Five

"How's the leg?"

"The same as when you asked five minutes ago," August replied in a bored tone, not even bothering to look up from his paperwork. "Seriously, are you going to keep asking me that all day?"

"You were shot!" Robin exclaimed in defense of his concern.

"And do you really think they would let me back on regular duties if I wasn't fully recovered?" August pointed out to him.

"I'm not worried," Robin corrected him. "I'm concerned."

August shook his head lightly as Robin began yet another attempt to get him talk about the events which led to his injury. He glanced up from his paperwork for the first time, sending Robin a perplexed look. "Is there a difference?"

Robin ignored his clear attempt to distract him. August had been skilfully dodging the topic all morning but there were only so many things he could use to distract his partner and only so many times that Robin would let him.

"You jumped into the path of a bullet, August," Robin reminded him, his insistence on talking about it prompting August to drop his gaze back down to his paperwork, instantly reinterested in it. "No, August. We need to talk about this. You can't keep avoiding it."

August knew that Robin wasn't going to let it go this time. He'd worked with the man for enough years to know he would persist until he got the conversation he was so desperately after, until he got August to acknowledge his actions leading up to his injury. Reluctantly conceding, August dropped the pen in his hand onto his desk. He discarded it with a little more force than he intended and the pen bounced as it made contact with the desk, ending up falling on the floor. August ignored it, meeting Robin's eyes once again.

"It's not like it was a stray bullet heading nowhere! I took it to prevent a colleague from getting hit," August defended his actions.

"A colleague you despise," Robin pointed out. August couldn't see how that would make any difference.

"Yes, Jefferson and I don't work well together but it doesn't mean I'll stand by and let the guy die," August maintained his argument. "As annoying as he is, when we're in the field together, I have his back, even if that means taking a bullet for him."

"You could have died," Robin remarked. August wasn't quite sure what the man was getting at but he knew he was prompting him to keep talking.

"But I didn't," August shrugged off, "and, more importantly, neither did he."

There was a brief look of satisfaction on Robin's face which told August he had said exactly what Robin had been after. The satisfaction was quickly covered up with concern and Robin eyed him carefully.

"There it is," Robin folded his arms as he sat back in his chair. "More importantly. Like his life is more important than yours."

"Because it is. He has a nine-year-old child at home who has already lost her mother," August return, maintaining his defense of his actions. Robin looked like he was ready to argue but August didn't give him the chance to. "I know what it's like to grow up without parents. I'm not going to let Grace grow up without her father."

"Look who finally decides to grace us with his presence once again!" The teasing comment interrupted their conversation as August received a playful nudge in the back. He turned, though he recognised the voice before his eyes had even fallen on the man. Jefferson. Talk of the devil.

"Well, I heard you were falling apart without me," August shot back.

"You wish!" Jefferson scoffed. "Hey, what's with the media storm outside?"

August raised an eyebrow at that. It was the first time he had heard of it. He glanced at Robin who looked just as uncertain as he was.

"That would my latest case," Sidney spoke up from his own desk, joining in their conversation. He glanced up only briefly to look at them, from what looked to be a medical examiner's report in his hand.

"You landed a high profile one?" Robin questioned, searching for more information which would explain the reported media frenzy outside.

"Sort of," Sidney sighed lightly, placing the report down on his desk before giving his three fellow detectives his full attention. "Daniel Colter."

Jefferson and Robin shared a blank look at the unfamiliar name.

"The CEO of Colter Dynamics?" August did recognize the name. His route to work took him past the company's fancy New York office and their factory on the edge of the industrial sector.

"The up-and-coming technology company?" Jefferson had clearly heard of the company before. Seemingly invested in the conversation, the man perched himself down on the end of August's desk, an action which only mildly infuriated August as he knocked over his pot of pens. "With the media crowd out there, you'd think some movie star had died, not some businessman."

