, adopted Emma as soon as Emma returned to the land of the living nearly a decade before. She managed to leave out the whole year in jail side of the story and God help her if Killian Jones who was, admittedly, a very good reporter if his ability to follow a conversation that didn't make much sense was any indication, found out about that.

Emma met Ruby – loud and boisterous and so self confident it actually hurt sometimes – when she was eighteen and, by extension, met Granny who easily and enthusiastically opened up her restaurant as soon as Widow's Wail decided that it was going to take on the Overwatch world a few months before.

Ruby brought in Belle, who may or may not have ben her girlfriend if they could actually decide on labels in some kind of antiquated way, after they'd met at a gaming convention at the Javits Center and Belle had brought in Anna.

Anna and Belle worked in the New York Public Library system together years before, which was an almost unbelievable idea because if there was one thing Anna was not capable of doing, it was being quiet. She almost talked as much as Emma did during games. Anna, however, had come as part of a package deal with her older sister Elsa, who didn't say much, but was absurdly good at playing Pharah.

Tink was a recent addition, more necessity than six-degrees and only there because she'd answered a CraigsList ad and Mary Margaret promised she had a good feeling about her and Emma got David to run an off-the-books background check.

She wasn't a murderer. And she was good at the game.

They were totally going to make the League cut.

Emma told Killian all of it, and he hadn't written down a single word, just watched her and kept staring at her with interest and understanding and she nearly growled when Ruby announced she'd given you ten extra minutes already, time to practice again.

"Yeah, yeah, of course," Killian said, standing back up and tugging something out of his pocket. A card. With a number on it.

"I thought you said you just got here," Emma muttered. She took the card anyway.

He smiled grimly, more a grimace than the grin she'd gotten questionably used to already, and tilted his head slightly. "Gina is nothing if not prepared. She knew I'd want to write about you."

Ruby was choking on air. And Anna was actually giggling.

V. V. V. V. V.

"The team," Killian corrected quickly, the ends of his ears going pink again when he tugged on his hair. "Obviously. The team. A collective you."

"Yeah, right," Emma said, nodding like some kind of novelty dashboard toy. "Sure, um, so, when do the actual interviews start?"

"Whenever you want, Swan."

"You're just leaving it up to me?"

He shrugged. "Leave 'em wanting more or something. Although I wouldn't mind doing something around the cut in two weeks."

"That makes sense."

"So," he continued, nodding back to the card she was still inexplicably holding. "Let me know what works for you guys and we can go from there. C'mon, Scarlet. You owe me some coffee."

He flashed her another smile – warm and honest and enough to make Emma's whole mind reel at even the thought of it – and then he walked out the door, Will Scarlet half a step behind with his head twisted over his shoulder to gape at Emma.

Or, at least, that's how Ruby recounted the morning when Mary Margaret asked about it that.

"It was," Ruby said dramatically, falling back on hand gestures to really paint the scene, "like the journalism heavens opened up and delivered one, Killian Jones to change Emma Swan's entire life."

"Aw," Mary Margaret smiled. She glanced at Emma just a bit wistfully, reaching out to brush her hand over her forearm and ignored whatever strangled noise David made from the kitchen.

Emma rolled her eyes. "You both need to stop and then retreat, quickly."

"I had to give them ten extra minutes of one-on-one conversation," Ruby whispered, like she hadn't mentioned that sixteen times already.

"That seems like a sign, Emma," Mary Margaret said. "If Rubes hadn't shown up after the second ten minutes would you have just kept talking?"

Emma shook her head. "No."

That was a lie.

It was very easy to talk to him. And banter. And maybe flirt? It felt a hell of a lot like flirting. It shouldn't have. There were probably moral codes about journalists flirting with their subjects.

"Hey," Emma said sharply and Mary Margaret nearly dropped whatever craft she was doing. "What are you making right now?"

"I'm cutting up fabric so that the kids and I can make do-it-yourself book covers next week."

"This is the most boring Friday night in the history of the world."

"Well, that's rude," Mary Margaret muttered, jerking her scissors straight through the fabric in her hand. "And it's the last week of camp. I'm running out of ideas, so give me a break."

"Also, she's trying to change the topic of conversation," David muttered knowingly, a bottle in one hand and a smile on his face and Emma rolled her eyes again. "Your face is going to get stuck that way."

"You don't know science," Emma hissed, eyes darting towards the laptop screen perched on Ruby's leg. "Why are you watching that?" she asked. "You know it's just going to make you mad."

Ruby shrugged, but didn't answer, groaning when the voice on the stream started shouting again. "Shit, this asshole is making us look like chumps. You know some guy just donated five thousand dollars."

"Shit," Emma breathed. "It's because of that name. People think it's funny if some guy with a funny voice calls himself Pan and plays video games all the time."

"Remind me again why we're not doing this?"

Emma slumped into the corner of the couch, grabbing a pillow and, promptly, stuffing her face into it. They'd covered that as well – more times than they'd covered how much she absolutely, positively was not flirting with Killian Jones all morning.

