After three days and no new leads or new hearts, Regina was seconds from storming into that smirking bastard's corner office and calling him a conniving sorcerer of an organ trafficker to his face. It was only Archie's timely intervention and promise of a bendable ear that stayed her silvery tongue.
"I'll kill him." She paced to and fro over the tawny carpet padding his office floor.
"You won't." Archie had sat his patient notes aside for her. That was who he was, attentive to whomever needed him in the moment.
"I might," she rebuked, working to keep the righteousness of her anger at the forefront of her mind. Archie was too good as defuse her rancor.
"Say that a little louder. You know I record all of my sessions. I'll enjoy being charged with accessory to murder for deleting your homicidal mutterings." He wagged his digital voice recorder in her direction.
Regina stopped short. "You'd do that for me?"
"You're the less worrisome of two chaotic neutrals. Think of it as my way of contributing to the moral balance of Healing Heart."
Archie often spoke of moral alignments when discussing his patients and their colleagues and the world at large. Regina tended to nod and hum along where good manners indicated, not letting on that she rarely understood his verbosity on the topic. Life was a matter of doing what needed doing, right or wrong, conscience be damned.
"You're a strange little man, Archie."
He winked at her over the rim of his bifocals. "Just call me Jiminy Cricket."
"Don't push it, bug."
Furious as she was at Gold's latest scheme to undermine her, she knew screaming her lungs to cheesecloth wouldn't resolve her problem. Regina would need to invoke a miracle—or work her particular brand of professional magic.
I need to fight savvy with savvy—and power with power.
It seemed that Gold needed to be reminded why they called her the Queen.
…
…
It didn't take Emma three days to get to Storybrooke, Maine, where the Maine University Medical Center was. It took her three days to get con her way inside. Contrary to popular belief, Emma wasn't actually that good at running cons to people's faces. Crocodile tears were easy, arranging for a simple fender bender she could do in her sleep, but blundering into the pediatric ward of a world-renowned transplant center was so far beyond her experience she resorted to consulting Yahoo! Answers before she even got out of her car.
The responses to 'if somebody hypothetically wanted to sneak into a high-tech, maximum security hospital, how'd they do it? hypothetically' were only kinda helpful, the majority culminating in 'fake it till you make it' and 'just walk in, what's the worst that can happen?' The first response was useful—and insane—but still, it was something. The second one was not a good idea for a lot of reasons, most involving Emma's arm-length criminal record. They start pulling background on me, I'll get turned back at the door. That can't happen.
Emma had spent the last ten years cleaning up her act, having all her dirty laundry aired for rent-a-cops didn't appeal. She had been to jail, she didn't like her chances behind bars any more now than she had when she was seventeen, and she'd been damned resourceful for her age. She had just been so damned young, and worse than that, she'd been head over heels for an unreliable punk. Her hatred for the SOB who abandoned her with a stolen car lingered to this day. Bad as it was that he'd ditched her, it was worse that he hadn't so much as shown his face when their son was born.
She had given birth in a cold, beige, lonely prison infirmary. That was where their child had come into the world. That was where he'd left her, too, when she chose to give him up in the hopes of him having better than she'd had. Anything, she'd thought. Anything has to be better than being shuffled between families because you're too damaged to love. All she had wanted for her baby was for him to have a chance. It was all she'd had to give.
Emma pressed her face against the back of her hands where they still clutched the steering wheel. Henry'd be ten—assuming that was still his name. By all accounts, Emma had kept her given name, but adopted children were re-named all the time. Her Henry could be a Dylan or a Sam or a Keith. She knew a couple of Keiths; she hoped Henry wasn't one, each had been more trouble than the last. His name had sprung to her head as she looked in his groggy eyes, heavy as they'd been, heavy as if he'd been the one in labor for fifteen hours instead of her. He'd been Henry instantly. She wasn't sure how she'd take it to know he wasn't anymore.
An annoying trill sliced the oppressive silence within her car. A quick phone check found her the recipient of two overdraft alerts and a tip from one of her informants near University Row about a collar she could make if she'd split the take.
"Great, that's easy money out the window." She scrubbed a hand across her face, feeling every one of the three days she'd spent traveling and sleeping in her car to save a buck. Her reflection in the rear view was a wreck; eyes sunken, skin paler than pale, lips chapped and nose red. Every moment of cramped sleep was written on her body for anyone to read—every moment of sorrow, too. She turned away, intent on reviewing her game plan for the seventh time.
"Hi, my name's Greta Kraut. I'm from the Department of Social Services. Where might I find Harry Bailey?" The smile she affixed to the sentence was a tense, cagey one; one she'd hesitate to trust if she saw it one someone else. Meryl's reign continues. Why is this so hard? She tried to shake off her nerves. Just get in, spot Jones, snatch him, and get out. That's it. You've done this a thousand times before. Probably not a thousand yet, though not far off after this long in the business.
Emma swept her hair into a low ponytail and tried to make something presentable out of her scare collection of makeup. That done, she smoothed the wrinkles from her black sheer blouse in effort to imbue herself with the appearance of professionalism at least. Only the no nonsense camisole she wore underneath kept the top decent and she'd admit it was pushing it for a social worker, anyway, but it was all Emma had packed, so it would have to do.
I paid fifteen bucks just to park. I'm a hundred in the hole for gas alone. Killian Jones had better be worth it. I'd better be paying bills for months off this bond.
The numbers were in her favor. Jones was wanted for theft, larceny, robbery, attempted abduction, small-time embezzlement, and counterfeiting. The Feds wanted him, the Marshals had been dispatched to bring him in, which meant there was a reward to be had for getting to him first. Emma intended to win it.
Muttering all manner of mayhem and annoyance, Emma filled up a faux crocodile skin purse with her weapons, zip ties, handcuffs for if things got desperate, and her best fake ID for bluffing her way past reception. She stretched her black mini-skirt a little lower on her hips to make it look longer and then topped her ensemble off with her signature red leather jacket. It was a near match for her bag. Good enough for dress-up.
Emma gathered her nerve and locked her bug. At the center of the Maine University Medical Center, at the epicenter of Storybrooke, Maine, the Healing Heart Transplant Center rose in buffed chrome, shining glass, and scrubbed concrete glory five stories above her head. There was a fountain, copper she thought, scraps of metal welded together to make shattered hands cupping a battered heart. The heart was made of marble or something like it, a pinkish-red rock run shot through with white. When the sunlight hit it, the heart almost seemed to beat in those copper hands, like they had brought it back to life. This is what they do, put people back together, save lives. I don't belong here.
Her gut churned. She missed Boston and her shabby apartment, that pub down the street from her place that served the best cheesesteaks this side of Philly, her idiot competitors at the bondsman's office. That was where she belonged, where things were dirty, where people got hurt and got up—not where they got help.
This is just until I find Jones and get my take. I'm doing it for the kids, right? Right? Emma's old group home was about to be foreclosed. Even if she gave them every dime in her account, and she had, they couldn't climb out of the hole they were in. Jones was her golden ticket. She'd be the savior for a bunch of little kids with nowhere to call home. Wish I'd had a savior like that, she thought. She could have used one.
I can do this. All it takes is one little white lie. One last con and we're all home free.
Emma steadied her nerves and put on a smile she hoped somebody might believe. By the time she walked the two-hundred feet to the plate glass doors, she just about believed herself. She was Emma Swan, reformed ex-convict, best damned bounty hunter in Boston, and not here for anybody's crap.
Call it a gut feeling, call it pipedream, but she knew. This was going to be a piece of cake.