Chapter 19

Two Years Later

The warm May sun beat down on her shoulders as she sat on the bleachers, one among a sea of students in crimson gowns and black mortarboards, a hum of excitement and anticipation traveling the crowd as they waited for the commencement ceremony to begin. Emma adjusted her robe and pushed her sunglasses up her nose, thumbing through the program as if to make sure one more time that this wasn't a mistake, that her name – Emma Ruth Swan – was still listed as a candidate for the Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice, cum laude. She'd busted her ass off to reach this day. Nobody had gotten her here but her. Nobody had held her hand. She'd worked and gone to school full time, living variously in the hostel, out of the back of the Bug, and then in a drafty garret room with some crazy cat lady in Cambridge, taking the train in and coming home past midnight, getting her homework done and leaving early the next morning for work. Crammed in the requirements, blood and sweat and tears. And now. Finally. Vindication.

Aside from ditching Phyllis MacLean and her five insufferable felines, Emma was the most excited about her new job. She'd heard all the horror stories about a recession economy and new grads walking around wearing sandwich boards, in hopes that someone would hire them so they could start paying back their ridiculous loans, but she must be the exception to the rule. After two years slaving away at Subway, making lunch for stressed executives from the Pru who stared pointedly at their watches and never said thank you, she was leaving customer-service hell for a real, actual grown-up job in a field directly pertinent to her degree. The Massachusetts state police had sponsored a booth at the BU career fair this spring, and she'd gotten talking with the recruiter. One thing led to another, she landed an interview, and not long after that, accepted an offer to join the Boston branch of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. In a funny twist of fate, James George, the guy who'd once arrested her, was now her direct supervisor.

Emma knew it was going to be mostly grunt work to start: photocopying, answering phones, making coffee, taking notes at department meetings, that kind of thing. But there were plenty of opportunities for advancement, and as the ATF worked closely with the federal justice system, it was very likely that she'd get a chance, sooner rather than later, to do actual field work. As an agent, she'd be responsible for stings, undercover jobs, casings, stakeouts, and other similar operations; she'd already been informed that her fresh college-girl looks made her an excellent candidate for such duties. Who would suspect the sweet, innocent blonde of any malfeasance? Then, of course, she would move in and take them down. At the self-defense course she'd been attending on weekends, she'd scared the shit out of men twice her age and twice her size. No matter which kind of perps tried it on with her, they were in for a giant fucking surprise.

The sound of the university band striking up jerked Emma back to the present. They'd already droned through about a hundred repetitions of "Pomp and Circumstance," so at least this time they just had to play the fight song before the show got on the road. After the ceremony and reception, she was heading back to Cambridge to pick up her stuff, then to her new apartment, an approximately one-hundred-square foot closet crammed on the second floor of a historic brownstone in the Back Bay. But it was all hers, she was finally rid of her insane landlady, and the neighborhood and location were great. Ten minutes to work on the T.

The BU president stepped up to welcome them, and the vaguely pleasant parade of speeches and honors began. Emma had already walked at her school's individual ceremony, so this time she just had to stand with the rest of them and wave for the big screens. She didn't have anyone she was waving for. No parents, no relatives, no boyfriend. She'd dated a few guys, but the longest relationship had been six weeks, and after that she quit trying. If she needed sex, she could find it. One-night stands were her forte. Otherwise, she was fine alone.

Despite herself, she couldn't help but wonder what Wendy and Alice were doing. Boston College's graduation had been a few days ago, and she'd watched it online, feeling no real regret for not being there herself but still getting teary-eyed when she caught sight of her former roommates in the crowd. After she'd left BC, she hadn't kept up with them. They kept trying to find a time to visit, but she kept finding convenient other things to do on whatever day they suggested. Ignored Wendy's emails until, just a few months ago, they finally stopped coming. Wanted to feel proud of herself, but only felt small. See. Look. I did it myself. I didn't need you to hold my hand.

Commencement concluded. They threw their hats in the air, switched their tassels, and were officially college graduates. Afterwards, she exchanged smiles and hugs with the few friends she'd made here; she hadn't had time for much of a social life, and didn't rue the lack. Then she headed to the bursar's office to stand in the endless line for diplomas, and was very hot and thirsty by the time she peeled off her robe, shouldered through the chattering families to the reception tent, and stuffed a few cookies in her mouth before heading off to catch the bus. It was a flawless, clear afternoon, and she decided that if she wasn't utterly wiped after retrieving her stuff, she'd head down to Fenway for a Red Sox game. She deserved a treat.

