A/N: This chapter took its name from a line from one of my all-time favourite songs, One Crowded Hour by Augie March.
11. The Green-Eyed Harpy
Emma had a plan for her Tuesday night. A night in on the couch with Smee, dressed in her fuzziest pajamas. Killian. A couple of beers. A frozen pizza. An encore viewing of Anatomy of a Murder. It was the perfect plan. Right up until Killian emerged after a veritable age locked in the bathroom, a cloud of aftershave trailing in his wake.
"Oh my god, did you iron that?" she asked, sitting up a little straighter to take in the full effect. He'd made an effort. Skinny jeans. A leather vest fitting snugly over a suspiciously starched black button down, which was quick to disappear from view as he shrugged on his usual leather jacket. In short, he managed to look both dark and dangerous, a leather fetishist's wet dream.
"Aye," he said, checking his hair for just that right amount of artful dishevelment in the hall mirror. "I'm meeting Tink for drinks at some uber-pretentious cocktail bar on Newbury Street. Thought I should look the part."
"Oh," Emma said, watching her evening plans evaporate before her eyes. And then she saw Killian frown down at his shirt. The shirt he was wearing to meet Tink. For drinks. "Oh. Do you want me to make myself scarce? Because I can camp out in my apartment for a few hours with a flashlight and a book. Unless you need... more than a few hours?" She dropped her gaze then, cursing herself internally, willing herself to shut up, reaching out to scratch between Smee's ears. He merely sneezed in response.
"Lass," Killian began, but Emma didn't stop.
"Actually it's fucking cold out there. I could just head to Granny's. It has heat, and it's Taco Tuesday." She looked down at her flannel pyjamas, which seemed so perfect a moment ago, with distaste. "I should change."
"Swan."
"You've already walked Smee, right? I mean, he'll be fine here alone for bit?"
"Swan!" he repeated, louder this time, and Emma bit her lip to prevent the next torrent of words, casting a glance his way. His face softened when their eyes met, shaking his head from side to side. "Swan, I'm not kicking you out of the apartment when it's single figures out. Tink and I are-" He scratched absently at his chin scruff, searching for the right words. "It's just drinks," he finished firmly. "You're more than welcome to join us. She's has been hinting she would like to see you again. I believe she follows you on Twitter."
Emma snorted at that. Her latest had been live-tweeting Killian's reactions to Tottenham's latest draw. She'd always thought he was naturally dramatic, but lordy, she'd had no idea.
"Is that a no to a $30 cosmopolitan?"
Emma rolled her eyes, one hand gesturing at her unwashed hair, pulled back in a messy bun, and oh-so-tasteful flannel ensemble. "I don't think I'm exactly Newbury Street material, do you?"
"Oh, I don't know," he drawled, crossing his arms over his chest as his eyes swept over her in appraisal. "There's a certain je ne sais quoi," he said with a quirk to his lips.
Emma threw a pillow at his head, which he artfully ducked just in time.
"I see how it is, love. I think I shall just take my leave," he said, retreating from the room with a bow. "Enjoy your evening with Jimmy Stewart!"
"Enjoy your not-date!" she called back, just before the apartment door swung shut behind him.
"Is it my imagination, or does this couch still smell of cat?" Emma was roused from her dozing by the shift of the couch, as Killian took a seat on the arm, his boots coming to rest on the cushion by her feet.
"I like this couch," Emma mumbled sleepily, pulling her blanket tighter around her, as she tried to blink herself awake. She must have nodded off somewhere near the end. The DVD menu screen was still on a loop, the jazz score blasting through the apartment apparently no obstacle to sleep. Nor for Smee, who was snoring on the rug by the TV, nearer the radiator.
"Oh, sorry, love. Did I wake you? I wouldn't have thought it was possible to sleep through this racket."
"Did you really just call Duke Ellington's sweet, sweet jazz "a racket"?" Emma asked in horror, though the potency of her expression was muted somewhat by the huge yawn she finished on.
"A thousand apologies, Swan," he said, with a somber hand on his chest. "I knew not of what I spoke."
"Yeah, that's more like it," Emma smiled into her pillow. "What time is it?"
