A/N: If I could choose my dreams… Wait, what?... NVM. Needless to say, I'm a CaptainSwan shipper (like 1000%) so please try not to hate on Gilbert too much. I think it'll be a much better story if you don't hate him. That said, he is here for a reason. (Who says it's a spell? I wanted to challenge myself.. so, I thought outside the box. Good guess, though! Keep 'em coming!)
3:05am
Emma was pacing. Holly had come and gone, taken Hope, and left Emma, alone, to her overthinking.
Upon arrival, the baby was awake, and a little playful. The bundle of joy completely took over Emma's vision, thoughts, and concerns, and Emma was a goner. She immediately pushed aside her dream - that blasted dream - like it was nothing, telling herself Holly must have shown her photos at some point, which leaked into the dream, and this was definitely not her kid - how could it be? It had only been a month since her birthday. Her son never came to her door. She never went to Storybrooke, which doesn't even exist (she checked), and her life continued as normal.
Holly had immediately noticed how natural Emma was with Hope (Emma could look past the name) and felt confident enough to leave her child with her.
Holly wasn't the only one to notice that fact, if Gil's shy smile indicated anything before he ushered himself out, looking like he would rather stay, but being respectful enough to know his place - which wasn't there with Emma and her charge.
At the time, Emma barely registered his smile, or the way he watched her with Hope in the moments before his departure. She was too enraptured with the infant to pay him any mind. Hours later, and pacing, the way he looked at her was absolutely worrisome. He definitely liked her. Enough not to be scared away by a kid. Enough that sent shivers down her spine that she wasn't sure if it was fear or excitement at the prospect of a decent man, wanting to be involved with her.
She couldn't think about that. Him.
For around seven hours, give or take, Emma played with, fed, rocked, sang to, read to, and changed the diapers of baby Hope. Around 2:45 am, when a disheveled Holly returned to pick up her precious cargo, Emma swore up and down that the baby had been an angel all night. It didn't take long for Holly to over thank Emma, and rush off back to her own place, leaving Emma to her overthinking.
If nothing else, babysitting for Holly cemented the one fact that Emma had never really admitted to herself before: She really wanted a kid. Sure, she wanted to adopt, she decided that ages ago. It was a dream to be able to rescue another kid from the life she had to live, but now.. she knew she wanted one of her own, too.
Her first thought was of Killian Jones. Rather, the man who looked and sounded like Killian Jones, who she'd, no doubt, be seeing again. After that dream, how could she not think about him? She'd married him (in the dream) and they had a kid together (in the dream) but who the hell was he, really?
Her 'dad' was the police chief, who'd shown her compassion and understanding. Her 'mom' was the woman from the park who looked just enough like Emma for her to daydream of another life. Those two, she could understand. It made sense. But her 'son' was an actor on TV for Christ's sake! Not to mention Regina, Ruby, Tink, Gold, and Zelena.. Well, the last two kinda made sense too. But for all she knew, 'Killian Jones' was a man she caught a glimpse of once when she visited the campus - that one time - and found him attractive enough to dream about.
Maybe he was a skip on the wall? Maybe that's why she dreamt him as being a villain before her lust won out and turned him into -
She shook her head, still pacing, wearing a hole in her carpet.
In reality? Emma had no idea who he really was, despite his marital status. Was he even a good guy? Did they have anything in common? Was his life stable, or hectic? Was he even a decent match for her? But he was almost always with that pregnant woman. Were they together? Why else would he always be with her?
Pushing that aside, she imagined herself with Gilbert Russo. It wasn't as forced as she thought it would be. He wasn't bad looking.. The opposite of bad looking. Not that she was shallow, but good looks didn't hurt.. He was a good guy. A good cop. She couldn't deny, now, that he liked her. And he was available. She already knew they got along, if their short bouts of banter at the station, and their twenty minutes in her apartment proved anything. She knew they had plenty of things in common. They had spent years together, so to speak. There had been plenty of time to gain knowledge, even accidentally, like their picks for shows, books, sports, foods.
At some point, Emma's pacing slowed down enough for her to think about what he said about her doorknob. He sounded genuine. Her lie detector had been silent. But.. She checked what he said against the all-knowing internet, only to kick herself when he was right. Her doorknob really had been a security risk.
She groaned as she made her way to her room, still thinking about Gilbert Russo as a prospect while she got ready for bed.
Gilbert had been in the system too, she knew. He was an orphan, ran away at 16, spent a year as a thief until he was arrested, let go, and taken in by the same cop who had picked him up, a father figure, who helped him see the world a little differently. The man helped him get his act together, get his GED, and enrolled him in the Academy. Gilbert was proud of his transformation, and would tell anyone who showed even the slightest interest.
