As it turned out, breaking into Neal's apartment wasn't necessary.
As soon as she spotted the young man working at the apartment building's front desk, Emma knew she had a perfect way in. Returning to her car, she dug an old Boston Red Sox baseball cap out of her trunk and handed it to Killian.
"What's this?"
"A baseball cap," she said slowly, as though talking to a child. "You wear it on your head."
At his look, she rolled her eyes. "The kid working at the desk might recognize you, dumbass. I know you don't want to mess up the sex hair, but sacrifices must be made for the sake of news."
His eyebrows went sky high, and he grinned. "Sex hair?"
"You know …" She pantomimed messing up her hair, then grabbed the cap from him and smacked him on the arm with it before cramming it on his head. "Never mind. Just let me do the talking and don't let him get a good look at your face."
She took a deep breath at the door and sent a mental apology Neal's way before pushing it open. Neal, of all people, should appreciate a good con; still, he might not be so thrilled under the circumstances.
It was surprisingly easy to work up a few tears as she walked up to the desk. "Hi there, do you remember me?" she asked softly.
"Sure!" The kid — Brian, she remembered — brightened. "I never forget a fellow Browncoat. Hey, are you okay?"
She swallowed a smile. He did remember her. After Neal had refused to answer her calls a few weeks ago about another story, she'd practically camped out in the lobby for an hour talking "Firefly" with Brian until she caught Neal on his way out.
"I - I've been better. You know I'm a … friend of Neal Cassidy?" She let the pause linger, letting Brian assume she meant much more than friend. Beside her, Jones leaned against the counter with his face turned away from them.
"Yeah, I heard he's in the hospital. That's a bum deal, man."
"Mmm, yeah. The thing is, I thought if I could bring a few things from his apartment — like photos and stuff — it might cheer him up and help him get better faster. But I don't have a key …"
She could tell he wasn't going for it, so she brought out the big guns, letting her tears fall. "I just want him t-to be o-okay," she cried.
Brian looked panicked, glancing at Killian, who gave every appearance of not giving a damn. "Look, hey, it's okay," he said. "I'm not really supposed to do this, but if you promise to be in and out in fifteen minutes …" He dug out a copy of the key and handed it over. "I'm sure your friend is going to be fine."
She gave him a watery smile and took the key, pushing Killian toward the elevator.
As soon as the doors shut behind them, Jones started clapping. "Bravo, love. Grade-A performance."
"Bite me," she said, swiping the tears off her face, then gasping as he stepped forward into her space.
"Ahh, Swan," he said softly, leaning close enough that his lips grazed her ear.
She told herself to move, shove him, something, but her body wasn't obeying any commands.
"Careful what you wish for," he said, nipping at her earlobe before pulling away and smirking at her.
The smirk broke the spell, and she smacked him on the chest. She was trying to come up with some kind of cutting response when the door slid open. Glaring at him, she pushed him out of the way and headed for Neal's door.
The place was a pit.
Emma groaned. Nearly every available surface was littered with pizza and Chinese boxes, plates, beer bottles, DVD cases and stacks of paper. A laundry basket overflowing with rumpled clothes sat on the couch and what looked like a fort built out of Coke cans took up the entire coffee table. She remembered that Neal was a bit of a slob, but that was in college. Obviously he hadn't grown out of it since.
"How the hell are we supposed to find anything in here in fifteen minutes?"
Jones shrugged. "I'll search through some of this refuse; you see if you can find his computer."
She sighed and went down the hall, peeking into doors until she found an office. This room was less of a disaster area, consisting mostly of a desk and a bookshelf. The bookshelf was overloaded, with books stacked in piles all around it.
She dropped into the desk chair and woke the laptop up, quickly scanning through the hard drive for anything that looked suspicious. She mentally kicked herself for not bringing something to back it up onto, but she'd been in a hurry to do something and hadn't thought it through.
Nothing stood out to her on the hard drive, so she checked his browser history. Nothing of interest. What looked like a few porn sites — charming — and a bunch of sites about Florida travel.
Sighing, she went back to the hard drive, opening folders randomly. Honestly, she didn't think he would keep anything on the computer itself.
If it were me, I'd keep the info on a flash drive.
She stood out of the chair slightly, looking over the desk. Nothing. She checked the drawers, but other than an impressively long paper clip chain and about a thousand pens, there was nothing there either. She sat back and spun the chair around, scanning the room.
"Anything?" Killian leaned on the doorjamb.
"I don't think so," she said. "I was just wondering …"
Her eyes were caught by a red LEGO block sitting on the bookshelf. Who had just one LEGO?
"Our fifteen minutes are up. I hate to say it, but we should get out of here before …" Killian trailed off as she stood and picked up the block. "What is that?"
She pulled the end of the block off to reveal a flash drive. "Maybe nothing, but maybe our evidence?"
