A/N: Waking up to reviews is my new favourite thing. You're all made of unicorns and rainbows, and I appreciate your words of encouragement.
"Are you sure we should be doing this?" David asked, dropping a stack of files on Emma's desk.
"Have any better ideas?" Emma replied, barely glancing up from her laptop screen.
"We could ask him to his face?" Emma rolled her eyes at David's reluctance.
"Oh, c'mon! This is not an invasion of privacy. Everything here is a matter of public record. And you know for a fact that there isn't a speck of dirt on either of us he hasn't already uncovered. He knows more about my criminal record than I do! This is just what we do."
"You two have a very strange relationship," David murmured, taking a seat at Killian's desk.
Emma couldn't deny that.
Today Killian was in Providence, chasing down a skip who was rumored to be hunkering down at his Aunt's house. Which meant he wasn't there to prevent Emma from scouring through his past to find the person who had brought August Booth into their lives.
Emma's contact at the second-hand book store had come through with the goods. Or some goods, at least. They managed to trace the book down to a specialty vanity press in San Diego. The same city Killian had called home before his abrupt departure to Boston five years earlier. Which meant that "interested parties" probably dated back to that part of his life. A part that Emma still wasn't all that clear on.
A call to the publisher had revealed that the order for the book had been placed six months ago, for cash, under the name of August Booth. The sole point of contact had been a PO Box in Oceanside, also rented with cash, under that name.
This had been a long time in the planning, and it hadn't been cheap.
And there was only one person Emma knew to talk to, who had known Killian in California.
"Does the Captain know you're here?" William asked, as Emma took a seat at the bar beside him.
A creature of habit, William Smee wasn't exactly hard to find on this day off. He could be found exactly where he spent almost all of spare hours, holding up the bar in his neighborhood dive, a charming little place that didn't quite live up to the majesty of its name, The Rose & Crown. Emma slapped a twenty down on the bar and indicated to the bartender to keep his beers coming.
"If he didn't, he will when you call him as soon as I leave, won't he?" Emma replied archly. William chuckled into his beer.
"You really are his type, aren't you?" he said, wiping froth from his beard with his sleeve.
"His type?" Emma turned to him, raising an eyebrow.
"Tenacious."
"Is that something that she was?" Emma hadn't meant to ask that, and when William's eyes met hers, she regretted it.
"Is that why you're here? To ask about her?" The way his eyes narrowed, Emma didn't think there had been any love lost between them.
"Not exactly." She tried to think of what she did want to ask.
"You know Captain is just a nickname, right?" William asked, disrupting her train of thought. "He never made the rank." Emma had wondered about that, going through his military record. Everything she'd read had indicated he'd only reached Lieutenant. "But we all thought it was only a matter of time. He was more ambitious than the rest of us. Real leadership material. Until she came along."
"Not a fan, huh?"
"Don't get me wrong. I do think she cared about him. Maybe even as much as he cared for her. But I don't think she considered for one minute what it might cost him."
"Like his career?"
"It was more than a career to him! He didn't have a family to get back to. People waiting for him. The navy was his life."
He allowed his eyes to travel the length of her, and it felt less like he was checking her out, and more like he was wondering if she was going to be the next person to fuck up all of his friend's dreams and ambitions. No pressure or anything.
"And for you?"
He shrugged. "I liked it well enough. But I got out eventually, went to work for my cousin up here, fixing boats, doing some security work on the side. I don't worry so much about torpedoes now."
"Did you keep in touch with Killian when he left?" He rolled his eyes.
"Obviously." Emma smiled. William looked fairly harmless, with his beer gut and beanie, but there was more going on behind the surface than she'd originally thought. Exactly the kind of friend Killian would keep.
"Was there anyone in California who might wish Killian harm?"
"You mean apart from Robert Gold, right?"
"Robert Gold?" He looked at her like she was an idiot.
"The husband?" He said, real slow.
"Robert Gold was the husband? As it State Senator Gold? Killian slept with the wife of a State Senator?!" Of all of the stupid, idiotic...
"Didn't mention that part, huh?"
Emma thought back to Killian's descriptions of the husband. "Influential" he had called him. "Connected."
No fucking kidding.
William sighed, and pushed his next beer across the bar towards her. Emma glanced back at him in surprise.
"You look like you need it more than me."
When she eventually stumbled out of The Rose & Crown, way past her self-imposed deadline, and more inebriated than she ought to be mid-afternoon, she sat down at a bus shelter to wait the requisite five minutes for her phone to ring. It took three.
"Checking up on me, Swan?" He didn't sound pissed off. Yet. She played it blasé.
"I had some time on my hands. One of us didn't land a skip today."
"So you thought you'd take it upon yourself to pry into my history?"
"Is this you being mad at me?"
A pause. "I'm thinking of it."
Time to bring out the list she'd rehearsed over the last few hours.