Emma never had that, exactly, but she knew of one other thing she and Gilbert Russo shared - a love in their teens that ended badly. Neither knew the details of the other's loss of teenage romance, just that the story existed.
And she realized she could do worse than Detective Friendly, somewhere around 3:30 am, while drifting off to sleep.
7:00 am
Wake up, Emma, please, you have to -
Emma woke long enough to violently smash her alarm.
Motherhood was hard.
10ish am
Emma woke more peacefully this time, slowly waking to a gentle buzzing sound - before she realized it was her phone next to her, on the nightstand.
She never silenced her phone, ever, but she had turned it to vibrate for baby Hope during the hours she had her for when the kid actually fell asleep. She'd forgotten all about her phone until it rang right when Hope had fallen asleep. Luckily, Hope was a sound sleeper, but Emma immediately shut off the sound to her device, completely ignoring the late night call from her boss.
And then she completely forgot to turn the volume back on.
She groaned at the ID, though she shouldn't have been surprised, this call was also from Joey. Emma's face twisted in disgust, she couldn't help it, before rolling her eyes and answering - he was her boss, after all. She couldn't always ignore his calls.
Turned out, the creep wanted to know how her work with her most recent skip was. The bounty on the man had just doubled, and he wanted to know if she needed backup. He mainly wanted to know how close she was to catching the guy - because there was a line of people also trying to get their hands on the man.
She quickly assured him she was on his trail, before abruptly hanging up to get out of bed to make that statement less of a lie.
12:00
On the dot, Emma raced out of her apartment. She was tired, bored, hungry, and wanted a break from her laptop screen.
Robert Smith was a ghost. Simply vanishing, right after the camera's lost the visual of him leaving the precinct on bail. She had no leads on him at all, but neither did anyone else. She nicknamed him Casper.
His facebook was not easy to find, being such a generic name. But she did, eventually, find it.. Only to see it was locked down to strangers.
That was when her stomach alerted her to the fact that she hadn't eaten, and she stomped out the door in a huff, down the stairwell, doing a double take at her neighbor who looked entirely too much like the Tinkerbell from her dream, in a green ice skaters costume - uniform? - whatever. She had to shake her head at her colorful imagination.
As she was heading down the stairs.. for the first time in a long time, she was flirting with the idea of breaking the law. Just a little bit. She was considering hacking into Casper's facebook account, nothing too terrible. But it churned her stomach. Breaking the law in any way always seemed to remind her of Neal. As a bail bonds person, she was given many liberties, though not as many as an actual cop. Hacking into personal social media accounts was not a liberty anyone had without a warrant, or permission.
She froze when she left her apartment building. She had to blink back surprise. Everything - the birds, the cars, pedestrians, everything - had completely stopped. The world was still. Except for her. She could reach out and touch the floating hair of a woman who looked like she had been rushing past Emma's building before everything just stopped.
She checked her watch.
The seconds weren't moving - until they were.
Looking back up, the world was right again, everything was moving, and a pedestrian nearly ran into her on the sidewalk.
She mumbled an apology as she made her way to the closest sandwich place.
She must have been more tired than she thought.
-x-x-x-
The rest of Tuesday went by slowly. Emma spent most of her time trying to find a lead - any lead - on the disappearance of Casper. She eventually said fuck it and hacked into his facebook account - which she shouldn't have even thought of doing but went and did it anyway. She'd been in a cafe at the time, and not fifteen minutes later, the FBI showed up, guns blazing.
They were looking for him too.
With a few keystrokes, she quietly disconnected from the internet, backed up her computer, erased her hard drive, all in the few seconds before her hands went up with everyone else's - and then she got the hell out of dodge before they gave her a second thought.
That led her deeper into Caspers criminal background. If his public, and private, life wasn't getting her anywhere, it was the best bet she had on the guy.
That led her to the man who ratted Casper out. The man himself was MIA, had been since Casper's arrest, but the snitch's family was still in the city.
She decided on a stake out outside their home, ignoring Holly's calls - because she was supposed to go on a date tonight (because everyone who dates on Taco Tuesday finds their happily ever after if you listened to Holly). Eventually, Emma gave in, and answered her phone.
"Are you dodging me?"
"Hey Holly."
"Hey girl. Are you dodging me?"
Emma let out a curt laugh. "Sort of, to be honest."
"Give me one, damn good reason."
"Big money for this new skip?"
She could practically hear the eyeroll. "You're canceling on this guy last minute?"
"More like standing up?"
"Emma!"
Emma cringed. "I'm sorry! Okay, I lost track of time today, and this guy - Casper - totally vanished off of everyone's radar, so I'm here in front of a house trying not to think about the two men not in my life -" She clamped her mouth shut, knowing she spilled entirely too much already.
"Nope, too late, talk."
Emma sighed. "Hunky Hunkerson."