Streaming made money. A shit ton of money. And didn't require teams or CraigsList ads to fill out teams or League cuts that might see this dream shot down before it even had a chance to pick up much steam.

Streaming was, also, uncertain. It was about the face and the look and the entertainment value and if you weren't a name then no one was going to pay a ten-bucks-a-month fee to watch you play a video game or, more importantly, donate a shit ton of money.

"We've been over this, Ruby," David mumbled, tugging the pillow away from Emma's face.

Ruby glared at him. "Detective Nolan swoops in to save the day again."

"There is no swooping involved, I promise."

"We have been over this before though," Emma pointed out, ducking behind the pillow when Ruby threw another one at her. David groaned a quiet reprimand, but Mary Margaret smiled over another sheet of stretched out fabric and elementary DIY's and Emma figured it was as good a time as any to launch into the string of questions she hadn't been able to get out of her head all day.

She'd played like garbage all day.

"Hey, M's," she ventured and Mary Margaret hummed in response. "Have you, uh, have you ever heard anyone refer to Regina Mills as Gina?"

Mary Margaret dropped her scissors. "What?"

"Gina," Emma repeated. "Like, you know, in passing or something."

"You're serious?"

"Oh, I knew it," Ruby crowed. "I knew it! I knew you were thinking about him all day! Is that why you played as bad as you did?"

"You played bad, Em?" David asked, brushing off Mary Margaret when she mumbled badly under her breath. "Badly," he corrected. "That's not your thing."

"I know," Emma snapped. David made a face, far too comfortable with Emma and any sort of temper tantrum she might be staging in the corner of his couch. "We beat every team we played. It's not a big deal."

Mary Margaret hadn't blinked in days and was, quite possibly, trying to read Emma's mind. She probably could. "Why were you asking about Regina Mills?"

"Generic curiosity?"

"Killian Jones called her Gina," Ruby supplied, the words nearly bursting out of her mouth. Emma could feel a headache forming in between her eyebrows. It was probably from rolling her eyes so much.

"Is this about Killian Jones?" David asked. Emma grabbed the bottle out of his hand without a word, downing half the beer and wincing when she realized it was beer. "That's a weird name," he continued. "What kind of name is that?"

"You're worried about his name?" Emma asked.

"No, I'm worried about why you're worried about his name and whatever he's calling other women."

"Regina Mills is not just other women," Mary Margaret said, finally setting down the fabric to sit up and level Emma with a look. They'd shifted into important very quickly. "She's a big deal."

"Yeah, I gathered that," Emma said. "This kind of brings me back to my original question though, how do you know Regina Mills? Is she at school all the time?"

"That was rude again."

"I'm curious."

"And that leads to a lack of manners?" Emma shrugged, wiggling her fingers at David, an unspoken command to get her something to drink that she'd actually want to drink. He groaned, rolling his whole head in response, but he stood up anyway, And left his beer on the table without a coaster. "Oh my God," Mary Margaret sighed. "Animals. The whole lot of you. I'm going to tell Ruth."

"Tattle tale," Ruby mumbled, but there was a smile on her face and something that sounded a bit like love in her voice and Mary Margaret smiled.

Emma needed to win this whole goddamn tournament. She needed to make money and find some consistency and then she needed to tell Mary Margaret and David and Ruby that they were good in some kind of questionably large way and she was fairly sure she'd still be wandering around New England if it weren't for them.

That kind of thing sounds absurd out loud.

She'd just play video games instead. That was much more mature.

"Whatever," Mary Margaret smiled. "Emma got David out of the room under the guise of wanting alcohol."

"Or maybe I just wanted alcohol," Emma argued.

"And to know more about Regina Mills."

"That too," she agreed, tugging her legs up underneath her and resting her chin on her knees. "So who's the one you're teaching now? Henry?"

Mary Margaret's whole body visibly perked up, shoulders rolling back and neck, somehow, getting longer and she didn't just look surprised – she looked stunned. "How do you know about Henry?" Emma was blushing. She was going to give herself a permanent skin condition. "Oh my God, did you and this guy talk about Henry Mills?"

"Killian," she corrected quickly. She also ignored whatever look Mary Margaret shot Ruby's direction. "And just kind of in passing. There was talking. We talked. He's a journalist!"

Mary Margaret nodded and Emma felt like she was being placated – and sixteen. "So you guys talked then?"

"Mary Margaret, God, answer the goddamn question!"

Ruby nearly fell off her chair, her whole body twisting in on itself as she tried to control her laughter. David was hiding in the kitchen. With the alcohol. Emma wasn't sure she appreciated that. "Ok, ok, I give," Mary Margaret said, raising her hands in defeat. "Full disclosure. I have only ever met Regina Mills the one she actually did come to get Henry and Roland a couple of weeks ago. I kind of cornered her and shouted about you until she listened. I think half the reason was because her sons knew about the game."

