A/N: Quick update, as promised! Thank you guys so, so much for the wonderful reviews and kind words. I really appreciate it. I hope you all had a great holiday and enjoy this chapter!

-/-

"Tell me everything you know about Gold," Emma calls as she walks into Ingrid's office. It's after the New Year, and she isn't bringing up Christmas if she can avoid it.

Ingrid sighs, "Your dedication to your client's discretion is admirable, the way you call it out for the entire building to hear."

"I assumed everyone knew about the lawsuit," Emma shrugs, not concerned in the least. "My bad. Anyway, I'm going to need more information from you."

Ingrid raises her chin, challengingly. "Isn't that what I hired you for?"

"I know you. You wouldn't come to me unless it were an absolute last resort, you've probably hired a few private investigators before resorting to little old me."

Ingrid sighs and Emma knows she's caught her.

"He's close friends with the mayor, for one."

"She's what, his puppet?"

"Mutually beneficial partnership, from what I hear. Gold brings business, Regina turns a blind eye to regulation."

"The beautiful cohesion of capitalism and government," Emma comments sarcastically. "It really warms the heart."

"Good for cohesion, it seems not a lot of things can do that for you these days," Ingrid replies under her breath.

Emma stiffens. "Keep your fucking book, Ingrid. I have no use for kids' stories anymore."

Ingrid doesn't even reply. Emma slams the door of her office shut behind her.

-/-

Emma isn't able to determine much more about Gold and Regina's relationship, beyond that. Sure, she tracks a few generous campaign contributions from Gold to her re-election as mayor last year, but it's nothing that jaw dropping.

It's nothing she can actually use, in short.

Emma goes to Gold's in a last ditch effort. She's a little tired of not having much to show for the various hoops she jumps through.

She gets lucky when she's able to duck past the front desk. Even luckier when she finds the door to one of the labs wide open - the security here is abysmal. She can't understand coding for shit, but maybe one of the laptops she's spotted in there can help her out. Her hood is up and her face is covered, so, cameras or not…

Emma opens one of the computers, glancing over her shoulder surreptitiously, and thinks she might actually be able to pull this really stupid plan off.

So, of course it asks for a fucking password.

Emma groans.

It's also just her luck that she feels someone else's presence in the room before she can manage to hide.

"You know, if we keep on running into each other like this I think we're going to have to have a conversation."

Mysterious stranger who lurks at Gold's strikes again.

"You again," she mutters, turning around to face the familiar voice. This time, she's met with a face. He looks like he's early thirties with closely cut facial hair, dark hair, and light eyes. He's a looker, she has to admit. He still looks familiar, but at this point if she doesn't recognize him she doesn't know if she ever will.

"You again," he mirrors her stance, shifting his weight to one side. It's only then that she notices one of his hands is prosthetic. "I recognize your voice. I didn't get to see much of what you looked like. I must confess, I'm not disappointed by the sight."

Emma cocks her head to the side. "Hitting on me in the equivalent of a morgue, huh? Smooth."

"Hitting on you?" he raises his eyebrows. "Well, I don't even know your name."

Emma narrows her eyes. "And I don't know yours."

"Killian Jones, at your service." he says, without hesitation, complete with a small bow.

Her lips twitch. She briefly contemplates which name to give him: the fake one from one of her earlier visits or the real one. Emma scans her surroundings a little suspiciously.

"There are no cameras here," he assures her, following her line of sight. "If there were, I can't imagine I'd be a popular visitor."

Emma's expression furrows. He's telling the truth. "Why? What happened?"

"Seems like a lot to confess to a woman whose name I don't even know," he challenges.

Emma relents. She's going to need information out of him, anyway, if he's really such an unpopular figure here. "Emma Swan. My name is Emma Swan."

"Emma," he repeats, the word rolling off his tongue. "I like it. Suits you."

Killian starts walking away after a beat of silence.

"Wait! Where the hell are you going?"

"Just because we're not necessarily being recorded, Swan, doesn't mean I fancy staying in here too long," he calls over his shoulder.

She follows him with an exaggerated sigh.

-/-

They walk a block away from the building before he really starts talking.

"I take it you aren't a fan of Gold, hm?" Killian asks distractedly, walking in stride with her.