"Right, the panty dropper from the college I'm about to enroll in if you keep talking about him like he's a Sex God."
"And… Detective Friendly."
"Really? What's going on there?"
"Nothing." Which… wasn't a lie. Just because Holly couldn't see him from her position at the doorway the night before, didn't mean Emma had to tell her he was present for the half minute after Hope arrived.
"Do you want something to be going on?"
"I don't honestly know."
"What about the hunk?"
"He may or may not be married."
"Girl." Holly laughed. "Just think of him in the bedroom, be nice in person, and go out with your cop."
"Holly-"
"I'll even run interference with the last two dates you promised me - I'll get them cancelled. Just one date with the friendly cop. I'm begging here."
"And if it doesn't work out?"
"So what? Least you tried."
Emma mulled this over, taking a sip of her now-cold coffee.
"Okay. If he asks."
"No, Emma, no. An actual date - by the end of the week, too, or I'm creating your profile on a dating site and plastering your number in the description."
Emma removed the phone to scowl at it, like Holly could see.
"Fine." She finally agreed, gritting her teeth. "But I hate you now, so there's that."
She abruptly hung up, and continued to watch the house like a good stalker.
5:53 AM
Emma called the chief's office number from her car while sitting in front of the station. She was not moving, not touching the seatbelt, not removing herself from the car, and was not going to attempt to move the pissed off Russian from the trunk by herself.
She had been lucky to catch Casper at the home of his snitch''s family - she was pretty sure she had a broken rib, but she still considered herself lucky, since it was a hail mary to be there at all, right in time to catch the bastard.
And the prize money on the man had tripled, so, maybe very lucky, which she was definitely paying for with her injuries.
And she still had to go to classes today, and go to her part time thing, and avoid Not-Killian.
The Chief sent out Detective Friendly, naturally, who smiled at her, though a little confused when she rolled down her window.
He bent down, his dark hair falling down his forehead as he did, concern etched on his face.
"You okay?"
"Yeah. Just.. a few more injuries than normal, and he's still pretty feisty - I didn't want to lose him in front of the station." She tried a light hearted laugh, but cringed at the attempt.
His concern deepened. "Emma, what's wrong-"
She shut him up by handing him her keys, and pointing to the front of her car where her trunk was. It took him a second to register that - her old ass bug - did not have it's engine in the front like any other normal vehicle.
He looked at her, locking eyes. Why had she never noticed his eyes before? Greyish blue orbs, taking her breath away a little. Which was dangerous with her rib injury.
He took the keys gently, not once removing his eyes from her.
"I'll help you, on one condition." She groaned, tilting her head toward him, the motion of which made her realize all of her was sore, not just her ribs. "Let me take you to the hospital."
She ignored the way he sounded - just a little - like he was begging.
She scoffed instead. "I have classes. Very expensive classes."
"And I can walk right back inside and tell everyone else you're joking."
"You wouldn't."
He smiled a little too convincingly. "You're too stubborn for your own good sometimes." He told her. But she knew he was bluffing. If she really pushed it, he would back off, do as she wanted - but she could also see that he had to try this first, had to try and take care of her - and it hit her like a ton of bricks, she really didn't mind having someone who wanted to take care of her. It was a strange, novel, concept she'd only ever heard of before.
He held out the keys for her to take back, pushing his point, and she knew she had to make a choice. Be her usual, bristly, self-sufficient woman… or let a man care.
She responded with a glare.
"Fine, Russo."
He nodded, the grin unmistakable despite her jab, before going around to the front of her car to unlock her trunk.
12:47 PM
It was well after her last class when she finally made it... to the bench near the coffee cart closeish to the parking lot her bug was in. She'd completely missed her first class, thanks to Gilbert, but she really couldn't blame him. She was the one who took on a notorious criminal by herself - without realizing he was a notorious criminal.
She was losing her touch. Or something. She was distracted. Maybe she bit off too much this time, all at once.
Aside from a few glorified band-aids for her smaller injuries on her hands, face, arms, stomach, and one random bruise on her ass, the tape around her midsection keeping her ribs in place was hell. And she had not one, but two broken ribs. Apparently, broken ribs are not readily mendable. She had to wait for the slow healing process - and stay away from chasing skips, too. Best case scenario was to be completely healed in one month. Two, if she refused to take it easy.
It took her a while to realize things wouldn't be tight over the next few months - Casper may have caused her injuries that kept her from working, but he also landed her enough dough, she wouldn't have to work for a year. Ribs didn't take that long to heal.
She rested a while, somewhere between seconds and hours, before peeling herself (gently) off the bench. A chai tea sounded heavenly, and that's exactly what she got for herself -
Fuck.
She quickly called the retail store, her other job, chai in hand, explaining the situation, and offering a doctor's note as proof - but 'Ruby' scolded her for it, giving her well wishes, and promising she'd still have a job when she recovered.