"It's not so much the identity of the victim but the strange circumstances," Sidney explained. "He was found with a huge hole in his chest and his heart discarded on the ground next to him. The M.E report confirms it wasn't done post-mortem. It was the cause of death. The media frenzy out there don't even know the weirdest part…" he trailed off, gesturing to the report on his desk, "there are no signs of any surgical cuts."

"You mean, someone just punched right through?" Robin gathered from the information.

"But that would require impossible strength," August commented.

Sidney shrugged, at a lost, "Like I said. Strange circumstances."

Jefferson chuckled lightly, "And I thought my latest case was weird. It's nothing compared to this."

"What's your case?" Robin enquired.

Jefferson briefly glanced down at his notepad, reviewing the notes he had jotted down, "Emma Swan, mother of two, shot five times in the chest and once in the head from close distance. The husband was upstairs with the kids when he heard the shots and, by the time he got down, the intruder was already halfway up the front yard. Essentially, the murderer broke down the door, shot her six times and then left immediately."

"Sounds like a targeted attack, possibly a contract killer," August offered his own thoughts on the case.

"My thoughts exactly," Jefferson stated immediately, eager to demonstrate that he had already been over that train of thought, "except the husband couldn't even think of one person who would want her dead. Loved by everyone, he claims."

"Clearly not," August commented.

"Well, have fun finding the motive there," Robin told Jefferson, his tone lacking any sympathy for the man who would have to search through phone records, bank statements and all sorts just to land a possible motive and suspect.

-The Huntsman-

"You're late!"

"I know! I know!" Emma called out as she frantically rushed through the restaurant section of Granny's, hurrying to the door which led out back to the break room, locker room and kitchen.

Her boss, an older woman who was fondly referred to as Granny by regulars and staff, watched her every move, her arms folded and an unimpressed look on her face from behind the counter. Emma pushed the door leading to the back rooms open but didn't go through straight away. She hovered in the doorway, her attention on Granny.

"I'm sorry," Emma apologised, "I got stuck on the phone."

Granny didn't respond other than a small nod which Emma took as her cue to go and get ready for her shift. She stepped through the door, letting it swing shut behind her and was instantly met by Ruby, a colleague and Granny's actual granddaughter with whom Emma had built up a good friendship over the two years she had been working there.

"Stuck on the phone with coffee boy?" Ruby questioned her, a small smirk on her face as she admitted to listening in to Emma's brief interaction with Granny.

Emma stared at her, momentarily surprised.

"Lily told you," Emma connected the dots fairly quickly, not that it was too hard. Lily was the only person who ken, at least Emma had thought she was, and coffee boy was her best friend's nickname for Neal.

"Of course she did!" Ruby responded like she should have known that Lily wouldn't have kept it to herself. In hindsight, Emma realised, she probably should have. "Emma Swan going on a date. This should be breaking news!"

Emma rolled her eyes at Ruby's dramatics as she grabbed her apron and put it on. "It's not that big a deal," she insisted.

"It is, considering only a few days ago you were telling me you don't need a guy in your life," Ruby argued, using Emma's own words against her.

"I still stand by that," Emma replied immediately. She didn't need a guy but it just so happened that she had happened across a guy who actually seemed nice and was interested in her. Those two things were a rarity in her own experience.

"So? Are you going to tell me the plans for tonight?" Ruby dug for more information.

"He's actually managed to get us a reservation at Gusteau's," Emma relayed the plans that Neal had told her over the phone. "You know that really fancy restaurant? I'm not sure how, though. I heard that you had to book well in advance to get a reservation there."

"It's the family name though, isn't it," Ruby pointed out to her. "Gold Industries are involved in Gusteau's behind the scenes. Partners or something. I don't know exactly. I just know that Granny's always complaining about how we could do with that kind of support more than an already fully successful, over-priced restaurant."