She shrugged and headed for the door, snagging a couple of framed photos from a shelf in the living room on the way out. Since she was here anyway, she might as well follow through on the idea of taking them to Neal when he woke up.
"We need to see what's on here," she said as they got in the elevator.
"Your place or mine?" Jones purred.
His tone made her think of very different things than work, but she pushed those kind of thoughts to the side. "The way today has been going for me, I probably have no power at home," she said lightly. "We'd better go to yours."
"Wow," she said, gawking at his neat-as-a-pin living room, decorated in friendly shades of blue and brown. "Now I'm really glad we didn't go to my place. I mean, it's not as bad as Neal's, but … I had no idea you were neat freak."
He laughed. "Eh, my Dad was military, and we had to keep everything ship-shape at all times. My brother always rebelled against it, but I didn't mind so much. It stuck with me, I guess."
"Hmmm." She gently sat her bag on an end table. "And here I thought you were the bad boy of the Jones family."
"Well, it's all relative, isn't it?" He stepped closer, invading her space again, but she refused to turn to look at him. Instead, she pulled Neal's flash drive out of her pocket.
"So … computer?"
He waited a beat, then cleared his throat. "Right." He waved a hand toward the couch. "Sit, I'll be right back."
She sank into the leather sofa and nodded in approval. It was just the right softness to be comfortable yet supportive.
Killian came back carrying a MacBook and sat next to her. "All right, then, let's see it."
She plugged the flash drive in and scooted a little closer to him as a window opened on the screen. There were only two folders: "CIP" and "king."
She opened the CIP folder; it contained a series of PDFs. Opening one at random, she frowned. "Community Investment Program?"
Jones shook his head as she opened a couple other files. "I've no idea. Looks like financial documents."
"We could have our business reporter look at them," she offered. "Belle might be able to tell us what all these numbers mean. Math's not my strong subject."
"Me neither. Could be important, though. What's in the other folder?"
There was a single video file, also labeled "king."
They exchanged a glance, then Emma shrugged and double-clicked on the file.
It took a moment before she realized what she was seeing. She clapped a hand over her eyes. "Oh God. Oh. My. God. Is that —"
"The mayor boning his son's fiancee? Yeah, that's what it looks like."
She still had her eyes covered, but that didn't stop her from hearing the sounds. Oh dear lord, the sounds. "Ugh. I just can't … why?"
She snuck a peek and got a revolting view of George King's naked ass. She winced and closed the laptop. "I'm sorry, I just need a sec."
Jones was looking both dazed and horrified. "That's the worst porno of all time," he said.
Their eyes caught, and then they were both laughing, falling back on the couch. As soon as she started getting it under control, Killian made a pervy comment about "public service" that set her off again.
Finally, they wound down, and she sighed. "I could have lived my whole life without seeing that," she said.
"Agreed. But what a scoop it's going to make," he said, grinning at her.
She found herself grinning back before she remembered yet again why she hated Killian Jones. Even if — especially if — it felt great to be basically snuggled up against his warm, solid body on the couch, that didn't mean he could be trusted.
Red Alert, Swan!
Frowning, she pushed herself up and back onto the edge of the couch. "I hate to say it, but we'd better finish watching this thing."
She started to raise the lid, scowling when he stopped her, covering her hand with his.
"What the hell did I ever do to you, Swan?" his voice was even, but she could hear the anger underneath it.
She snatched her hand away and stood up. "Are you even serious right now?"
"Deadly serious. I'd really like to know, since I thought we were … well, friends at the very least. I thought things were actually pretty great with us, and then we spend the night together and you never speak to me again?"
She started pacing, scowling when he got up and stood in her way.
"OK, fine. The one thing I hate more than anything in the world is a cheater. Every foster home I was ever in that split up was because one of the parents cheated. Neal cheated on me; that's the main reason we broke up, even though God knows we had a lot of other problems," Against her will, her voice raised. "And you made me into a cheater, that's what you did to me!"
"What the bloody hell are you talking about?" he yelled back.
She sighed. "The next morning, after we … you know. I was late to class, so I ran out without waking you up, and I met her." At his blank look, she rolled her eyes. "Your girlfriend. Who you must have forgotten to mention while you were getting in my pants."
"Wait, what? I didn't have a girlfriend, Swan. Do you really think I'd have been flirting with you all semester if I had a girlfriend?"
She froze. "You're lying. I met her, Killian. Pretty girl, dark hair, named Milah? She told me you'd been together since high school? Is this ringing any bells for you? She cried when she saw me, Jones. She was crying because I slept with her boyfriend!"
"Milah?" he huffed out a laugh. "That bitch."
It was his turn to pace, and she could tell he was debating what to say before he stopped and turned to face her. "For the record, Milah and I dated all through high school. I was crazy about her; I always assumed we'd get married eventually. Unfortunately, she didn't feel the same. Milah … she was always looking for something, some big adventure or perfect soul mate or I don't know what, but she could never seem to find it."
