Killian gently maneuvered the woman's head out of his lap as the wails from the ambulance began to assault his ears. He wasn't entirely sure what was drawing him to this 'Emma', but something tugged at his heartstrings as he backed away from her. The shadows that concealed him from view also gave him the perfect vantage point to keep watch over her as the paramedics raced in from the street. The two men worked clinically, efficiently checking vitals and administering oxygen.
That was just about the time that everything seemed to erupt into momentary chaos.
He'd known that Emma was fierce – had seen it in how spitefully she had thrashed against Malcolm's hold right up until the gun muzzle pressed to her temple. He heard it in the little growls of frustration even as her attacker cut off the breath from her lungs. She was never going to be a victim - he understood that implicitly. But to see her fight her way back into the land of the living, quite literally with both fists? He'd had no idea the woman could be that intense.
It was a near thing, but years of training only just kept Killian from bolting back out into the alley and tearing the restraining hands away from her limbs, helping her to fight her way free of the men trying to pin her to the asphalt. He wanted nothing more than to allow this woman the chance to regain her own equilibrium. However, he had enough field medical training to see that what the medics were doing was to her benefit, so he let them work. The second they did something he didn't like, however, they'd never see him coming.
The thoughts startled him a bit – he had no idea who this woman was. He owed nothing to her. At best, she was an innocent victim who had been spared the worst of what Gold was capable of. At the worst, she was a hindrance to his current mission and was currently keeping him from chasing after Malcolm.
It took Emma a moment to stop fighting and to respond to the protests of the paramedics, and at one point Killian heard her ask again for 'Michael'. A bit chagrined, he figured out that she hadn't been asking his name, but must have been calling for the boy Gold had taken. It was clear that Emma was calm and out of danger now, but Killian couldn't find it in himself to leave until she was secured to the gurney and out of sight in the back of the ambulance. The delay was costly, but no amount of compartmentalization training could force him from his hiding spot until the ambulance sirens started to fade away.
When he finally left the alley, his target was long gone. Killian hadn't really thought that a man as hard to catch as Peter Pan would linger around the hospital after assaulting a woman and kidnapping a child, but he didn't have any leads at the moment other than the mysterious 'daughter' who had gone into labor earlier that day. He had no illusions as to whether or not there were actual familial relations – the girl had likely been headed to an unmentionable future, the baby probably fodder for the black market. Regardless, Killian weaseled his way onto the maternity floor and scoured it for any sign of Malcolm.
Not surprisingly, there was none.
The only silver lining in letting Peter Pan escape was that the girl and her daughter were both resting comfortably in the hospital and out of danger for the moment. With any luck, she was smart enough to stay that way.
He returned to Pan's hotel room, again unsurprised to find that it had been cleared out while he wasted his time in the hospital.
Killian cursed himself out the entire way back to the brownstone. Malcolm Gold - father and right hand man to bloody Rumplestiltskin - had been right there. The man had been in his sight, at the business end of his weapon, and Killian could have taken him down so easily. He could have ended it if he just pulled the trigger.
Logically, he knew that there was nothing else he could have done. For one thing, they needed Pan alive to use against his son. For another, a shooting in the streets of Boston wasn't exactly something they could sweep under the rug. But far more importantly, there had been two civilians at risk and the reward of taking Malcolm Gold down would never have been worth the lives that the wicked demon could have taken out in the process.
Then again, Killian mused bitterly, he had managed to let another boy slip through his fingers to be thrown to the mercy of Rumplestiltskin's conglomerate. And there was no mercy to be had there.
The devastated brown eyes of a child from Killian's past, staring up at him in betrayal as his time with Gold's men was likely filled with terror and pain, haunted Killian's memories and his nightmares. Thinking of him now threatened to break the lock on his emotions, and Killian couldn't go back to that time. Couldn't remember that boy. No, there was no compassion to be found in the clutches of Malcolm or Robert Gold.
Killian shook himself to banish those memories to the tightly locked box in his heart. He couldn't think of him at the moment. There was a boy out there right now who needed him far more than that one needed him to find vengeance.