"A girl killed herself thanks to the fucked up simulation of her dad she talked to," Emma replies, as conversationally as possible.

She gets the feeling she can trust him with this sort of information, given he can hardly say Gold's name without a sneer. Again, Emma is good at picking out liars.

"Sounds about right," Killian frowns. "Unfortunately, the facilities there are locked down tight. I should know better than most."

"Why are you going after Gold?" she asks, tilting her head to the side and stopping in front of him.

Killian shakes his head. "It's a long, complicated story."

"I'm self-employed. I have time."

"Self-employed and self-motivated, he comments wryly. "Let me guess, P.I.?"

"Now you're catching on." Emma deadpans.

He stops in the street, staring at his feet for a minute. "You really want to know?"

"Yes," Emma answers resolutely. "If I didn't, I wouldn't have asked."

"Fair enough," he murmurs, taking a deep breath before continuing on. "I met Milah a few years ago and fell in love with her not long after that."

"And Milah was your…"

"Married," he answers abruptly. "She was married. Not to me, but-"

"Milah Gold," Emma murmurs in realization. "his wife. She died before the company started."

Killian grimaces. "She wanted to leave him, for a while. She truly did. Milah must have sent him divorce papers a hundred times, but as the wealthiest man in town his lawyers had significantly more sway than hers. We met...we met at a bar. She told the most enchanting stories and her eyes lit up whenever she did. I loved her. I didn't care about where she came from, what kind of possessive prat her husband was. I loved her and wanted to take her away from this miserable place."

"And then she died," Emma summarizes, quietly.

"No," Killian replies with barely concealed rage. "Then she was murdered. You see, Gold gets angry when he isn't in control. That's what it always came down to. He didn't love her. He just wanted control over her."

"He killed her," she repeats, horrified. "So the stories about the car accident, the entire premise of his business is all…"

"Lies?" he answers, stuffing his hand into the pocket of his dark leather jacket. "Aye. There was a car accident, all right, but the driver didn't have long to live in the first place. His family got a lofty life insurance payment. Gold made sure no one looked twice. As for his business...he must have been planning this long before Milah died."

"She was just a good excuse," Emma quietly fills in the blanks.

"Kill two birds with one stone," he mutters, bitterly. "I reckon the only reason he keeps me alive is to torture me with the memories. He knows I can't do anything about it. I was disgraced before I met Milah and I'll stay that way until I'm the one who's dead. A reminder of his ceaseless rip on power."

'Crazy motherfucker," is the only descriptor Emma can think of. It doesn't do nearly enough to describe Gold, honestly.

Killian lets out a sharp exhale of breath that sounds something like a laugh. "I think that's putting it lightly, love."

"That's why you want to go after him, then? Why you skulk around his building and," she gestures for a moment, not quite knowing how to continue. "Everything else. You want revenge for what he did to you."

"Yes," he says, resolutely. "I want revenge. I want the man who killed Milah to understand that he can't just get away with it. I want him to regret leaving me alive. But most of all, I want…"

Killian pauses for a moment. His sentence is left hanging in the air, incomplete.

"You want what?"

He eyes the street behind them contemplatively. "Why tell you all that when I could show you."

Emma scrunches her face in confusion. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Killian grabs her hand, steering her in the opposite direction of what they were previously walking. "Come along, Swan."

Emma groans. "Is this the part where you show me a dead body or something?"

"Not quite that morbid, but close. Very close."

-/-

They end up back at Gold's.

"The simulation," Emma frowns, understanding it now they're in front of the building.

"Aye," he nods, solemnly. "I suppose that's what they're calling it, now."

The building is dark and closed, almost more ominous than when it was open. If it's possible, it seems even more haunted by the ghosts that reside within it.

"How do you expect to get i-"

He punches in the security code on the door before she has the chance to finish her sentence, opening the door wide open for her.

Emma can't help but looking impressed.

"I have a friend on the inside, you could say," he says, as if the information is inconsequential to him. "Don't worry, cameras should be off."

Emma steps inside the building. "The work of your friend?"

"Something like that," he says with a grin, following at her heels.

Killian leads her to a door, one that she's all too familiar with.