She had a sick feeling that she'd made a huge mistake, and she sank back down on the couch without a word, waiting for him to continue.
"Midway through our freshman year of college, she broke up with me. She'd met a 'great guy' who she said really understood her. As if I didn't. It was less than a month before she came running back to me, all full of apologies and tears; I forgave her, of course. I loved her. But that was just the first time. Eventually we fell into a pattern. She'd leave, she'd come back, I would forgive her. But every time, I cared a little bit less. And then I met you. And when she showed up asking me to take her back, I said no. And she wasn't pleased."
"She was probably waiting for me," Emma said softly. "That day, she ran into me on purpose. And I believed her."
She remembered how terrible she'd felt, how guilty, seeing the girl crying because of something she did. She knew exactly how it felt to be cheated on, and she'd burned with anger and humiliation that she'd been "the other woman" this time.
He laughed shortly again, and she winced at how bitter it sounded. "For a long time I thought … I wondered if you felt like I pushed you into something you weren't ready for."
"Killian, no," she said quickly. "I mean, I seem to recall that I was the one who jumped you, anyway."
They'd been eating Chinese, drinking beer and very much not studying for their Journalism Law exam; she'd looked over and seen him licking his lips and she'd just snapped, climbing into his lap and kissing him hard. God, she'd wanted him for so long, and she'd just been unable to fight it anymore.
"I remember." Their eyes met, and she knew he was replaying it in his head, too. "I can't believe you thought I would do that to you."
She shrugged and forced her gaze away. "People are pretty shitty," she said. "I suppose part of me was kind of expecting something like that anyway."
"How did you get to be such a pessimist?"
"I prefer the term 'realist,'" she said. "And I got that way through basically every life experience since my parents dumped me off on the side of the road as a baby."
"Swan …"
"Anyway, we need to watch the rest of this godawful thing; we have deadlines, after all."
He hesitated, then moved to sit next to her again. "Brace yourself," he said. "It's not going to be pretty."
They exchanged a small grin, and she tried to ignore the ache in the pit of her stomach. She'd ruined everything because she was just so quick to believe the worst of people. It wasn't the first time she'd done something like that, but it was probably the most painful. Heaving a sigh, she lifted the lid of the laptop again and clicked Play.
Emma made her television debut that evening, sweating and fidgeting under hot lights and the camera's glare at Regina's insistence. She and Killian shared a byline on the story topping the Mirror's website about the sex tape and evidence of possible misuse of public funds through the so-called Community Investment Program. All the evidence was turned over to the police (after it was copied, of course), and Killian's boss wanted both of them answering questions from evening anchor Victor Whale.
The interview was a blur; she much preferred posing the questions to answering them. But Regina seemed pleased, so she figured she must have at least seemed coherent.
The moment she was free, she escaped outside, leaning on her car and breathing in the night air. She wasn't surprised at all when he followed her, mirroring her pose on the news van parked beside her car.
"I don't mean to upset you, Emma, but I think we make quite the team."
She smiled and nodded. "I would have to agree. Look, Jones … Killian, I'm sorry for not trusting you back then. It's … really, it's just what I do."
He nodded seriously. "And I'm sorry for not making you tell me what was wrong. I was waiting for you to come back on your own. That's what I do."
After an awkward silence, she was about to say goodbye when he spoke again. "So … what now?"
Now? Now, they needed to rest up for another big news day, with the mayor taken in for questioning and other financial experts combing through the pages of city documents. They needed to find out whether or not their bosses still wanted them to work together on this or if they were back to being rivals.
But she knew that wasn't what he was asking.
"Well, we both kind of won the bet," she said, taking a deep breath. "So I guess … you should pay for my dinner, and I should pay for yours."
A grin slowly bloomed across his face, and he stood and stepped closer. "Excellent compromise, Swan. Though perhaps we should just eat at my place, since it's highly unlikely you'll make it through a whole meal without wanting to get your hands on —"
She shut him up in the best way possible, grabbing him by the collar and pulling his mouth to hers. She moaned as he almost immediately kissed her back, pressing her into the side of the car as she twined her arms around his neck.
Eventually he pulled away, brushing kisses against the corner of her mouth and along her jaw. "So, Chinese, my place?"
"I don't know," she said, holding back a grin. "Last time we had Chinese at your place I was completely unable to control my hormones."
"That's what I'm counting on, love."
She swallowed hard as his lips moved to her neck. "I guess I should just ask to make sure this time. Do you have a girlfriend?"
He pulled away, then leaned his forehead on hers. "Not at the moment, but you've got the scoop on that, love."
She laughed, freeing one hand from around his neck to fish her keys out of her pocket. "Good answer, Jones."