"Three things. Firstly, I'm not hiding this from you. If I were, you wouldn't know about it."
"And that's such a comfort."
"Secondly, I know you got your hands on my juvie records. The ones that were sealed by the courts when I turned 18? So there's no need to feign outrage on my account. This is just quid pro quo."
"And the third thing, darling?" She couldn't even see him, but she knew he was clenching his jaw anyway.
"You asked for me look into this. Remember?"
Another pause. "Aye. So I did. So don't keep me in suspense. Learn anything interesting about me, Swan?"
"The wife of a State Senator? Really?!"
Surely he had to be expecting that one.
He let out a loud sigh. One she probably would have heard across the 50 miles between them, even without the phone pressed to her ear.
"Would it help my cause if I admit I was ignorant as to the existence of any husband, prominent or no, until it was already too late?" Not likely.
"So you're still sure he isn't the one behind all this?" Emma heard him let out a breath.
"The man has the resources, but not the motive. I'm out of his life. Just like he wanted. He wouldn't risk antagonizing me now, lest I jeopardize his rumored run for Governor."
Governor. God. He really did have a talent for trouble. Emma had made a lot of enemies over the years, but even she knew better than to piss off a politician.
"Pray tell, what other secrets of my misspent youth did you get William to spill, Swan?" William had been a wealth of information after his fifth beer.
"Do you really play guitar?"
Killian laughed over the line. "Good to know your interrogation stayed on track, love. Aye, I dabbled a bit." She wanted to see that.
"And the tattoo?" William had intimated that it had been in a... sensitive area.
"Removed," Killian replied gruffly. It was Emma's turn to snicker.
"So, any luck finding Will Scarlet?"
Will Scarlet, Killian's skip du jour, hadn't come by their attention in the usual way. He was a small-time thief, who'd used David's services to bail himself out before. He'd been a bitch of a guy to run down. Crafty. Fearless. Killian had found him before, and he'd gone to prison for a little while. When he'd next come to the attention of the authorities, they'd been stupid enough to grant bail again, albeit at a higher price. David hadn't been stupid enough to lend him the cash.
But a competitor had. And when his own guys had come back empty handed, they'd sold the debt over to David, who knew he could find him. Or that Killian could, anyway.
"He's just as wily as I remember. Plus a good twenty pounds of muscle gained in the exercise yard. It might take a few days." A few days. During which Emma would have to carry her own unconscious skips. Get her own coffee. Eat her own Twizzlers. It was scary how much she wasn't looking forward to the prospect.
"Bring me back something shiny?"
"And what would a woman as practical as you do with something shiny?"
"Shine it in your eyes, probably. Or David's. I'm not picky." Emma shrugged, even though he couldn't see.
"I'll see what I can do, Swan."
Her Bug still parked across the street, and her head still swimming with her afternoon beers, Emma elected to walk down to the nearest Starbucks, to sober up.
It was the alcohol in her system that she blamed, along with her preoccupation with her truly enormous slice of pie, for failing to recognize the man immediately when he slipped into the booth opposite. Expecting a student, hungry for her free power outlet, Emma wasn't immediately on the defensive. Until she glanced up, to see August sitting across from her with his usual amused smile.
Otherwise devoid of weapons, Emma made a hasty grab for her fork.
"Whoa." Said August, shifting back and raising his hands in surrender. "No need to bring out the cutlery. I come in peace."
"Peace?" Emma wasn't convinced. Moreover, everything she wanted to know, August knew the answers to. If he felt threatened, so be it.
"Is that any way to treat the man who saved your life?"
"You already got a free pass for that." Emma gritted her teeth. "You don't get another one."
"You're a real ball-buster, you know that? You don't really want to stick that fork in me."
"Oh, really?" Emma absolutely did.
"Harming me might put the agreement I have with your boyfriend in jeopardy..." he trailed off. He could be bluffing. Was probably bluffing. But there was only one way to know.
"Agreement?" The return of his smile let Emma know he could feel the balance of power shifting back to his side. Shit.
"The one where I stay away from you and your son. Henry, is it?" Emma clutched the fork tighter in her hand.
"Great job you're doing there, staying away. I'm really feeling the distance."
"Consider this a parting gift. You forgot to ask what I got in exchange."
Emma rolled her eyes. "What did you get in exchange?"
"Why, Jones agreed to a meeting with my employer, of course."
"He knows who your employer is?"
"For at least a week now. So there really is no point you continuing your pithy investigation into my origins. I guarantee you, you're wasting your time."
He was bluffing. Had to be. He just wanted Emma to back off. Maybe she was getting too close. There was no way that Killian had known for a week. Last week had been Regina's visit. The dinner party.
The one Killian had shown up late for.
The guy who was never late.
August saw the moment the seed of doubt planted itself in her eyes, and grinned wider.
"Believe me now?"