Forty minutes later, Emma was in Cambridge, loading boxes into the Bug and exulting in the fact that she never had to trip over another of Phyllis' cats again. She managed to get back into the Bay just before the traffic hit, and turned into the alley behind the brownstone where she parked; as she intended to walk and take public transit everywhere, she could feel somewhat smug at knowing that no one was going to steal her spot. She'd considered selling the Bug for extra money, but it was such a junker that it wasn't going to be worth much, and she liked the idea of mobility, of being able to pack up and go if she needed to. Just in case.

By the time she'd hauled the boxes up to the stuffy apartment, it was pushing five PM, and she had no desire at all to start unpacking. She locked the door with her new keys, jumped the T, and managed to snag a cheap-seats ticket at the Fenway box office window. Then she strolled into the cramped green confines, got a hot dog and soda, and settled in.

The game started, and the lights came on. Emma contentedly chomped her hot dog, raised an eyebrow at the commentary overheard around her, and around the fourth inning, got up to use the bathroom and buy an ice cream cone. She edged through the packed concourse, trying to scope the one with the shortest line, but they were all pretty busy and she was just going to have to –

What the. No. She hadn't – but she definitely had. She screeched to a halt, causing someone to order her in a thick Boston accent to keep moving, lady, and scuttled to the side, pulling her cap down and staring at him furtively, frantically. What the hell was he doing here? He wasn't supposed to be here, he wasn't supposed to be near her in any way, shape, or form. It had been two years since he and his craziness had come to play in her life, but she wasn't about to forget August W. Booth's face. Far as she knew, that restraining order was still good.

August, for his part, hadn't noticed her. He was leaning against one of the pylons, eating nachos and staring out at the field. There was a troubled, introspective look on his face, and when he finally stepped away, she noticed that he moved stiffly, almost limping. Probably a motorcycle accident; she was sure that he still rumbled around on that Harley causing problems for people. Not that she felt bad for him or anything. He'd chosen his path, she'd chosen hers, and –

Emma tried to sidle back into the crowd unobtrusively, let herself be swallowed up and turn this into just a bad coincidence. She would have succeeded too, if not for the fact that at that moment, August tripped over something and dropped his nachos. Clearly swearing under his breath, he bent down awkwardly to retrieve them – and as he did, caught her staring. He turned around, and their eyes locked.

Emma almost stopped breathing. The sound of the people and the game faded to a dull roar in her ears, and she felt as if she had turned to ice. If he walked toward her, if he took a step toward her, she was going to call her new friends on the force and have them teach him a thing or two about the operation of the law. She had to. She had to keep him away from her. Him and his talk about a curse. About her destiny.

August, however, did not try to approach. Instead, he raised two fingers to his brow in a sort of salute, and smiled faintly. Then he turned away, salvaged nachos in hand, and kept on walking. In a moment more he too had vanished into the crowd.

By the time Emma got home late that night, she only had the strength to turn on the fan and collapse onto the bare mattress on the floor; at some point she would purchase actual furniture, but she hadn't gotten around to it yet. She was so exhausted that she could barely move, but even as she sank through the heavy layers of sleep, repressed memories were stealing up to the surface. Stuff she hadn't thought about since she left BC. Not just August, but. . .

If Emma was entirely honest with herself, there was some part of her, some small and secret part, that had never forgotten Killian Jones. Whoever he'd been, whatever he'd wanted; she still didn't know, and likely never would. He was the only man higher than August on the list of the guys who absolutely had to be kept away from her for her own sanity. If she ever saw him again, she wasn't sure what she'd do. Slap him, probably. He'd deserve it. Even if slapping was far from the only thing she wanted to do to him. Even if part of the reason she hadn't been able to date anybody was because no matter how badly that one kiss with him in the Wadham College gardens had ended, she had never, never met anyone who made her feel anything remotely close.

She tossed and turned, hot and bothered, and not just by the temperature. Finally she had to make herself stop; she needed the weekend to sleep. She started her new job on Monday, and that was definitely going to be in both feet first. She couldn't wait until she got her next paycheck. Aside from the bills, she barely had enough right now for food.

Emma finally slipped under, and awoke on a brilliantly golden Sunday morning, light streaming into her room in white-hot glory. She yawned, lounged in bed for a while, then got up, padded out in her bare feet, and ate breakfast on her small balcony, looking over the yard below. Once she finally got around to getting dressed, she decided reluctantly to hit the boxes. They weren't going to unpack themselves, and she was officially an adult now.