"Sons?" Killian hadn't mentioned that. Maybe he didn't know? But then why call her Gina? None of this made sense.

"Yeah, well, I guess. I think Henry is hers, but Roland is Roland Locksley and I think that's her husband's son. I don't know. It doesn't really matter. She seemed to love them both."

"You're a giant, sentimental sap."

"And what kind of sap would I be if I wasn't giant or sentimental?" Mary Margaret asked, squeezing Emma's hand when she rolled her eyes – again. "Anyway, it's nice. And she listened to her kids. Which is more than I can say for what she's experienced."

"I'm sorry, what? That was dramatic."

Mary Margaret glanced at Ruby again and she just stuck her lower lip out in response. "Em," Ruby said slowly. "Do you really not know?"

"About?"

"Regina Mills and how she ended up executive editor in chief of The Daily Caller." Emma shook her head. She didn't really...follow news. Or clickbait websites with lifestyles sections. Mary Margaret looked like she was close to tears.

"You know her mother is Cora Mills," she explained. Oh. Oh. Cora Mills was everywhere – seemed to own everything and had her hand in everything and she probably controlled every headline anyone in the United States saw on a daily basis.

This just got a whole lot more intimidating.

"And," Mary Margaret continued, "as the story goes. Regina wanted to cover what she wanted to cover, was deep in the music scene in the city a decade and a half ago or so. Until something happened. There was a death. Someone at school said it was her boyfriend or her fiancé, but I don't know if any of that was true. Anyway, she walked away from music and joined her mother's empire and, a couple months later, she was in charge of news and climbing up the ladder and now she runs the day to day ops of the website."

Emma blinked, trying to take in that landslide of information. "Why do you know that? And did you use the word ops in real life just now?"

"She used empire too," Ruby added, still laughing and making the weird, cautious energy of the room disappear with a few words.

Mary Margaret clicked her tongue in frustration. "Yes on both accounts. And true on both accounts. It's a sad story, Emma! She didn't want to be in charge. Also it's a very fancy school with very fancy parents and a very gossipy teacher's break room."

"Does your school have a website where they post anonymous rumors about their classmates and then sit on fill-in-the-blank museum steps?" Emma asked.

"It was the Met," Mary Margaret answered impatiently. "And that's a dated reference."

Emma shrugged. "Ok, so Regina Mills is a big, important journalism lady. That still doesn't explain why Killian was using familiar nicknames and referring to kids by name. Did she say anything about him specifically when you mentioned the story?"

"No. She just agreed it sounded like a really good story and said she knew someone who would be perfect to write it."

"Really? Perfect? She used that exact word?"

"I mean, don't quote me or anything."

"Where are you going with this, Em?" Ruby asked.

She had no idea – not really. She had half an idea and maybe kind of a plan and she wasn't really sure any of them were more than wishful thinking that would only serve to, eventually, blow up in her face. "I don't know," Emma admitted softly, grabbing the pillow again and burying her face in it.

She wished she'd played better that afternoon.

"Can I come back in now?" David shouted from the kitchen and Emma laughed into her pillow.

"Yeah, yeah, thanks for agreeing to the unspoken plan."

He grinned at her, holding out a glass of wine. "You guys want to play later? Something mindless?"

Ruby didn't even wait for anyone to answer, just jumped up and grabbed controllers, throwing them back in the general direction of the couch. "MarioKart? MarioKart? MarioKart?"

"Why is she asking like it's actually a question?" David grumbled, grabbing a controller and handing another to Mary Margaret as he tugged her back towards his side, in between him and Emma. There was not enough room on the couch for all three of them. There was a metaphor in there somewhere.

Emma ignored it.

"Is this actually mindless?" Mary Margaret sighed. "You guys are all going to dominate and I'm just going to embarrass myself again."

"Oh, don't be like that, M's," Emma muttered, bumping her shoulder against her friends. "We'll give you a head start."

"Rude. Tattling to Ruth."

They didn't give Mary Margaret a heads start – only because David argued it was unethical and Emma drank a questionable amount of wine, enough to leave her head spinning by the time Ruby fell asleep curled up in her chair. David and Mary Margaret mumbled their good nights and Emma knew sleep was a distant hope. She grabbed her phone instead, typing in the name she was fairly positive had been tattooed on her brain at this point.

Killian Jones turned up nearly six-hundred thousand Google search results.

Police commish warns of risk of 'more bloodshed' after double murder

7 boys charged in violent Quincy attack

DA: Boston hospital failed to notify cops of patient's deadly assault

"Shit," Emma mumbled, threatening to snap her phone in half. There was story after story, each one just a bit more grisly than the last. Page four of the Google results, finally, turned up something different.

Herald Staff Braces for Fresh Round of Cuts

"Oh, fucking shit," Emma hissed, nearly dislocating her thumb in an effort to scroll down her screen. She couldn't find his name. She couldn't really read. The whole room was spinning. And she, somehow, had even more questions about Killian Jones than she'd started with, namely just what made a laid-off reporter perfect for her team.