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I still don't own OUAT, just the plot.
"Wow" - Ruby breathed out after Emma finished telling her about her day.
"Yep" - she nodded.
"I mean... wow!"
"Seconded" - Belle piped in. Emma sighed and turned her face away from their astonished expressions.
"What do you want us to do?" - Ruby asked. Emma was grateful for the absence of judgment in her tone. She wondered briefly whether it would have been present if she told them about Jones' power and its potential implications.
"Investigate Regina. Pull out all the stops. Call Sidney, see if he can get us any gossip from any journalists that may have covered Regina's political career. I wanna know how that bitch gained so much power."
Belle flinched at Emma's ice-cold tone but Ruby was too used to it to care. She nodded.
"What are you gonna do?"
"I am going to call Booth and make him tell me why he forgot to mention Regina to us" - Emma replied. Ruby nodded again.
"We'll give you some privacy. Come on Belle" - she stood up and walked towards the door, Belle following her.
"We should be back in a couple of hours" - Ruby said warmly. - "Hope you feel better, Emma."
The blonde could only nod from her spot on the bed. She heard the door close and sighed in relief. She liked her colleagues - friends - but she really needed time to process everything she's learnt today. And in order to do that, she needed a drink.
Cursing the hotel for charging obscene amounts for the alcohol in the mini fridge, and herself for not stocking up, Emma took three tiny whiskey bottles out of the mini bar and poured the contents of one of them into a glass. The amber-coloured liquid burned her throat. She welcomed the sensation - it was better than an invisible hand with remarkably long nails scratching it from the bottom to the top. The events of the day left her feeling like she hasn't felt for a very long time. Emotionally drained. Usually, she was the one pushing her emotions down and making them disappear. But today, they were the ones with an upper hand.
Normally, Emma had a drink after a case was particularly close to home - like the one two years ago. She was hired, coincidentally, by her old mentor Booth who wanted her to find a teenage girl's parents who abandoned her when she was an infant and were currently owners of one of the largest real estate companies in New York. Booth, it appeared, had a knack for assigning her to cases that, in his mind, would have extra-motivating factors for Emma. She followed her usual protocol of conducting an investigation into the parents who, it turned out, have gained their riches by stealing and defrauding creditors, giving them up to the authorities and blackmailing them for money for their child, and herself. She had no problem extracting the $28,000 - her usual "rate". However, she made sure that most of the money went to the girl. Because Emma Swan has never wanted anybody else to feel like she felt as a teen.
Unwanted.
Abandoned.
Lost.
Nobody deserved to feel that way. Least of all, a teenager who has been a victim of circumstance her entire life.
Emma may have been able to fool herself, to convince herself to believe that a certain amount of money was enough to fill the void in her chest. But cases like that one brought out the lost little girl deep inside her. She found like many before her, however, that a drink was a great, albeit temporary, way to bury the casket of emotions surrounding that abandoned child she once was, deeper within her. She did, however, surprise Ruby and Belle by being particularly aggressive towards the guilty parties in the first couple of cases that followed. They learnt a long time ago, however, that it was not the best idea to pry.
Emma sighed. She was self-aware enough to know that anger, sadness and depression were the kinds of feelings she could squash with hard work and liquor. What she didn't know how to deal with, however, was...
She didn't even know the proper name for it.
She supposed she might have had known, once upon a time, when she shared her power with Neal, who understood and shown her his. But that time was long gone, and so was the young woman who had had experienced that particular feeling. Her time in jail and the time she spent with Booth and solving cases were very useful in helping her forget it.
It wasn't pride, at least not all of it was. Emma has made her peace a long time ago - it was inevitable with the way she solved her cases - that a person like her had nothing to be proud of. She was fine with it, however - the various corrupt systems that kicked and pushed her around all her life had even less to boast about. What Jones... Killian has told her, however...
Had he been a young, idealistic youth, Emma would have scoffed at everything he said and wouldn't have spared him a single thought. So why did she care about words uttered by a man who not only told lies for a living, but was literally a born liar?
Did she even have the right to doubt him, after all the things she's done?
Of course you do. Those people deserved it. And you have no reason to believe that Jones is like that.
But wasn't he? Emma was one hundred per cent certain that all the lowlives she's put away would've killed to have a power like his. Some probably have. She had a hard time believing that somebody with that kind of power wasted it on creating methods for people to escape reality.
And after all, it was no coincidence that he was in town and that he knew Whale. And Emma was by then certain that the only pure thing about Whale was his crisp white gown.
Little did she know that only ten miles from her, Killian Jones was unsettled by his own emotions just as much and was dealing with them equally as badly.
One year ago
Ring ring ring
"Hello?" - Killian Jones answered.
"It's Victor."
Killian froze. It's been over five years since the stranger calling himself Dr. Whale appeared in his life.
Number of novels written in five years: Three
Number of movie adaptations: Two
Number of times Victor Whale resurfaced since: One. Today.
"Judging by your stunned silence, I gather you weren't expecting my call?"
"Victor. It has been a while since you revealed your little plan to me. I just assumed it fell through." - Killian replied. Victor laughed.
"You wound me, Killian. I am, after all, just as capable of using my gift as you are yours. It just took me longer than expected."
Killian snorted.