Emma bites her lip, glancing at the handle. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"No," he answers, honestly. "But we've already come all this way, now. No point in turning back."

The room is sterile and white, just like all the others. An armchair, a couch, and a table fill the space - intended for something like comfort. It gives Emma anything but.

Killian spends some at the screens that control the simulations, obviously used to the process if the speed at which he does it is any indication. Emma spent a solid hour inputting all the options for Graham, Killian is done in minutes.

He lets out a sharp exhale when he's finally done, head bowed over the console of the machine. "Are you sure you want to see this?"

Emma gives him a curt nod, crossing her arms over her chest. "I'm sure."

Killian meets her eyes for a minute before hitting the button.

A woman who looks about ten years older than the both of them appears. Or rather, the hologram of her appears. With dark curly hair and bright blue eyes, it's not hard to see at least part of the reason that Killian fell in love with her.

That is, until this twisted version of her starts talking.

"Killian Jones?" Milah sneers and Emma can't pretend not to notice how much he flinches. "You're nothing to me. A mistake, one that got me killed."

This one really wastes no time in cutting right to the chase.

"I've told this apparition a million times that her husband was the one who killed her, but she repeats this line over and over again," he says the words so quietly she can hardly hear him. "A personal hell designed specifically for me. I've come in and inputted that I was different people, of course, and if they ask her how she died it's always the same - a tragic car accident."

He says the last words, the foundation of Gold's entire empire, as if they're nothing more than a cruel joke.

Emma looks at the curve of his jaw, muscle drawn so tight it looks like it might snap. His eyes stare blankly ahead at the woman - robotically waiting for her next queue. Killian presses the button that ends the simulation angrily.

"With me it's 'Killian, you killed me' over and over again."

Emma sighs, leaning up against the opposite wall with her arms crossed. She takes a minute to look at the woman and sees something familiar in her. She recognizes the curls in her hair, the curve of her waist and realizes that she knows Milah.

She looks over to Killian again and something else clicks.

A lot of things come into place for her, right then.

A mundane call from a husband asking her to provide proof of his wife cheating. Nothing about it is unique, except the fact the man refuses to meet with her in person at all, doesn't give her his name, and just sends her cash (twice her usual rate) back with a signed contract. Information is attached on where to send the pictures. Milah pressed up against Killian in a seedy motel room (the cheating spouses never use curtains and she rolls her eyes from her spot across the street - legs dangling over the fire escape and camera in hand). Emma uses the extra money to buy gas and liquor. Over and done with in just two days.

Milah Gold - wife of area real estate mogul - dies a week later. Automobile accident. Emma doesn't see the picture, just skims the headline on the newspaper on the corner of the street and runs to catch up with the latest bail jumper.

Emma feels like she's going to throw up.

"Are you alright, Swan?" Killian asks her with something like genuine concern. It makes her all the sicker.

"I'm fine," she mutters unconvincingly.

"I...I didn't kill her. You have to believe me," he looks pained as he pleads with her.

She swallows, hard. "I know."

Because I did. She thinks.

Emma wonders if people would slow down long enough to see her face with the headline: Jealous husband met with proof of his wife's infidelity. Kills her. Local private investigator makes $600.

He looks unconvinced.

Emma makes a valiant attempt to change the subject, "Gold knows you come here?"

"Of course he does. I get his services free of charge, you see. A reminder of my sins."

"Aren't you worried he records this?"

"I lived for years as a thief, love, I know how to turn a few cameras off."

She nods, anxiously. The mention of cameras makes her even queasier.

Emma stares where the vision of Milah used to be.

"The first time I saw her...this her. I was so relieved to see her again," Killian says, the words bubbling over with more bitterness than she thought humanly possible. "I snuck in. Thought if maybe Gold brought back Milah, I'd get to talk to her. Say goodbye. Tell her I love her."

"This isn't Milah" Emma points out.

He laughs harshly. "As I came to find out."

"I should go," she mutters abruptly, turning around to face the door. "I should go."

"Swan?" Killian asks from behind her. "What's the matter?"

Emma leaves before he can get an answer.

He doesn't follow her. It could be that he's dealing with his own shit or he's trying to be respectful, Emma doesn't know either way. She's not sure she wants to.