Not that he wouldn't happily complete both missions simultaneously.
Furious at himself and the situation, Killian returned to the brownstone to regroup and comb through the intelligence to find another avenue of attack.
Liam took one look at him when Killian walked in the house, bit back whatever he was going to say, and simply opened the door to the office.
Some days Killian really did love his brother.
It was hours later when he noticed the sandwich at his elbow and the bottle of water being waved in his face. Pushing himself back from the desk with a sigh, Killian rubbed a hand harshly down his face before downing half the water in one gulp. His stomach loudly protested the lack of food, so he dropped the file he had been staring at for who knows how long and dug in.
"Killian," Liam ventured only after he was reaching for the second half of the sandwich, "get some rest. It's already late afternoon. Go sleep for a few hours and I'll keep looking for you."
He started to protest around a mouthful of food when Liam cut him off. "Just for a couple of hours. Let me go over this and we'll figure out your next move when you wake up. Maybe I'll see something you've missed."
Killian stubbornly turned back to the file, but the words blurred together and he threw it and the remains of his sandwich down.
Knowing that Liam was right, even if he was loathe to admit it, Killian shoved himself away from the desk and stumbled over to the couch in the corner. Little more than a loveseat, it was an uncomfortable fit, but Killian was asleep before his brother could protest that there was a perfectly serviceable bed upstairs.
He woke some time later when the sun was low enough in the sky to assault his eyes. He found the blanket from his bed tucked under his chin and his brother in the same desk chair he had vacated. He stretched and rubbed the remaining sleep out of his eyes before attempting to stand. "How long was I out?"
Killian smirked as Liam jumped and turned quickly from the files strewn across the desk. There was a cell phone trace running on the computer and a mug of steaming coffee next to it. Without a second thought, Killian lifted the mug to his lips and grimaced at the taste - five years in the States and he still couldn't get used to the bitterness. There was tea in the kitchen, he knew, but the quick caffeine hit was much appreciated. He grinned at the disgruntled look gracing his brother's features as he took another sip.
"Get your own," Liam grumbled as he pried the mug out of Killian's hand. It just made the grin grow twice as large.
That smile fell by the wayside when Liam jutted his chin out to the second desk chair. "Do you want to tell me what happened now?"
Killian dropped heavily in the chair before stealing the coffee back again. Succinctly, he reported his progress the night before, reining in his anger as he described how Peter Pan had used the two civilians to aid in his escape. He abandoned his seat to stand up and pace as he spoke about the boy that Malcolm had kidnapped and the ultimatum that he had been presented with. Killian omitted the fact that he had almost been waylaid by the paramedics because he couldn't leave the woman behind until he was completely certain she would be safe.
Dropping his head to his chest, Killian raked his fingers through his hair and pulled hard. "I had him, Liam. I had him right where I wanted him, out in the open and vulnerable. We could have gotten so much information out of him, or at least taken him off the streets. Now he has another kid and who knows who he's going to be sold to, what they'll do to him. God, he could end up…"
Killian trailed off on his own and looked to his big brother for reassurance.
Liam didn't disappoint.
"There was nothing else you could have done, Killian. You said it yourself, he had civilians and you couldn't put them at risk. Malcolm Gold isn't the type to leave loose ends, he would have killed the woman and the boy before you could have subdued him. You know that his son is the priority, we need Malcolm alive to find Robert. We'll find them both, and we'll save the boy." Liam ducked his head until he made eye contact with Killian. He gripped Killian's shoulder tightly, adding a confident, "You'll save the boy."
Killian nodded before he paled. "Liam, he doesn't leave loose ends. The woman, Emma. She saw him. He'll kill her."
Killian's heart raced as he realized the grave error he had made in leaving the woman to the care of the emergency personnel. Gold wasn't on the maternity floor with his "daughter", so Killian had assumed he'd fled. But he could have easily stashed the boy in the trunk of a car or handed him off to one of his lackeys. Felix's arrogant smirk came to mind – the man lived to do Malcolm's bidding. While Killian was wasting time napping, his nemesis could have already gotten to Emma and her death would be more blood on his hands.
