A/N: No Killian in this chapter, my apologies, but there are answers to your questions and there's an OC whom I love a lot and I hope you do too
The Big P ( ofshipsandswans ) and Notorious Nonnie ( acourtoftruelove ) are epic as always and weren't afraid to go "uhhh Manon?" whenever I did or wrote stupid stuff.
shady-swan-jones is also epic and never complained when I stalked her about the art she was making, you can find said awesome art on Tumblr!
A dense downpour covered the streets, distorting the view, a thin sheet of water blurring her sight. Emma walked, all of her senses heightened—her ears searching for any sound that didn't belong. She did not trust the dark that enclosed her, nor was she pleased with the curtain of rain. She was at a disadvantage and she knew it, knew that this was exactly why he had waited before informing her where their meeting would take place. Why he chose for it to be this late. He wanted the upper hand and Emma couldn't do anything but to hand it to him. She was but an employee, a hired informant that could be laid off at any moment.
The rain was just a welcome bonus, she supposed as she trudged on, avoiding puddles that had gathered; he was powerful but controlling the weather required some magic that he, a mere mortal, did not possess.
The cobblestones of the alley shone with a layer of rain, the water enhancing the sound of her high boots echoing against the stone. Emma was already regretting her choice of footwear. It was drawing attention to her, attention that might not be wanted.
She checked her phone for the umpteenth time since she had left to be certain and it gave her the confirmation she sought. This was it, it told her, the brightness of her screen causing her to squint against the artificial light. She had reached her destination.
And she was all alone.
That didn't seem right.
Her eyes slid across her surroundings, searching for a sign of life, a clue that someone else was present, but found none.
"So, Ms. Swan."
Emma was startled by the voice surfacing out of the shadows. And the man accompanying it.
"What have you found out?" Mr. Gold asked.
He appeared from whatever hole he was hiding, dressed to the nines in a suit that seemed badly tailored, tatty even, loose at some parts and way too tight at others. A golden cane in his hand, only emphasizing his stature and oddity. Who owned a cane? A golden one at that? His brown hair, streaked with grey, was long and stuck to his cheeks thanks to the rain.
"Okay, first of all, Gold," Emma responded, not wanting to immediately hand him her information, her only assets. "Why are we meeting in some shady alley? It reeks here."
And it did. Of pee and other questionable substances. A place Emma would much rather not spend time in.
"We need to be covert," sounded his answer, but it failed to resonate with Emma.
She tilted her head and frowned as a movement in the background caught her eye.
"And we couldn't be covert in an office or a place where there aren't actual rats running around?" she questioned, pointing at the spot the rat had just run across.
Gold seemed less worried about the vermin running around; he could fit right in. Birds of a feather flock together and all that.
"Now is not the time to complain about hygienics, Ms. Swan. What have you found?" he repeated, uttering every word as if it was a sentence with a full stop.
Emma recognized that her efforts of convincing him to pick another meeting point would lead to absolutely nothing and so she simply accepted that she was going to look like she was offering Gold drugs in a dark alley. Though, if she was being entirely honest, it was most likely going to look like she was offering him something else.
Just the thought of that made bile rise in the back of her throat and made her want to end this briefing as soon as possible. She cleared her throat as she refocused on the matter at hand.
"After another week, observing Jones from afar has not proven to be very useful or helpful with me getting new information. I've therefore decided to switch tactics and, instead, I'm going to try and gain his trust." Gold didn't need to know the real reason why she'd had a sudden change of heart, it would only shrink his already microscopic amount of trust in her even more. "It's now just a matter of him trusting me to get the information you need," she told him, making sure he believed the ease with which she could handle the situation, even though she didn't particularly believe in it herself.
His dark eyes slid over her face, assessing and attempting to read her features and even if what was going on in his brain mostly remained a mystery to her, Emma could see the wheels turning in his eyes, could almost hear his thoughts conferring with one another.
At last, he spoke.
"I hope you don't get carried away, Ms. Swan. We do have a deal and I do not take my deals lightly."