Emma frowned at that new information. "I though Gold Industries were a weapons company," she said. Since Neal had given her the business card with his family's company name on it, Emma had done a little bit of digging into it. Her brief investigation had only brought up a big question in her own head as to why Neal was on an archaeology course when he was set to inherit such a successful company. At least it gave them something to talk about on a first date. "Why would Gold Industries have any interest in a restaurant business?"

Ruby shrugged, not too sure herself, "All I know is that they're looking to broaden their horizons, whatever that means. Maybe they've decided they don't want to fuel war and destruction anymore?"

"I have a diner full of people out here and two of my best waitresses are missing!" Granny's voice floated into the back room, politely requesting that they did less yakking and more working. Emma and Ruby glanced at each other before promptly heading out into the diner to serve the customers in their respective sections.

-The Huntsman-

Emma stood at the end of a booth, her notepad and pen in hand as she watched the chaos unfold in front of her. A family of five were seated in the booth, of which both parents looked exhausted with heavy bags under their eyes. Emma could see why. Their three children, triplets from what she could tell – around the age of eight years old – looked a handful. At least, the two boys did. The girl was sat with her coloring book on the table and a green crayon in her hand, completely ignoring the chaos beside her as she worked on a picture of Peter Pan in the midst of battle against Captain Hook. Clearly, she was used to the antics of her brother.

The two boys were sat across from each other, engaged in a wrestling match over a sachet of tomato ketchup, despite the fact that the family hadn't even gotten around to ordering their food. There were also plenty of other sachets of ketchup in the pot on their table but both boys had apparently decided they needed that specific sachet. The dad's desperate and exhausted attempts to stop the two boys were consistently unsuccessful.

The poor mother looked horrified as she apologising profusely to Emma and dived into an excuse for their behavior, "I'm so sorry! I think they're just a little over-excited. It's their first time in the country. We're on holiday you see, in fact we just came here from the airport so they've got lots of energy from being sat on a plane for eight hours. I swear, they're not normally like this."

Emma simply nodded understandingly, believing she was in no place to judge. She knew she'd have no idea herself what to do with one kid, let alone three.

Eventually, the boy sat next to the girl blissfully coloring won the fight, claiming the sachet as his. His arm jerked backwards when his brother lost his grip on the sachet, his elbow crashing into his sister's strawberry milkshake. Pink liquid flooded across the table, drenching the girl's coloring book in the process.

The girl rounded on her brother, her face furious. "Sebastian!" She snapped and threw the green crayon right at the centre of his forehead.

"Alice Lillemor!" The mom scolded her actions and immediately got to work sorting out the new disagreement which had broken out between Sebastian and his sister, Alice. The dad, meanwhile, was hurriedly covering the milkshake drenched table in paper towels which he had had at the ready from the moment Emma had brought them their drink orders. Drink spillages were clearly a common occurrence for the family.

Emma's attention was caught by the other boy who brandished a huge, plastic dinosaur from under the table and Emma wouldn't have been surprised had he launched it at his brother and sister's unsuspecting heads.

"Woah kid!" Emma spoke up, deciding to at least try and help manage the situation which was rapidly spiralling further out of the parents' control. The growing noise levels from the booth was starting to earn the family judgemental looks from other customers around the diner. "What have you got there?"

The boy proudly held it up for her to see, a huge smile on his face. "It's a tyrannosaurus rex!" He told her excitedly. "There were one of the biggest meat-eating dinosaurs and they had teeth about twenty centimetres long! They even found some that were thirty centimetres long before!"

His brother, Sebastian, rolled his eyes. "Owen's a dinosaur nerd," he told Emma, his tone unsurprisingly insulting towards his brother.

"And you're just an idiot," Alice shot matter-of-factly at Sebastian, taking Owen's side as she continued to hold a grudge against Sebastian for ruining her Peter Pan coloring page.

"I think those facts are pretty cool," Emma told Owen before she casually guided them back onto the topic of ordering their food. "We have dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets if you want to order those?"