He had already jumped out of the chair and taken a step towards the door when Liam grabbed his arm. Being manhandled never sat well with him, but without a more thought out plan than "find Peter Pan" followed by "kill Peter Pan", Killian allowed his brother to push him back into the chair.
He watched as Liam typed madly into the computer and then sat back with a smile when he noticed Killian's impatience. The younger man was practically bouncing in his seat at the wait.
"Give it a moment, little brother," Liam soothed as he pointed to the computer. "Scarlet is getting into their database. He'll get you her status at the hospital and an address in case she's been released already. You said she was breathing normally before you left, so she won't be in the hospital long. Security isn't a big worry for people like Gold, but it's enough to prove a hindrance at the hospital. One that Pan wouldn't risk. There was a report filed on her attack already, so he'd be wary of the police presence. Peter Pan won't risk erasing her until she's vulnerable. Go get cleaned up and I'll have some intel for you after."
Everything in Killian chafed at the wait, but he couldn't make Will Scarlet hack into hospital records any quicker than he already was. So he followed his brother's advice, bounding up the stairs to shower. After allowing the aging pipes the necessary time to creak their way to providing hot water, he stripped down and stepped under the spray. The shower was a welcome relief and Killian gave himself the time to relish in the simple luxury of running water. There were plenty of missions he could recount that didn't allow for more than swiping a cloth of questionably clean – and tepid at best – water over the important parts. He knew that there was still a wait ahead of them, so instead of rushing, he took the time to let the pounding water sluice over muscles still bunched from sleeping curled in a ball. He braced himself on the wall and dropped his head so the water streamed through his hair and down the back of his neck. The heat soothed the aches still left over from his last mission and allowed him to metaphorically wash away last night's errors.
When the hypnotic effect of the shower was finally outweighed by his impatience, Killian quickly dressed and headed back to the office. He was met with a travel mug full of good English tea, his brother's hasty penmanship on a slip of paper, and a bagel.
"Her name is Emma Swan. She was admitted overnight for observation. I don't know how much longer they'll keep her so Will got you her address as well. Keep her out of Gold's hands, little brother."
It was a testament to how focused Killian was that he ignored the hated moniker in favor of rushing back out into the evening light.
Emma came to with a gasp that quickly turned into a hacking cough and drowned out any other thoughts than "breathe!" When she finally forced her lungs to cooperate, the next thing she noticed was the feel of something clamped down on her face and cutting into the skin around her mouth and nose. Instinct born of her last clear memory of not being able to draw in a breath had her tearing the offending object away and trying to roll to her stomach and stand.
There were hands all over her trying to press her back to the ground and she fought harder to get free.
It took another moment for her to collapse back to the hard ground under the weight of two men as she paused long enough to try and formulate a new plan of escape. That's when she heard the voice trying to cut through her panic.
"We're trying to help you, lady. Calm down!" Emma looked up into a pair of blue eyes and startled herself when the first thought that came to her was that these clearly weren't the same blue eyes that had caught her attention before.
Noticing the uniform and the patches on the man's chest that signified him as a paramedic, Emma allowed him to replace the oxygen mask she had torn away and further calmed under the cool air that was clearing the fog in her brain.
Fog that had been blocking the fact that Michael was nowhere to be seen.
"Michael?" her words were muffled under the plastic and it was too hard to be more articulate than that at the moment.
"No, my name is August. We're going to lift you up now, just hold on a moment." Emma was distracted from rolling her eyes at the second person in recent history who had misinterpreted her question by the sickening feeling of being airborne and then being strapped down. It sent her blood pressure skyrocketing once more before she forced herself to relax.
No one was trying to hurt her at the moment.
Not to mention that the faster she got through this, the faster she could get the police to find Michael.