Her hands shake when she gets to her car to put the keys in the ignition.

-/-

Emma spends the next day sulking in her office, contemplating what a shitty person she is, in true Emma fashion.

She reads through a few articles on Gold's company, just to at least feel somewhat productive. To her surprise, she finds something that might be of some use to her - the name of the university he developed the plans for his company at - good old University of Maine. Emma swears she's heard the name before (from Merlin?), but she didn't see much significance in it at the time.

Now, it's at least some consolation to know that she has somewhere else to put her damn nose. Maybe then she'll feel less useless.

-/-

She adopts the same persona as she did when she toured Gold's company - Elizabeth Nolan, current student at the University of New England.

Professor Isaac Heller is all too anxious to help her out when she inquires about their technology department under the guise of deciding whether or not she should transfer there.

(Faking transcripts? Not as hard as it sounds, believe it or not.)

"This is where the research for Gold's company started, right?" Emma asks, gesturing to the classroom she's currently standing in. She means the building as a whole, but, whatever. It makes her point nonetheless.

"Indeed it is!" Isaac's voice nearly booms, looking so proud of himself his eyes just might fall out of his head with how much they're bulging. "The University of Maine is so proud to host such a huge step forward in technological progress!"

Emma wonders why the psychology department doesn't have him on fucking sedative.

"How did Gold come up with...holograms of dead guys? Wasn't he just a real estate agent guy before? He has a degree in business, not science."

Isaac becomes a little less peppy, at that. Emma would worry about that blowing her cover if she wasn't so relieved at not having to deal with Professor Suckup at a hundred miles an hour."He's always been very interested in the sciences, from what I hear. A group of our student researchers and one of our faculty worked very closely with him to develop the fundamentals of his program. In fact, a few of them - including one of our professors - are now working for Gold as one of his leading scientists!"

"Oh," Emma comments, raising an inquisitive eyebrow. "Can I ask who that faculty member was?"

Isaac chooses then to look at her a little suspiciously. "Why do you ask? You are very curious indeed about our partnership with Gold Inc., aren't you?"

So, Emma does what she's learned has the highest effectiveness rate in situations like these.

She quickly rubs at the corners of her eyes to start weeping uncontrollably.

Isaac looks panicked.

Bingo.

"I'm so sorry to have upset you, Miss Nolan." he says anxiously. "What seems to be the matter?"

"My professor," she gets out through the heaving sobs, putting her hands to her face for added effect. "Is going to kill me."

"Oh, no, dear," he mutters, patting her back. The movement is less reassuring, more acting like he's trying to swat at a particularly annoying fly on her back. What a prick. "Why don't you tell me what's going on?"

"My professor," Emma gasps out, yet again. "Dr. Phillips? She wanted to know the people who helped start the company because she really, really wants to bring the program at New England to Gold's company. She thinks that if she gets to know the people there already she'll already have a leg in. It's all really competitive with Maine, so I was supposed to keep that secret."

Dr. Aurora Phillips is a real professor at the University of New England. She checked the faculty list, just in case. Emma highly doubts she's conspiring to enter Gold's company, but she's not planning on checking back in with good old Isaac later on about it.

All she can hope is that poor Dr. Phillips doesn't end up with absurdist letters from the University of Maine. Given that she teaches Romantic Literature, Emma thinks she will be okay.

"Oh," Isaac says, a little befuddled. "That is indeed strange. But nothing to cry about, is it?"

The last words are said so pedantically she wants to roll her eyes. It's also why the crying works so well. Isaac will just brush this experience off as silly women and emotions.

Which will work for her purposes.

"The name of our faculty member who went to work for Gold in official capacity is Victor Whale. It's a bit of a shame, he was the one to make the discovery and Gold came in and took all the...I've said enough." he says finally. "I wish you and your professor all the best. Just be a little more honest next time, yes?"

Emma is already out the door before he finishes his sentence.

-/-

Luckily, Whale is already in the building. He's required to spend a certain amount of hours teaching at the university to be considered part of the faculty, even part time, and Emma is fortunate enough to find him twenty minutes before his class ends. She waits outside until the students start to filter out and stomps her way in

"Victor Whale!" she practically shouts, turning him around to face her by the shoulder. "We need to talk."