"Please spare me the details of how you restored my brother's dead body. I truly don't want to know how great your healing touch is."
"Suit yourself. Anyway, I'm calling because I'm ready for you to start Phase Two. Now, I know you're a busy man - congratulations on the movies by the way - so you take all the time you need. I know you're one hell of a communicator, but I'm still sending you as many details as I can remember about Gerhardt. I trust you can write a personality of your own brother yourself?"
"You don't have to worry about that" - Killian replied coldly.
"Excellent! I'll be in touch."
Beep. Whale has hung up.
Killian dropped the phone. His knees buckled and he felt his hands, his chest, his cheek hitting the midnight blue carpet of his living room.
Present day
His hotel room was spacious enough to allow him to pace freely around it. However, he soon found that pacing was counterproductive. He obviously knew that from his (albeit infrequent) I-can't-write-a-damn-thing-maybe-moving-around-will-help days, but seeking a muse for his writing was not currently his priority.
Who was this Emma girl? She wasn't a detective, he didn't need a lie detector of any kind to know that much. A bounty hunter of some sort maybe? That's what he would have done with his life if he had her gift. Or perhaps a lawyer. Although he hated them. And he wasn't naive enough to believe that a single man with a superpower would be able to change things.
Whatever his feelings were about Whale, the man was a godsend. Killian has specifically arrived to Storybrooke, Maine under the pretence of a book signing in order to be closer to his brother when he has completed what needed to be done. For some bizarre reason, he believed that being that close to Liam, even in death, would bring him inspiration and smash the writer's block he's been experiencing for the past few weeks. It appeared, however, that he couldn't concentrate on his writing with the lie detector girl plaguing his mind.
She seemed so in control. She must have had some lessons on how to manage the power, Killian thought. He himself has never had anybody to teach him about his power, never formally learnt how to control it. The only way of managing it that he knew of was writing. And that was going relatively well for the last week or so, until Emma appeared at his book signing.
He noticed her straight away in the very first row. Unlike many others in the audience, she wasn't holding any of his books for signing. When that David guy, whom he now knew to be the Sheriff, asked his question, she perked up suddenly. Killian didn't think much of it, until she asked him the very same questions prior to purchasing an entire boxset of "The Land that Never Was". People who didn't bring books to his events for signing didn't purchase entire boxsets. Ever. So why was this girl poking around?
Well, if she were hoping to find any clues inside his books, she was going to come up empty. His books were just works of fiction, albeit the most engaging kind. So she was just going to have to talk to him again.
Not that that was such a terrible thing. Quite the opposite.
Killian found himself wanting to talk to Emma again. Bar Whale, who didn't count because he was a douchebag, Killian has never met anybody like him. Could it really be possible? He longed to know more about her power, yearned to share as much as he could about his own. Or even just to talk to her.
A kindred spirit. That was one thing Killian Jones has learnt a long time ago he could never have. Could his luck finally be turning around?
He finally sat down on the bed, but fell onto his back almost right away, a grin spreading across his handsome face. He couldn't miss his chance. He briefly admonished himself for not asking for Emma's number, but his heart was full of hope that she would call him. Eventually.
Companionship was one thing Killian Jones didn't have much of, but he knew already that if he were ever lucky enough to establish one with Emma, he would treasure it for the rest of his life.
Meanwhile, Emma was occupied by a far less pleasant, but one much more familiar task. She was yelling into her mobile phone:
"How could you not tell me?! What else have you been hiding about this case?!"
...
"Answer me, Booth!"
...
"Booth!"
...
"Check my e-mail? Now? Why?!"
...
"UGH!" - Emma cried out and hung up, throwing her phone onto the bed. She pulled out her laptop, plugged it in and pressed the "on" button. The tapping of her fingers on the table almost made her miss Ruby and Belle's return.
"Hey Emma. You okay?" - Ruby asked, offering her a plastic cup. Emma took a sip and smiled. Ruby brought her favourite hot chocolate with cinnamon.
"Thanks, Ruby. I'm Okay, just waiting on an e-mail from Booth." - she replied.
"About the case?"
"I would assume so" - she shrugged. Truthfully, she had no idea what else could Booth possibly be hiding. She clicked on her e-mail icon and sure enough, there was an unread e-mail from A. Booth.
Dear Emma,
I'm sorry I didn't tell you before. I didn't know about Regina until a few days ago, I swear. However, I should have told you this a long time ago. Attached is the info on the missing persons, Graham Humbert and Baelfire Gold. I know you've already read their files, but as you've undoubtedly noticed, there were no photos. I'm sending them to you now.
Don't think too badly of me when you see them.
Your friend,
August.
"Well, open the attachments!" - Ruby encouraged her. Emma nodded and clicked on the first one.
A handsome, tanned face of a blue-eyed brunette with a scruff was on her screen. He reminded Emma somewhat of Killian.
"Cute" - Ruby added. Emma privately agreed, and cringed at the thought of his possible fate.
"Who's the other one?" - Belle asked.
Emma clicked on the second image and gasped.
The tousled brown hair. The grey moustache. He's had a couple of new wrinkles around his eyes, that were the same shade of gray the last time Emma looked into them.
Her ex boyfriend's face was glaring at her from her laptop screen.
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