Owen didn't even think about it. "Yes!" He exclaimed, bouncing in his seat. Emma glanced at his parents, receiving a tired nod of confirmation from them before she jotted it down. "It does come with chips, right?" The young boy checked.

"Chips?" Emma raised an eyebrow at the strange request. Chicken nuggets and chips was an odd combination.

"He means fries," his mom explained.

"In that case, yes, it does come with fries," Emma confirmed which seemed to satisfy Owen.

"I'll have a mega burger!" Sebastian requested excitedly, a request which was immediately shot down by his parents who reached a compromise with him of a standard cheeseburger form the adult menu.

Before long, Emma finally had their whole order written down and gratefully escaped the chaos of the family of five. Kids were a lot. She certainly wasn't in a hurry to go down that road.

"Alright, Michael, I have table ten's order for you!" Emma announced to the chef as she strolled into the kitchen, instantly getting hit by the warmth of the room. There was a controlled chaos about the kitchen as the staff ran around preparing food. The diner has suddenly been hit with a wave of customers as they entered their busy period of the day and the poor kitchen staff were thrown right into it. She ripped the paper from her notepad, placing it down for Michael to look over when he got to it.

"Great, I'm just finishing off table fourteen's," Michael responded to her from where he was completing the final touches on two plates of food for one of the other tables in her section, "give me two minutes."

The door swung open once again as Ruby walked in, placing down her own order for the chef to look over. Spotting Emma, she walked across the kitchen to join her, looking exasperated. "Why do the creeps always get seating in my section?" Ruby complained.

Emma chuckled. Ruby really did tend to have bad luck when it came to her experiences with customers, "You got another one?"

"He's just weird," Ruby told her with a shake of her head. "He asked for a burger and when I asked him to be more specific, he looked at me like I'd grown an extra head. It took me ten minutes -ten minutes – to help him understand that there are seven different types of burgers and that he needed to choose which option he preferred. It's like the guy's never ordered food before!"

"Maybe he's just never had a burger before?" Emma tried to reason with a shrug.

"Who has never had a burger before?" Ruby exclaimed, the idea seemingly preposterous to her. "And he had no idea what fries were!"

"So you're calling him a creep because his parents were most likely super anti-junk food?" Emma summarised, slightly confused.

"I asked him if he wanted fries or salad with his burger and he genuinely though I said flies," Ruby defended herself. "And it's not just food! There's a weird atmosphere around him and he's giving off strange vibes. It's like he's on edge. He could hardly even look at me! He was constantly glancing over his shoulder and looking around the diner. Do you think he might be on the run?"

"What? From the cops?" Emma questioned, thrown off by her sudden jump from 'creep' to 'fugitive'. Ruby nodded eagerly. "I don't know! I haven't even seen the guy!"

"Emma, table fourteen's food is ready to go," Michael called over to her.

Ruby grabbed Emma's arm as she made a move to collect the food, stopping her from moving.

"Table twenty-four," Ruby told her. "Just check it out. See what you think."

"Alright," Emma agreed, more so Ruby would just let go of her arm and let her do her job.

She really doubted whatever guy Ruby was talking about was a fugitive. To begin with, that would suggest interesting things actually went on in Emma's life. Her doubts were also backed up by Ruby's habit of developing crazy backstories for her customers. Emma remembered all too well the time that Ruby had jumped to the conclusion that a woman she was serving was an undercover food inspector and promptly sent the entirety of the kitchen staff into a blind panic. One which resulted in the work experience kid accidentally catching a tea towel on fire and setting of the fire alarm. Needless to say, it was probably a good job that Ruby had jumped to the wrong conclusions about that woman.