So she laid on the gurney in thinly disguised annoyance as she was transported into the ambulance and out again moments later. Emma recognized the emergency department in the same hospital she had run out of after Michael, but she had been admitted for observation before she realized what the long wait for her test results had proven. The nurse had mentioned that a police officer was on his way to take a statement on her attack, but Emma just wanted him there to report Michael's abduction. Two birds, one stone and all that.
There was a part of her that wanted to ask the nurse if Mary Margaret was doing all right. There was another part of her that wanted David to come in and check on her – maybe even sit with her for a while – but she ruthlessly shoved that want into the compartment of her heart that housed things like wanting to know who her parents were and why they had given her up. Her friends had more pressing things to think about than her - they were clearly busy at the moment, preparing for the birth of their son. Emma knew that she should let them know what happened. Let them know that she had lost Michael. But David likely didn't even know that Michael had run off yet, and Mary Margaret clearly had more important things to focus on than Emma's sore throat.
So she lay back on the thin pillow in her hospital room, replaying the look on Michael's face when he saw she had come after him. He had been absolutely terrified by what was going on, but there was also a glint of stunned shock at the fact that she had come after him. Emma knew that confusion all too well. It didn't matter how many times Michael had run, he never expected anyone to care enough to come after him.
Emma was sure that his kidnapper was counting on exactly that. His deranged laugh echoed in her ears as she kept his features written indelibly into her memory. She wanted to remember everything about the bastard who had taken him so that when the police got to her room, she could give them a detailed description.
It was some time later when she was distracted from poking at the bruises under her chin by Keith Nottingham's lanky frame standing in the doorway. She rolled her eyes at the look of sleazy infatuation that seemed to always grace his features around her and waved him in. Not that she wasn't glad to see that the officer sent to take her statement was someone she knew and had worked with in the past, but working with him was difficult.
And she didn't need anything to complicate matters at the moment.
"Good morning, Miss Swan." He was nothing if not polite.
Emma started suddenly and craned her neck to look across her sleeping roommate's bed to the window. It was still pitch black outside.
The police officer chuckled and pushed himself off the doorframe to come and sit next to her. "It's after midnight, Emma. It's morning."
Emma was firmly of the opinion that it didn't count as morning until you had slept, but kept her mouth shut. She leveled a pointed gaze at the small notebook in Nottingham's hand and waited impatiently for him to begin.
He listened quietly as she recounted everything that had happened. His pen furiously wrote down every detail that she mentioned about her attacker. He nodded along as she spoke about the man's oily accented voice and how it seemed that Michael knew him.
That was when he put down the pen.
"Michael Darling, right? Your runner?" He suddenly sounded almost bored.
Emma remembered the number of times she'd had to call or gotten calls from the police because Michael had run off again. She knew the boy had gained a reputation as a runaway. She didn't care about any of that and the glare she leveled at the officer should have clued him in.
It didn't.
"Look, Emma, I can see you were attacked. But are you sure this man took Michael? You said you were in that alley because the kid was running. You know I'll look for him either way."
Emma fumed. "You think I'm making this up? Keith, he was kidnapped! I stood there and watched as the son of a bitch knocked out a ten-year old kid so he could take off with him. What the hell?"
Nottingham raised his eyebrow incredulously.
"There was a witness! It can't be too hard to locate the guy who called 911 for me. Find him and he'll tell you that the bastard took off with a child. I don't care what you think of Michael, he was kidnapped tonight!"
"I'm just saying…" Nottingham was cut off by a harried looking David rushing into the room.
"Emma! Are you all right? Belle was working in the maternity ward and she said she saw your name on the board when she was headed to the break room up here. What happened?"
Nottingham stood up with a succinct "I'll get right on this," before he took his leave. Emma didn't hold out hope that it was going to be the first priority on his already overflowing desk.
She turned her attention to David and glared. "What are you doing here? You should be with Mary Margaret. How is she?"
David came closer until he was standing against the side of her bed, made and kept eye contact with her, and reached his hand out slowly so as to telegraph his intentions. The tips of his fingers grasped her chin and tilted her head so he could see the bruises better.