"Near midnight," he said, letting loose an impressive yawn of his own. "Walked Tink home, and got a cab back. Took a while. I think they're all holed up at Granny's enjoying Taco Tuesday instead of braving the icy conditions."
"How were drinks?" Emma asked, raising her head a little to waggle her eyebrows in a poor imitation of Killian himself.
"Watered down and overpriced, just as expected," he grinned, lifting up her feet so that he could slip down to sit on the actual couch cushions, and then letting them fall back into his lap.
"You know that's not what I meant," Emma chided.
"I told you, it wasn't a date, Swan."
"No?" Emma raised an eyebrow. "Because you totally ironed your shirt for her. And then you walked her home..." She nudged his hand with her foot, knowing she was being annoying, but not quite caring enough not to be.
"No," he said, trapping her sock-clad foot in his hands before she could nudge him again. But when he glanced up to find Emma still looking at him expectantly, he sighed in resignation. "Tink and I were good, for a while. She's a lovely lass. Bit frightening, at times, when she gets a bee in her bonnet, but that makes her a hell of a lawyer," he chuckled. "But we ultimately wanted different things, so the relationship ran its course. I'm not selfish enough to jeopardize what we have just because I'm lonely."
"Huh," Emma replied stupidly.
She couldn't say she'd ever had such a mature approach to a break up before. Not with Graham. Or Walsh. Or even Neal, back when stealing from convenience stores seemed like a good time. That one August had brought an end to. And though she'd hated him at time, in hindsight, he'd probably saved her a mountain of heartache. But with the others? Whenever things got too hard, she had a tendency to ignore them until they got the message and stopped calling. It wasn't exactly the adult solution, but it did seem to work. Until you ran into them outside the men's room of a cop bar, that is.
"Hey," Killian called, pulling her out of her thoughts with a gentle squeeze of her foot. "You still with me?"
"Yeah, sorry," she said, rubbing at her eyes with the heel of her hands, and sitting up a little more. "Still half-asleep, is all."
"I shouldn't have woken you."
"I shouldn't fall asleep on this thing anyway. I can't afford the chiropractor's bills." A soft chuckle from Killian. "So how was Tink? For reals, this time. No teasing, I swear," Emma held out her hands, palms facing him.
"She's good," he said, fingers tracing absently over Emma's foot. "She's currently drawing up visitation documentation for Michael Tillman to come and meet the twins."
"Really?" Emma couldn't quite hide her surprise. Or her delight.
"Really. Apparently Greg Zimmer is the forgiving sort." She suppressed a snort. He'd have to be, if he was willing to let go of that little transgression. "Speaking of, ready for your meeting with Zelena Beck tomorrow?" he asked with a knowing grin, and Emma groaned, thrown back to reality.
Zelena Beck was their newest client. And to put it mildly, she was a piece of work. And not the forgiving sort.
"I will literally pay you to talk to her instead," Emma pleaded.
But instead of answering immediately, Killian brought his thumb down to the underside of her foot, rubbing his thumb into the arch of her foot, and Emma barely managed to contain her moan.
"Fucking hell," she said, but didn't dare move her foot away, in case he stopped. "Is this your way of buttering me up enough to actually attend that meeting?"
"That depends," he replied with something a lot like a leer. "Is it working?"
He let his thumb dig into her flesh again, and Emma bit her lip. "Give it five more minutes. Then we'll talk."
His answering grin was wicked, but he didn't pause in his ministrations, and Emma did a very commendable job of keeping it cool. Kind of.
"You know, I can't think of the last time I got a foot rub," Emma remarked absently, lulled into complacency by rather talented hands.
"Christ, Swan. Who have you been spending your time with?" he asked, affronted on her behalf. Emma shrugged. Not the right sort of people, apparently. "Well, not to worry. There's only one rule. Pick a partner who knows what he's doing."
"And that would be you?" she asked, coy as you please.
"Aye, Swan," he smiled, mostly to himself. "That'd be me."
Well, he wasn't lying.
"If I gave you a foot rub, would you take the meeting?" Emma hedged.
"Nice try, Swan," he said with a click of his tongue. "But I'm not so easily bought. I'm the boss. And one of the perks of being the boss, is getting to dump my least favorite clients on my underlings. It might be the only perk of being the boss, come to think of it."
