I don't own ouat.

WASN'T LOVE, LOVE.

Chapter 09: Phone call.

Roberta Roberts was peacefully sleeping, until the phone rang. She opened just one sleepy eye and searched the covers for her glasses. She found them near the book and her sleeping pills. Then she checked the alarm clock, twice. The phone in her nightstand was still ringing. Three in the morning?

"Mmm?"

"Mrs. Roberts, it's Julius Peter, from the Social Services Center in Boston." The man's voice reached her attenuated and delayed, faintly audible over the crackling noise of the line. "I'm the man who asked you to take care of Emma."

Roberta yawned loudly. "Why are you calling at three in the morning?"

"I'm sorry, but I'm on a trip abroad." Roberta closed her eyes. "Is Emma Swan alright?"

"I've no idea." She really didn't, both Mr. Jones and Emma were pretty angry at her, so she had avoided going even near the ship. Emma was an adult now, not her problem anymore.

"Could you please check on her? She's very important."

If Roberta hadn't had her sleeping pills earlier she would be surely asking him about his strange interest in the girl, but as she was half asleep she just nodded into her pillow. "Okay."

"Mrs. Roberts, are you awake?"

"No."

"I'll call you in a couple of days. Good night Mrs. Roberts." She was sleeping again before he ended the sentence.

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Emma carried a tray full of empty glasses in one hand and four hot ice-creams in the other. It was midafternoon and all of their clients were teenagers, -except for Mrs. Roberts.

The woman was sitting in the far end of the ship with the captain. They were talking about her for sure, she could sense it, but as she couldn't do anything about it she went on with the orders.

"Mr. Jones!" Emma jerked her head up towards her boss, completely ignoring the young art student that was trying to ask for her phone with no luck. Why was Mrs. Roberts arguing with Killian?

After fifteen more minutes the captain stood up, visibly annoyed and walked towards her. Emma prepared for the worst, every time Mrs. Roberts appeared in her life she had to move, from one orphanage to a foster home or from a foster home to an orphanage. She didn't want to go.

"Emma, Mrs. Roberts wants to talk to you." Killian was taut as a violin string, a menacing aura around him.

"I hope I'm in no trouble."

As soon as she said those words her boss relaxed and smiled at her. "Ye don't need to worry love." He tilted up her head with his hook. "What happens is that I do not like to be bossed around. Now go to speak with her, savvy?"

Emma sat down were Killian had been previously. "Hi Mrs. Roberts, today isn't my birthday." She tried to joke, but the woman expression didn't change, she had her brow furrowed, her hands clasped together and a reproving look in her eyes.

"Miss Swan, I'm here to see how you are."

"I'm fine thanks."

"Is Mr. Jones treating you well?" Emma didn't like the way she said it.

"More than anyone had treated me before." She tried to look calm, but Emma could feel the anger threatening to build up inside her when the lawyer rocked her head on her shoulders.

"I've just seen something I don't like Miss Swan." Emma followed the woman gaze, she was throwing daggers at Killian that was standing next to the mast, looking intently at them. "What kind of relationship you and Mr. Jones have?"

Emma blinked twice surprised, she had been in a bunch of foster homes with plenty slimy, abusers and bullies men and the older woman had cared a damn about their relationship with her. "He's my boss, we are friends."

"Emma, Killian Jones is not a man in which you can trust. I do not know who he really is." Emma opened her mouth, but the woman hand clasped over her forearm. "He's twice your age -at least." Emma turned around to look at her handsome boss, no, he couldn't be. "He's dangerous Emma, he erased his past records." The woman let her arm go. "I provided him real legal identity documents, but after the years went by I realized he lied. I don't really know how old is him, or where does he come from."

Emma felt sick. "Why did you send me there in first place?"

"He was the only one willing to take you in. But now Miss Swan you should try to find another work. Move on."

Emma stood up and walked inside the ship, avoiding the captain blue gaze, she went below deck, entered into the kitchen and took a long gulp from the bottle of wine the cook used to spice the food –she completely ignored the complaining yell of Pierre-. It was strange, she felt something inside her chest, a void trying to such her life out, a crushing pain over her heart. She was lost, her mind paralyzed. He was twice her age? Had erased his past?

"Are ye alright love?" Emma looked up at the captain, his brow was furrowed in concern, his hand on her shoulder.

Her lips pursed together into a thin line as she took a good look at his face. Emma had been tricked before, he had used her to get the watches, Neal had taken from her what he wanted, he had earned her trust to use her. Emma didn't want that to happen again.

She touched his face with her fingertips, and he leaned into her touch a faint smile on his lips. He had no wrinkles or crow's feet, only a scar across his right cheek. Her skin was smooth, unblemished, his stubble well maintained and dark, not a single grey hair on his black silky hair. Clearly not a teenager, but surely a young man. He wasn't twice her age, maybe he was ten years older.

