A/N: The first part does contain sensitive material about Emma's feelings after the abuse from Walsh. If this makes anyone uncomfortable, you can skip to the (**) where things calm down.

No matter how much she struggled, Walsh was stronger. She couldn't handle the headache she got from crying and trying to scream, she couldn't handle the thought that something like his was happening to her. Light headed, scared, and anxious, Emma blacked out and woke up laying against the wall in the dark edges of her her building. She was frozen. She was paralyzed with the fear of what had just happened, fear that he would return, fear somebody would see her. The shame she felt was over powering and she couldn't bare the burning feeling she had in her chest. She laying there, curled up in a ball, crying to herself and not even bothering to attempt to get up.

**"Emma?" She heard someone call from a distance. "Emma?"

She slowly stood up and walked towards the entrance of her building, only to see Killian and Ruby looking for her. She stood there wiping away her tears and zipped her leather jacket up all the way and manipulated her hair to cover the bruises on her upper neck and cheek.

"hey.." She could barely manage a word without crumbling down to the floor and crying again.

"Emma! There you are!" Ruby said running to hug her friend. "Where have you been? I have been calling you for the past hour. What are you doing?"

"Are you alright Swan?" Killian said looking her in the face, concerned and suspicious. She could see that he knew she was trying to hide something.

"Yeah, yeah. What are you guys doing here?" she softly let out trying to not look up at Killian and give him a good view of her face.

"I have been calling you for the past hour and you always answer so, obviously, I freaked out when you didn't." the brunette couldn't let go of her friend from being so worried "so I went to Robin and Killian's place and Killian offered to come with me and check up on you." Ruby finally managed to let go of Emma and smiled to see her friend was okay.

"Sorry I worried you guys, I just... I don't know. I just needed to go for a walk." Her voice was cold, her tone was bitter. "I really just need some sleep."

"Here, love. Allow me to assist." Killian said as he attempted to help Emma up the steps to her housing floor, but only received a bad look and a shove.

"No." Emma snapped at him as he stepped back from the shove she gave him. "No. Please, just go. I just want to be alone."

"But, Emma?" Ruby tried to reach out to her friend.

"Emma. We are only trying to help." Killian added on, not caring how rudely Emma had just reacted towards him.

"I know, and thank you. But you guys can see that I am fine now so you can go. Good night." With that said, Emma turned around and went into her building and didn't give her worried friends a chance to say a word back.

"What the bloody hell was that?" Killian asked Ruby, annoyance and worry in his voice.

"I don't know, but she needs to be alone right now." The usually upbeat and feisty brunette said staring at the door where her friend disappeared through before she could snap out of it. "She hasn't had the greatest day today and she could be just stressed."

"If you say so. You do know the lass better than I do." He shook his head thinking that Ruby must be right. "Let me walk you home."

The two walked discussing school, exams, the group of friends and even their personal life.

"So, you seem to know Emma very well. How long have you two known each other?" Killian asked, somewhat wanting to steer the conversation towards Emma.

"Not as long as her and Mary Margret, but a good while now. We met summer before senior year of high school. We were at a party, some guy I had been hanging out with had a little too much to drink and was saying rude drunk nonsense when Emma overheard. She defended me and cursed out the idiot for being so disrespectful and I was so grateful for that. I can handle myself in a fight and can defend myself when someone tries to get too touchy, but attacks with words always get to me and hurt me more than I can handle. So it's always good to have a strong girl friend to back me up. We have been close ever since." Ruby smiled thinking about how glad she was to have such a tough friend like Emma.

"She's quite a hero, that one. You can see the fight in her eyes when she speaks about something she is passionate about. Quite interesting." Killian looked up to the stars as he talked about Emma to her best friend without thinking. Until he realized how his words could have came out. "Or maybe it's just stubbornness and annoyance." he joked, hoping it would hide the former words about Emma. He knew he was starting to grow feelings for Emma since the day of David and Mary Margret's engagement proposal, but he didn't know exactly what the feelings were and didn't think talking about them would help, but just confuse him more. As Ruby had just said, Emma was a strong woman and she knew what she wanted and where she wanted to go in life. He saw what a caring and loving person she was to her friends and admired that about her. She wasn't your typical girl that you can find any given weekend. But what he did know was that he didn't want to talk to anybody about it, especially not her best friend.

"Yeah, that girl is one dedicated and focused person." her mind still thinking about her friend being upset, too concerned to notice Killian talk about Emma with admiration. They finally arrived to Ruby's building"Welp, here's my stop." she took out her keys from her purse and looked at Killian. "Thank you for your help looking for Emma and walking me home, Killian. I'll see you around okay?" She said smiling, gave him a hug good bye, and sighed. "You're a good kid you know that? I think we are gonna be good friends."

"Aye, I look forward to it lass." he said laughing as they both turned around and he continued his walk home. The thought of Emma and his feelings for her and what they meant all danced in his head at once, feeling like a mosh pit at a punk rock concert rather than a waltz. He knew he was interested in her, but romantically? She was not the type of girl he was used to wooing and didn't think that romance was what he wanted. The feeling he got as she ran into her building earlier that night gave him a knot in stomach, like he needed to make sure she was okay, really okay. He may not know what his feelings are or what they mean, but he was her friend and cared for her. Once in bed, he replayed Ruby's words to assure him that Emma was okay and just needed space. That she was at least safe in her room rather than still missing somewhere. Which seemed to work because he couldn't remember when he fell asleep.

She cried to herself in her room until she felt that her head couldn't take anymore pounding and had to get up for some water. She couldn't believe what had happened. Walsh never seemed like the kind of guy who would do something like that. And all this just had to happen with her semester exams in two days. She didn't know what else to, there was no more alcohol in their home, she didn't want to leave her room and see anyone and she definitely didn't want to call her friends for help. The only thing she could think of to do was study. Try to study. She lied there in bed crying and reading. Her heart pounding between every word, tears wetting the pages of her statistics book. She focused as much as she could on the reading, but found herself rereading the same page over and over to make sure that she at least some-what understood what she was reading. She kept it up until she fell asleep, book in hand, tears covering her face.

Her last thoughts before falling asleep being of several weeks ago on a girls night. She didn't want to fall asleep thinking of her day, and every genuine happy thought she tried to think of was when she spent them with her friends. The happiest memory she had was the night that the girls refer to as the incident. That was the only thought she needed to be able to fall asleep that night.