"But she's the worst!" Emma whined.
"Aye. And she's all yours. I've had my fill of vindictive gingers," he said with a shudder.
"Ten minutes," Emma renegotiated. "Per foot."
"You know I do pay you, right, love?"
"Oh, c'mon! The woman is a bona fide psychopath! She set her sister's house on fire!"
"Allegedly! She allegedly set her sister's house on fire!" Killian was quick to correct her.
She just shot him a look, their gazes holding for a long moment.
"Eight minutes," he said at last.
"Nine," Emma shot back.
He made a show of mulling this over, head rolling back on his shoulders like it pained him to cave to her demands. "Fine. We have an accord. Nine minutes. And not a second longer." A pause. "How long have I been doing this now, again?"
Zelena Beck really was the worst.
Killian had a sliding scale for how much he charged for jobs, depending on how deplorable the client, and Zelena certainly met all the criteria for his highest rates yet. She was catty. She was quick to anger. Her motives were not exactly honorable. Then there was the alleged burning down of the sister's house to consider.
But with the office facing a rent increase in the new year, they really couldn't afford to turn her down, not when she sat down and wrote them a check upfront.
She didn't seem like a terrible person at first glance. True, she'd arrived off the street, without an appointment, but that wasn't unheard of. Her tone had been sweet, almost motherly, as she told her tale of woe, shrinking into her knitted cardigan. Emma had almost been caught up in her story. Almost.
Zelena had been put up for adoption as a baby. It had been an opener that had Killian's eyes flicking to hers, making sure she was up to it. She was. There the similarities ended. As an adult, Zelena, after an exhaustive search through decades old birth records, had found out the identity of her birth mother. And much to her surprise, it was none other than Cora Mills. Yes, that Cora Mills. As in, the woman who had married into the Prince & Farthing pharmaceuticals empire, revolutionized the industry, and proceeded to become one of the richest women in America, under the new banner of Mills Pharmaceuticals.
"Are you sure you don't want a lawyer?" Killian had asked.
But Emma knew better than that. Zelena wasn't hoping for a mediation with her birth mother. If it was Cora's money she was after, and of course it was her money she was after, she wasn't going to get it with a lawyer. When a child is put up for a closed adoption, every legal connection to the birth parent is severed. The only way Zelena was ever going to see a dime of that Big Pharma cash? If she got in good with the family, and got herself added to the will.
"You want us to grease the wheels," Emma translated. "With the family. Find you an in."
Zelena's eyes practically crackled with electricity then, as she put Emma in her sights. "Well, aren't you the clever one?"
It made her skin crawl.
But they were desperate. And they figured Cora Mills had inheritance money to burn. So they found their in. Regina Mills. Previously thought to be Cora's only child, and heiress to the Mills Pharmaceuticals fortune. Zelena's half-sister.
Regina was a public servant of some repute, known for her take-no-prisoners attitude. Not exactly the fluffiest kitten in the box, but rumor had it she'd mellowed out a little since she'd remarried. Their initial investigations confirmed she spent more time away from the office these days, and more time at her second home out on the Cape with her sons and new husband. There were even scattered reports of smiling in public, though those were unconfirmed.
The fact remained, she was their best chance. They'd never get to Cora through her phalanx of lawyers and minders. But this new-and-improved family-minded Regina? It was at least a possibility.
Then Regina's house had burned to the ground. She had been out of the state at the time, and she and her family weren't harmed in the blaze, but it was definitely fishy. Killian had passed along Zelena's information on the sly to David, who worked in Arson, but he hadn't been able to make anything stick. But they had their suspicions. There was something not quite right about Zelena Beck.
So between the two of them, they'd decided a face-to-face between the two sisters would be the easiest way out of the Zelena hole they'd dug for themselves. They'd done a thorough enough job learning all there was to know about Regina Mills that Zelena could probably ingratiate herself well enough, if she put a lid on the crazy. And once the introductions had been made, they'd be able to wash their hands of the whole thing. Either Regina would accept her, and get her own investigators onto her, or she'd reject her. Either way, they were free and clear.