That was a nice surprise.
She gingerly sat back down on the bench, nursing her tea, when a pair of boots came into her vision. She didn't have to look up to just know who they belonged to.
Double fuck.
"Afternoon." If she didn't already know, the dreamy accent was a dead giveaway.
Her eyes panned up, confirming her calculation. He was, oddly, without the pregnant lady at his side. So he did come here on his own.
Curious.
"Hey." She pushed out, a little more forcibly than intended.
His eyes pierced her, almost as if he could read -
Nope.
"You, love, are not okay."
She scoffed. "Two broken ribs."
He cringed. "Bloody hell, and you're here? What the devil is wrong with you? Go home!"
She had to push down the smile. "College is important."
"So is health."
"If I stopped living my life because of every injury I sustained, I'd never get out of the house."
He raised a brow at that, such a Killian thing to do, too.
Not that she would know.
Not that that was even his name.
"Trouble at home?"
"Nope."
"You're not lying."
"Get out of my head."
"Apologies. You're something of an open -"
"I gotta go." She couldn't let him quote himself. Instead, she tried standing, too quickly, instantly regretting it when she fell forward into his arms. Of course he caught her. Why not?
"Least let me aid you to your vehicle."
"No one talks like that."
"Hi, I'm Colin, and I absolutely talk like that." Colin. Not Killian. Huh. Take that, dream!
She grudgingly allowed him to walk with her - but not help her - to her car. Not that he nearly badgered her until she agreed, or anything, like the rough gentleman she dreamt he would be.
"You never did tell me your name." He glanced at her sideways.
That startled her. She couldn't keep from gaping at him, but she forced herself to (quicky) reset her features into an indifferent state, forcing her eyes in front of her. She distinctly remembered him calling out to her, by her first name -
She had to shake that notion off, allowing him to assume the movement was meant to deny him her name.
"Least tell me you've received medical attention." He finally asked.
"Aye." She couldn't resist faking his accent, which made him cringe, which made her laugh - then cringe, holding her ribs and breathing slowly. "I was late for my first class -" she choked out, "because of the medical attention." She hated how jaded she sounded.
Of course he picked up on it. "Not a fan of the hospital?"
"Or doctors."
"Or health?" He was teasing her now. Damn him and his damn smile and his damn blue sparkling… things.
"Or nosy british strangers." She shot back.
He chuckled darkly. "Devilishly handsome british stranger, you mean."
She rolled her eyes, but she knew a smile was threatening to pop out. "Cocky bastard."
"It isn't cocky if it's true."
"It's not true if the only woman who admits it is your mother."
She kept her face busy by taking a sip.
"Then I suspect you've had no one to tell you just how lovely you are to look at."
"Oookaay. I can find my car from here, thanks." They were only a few yards from her bug, now, anyway.
He startled her further by reaching for her elbow, gently, like he just knew she had a bruise basically covering her entire body. She did still have that bruise on her cheek, she knew, and a few bandages on her face and hands - that he could see.
It was a Killian move, making her stop in her tracks and turn toward him. The move put him entirely too close to her. Their eyes instantly locked, and she mentally damned him again.
"You've never really been loved, have you?"
"And you've clearly never learned the definition of personal space."
He smirked, gingerly reaching for her hand, planting a light kiss on her knuckles, his eyes glued to hers.
He spoke so quietly, she had to strain to hear. "Till next we meet, milady."
-x-x-x-
Emma calmed her ass down in her bug before speeding off, picking up her massive check at the shop, before immediately depositing it in her bank. She took the drive through. It was less hassle than the inside lines, though it was probably longer. It was definitely longer, but worth staying in the car for. She spent nearly an hour waiting her turn, which was crap since it wasn't even 3pm when she entered the line. But, Boston.
She went to her favorite taco place, having missed out on Taco Tuesday the day before. She was in the drive through when she got a call - from the chief.
"Emma?"
"Chief? What the hell-"
"I have bad news. Are you sitting down?"
Fuck. What the hell would he be calling her - what could he possibly tell her - what kind of bad news? A certain friendly detective's image flashed in her mind, for only a second. Less than a second.
"I'm in my car."
"You might want to pull over." She would later swear her heart stopped at that moment.
She was still far back enough in line that she was able to pull out of the drive through line, and into a parking space.
"Okay. I'm no longer driving. The car is in park. Tell me before I think the worst and die of a cardiac event."
He breathed out. He wasn't looking forward to telling her this as much as she wasn't looking forward to hearing it.
"It's.. well. Your apartment. There was a fire. It started sometime early this morning, and the whole building - it's gone, Swan."
Well. It is called Murphy's Law.. And yes, restaurant hours can actually be that long. I worked from 10am-2am 6 days a week - I both opened and closed the place. Thank you for reading!