He must recognize her, judging by the way his eyes bulge out of his head.

"Pass." he says, stiffly.

"Yeah, sorry, that wasn't an accept or deny invitation." Emma says, curtly. "Where do you know me from?"

"I don't have to answer these questions," Whale blusters defensively. He moves to leave, but Emma stops him with her blocking his path.

"I don't think you understand the extent to which I can make your life a living hell - beginning with your drinking problem and ending with your gambling habit."

Maybe she did some investigating while waiting for his class to be let out. So sue her. Her phone has an internet connection and she had some free time.

"And you're wondering how I recognize you," he scoffs. "I knew you were a that private dick when I saw you with Merlin, Emma Swan."

"The only dick here is you," she retorts derisively. "And that has you shaking in your boots?"

Whale pauses. "You did just threaten to blackmail me. A bartender at the bar I go to also mentioned the time you chased him down for skipping bail. He was pretty traumatized."

Emma rolls her eyes, "Yeah, well, maybe your friend should stop trying to paw at wo- nevermind. You're the brains behind Gold's operation, aren't you?"

Whale narrows his eyes. "I work for him, yes."

"A trustworthy source said you were the one to make the discovery. Now he's the one making all the money off of it while people couldn't think of your name if they tried. How does that feel?"

He shakes his head. "You must be mistaken."

What a goddamn liar.

"The only reason I can think of that you would decide to lay back and take that is if Gold had something on your little discovery that could ruin it," Emma points out. "like, I don't know, the fact that it isn't exactly what it seems. The brains of the dead, huh? Seems like a pretty rapid advance in neuroscience from a computer science professor."

"You need to stop sticking your nose where it doesn't belong." Whale replies sharply, striding to the other side of the room.

Emma follows him, undeterred. "You can't take a person's brain matter and make a conscious at all, can you?"

"No, you know what, I can't. But you're wrong on that being my reasoning - it was only ever intended to be based off of recollections of loved ones. I spent my whole goddamn life trying, trying to prove myself - show that I could be the one to make the world better."

"And now you've made it worse," Emma taunts, getting angrier by the second. "Now Gold is taking all the credit for your fucked up invention and what do you have? Nothing besides a cheap hologram of the people you used to love made by an input of the stories about them that other people's memories probably fucked up on remembering correctly."

Victor leans over his desk, distraught.

"What I want to know is why you gave up the fame and fortune just to become Gold's pet scientist. If not because the discovery was bullshit, then what?"

Victor gives her a haunted look. "Robert Gold is a very powerful man."

"Yeah, and it's your research that made him that way."

"Not exactly," Victor grimaces.

"What do you mean, 'Not exactly,'"

"What I mean is…" Victor trails off, looking miserable. "Gold has been playing people a lot longer than this company has been open."

She scoffs, unsatisfied. "Yeah, you're still being vague as hell and completely unhelpful."

"What would do you?" Victor explodes, turning around to face her and shouting the words. "What would you do if the richest man in town told you that you could see the people you loved again and he'd give you the money to make it happen - grant all your proposals and give you anything you could ever want?"

Emma bristles. "What, now you're turning this on me?"

"You're a private investigator," Victor sneers. "I'm sure you've done bad shit for less."

She wants to punch him all the more because he's right.

By the look on his face, he knows it.

"Listen, asshole," Emma growls, grabbing him by the collar and getting up in his face in a way that can only be menacing. "You're right. I've done things I've regretted. But the difference between you and me is I'm not too much of a coward to fix my fuck ups. That's what I'm doing right now. What can you say?"

Victor sighs. She lets him go.

There's silence between them for a minute.

"It's an addiction, seeing them." he starts, sitting down on the counter and staring at the hands in his lap. "Your family. More than the drinking, more than the gambling. My brother died and it was my fault, you know. I got to see him again because of Gold. Without the money, I couldn't do that. And I can see him as many times as I want. Get advice, you know. Tell him about my day."

"But he isn't real," Emma points out, tone much softer than before.

Victor exhales shakily. "I know."

"A lot of vulnerable people are being hurt by Gold, Whale."

"I know."