"Neither do I, Gold," Emma guaranteed. "I'll get the job done, don't worry."
"You better."
She should've let the meeting end there, let the both of them part ways and not talk to each other until Gold required another briefing. But the hunch that something was off—the thought that she couldn't in a million years fathom what intel Gold needed on Jones, especially since she spent some time talking to him and getting to know him—couldn't stop thrumming in her head.
"What is it exactly that you want?" she then asked him outright. "I have already given all of the information I have found so far and there's nothing out of the ordinary."
"I'm not hiring you to ask questions, Ms. Swan. Leave that part to me. Keep your eyes and ears open, report back when you find more, that is all I require from you." His accent had become thicker, more guttural, acting as yet another warning.
"Okay." Emma threw her hands up in the air in concession.
She was not going to debate it or ask any more risky questions. The money Gold was paying made sure that she did not have to struggle to make ends meet; she was able to afford everything she needed with one, single job; she wasn't about to jeopardize that.
"Until next time, I guess." She shrugged, not knowing what else to say.
"I hope you have something more interesting to tell me then, or I'll have to reconsider this whole arrangement."
Gold left the way he had come and vanished into the darkness again. She didn't wait until he was completely gone to properly roll her eyes in response to his irritating flare for the dramatics that was omnipresent.
Turning on the heel of her boot, Emma left as well, in the opposite direction Gold had gone. As she walked, she gathered her wet tresses, quickly combing them through with her fingers to avoid any knots. The heavy rainfall had luckily stopped, only a stray drop here and there falling out of the sky, and so when she was met with the choice of either taking the bus home or just walking to her apartment, the quiet atmosphere and the clean, crisp air outside made her choose the latter. They were a proven successful approach to clear her head.
One thought just wouldn't allow itself to be deleted, however.
Or one person.
Jones.
She hadn't thought a lot about the day they'd spent together, not yet. Maybe because she didn't want her head clouded before the meeting with Gold but now that that was all over and done, it had free rein to infiltrate her mind again, to revisit the events anew.
As they had left the store the day before yesterday, she had been hit by an immense sense of fear. Not fear of being caught or a fear of sharing too much with him.
No, not that. It was the fear of having to spend a considerable amount of time with someone she just met. She wasn't a good socializer, her lack of friends could attest to that. One could even say she was absolutely terrible at small talk. So why on earth had she agreed to spend the afternoon with him?
The funny thing, however, was that she'd spent those first moments so struck with anxiety, her thoughts so consumed by it, that she hadn't even realized how fast time had gone by. How she'd been talking and laughing and listening without any awkwardness trailing the conversation, without any uncomfortable silences creeping in. And that was a new experience altogether.
Perhaps that was the reason she'd been so adamant to avoid the topic, because she wasn't exactly sure what to think of it.
Or of the fact that she'd given him her cell phone number when he had asked.
She did tell Gold she was planning on gaining his trust, but whether that was the actual reason she'd so easily added her number to his contacts, Emma hadn't quite figured out yet.
And again that same question from before resurfaced. Killian seemed like an ordinary guy. Nothing about him particularly stood out. No weird vibes, no strange behavior. Just a polite, somewhat reserved—but then again, flirty—dude. Someone who'd managed to make her feel at ease. What would Gold want with information about him, and, more importantly, what was he going to use it for?
Emma sighed as the question remained unanswered, her breath hot against the chilled air. Her feet continued to tap against the concrete, carrying her closer and closer to home. What had first been a pleasant brisk breeze, was now a freezing wind, chilling her to the core. The remaining raindrops falling from her hair certainly did not help.
She spotted her apartment from across the street and excitement ran through her body as she took those final steps. She needed a scalding shower to warm up again. And a lot of hot chocolate to warm up her insides again.
Just as her hand went to open her door, she suddenly realized she'd not bought new hot chocolate when she drank the last packet. She didn't have any chocolate to make it from scratch, either. Shit. Her hand fell from the handle, as she looked around at her surroundings and considered her options. It was already after ten, so the closest Tesco was already closed, and she didn't particularly feel like taking the bus to the further one that was open until midnight, especially not in her drenched clothes.