Emma was not concerned at all as she picked up the two plates of food and headed back out to the diner. She slowed as she stepped out of the door, taking the time to glance over at table twenty-four. A lone man, dressed all in black with equally dark hair sweeping over his forehead sat at the table. Emma had to admit she could understand why Ruby had jumped to the assumption she had. He definitely looked on edge. In fact, he was on the edge of his seat and his fingers on his right hand drummed almost anxiously against the table, drawing Emma's attention to the absence of his other hand on his left arm. The man was sat bolt upright in a way which reminded Emma of a meerkat. He looked to be on high alert, his blue eyes darting around the room, taking everything in with a hint of suspicion. She got a strange vibe from him, like he really didn't want to be there but, as far as she could tell, there was no one forcing him to be.

His eyes landed on her as he scanned the room. Their eyes locked and, for the first time since Emma had stepped out into the diner, his eyes were still. Not frantic or erratic but still, focused on her. Caught staring at him, Emma broke from his returned stare. She had a job to do and her job was serving customers, not analysing their body position and behaviors or staring into their eyes. She made her way to table fourteen which, thankfully, was in the opposite direction to the man who had caught her staring. As she walked with her back to him, however, she couldn't shake an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. She felt like she was being watched. Like she could feel his eyes boring into her.

She ignored it, setting down the food at table fourteen.

"Two mega burgers with fries and salad," Emma stated as she placed the plates down on the table. She took a single step back and clasped her hands together before adding, "Can I get you anything else?"

At the shake of their heads, Emma left them to enjoy their meals. She turned her sights to table twelve, planning on checking in on them though, as she turned, she could see the lone man's table in the corner of her eye. The feeling she'd had that his eyes were boring into her had not been her imagination. He was still watching her closely. There was an unsettling desperate intensity to it especially since the rest of his face was unreadable, void of emotion.

She bypassed table twelve, making the assumption from their faces that they were enjoying their meals and decided not to interrupt. Instead, she returned to the sectioned off kitchen in more of a hurry than she would normally do so.

Ruby was waiting expectantly, "So?"

"Weird," Emma admitted but she didn't expand on her experience any further. As unsettling as it had been, there was something about the intensity at which he had looked at her which felt so intimate she would struggle to put it into words.

-The Huntsman-

Killian stared at the door into the kitchen as it swung shut. He'd seen her. He had been tailing her since the early hours of the morning. He had seen her through her apartment window as she was getting her stuff together for work. He had seen her as she left for work, climbing into her yellow car. He had seen her as she walked into work and, eventually, he had followed her in.

But just then, she had acknowledged his presence for the first time and it was like he had seen her for the first time all over again. Their eyes had locked and, in that moment, he had felt fourteen years old again, immediately transported back to the time the General had given him her photograph.

She's beautiful.

It was a whole different thing in person. He had the photograph burned into his memory, he had studied it enough, memorised every little detail about it but he would argue that, almost impossibly, the photograph didn't do her justice. The photograph was one snapshot of her, frozen in a time when there was just a hint of sadness about her. The woman he had locked eyes with was content, happy, and perhaps even possessed some naivety about her.

He, like many others in the Resistance who had never gotten the chance to meet her, pictured her as a strong leader and fighter. The woman who helped give them all something to fight for. The woman who had moulded her daughter into the leader figure who had so brilliantly followed in her footsteps. General Swan had warned him that Emma wasn't always the woman that the legends illustrated her to be and Killian knew that. Seeing her in the flesh, alive and well, however, made her real. It made her a person with more sides to her than the one most people had ever gotten the chance to see. There were sides to her which weren't covered in the stories, mysterious sides to him which he would soon get the chance to discover.

The mystery around her only mesmerized Killian even more than his fourteen-year-old self had been when General Swan had given him that photograph. He hadn't been able to take his eyes off her, following her every move as she had made her way through the busy diner. It had taken all of his self-control to stop himself from running over and filling her in on everything that was happening. He would have sounded like a madman, and he still wasn't sure how he was going to tell her without her thinking he was crazy. More importantly, however, if he approached her before the Huntsman made its move, he would be putting them both in jeopardy.