"A girl killed herself after her family couldn't afford to let her see her dead dad anymore, Whale." Emma points out, shakily. "The hologram posing as her father told her daughter that she killed him by telling her she couldn't come to visit anymore. People have been admitted into mental institutions. They've had to see the people that they love molded into tools for Gold to make money. Gold doesn't care who he hurts. He killed his own wife to do it."

Victor just sits, stoic.

"And you know all this." she notes, disgust and disappointment in her voice. "You know all this and you still continue with this."

His reply is quiet. "What am I supposed to do?"

Emma sits next to him, crossing her arms and spitting out her next words.

"From one miserable asshole to another - grow a fucking backbone instead of talking to walls and pointing fingers."

Victor looks up at her, abrupt. "What?"

"You heard me," she says, unapologetically. "Gold is a psychotic human being, but you're just pathetic. You don't care how many people get hurt so long as you get your fix. You're just as much as a tool for Gold as those fucking holograms."

"This is hardly a pep talk."

"It isn't meant to be one." Emma stands up, glaring. "I told you he murdered his wife and you didn't bat an eyelash. A teenaged girl hung herself in her bedroom and you can't even muster an ounce of responsibility. Losing people sucks, I get that, my parents ditched me on the side of the road when I was an hour old and one of your fucking optical illusions posed as my dead boyfriend to tell me to put more coins in his machine. If you want to watch more people drop dead so you can talk to a robot with your brother's face, be my guest. But don't expect me to buy into your bullshit excuses for it."

Emma just about spits out the last words.

Victor falls silent, at that.

"You have two choices, here," Emma begins again, regaining her composure. "either you can live the rest of your life like this or do something about it."

"If I'm such a pathetic excuse for a human being, why even bother?"

Emma can tell she has him, finally, and can't hold back the smirk.

"Because I need to stop him from doing this to people. You're going to be recognized for something - something good - for once in your miserable life and help me."

Victor lets out a ragged sigh.

She walks out of the room feeling victorious.

(At the very least, the phone in the pocket of her jacket recorded the conversation.)

-/-

Emma wanders the halls of Gold's, later that day. She isn't really sure why. No one seems to ask questions, though, and she's able to do it in relative peace.

Her eyes linger on the door that Killian led her through.

Guilt. Guilt is what brought her here.

She exhales deeply, burying her face in her hands and sitting on a nearby bench. Maybe that's why no one asks questions, she looks like just another depressed addict looking for a fix.

She isn't an addict. Not on this, anyway. Despite that, Emma could swear she's hallucinating when she sees the same kid she recognizes from Christmas Eve sitting down not far from her.

Emma frowns. Then she decides to approach him before she can talk herself out of it.

"Do you need help finding your family, kid?" Emma asks, crouching down to the kid's level and curling a strand of hair behind her ear. "It's easy to get lost in these hallways, isn't it?"

"I'm not lost," he says sadly, looking down at his sneakers. "My mom is in there."

He points to one of the doors that host the simulations.

Her heart breaks.

"It's not really my mom, though," he adds. "It just looks like her. Sounds like her, too, but if it were really my mom...she'd be different."

This kid can't be any older than eleven, but he's already wiser than ninety percent of the people in this city.

"I hope one day I can find my real mom. Not the dead one, even, she adopted me. I want to find my birth mom. Then I don't have to stay in these stupid foster homes."

Her eyes gloss over, remembering her own foster care centered childhood and the way it ended - her giving birth chained to a prison bed. "What's your name, kid?"

"Henry," he answers, quickly. "My name is Henry. What's yours."

"Emma." she replies, standing up and holding her hand out. "We're going to find your foster family. Not all of them are great, believe me, I know. But some aren't bad."

Henry takes her hand. "How would you know?"

"I was a foster kid, growing up," she begins, a little hesitantly. "When I was 13 this woman named Ingrid adopted me. I thought having her as my mom was the coolest thing, she even looked like me. I got the best big brother in the world with it too - his name is David, he's a cop now - and a pair of amazing cousins."

"So, you're happy now with your family?" Henry asks, simply.

Emma's mouth parts a little. She lies. "One hundred percent."

She manages to return him to a pair of foster parents somewhere in the building who don't seem nearly concerned enough about where their foster child has disappeared to. Emma frowns when she returns Henry back to them. Nonetheless, the kid seems comforted by the tales of her amazing family.