Only one option remained. Well, two actually. The first one being going upstairs without and accepting there would be no hot chocolate, even though Emma didn't feel like getting over her need for chocolate. It seemed like a pretty vital necessity. Option number two it was: the night shop two blocks away.
But she was still getting out of these freezing clothes first.
Emma reemerged from her building with a new set of warm and comfy clothes and made her way to the shop.
The door opened as she pushed against it, a little bell ringing as she did. The shop wasn't that big and clearly targeted two types of people: the ones that wanted to get drunk and the ones that had gotten drunk and now craved some sort of greasy or sugary—unhealthy to sum it up—food. Emma was neither and so she knew that she'd have to go to the little corner of the shop meant for everyone, where she would find everything.
"Good evening," she said and smiled to the shop owner behind the counter.
"Evening, miss."
After her meeting with Gold, she'd had quite enough of people calling her miss. Plus, she frequented this place enough to switch to a first name basis.
"You can just call me Emma," she told him over her shoulder as she made her way to the rack she knew contained what she desired. After some scanning, she came across the hot chocolate and removed it from the other items. It only took her a couple of steps to reach the counter again.
The young man—he had to be younger than she was or else she'd have to learn his secret—accepted the box she handed him.
"Evening, Emma," he repeated. "I'm Samir." He outstretched his hand and Emma grabbed it and gave it a quick shake. "Nice to meet you. This means I can finally stop calling you Rocky Road in my mind."
"You gave me a nickname?" She cocked her head in surprise, the smile on her face widening into a grin.
Samir shrugged while scanning the box of hot chocolate.
"I do that with everyone who comes in here often. Especially with those who have a tendency to buy the same thing time and time again." He lifted a dark eyebrow.
Well, if that didn't say a lot about her late night snacking habits, Emma didn't know what did.
The cash register ringed and Samir read the price off of it.
"That's three quid, please."
Emma's hand disappeared into her pocket, in search of some change that hid inside. First, she fished out fifty pence and that was followed by a two-pound coin. One last effort of checking another pocket led to one last pound being recovered. "Keep it," she said as Samir pushed the fifty pence back to her side of the counter.
"Thanks." He threw the coin with the rest of them and closed the register.
"Can I ask you something?" Emma stored her box in the small shopping bag she'd brought along.
"Sure," Samir replied, his brown eyes shining, reflecting the openness she felt radiating from him.
"You seem pretty young to own your own business. Or am I just really misjudging your age?"
It might be weird to just ask him that, but the longer she spent looking at his face, the younger he began to look.
"I'm twenty-three."
That was more or less what Emma was estimating.
"This isn't my store, it's my dad's," he explained. "I'm filling in for a while. I just graduated uni, so I don't have anything better to do for now."
"Oh, congrats!" Emma said, her congratulations genuine as graduating from university deserved that. She'd never managed to do so. "What did you study?"
"Law." Samir slightly ducked his head as if he was bashful about his choice or his accomplishments while there was absolutely no reason to be.
"You're a lawyer? Impressive."
"Well—" He tilted his head. "not so much a lawyer as waiting for someone to hire me to become one."
She could then see how he'd rather be doing that than selling things to people in the middle of the night and Emma couldn't blame him. If he'd studied to become a lawyer, was ready to be one, it must be frustrating to not have anyone give you a shot to do what your heart desired.
"I'm certain it will happen, Samir." She nodded encouragingly. "If I ever need a lawyer, you'll be the first I call, alright?" Emma winked.
"Fine by me. If you ever feel like visiting me again and having a chat, don't be a stranger."
"I won't. I hope you have a good night, Samir."
"You too, Emma."
And it seemed like Emma Swan had yet again participated in small talk and had actually gotten a friend out of it.
A friend and hot chocolate.
Monumental.
Now I'm in the mood for hot chocolate too... Anyways, I hope you liked it and do not despair, our favorite Brit is making his comeback next Thursday and it's a good one 😏, see you then!