"The doctor says it's still going to be a while and Mary Margaret insisted I come check on you. Right now she scares me more than you do. So, please, tell me what happened?"
Emma smiled slightly as she endured her friend's examination. Quietly, she told him what had happened, ducking her head when she told him about losing Michael. The chill that coursed through her as she mentioned her anonymous rescuer surprised her, but she was more concerned with getting the story out as quickly as possible and getting David back to his wife.
She wouldn't deny that the squeeze to her shoulder and the hand that held hers as David listened was a balm to her soul.
"They'll find him, Emma. I'll talk to Graham and see what he thinks. Michael's a tough kid." David leaned over and placed a kiss on her forehead before admonishing her to get some sleep.
She responded by shooing him out of her room and back to his wife with instructions to tell her that Emma was fine and she would stop by later to see them both before heading home. Hopefully, she'd get to see all three of them.
It took most of the day, but after another round of tests and more poking about than Emma thought was strictly necessary, she was released and was able to meet David and Mary Margaret's son before she headed out. At home later that evening, curled in the plush armchair and staring at a picture on her cell phone of the little Nolan prince squalling his lungs out to tell the world of his presence, Emma gave herself a moment to fall apart at the thought she'd almost been killed and Michael was gone.
She only allowed herself a minute to let the tears fall and dampen the blanket she was clutching to her chest before she took a deep breath and wiped her cheeks dry. This wasn't the first frightening experience she had survived, and her fear now needed to be for the boy she wasn't able to help when he begged her to do just that - not for her own fright. Emma took a deep breath and folded up the blanket with her name embroidered so carefully into the white fabric, trying not to let those feelings bubble to the surface as she laid the blanket tenderly over the back of the chair.
Emma took a moment to gaze out over the skyline then trudged into the bathroom. She hoped that a long, hot bath would temporarily erase the image of Michael's terrified face that burned the back of her eyelids every time she closed her eyes.
The scent of the candles and the warmth of the water was soothing to her abused muscles, but neither did anything to calm the harried thoughts that raced over and over until she was lost in the storm.
It felt like mere moments later when she was startled out of replaying every last detail of Michael's abduction by the shrill wailing of her smoke alarm. The smell of smoke was heavy in the air, overpowering the candles, and Emma reached for her dirty clothes to redress sloppily before she was fully aware of what she was doing. Pulling her hair back into a hasty bun, Emma saw the flickering of light under the door to the hall and crept towards it to see if she could get out that way.
Emma let out the breath she hadn't realized she was holding when the doorknob was only slightly warm. She still had a chance to make it out. When she looked across the hall, her bedroom – and the way to the fire escape – was engulfed in flames. Without a minute to waste, Emma grabbed a pair of boots out of the hall closet and turned for the front door.
The crackling of the blaze sent her already rapidly beating heart to a skyrocketing pace as adrenaline gripped her. She found herself entranced by the sight of the flames cascading up the walls and licking the ceiling, her rug scorched beyond recognition in its wake A crash shook her from her momentary stupor as one of Mary Margaret's paintings fell to the ground next to her feet. Jumping away from the burning canvas, Emma bit back a yelp and took two steps forward before being halted by flames once more. She wanted, no she needed to get to the living room to retrieve her blanket. Silly as it might be to think of it in what was quickly proving to be a life or death situation, that soft blanket was the only proof in the world that someone had cared for her as an infant.
Before Emma could track out a path towards her armchair and the relative safety of the windows where nothing seemed to be burning against the cool glass, there was another crash. This time it came from the other side of the kitchen, from the apartment's entrance.
There were two eyes staring at her over the barrel of the gun that was trained on her from the now demolished front door. Emma's first instinct was to step back towards the safety of her bedroom, but the heat of flames at her back halted that movement. To her surprise, the gun dropped to the man's side and it was only then that she could focus on his face. Far from some unknown attacker, it seemed that her mysterious savior from the alley had stalked her to her apartment. Emma wished she were in her bedroom where she kept her pistol.
"Who the hell are you?"