To accomplish his mission, to really be able to protect Emma, Killian needed to identify the Huntsman sent back to kill her. As infiltration models, they were all designed to look different so to prevent easy identification. If he were to go to Emma like he so badly wanted to, the Huntsman could potentially kill him before it killed her. He needed to remain an observer until he knew exactly what it looked like. As much as he hated it, it left him with no other choice but to dangle Emma as bait.

Every time she disappeared into the kitchen, it felt like time slowed and his heart would start racing until she emerged again. From his table, he had the two doors into the diner covered, as well as the door into the kitchen. If someone were to pass through who didn't look like they belonged, he would spot them, yet it still terrified him that the Huntsman may slip past his vigilant gaze.

The diner was busy, filled with people laughing and chatting. It was distracting, watching families laughing and creating memories, completely oblivious to the oncoming storm. He wondered how many of them were taking the simple things for granted, like the wide range of burgers they had available to choose from. In his time, those who remembered the world before Judgement Day spoke about burgers a lot. Killian had never known there was so much choice involved with them.

The General had told him many stories about the world before Judgement Day. With hindsight, he realised all those stories were her way of preparing him for his journey back in time. Upon learning the function of the final weapon, Killian had been certain he was more than prepared for the world that had come before the machines took control.

He wasn't, he realised. He didn't belong in the world he had travelled to. It felt like there was more joy in the cheerful diner than he had ever experienced in his life. It was strange. It was disconcerting. It was overwhelming.

Know the death, destruction and suffering that would soon be upon those blissfully unaware around him was horrendous. He found himself wanting to stand up and shout out warnings, advise them on the safe zones from the primary blasts they needed to ensure that they got to but he couldn't. They weren't his mission. Emma Swan was his mission. All the warnings he wanted to send out could jeopardise that mission.

Disconnect.

That's what the General had done with her knowledge. Killian knew he needed to disconnect from the world and the people around him. For the sake of the future of those he had left behind, Emma Swan and the Huntsman could be his only focus.

-The Huntsman-

The rowdy, chaotic family of five with the triplets were leaving, the parents thanking her profusely for her help, and Emma's break was slowly creeping upon her. She couldn't wait to get on her break. The guy Ruby had pointed out to her was still watching her. The intimate intensity from before had died down a little but every so often she would still catch him staring at her. He wasn't even subtle about it! Where most people, when caught staring, would immediately break eye contact, he just held her stare.

He was on his second burger. The first one had been gone in a matter of minutes, consumed ravenously by the man. It had been like watching a wild animal inhale its food before any other animal could come along and take it from them. Sauce had dripped down his arm but the man had been either completely oblivious to it, or just didn't care.

The second one he was taking his time with, taking small bites every now and then. It was almost like he was trying to delay leaving. Ruby erupted out of the door into the kitchen, calling out Emma's name as Emma pocketed the generous tip the chaotic family had left on their table for her. There was an urgency in Ruby's voice as she beckoned her over.

"I'm going on my break," Emma informed Granny as she walked over to Ruby.

"You have to see this!" Ruby had a wild grin on her face as she grabbed hold of Emma's arm and dragged her through the door. "It's about you! Well, kind of." They went straight past the kitchen and into the break room where a few other colleagues were watching a news report. "Look!" She urged, pointing to the television.

"A police spokesman at the scene refused to speculate on a motive for the execution-style slaying of the woman," the anchor-woman reported. "He did, however, say that an accurate description of the suspect will be compiled from several witnesses. Once again, Emma Swan, thirty-two, mother of two, brutally shot to death in her home this morning."

Emma stared at the screen, gaping slightly at the news of the murder of a woman who shared her name. It was a weird feeling, hearing your own name followed by the words 'brutally shot to death'.

Ruby placed a hand down on her shoulder, letting out a light laugh at the strange coincidence, "You're dead, Emma!"