"Emma, darling are you feeling alright?"

"Where are you from?"

"I'm from Galway. What Mrs. Roberts told you?" Lie, he was lying, why did he lie?

"I'm going to let you in on a little secret. I'm pretty good at knowing when someone is lying to me." Emma let her hand fall from his face but moved closer to him. Her hand found a knife on the polished wood of the kitchen counter and without giving it another thought she held it to Killian's throat and gripped his shoulder to keep him in place.

The man didn't even flinch. "Pierre, why don't ye take a break?" The cook hesitated but exited the kitchen. "I'm telling you the truth."

"You're not going anywhere, until you tell me who you really are."

"Ye already know. I'm Killian Jones a restaurant owner." It was true, but it hardly answered her question.

"Let me rephrase the question. Who you really were? How old are you?"

"I was a fisher, I'm forty-four." Lie, lie, lie. She could sense it so clearly. Her heart clenched in her chest, he didn't trust her.

"Bullshit." She could feel the warm tears trail down her face.

Emma felt his hook snatching the knife from her hand, it fell clattering into the floor, but she didn't quit her eyes from his. "Ye will never believe me love."

"Try me." She wanted to believe him, she wanted desperately to believe.

"I was a pirate." Her eyes slightly tightened, it was true. "I don't know how old I'm. I came to this land with nothing more than my Jolly Roger and started a new life."

Emma looked down, his hand was on her waist, and hers was still at his shoulder. "A pirate?"

He smiled sheepishly. "Aye lass. The stealing type. The cannons in the gun deck weren't just for show, once upon a time."

Emma took a steep back. "How old are you, more or less?"

"Three hundred years old." He had the gall to make fun of her. "Emma look at me darling." He wasn't making fun, he believed it.

Emma was stirring deep down. He wasn't lying, he was crazy, obsessed with piracy. She pushed his hand away from her and strode to the upper deck.

It wasn't the first time she faced a mad man, a man obsessed with bullshit, one of her foster parents believed in aliens and ended up tying her to the roof in some kind of sacrifice. She had learned a lesson then, run as fast as you can from obsessed men.

Mr. Roberts was there, standing in front of the door, clutching her purse in front of her. Emma Swan couldn't risk to trust a man again, look what she got the last time, eleven months in jail and a baby she had to give away, a baby she still missed despite she hadn't seen him, her son, a son she saw in dreams crying with no one to look after him.

"I will find another work." The pain fluttered inside her, but she pushed it straight to the bottom of her soul.

"I'm glad sweetie, you are a smart woman, I'm sure you can find it." Mrs. Roberts smiled at her. Emma had the urge to punch her face –it was her fault, she had lost her only friend, her beloved Killian because of her. – But she didn't, she just flashed a bitter grin and walked pass her to attend some new costumers.

She was going to be alone again. She stopped and dried her tears, she was broken.

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He had felt sick when she began to cry, Killian reached his room, shacked. She hadn't believed him, who in this bloody land without magic would do? Her eyes had spoken clearly, she thought he was completely mad. He lay back on his bed; she had been in his ship during eight blissful months. And now she was leaving, she was going to search for another work.

Away from him – who would protect her? Hold her when she cried, walk her home?

He nearly had lost Emma when she stole the food, now he had definitely lost her. His beautiful Swan, his strong siren, his smart and bossy lass.

His Emma.

What was he going to do? He put his hand on his chest, his heart was beating painfully slow. They shared a friendship, nothing more -she laughed at his jokes and teases, they talked about hundred different thinks, she soothed away his vengeance thirst, he calmed her when she was sad, she bossed him around from time to time and he pissed her doing whatever he wanted. They spend the Mondays together, having lunch here and there, going to the movies, to museums, to the arcade machines, theater… everything she had missed as a child or he had never seen in his land.

He was going to miss her. He bit his lip to stifle a sob. He knew their relationship was perfectly innocent, she was naïve and young… - his body set on fire at her every caress, touch, brush, glance- they were just good friends. Who the hell was he joking? The bloody siren had enchanted him.

He would kidnap her, sail to never come back, he would find a way back to Neverland and spend the eternity by her side, he would make her his, he would be her fist and his last. Captain Hook would keep his Emma without giving her a choice.

But Killian Jones wasn't Captain Hook anymore. No, Killian couldn't hurt her. He would let her go, let her find her true love, her happiness and her place in that world without magic. A world he didn't belong to. He would devote to skinning his crocodile or die trying it.

Don't worry my little cookies! Thinks will sort out... sooner or latter. I'm being mean now. Please don't hate me!

Thanks for your reviews! And keep them coming, I love them all, and sometimes they make me change things...

I will try really hard to post again tomorrow!