It was just the method of the introduction that they had yet to iron out.
Emma was a fan of the rip-off-the-Band-Aid approach. A respectful letter delivered through Regina's attorney. A proper sit-down. At least the chance to come off as someone who truly desired to build a relationship with the woman. The truth, for better or worse, out in the open. Zelena, on the other hand, was more a fan of the cloak-and-dagger approach. As in, she wanted to place herself somewhere close to the family, and hope she made a favorable impression.
Something Killian had shot down immediately, thinking of the safety of Regina's two little boys, and Zelena's alleged predilection for playing with fire.
It was Emma's job to deliver this news, whilst Killian was out doing literally anything else. But when it came to staring down Zelena's cold gaze, she wondered if eighteen minutes worth of foot rubs was really payment enough.
"She won't go for it," Emma reiterated. "Regina's too clever. She'll never believe for a second that it was coincidence that led you into her orbit. Not when she finds out who you really are. She admires people who are direct. Like her. She'll see it as a sign of strength," she advised, leaning back in Killian's chair.
"Direct," Zelena repeated, unimpressed.
"Look," Emma said, running a hand through her hair, "you're paying for my expertise, and all of our research has indicated this is the best way to go."
"No," she corrected, "I'm paying for the expertise of your leather-clad lover, but he has seen fit to palm me off on his secretary," Zelena replied, in a deceptively sweet tone.
Emma could feel the anger building inside her, itching to lash out, but she swallowed it back down, painting on a faux smile that had gotten her out of more scrapes than she could count. "I assure you, these are Killian's recommendations, as well as my own. You can either take our advice, or you can find someone else to do your busy-work for you. Either way, we're done here."
"We're done here?" she repeated. "Oh, darling, you don't get to make that call."
"You wanna bet?" Emma stood up from her chair, crossing her arms over her chest.
She should have known it would end in violence. Hair pulling. Scratching. The mean left hook which had Emma flat on her back, head swimming, as Zelena beat a path for the exit. Turned out Zelena was scrappy.
To say Killian wasn't thrilled was putting it mildly.
"At least she paid upfront, right?" she said, as he helped her out to the car.
She barely managed to keep him from taking her to the ER, avoiding a four hour wait on uncomfortable plastic chairs just to be told what Emma already knew. Ice it. Get someone to wake her up every two hours, in case she had a concussion.
"It's just a black eye!" Emma repeated, for the millionth time, as she sat back on that same couch of his, Killian hovering with a fresh bag of frozen peas wrapped in a dish towel.
"Humor me," he replied gravely, holding it out, as he took a seat beside her.
She had to admit, the cool relief of it on her bruised skin did feel better. Maybe she would have admitted it, if she thought it would help lighten the mood any. But that wasn't happening anytime soon. Killian was a veritable little storm cloud of self-loathing, and nothing Emma said made it any better. But she still had to give it a shot.
"You can stop anytime with the self-flagellation, you know? It's okay. I'm fine." She waved a hand, to indicate that she would, in fact, live.
"Jesus Christ, Swan!" he exploded, rising to his feet. "Whatever else this is, it's not fine! I left you alone with a woman that I knew was unstable because I couldn't be bothered dealing with her!"
"If you're worried about what August's going to say..." But he didn't let her finish.
"I don't give a fuck about August right now, Emma!" He was pacing now. "I give a fuck about you! And how I deliberately put you in harm's way, and yet, because everyone in your life has always treated you like shit, you don't realize precisely how much I fucked up. Just another black eye. Oh well. Don't you see? That isn't how it's supposed to be!"
"And why is that? Because I'm a woman?" Emma was standing now too, the frozen peas forgotten on the couch cushion. "Killian, I can take a punch. I'm not made of glass, and I'm not gonna break. I antagonized someone that I knew to be unstable, and maybe that didn't mean I deserved a punch in the face, but I took that chance. It's not the end of the world."
"God!" he said, his hands running through his hair. "Don't you understand how important you are? You're the most infuriating, the most-"
But whatever else she was, she would never know, because in that instant, Emma did the only thing she could think of to shut him up. She took that last step towards him, wrapped her hand around his neck and pulled his lips down to meet hers.