I don't own OUAT. Thanks for reading. Thanks to my dear Beta dancingdoula
WASN'T LOVE, LOVE.
Chapter 02: Roberta.
It was a hot Friday afternoon when the call came. Roberta Roberts was sitting at her crowded desk with a bunch of papers in her left hand. She had been trying to make the ever-growing amount of paperwork decrease, with no luck, while she waited for a local restaurant owner that had some issues with his passport. Then the call came.
Roberta was a tall woman in her late forties. Her heart was one of her best characteristics; she was kind, cheerful and darling. As a lawyer she had spent her whole career working as an agent for social services in Boston. She was always willing to help, but that call was a pain in the ass.
Emma Swan was a pain in the ass. Her ass to be perfectly honest with herself, because she was the one to look after her. Emma Swan, her personal curse.
Blonde, green eyes, intelligent, strong and stubborn. But funny things happened around Emma -most of them if she was upset or frightened, and that little bundle of nerves was always upset.
Appliances broke, kitchens blew up, objects disappeared to be found in odd places, people fainted. One foster family had reported a bird talking with her... Emma Swan meant chaos. And to Roberta Roberts that meant paperwork, tons and tons of it.
So as the kind and understanding Roberta raised the phone, she already knew they needed a new foster home for the little nightmare.
"Eighth district Boston Center Social Services."
"Mrs. Robinson?"
"I'm Mrs. Roberts."
"Mmm… Mrs. Roberts, it's about Emma Swan... can you take care of her… I mean… our family is not interested in taking care of her anymore." Roberta shook her head as the words fell out of the phone like heavy rocks.
"Why?" Asked Roberta innocently, 'I may sound crazy but odd things happen around her' mouthed the lawyer silently.
"I may sound crazy... but odd things happen around her... we can't… the TV is stuck in the ceiling... We're afraid." Roberta sighed. Not again! The girl was just five years old, and since the failed adoption two years ago, she had bounced from foster home to foster home, unwanted and unloved.
"Okay, but you understand that her monthly paycheck should be returned." She was sure that the orphanage would be 'happy' to take her back.
"Thanks, thanks, thanks! We are coming…with the girl, her things and the paycheck. You can keep it as long as she stays with you."
Roberta literally buried her head in the paperwork. Usually she loved kids, but with that little demon she was helpless. She really wondered if that was the reason she had been abandoned on the side of the road.
Someone knocked on the door and she raised her head.
"Come in."
"Mrs. Roberts, as heartbreaking as always, I see." He smiled brightly at her. Roberta smiled back, blushing slightly.
"Mr. Jones, as charming as always, I see." Mr. Jones was a handsome, Irish young man, half her age, and a true gentleman—a man that could make any grown-up woman blush with a simple smile.
"Sit down please, Mr. Jones. Your new passport is here." His smile brightened even more.
"Marvelous!"
Roberta thought that precise gesture-his eyebrows raised and his tongue sliding over his lower lip-should be forbidden.
She unglued her eyes from his lips and focused on the passport issue. "It was strange; they couldn't find any birth documents or driving licenses, just your ship's license."
He glanced up, guileless as a lamb. "The problem is solved now, I suppose?"
"Yes. As you said, a priest presented your birth certificate at the local police office in Galway. Your new passport… here you are."
"You're a saint, my guardian angel."
"Now, Mr. Jones, don't lose it again." She cleared her throat, the next question was an important one. "Have you thought of participating in the AYTCP, the Adjusting Young Troubled Criminals Program?"
He flashed her a toothy smile apologetically. "Ye know Mrs. Roberts, the business is just starting, I just hired Pierre..."
Roberta nodded, she knew she had already asked for his help; hiring a swindler was not something everyone would do. "Take it into account if you need extra help with the ship."
The front door opened and Roberta could see the unmistakable silhouette of Emma Swan through the translucent glass in the door. "Give me a second, Mr. Jones."
OoOoOoOoO
Hook's smile disappeared as soon as the woman exited the room. Finally, he could relax. His circle of lies was closed, now that he had secured a real past. Bought it. Turning around, he could see the tall mannish silhouette of the lawyer and a smaller one, a lass by her bouncing curls.
He smiled contentedly; he had all the bloody papers. Paper. Who in his right mind would ever imagine that a world existed where papers were the most valuable item? He had arrived in that world three years ago. First he had been locked up because it was illegal to own a cutlass and a hook; he had escaped. Then he had been locked up in an asylum, a bloody mental asylum, because it was not normal or sane to be a pirate, nor to speak about curses and other worlds; he had escaped. Then he had rescued his Jolly Roger, because in that world you needed papers—papers to prove you owned things, that you had been born, that you could sail a ship.
Bloody smelly papers.
"I don't want to go to the orphanage!" the lass yelled from the other side of the door. At the same time, something exploded inside the old phone on the desk with a small pop and a puff of smoke.
Hook turned around to see the smoke slowly dissipating. If he hadn't known better, he would have sworn it was magic. But that world had no magic, just papers.
He took a look at his brand new real passport. Irish. Killian Jones was Irish. Everyone assumed he was, so why not? Later, he had purposely lost his old fake one in order to obtain a real one.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Jones," the Roberts lass said, closing the door behind her. "Do you happen to want to adopt a child?" The arc of her eyebrows suggested it was a joke.
"I don't think it's legal, Mrs. Roberts," he smiled as he stood up, "my being an outsider."
"I'm only joking, Mr. Jones." They shook hands. "See you soon, when you decide to take in another former convict."
"See you soon, milady." He exited the room, bowing.
Once in the street, Hook walked fast towards the docks. It was practically time to open. For the first time in three centuries, Captain Hook needed money. He had spent his gold, changing it for paper money—again, paper!
When at the helm one night, an idea had come. The imp would hide somewhere in that world, but not everywhere, only those places where English was the main language.
He had left Great Britain after failing to find the Crocodile there. During those two years, he had used a big amount of money in his research. Nothing. He had moved to the States, and had spent a big amount of money in private investigators. Nothing.
So at last, before he had completely run out of cash, he had opened a business. He had tried piracy at the beginning, but even with his magic ship, he had no crew, and that world's ships didn't carry many valuable treasures.
By chance he had discovered a ship that was also a restaurant. So after diving into a large amount of paper and spending most of his last stack of gold, he had settled down in Boston, converting the Jolly Roger into a restaurant, and living as an upstanding citizen, something he had not done since he was a young man in the navy.
Somehow it felt good not to live on the edge.
He hadn't forgotten his revenge, his Milah. He still looked for the Crocodile, but decided it would be far more productive and cheaper to finish the hunt on his own. So he was saving the money he earned instead of freely spending it on private detectives.
Oo0o0oO
Meanwhile at five years old, Emma Swan waited, silently crying in a room full of toys she never touched. Alone, unloved and forgotten, wishing that her parents would show up or that someone would take her in and love her, or at least care for her. She wanted a family. Emma Swan wanted to be a normal kid.
In the next chapters Emma will grow up, the time will go fast forwards because all of us want our babies to meet!
Thanks for reading!
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