False hope? Maybe. But the kid has been through enough shit, she's not here to pile onto that.

(About half of it was true, anyway. It's just Ingrid that fucks up the rest of the dynamic.)

-/-

"Here's everything I have on Gold," Emma mutters, handing over the files and a USB drive to Ingrid later that night. "Notes on the simulations, financial records, criminal history, background check, interviews, some of the drafts from his best researchers and the revelations on how this shit really works, you name it."

"Thorough," Ingrid remarks passively, lifting the folder up. "Do I ask how you got all this?"

Emma shrugs. "You can ask. Doesn't mean I'll answer."

Ingrid snorts. "And do you have anyone I could use as testimony against him? I'm going to need those, any hits on his credibility, if this case goes any further."

"A scientist who came up with the hologram shit. Gold took all of his ideas to create his company as we know it," Emma replies, her back thudding against the door. "I recorded my conversation with him."

"Was it civil?" Ingrid raises an eyebrow.

"I didn't threaten him with bodily harm, if that's what you're asking. At least, not blatantly."

"Hm. Well," Ingrid hums, flipping open the folder on her desk with "With how much you've changed, I don't know what to expect."

"The saddest part is is that with you I don't know if you've changed or if you've been like this from day one." Emma cocks her head to the side.

"Emma…" Ingrid trails off.

She interrupts her. "Address the check to me directly. I've done my job here."

Ingrid sighs, pulling out her checkbook and signing it with a flourish. She tears it out and hands it to Emma, who grabs it without a second glance.

"Will this scientist testify?" Ingrid asks, back on the task at hand.

Emma shrugs. "He better. But that's your business, not mine."

"That's what I mean when I talk about how I don't know this you anymore," Ingrid starts again, and Emma groans. "The girl who went from wanting to save the world to pretending not to give a damn about justice for a dead girl."

"Cut the bullshit, Ingrid." Emma retorts, harshly. "We both know you don't give a shit about what happens to that girl so long as you get your fucking paycheck at the end of the day."

"I'm doing this pro bono," Ingrid says, defensively. "Ashley Boyd can, understandably, not afford to pay me a dime on this case and I understood that when I took it."

She rolls her eyes. "Yeah, and how much of a cut are you expecting to get when the richest man in town settles? He's paying penalties, not a jail sentence."

Ingrid goes quiet, then.

"Next time, if you want me to do you dirty work, just contact me online," Emma grumbles. "That way I don't have to interact with you any more than I need to. Better yet, try finding another private detective. Feeling sick at my stomach after being in your company isn't worth the money."

Emma tears the check in front of her, the pieces falling on the floor like sloppily made confetti. She doesn't look back when she leaves the room.

-/-

When Emma was a teenager who just warmed up to the idea of a mother who might actually be fostering her for something other than extra cash in the mail, she dreamed of being like her mom one day. Ingrid worked as a domestic violence attorney before she got the flashy office and the multiple assistants running coffee for her as she barked orders to some Wall Street banker over the phone to settle between $10 and $20 million. She was a single mom, trying to support both Emma and David on a government salary. But Ingrid worked tirelessly - for victims of abuse, for her adopted kids, for every sad, alone, and oppressed person in her tiny town.

Emma used to dream of becoming like her mother.

Now it's one of her greatest fears.

Isn't it fucked up how that works out?

The thought rattles around in her brain, not giving her a moment of peace in her completely silent office. Emma sits down at her desk and lets her forehead hit the wood. She exhales, shakily.

Maybe Ingrid had a point. Maybe Emma - in all her hardening after Graham's death and all the shit that came after - changed for the worst. Maybe she pushed people away and gave less of a shit about other people. Maybe she got blood on her hands.

She thinks of Milah and of Killian. She can't stop seeing the vision of the woman that can't stop repeating that her lover killed her when it's her that fucking did it. Emma not knowing any better isn't any excuse.

So what separates her from Ingrid at the end of the day? Acknowledging she's a fuck up? Or doing something about it?

Maybe it'll come down to a combination of the two.

Emma is going to do exactly what she told Whale to do. Take some accountability for her own damn actions.