This occupied much of the remaining day. She decided to head to the thrift store down the street in hopes of finding a few cheap pieces of furniture, and did better than she had been expecting. She was just heading up the stairs with them, lamp and side table and beanbag, when –

"Whoa!"

Emma flailed, almost falling headlong back down the stairs, which would have been extremely unpleasant indeed; she felt like she'd been hit by a car. It wasn't a car, however, but a guy maybe in his late thirties, bald, brown-eyed, grabbing worriedly at her to prevent her from breaking her neck, which was admittedly chivalrous of him. "Hey! You okay? I'm really sorry!"

"Yeah. Fine." Once she got her wind back, that was.

"I don't think I've seen you before. You the new tenant in 2R?"

"Yeah."

"Greg Mendel. It's nice to meet you." He offered a hand, apparently remembered that hers were full, and looked sheepish. "I live downstairs, 1R. Right beneath you, I guess. You can bang on the floor if I ever get too loud, I'll do the same on the ceiling. Deal?"

Oh, great. Clearly he thought he was being charming. "Yeah, you don't have to worry about that. I'm not the party type."

"Aw, don't worry. This building's pretty quiet. But actually, I'm having a barbecue tonight. My girlfriend and some of the people we know. Fun crowd. Wanna hang?"

"I. . . I don't really do social functions all that well." She tried to edge around him, but the old staircase was narrow and she had a lot of shit in her arms. "New job. Start on Monday. Get some sleep. You know?"

"Well then, you have to at least come by and have a celebratory burger. No pressure. Really."

"Can you get out of my way, please?"

Greg Mendel looked somewhat miffed, but flattened himself to the wall, and Emma bumped by. As she continued her ascent, he called up after her, "I don't think I caught your name?"

"Don't think I dropped it." Emma fumbled for her keys, unlocked the door, shuffled through, and shut it, quite a bit harder than necessary, behind her.

And then after that, since she was feeling guilty, she went to his fucking barbecue anyway.

Greg was clearly surprised to see her when he opened the door, but genially welcomed her in nonetheless, and accepted the store-bought apple pie she foisted on him as a peace offering. Inside, his apartment wasn't much bigger than hers, but already humming with an assortment of guests, drinking cheap beer, plinking on acoustic guitars, and wandering out to the backyard where the grill was set up; it was reminiscent of most of the college parties she'd been to. Also as she had at most of the parties she'd been to, she hovered awkwardly just inside the door, trying to decide if she wanted to wade in there and be social, or just skulk in here like a turtle in its shell in hopes that someone would take pity on her.

"Hey, let me get you a drink." Greg resurfaced at her elbow and steered her into the apartment's kitchen, where two women were leaning against the cupboards and chatting. One was elegant, slender, with smooth cocoa-colored skin and long black hair, vaguely familiar, and the other had blue eyes and messy brown curls piled in a bun, wearing a short minidress and sipping a glass of wine. Emma wondered which one was Greg's girlfriend.

"Babe, this is my neighbor." He leaned to kiss the cheek of the black woman, which apparently answered that question. "This is Tamara, and – I still haven't got your name?"

Tamara? The name reverberated through Emma like a kick. Talk about coincidences turning far too weird for their own good – first spying August W. Booth at the game, and now this? The woman who supposedly knew something about finding her parents? And wait. There was somewhere else she knew her from. It had been a few years, so she wasn't quite sure, but she was convinced of it. What the fuck.

Everyone was still looking at her expectantly. Emma made herself smile – her close-mouthed, demure, her fuck-you-I'll-find-out-what-you're-doing smile. "Ruth. It's nice to meet you."

"Indeed." Tamara smiled, although her eyes had narrowed as if she too was trying to work out where they'd met before. "Just moved in?"

"Yeah." Emma shrugged, then glanced to the other woman. "Hi."

"Hi." The barfly smiled, but didn't put down her glass. "I'm Lacey. Tamara and I work together."

"Really? What do you do?"

"We freelance. As it were." Lacey took another swig. "Go where the work takes us. Got a big case we're trying to crack right now."

"You're in law enforcement too?"

"You could say that. What about you?"

"ATF," Emma said guardedly. "Just graduated from Boston University this weekend, actually. Not sure what I'll be doing yet."

"Well, congrats." Lacey shrugged. "Sounds exciting. Here, I'll get you something."

She poured a glass of whatever she was drinking and handed it to Emma, who sipped it carefully. Her spidey senses were tingling. It wasn't that Lacey was lying, exactly, but something wasn't quite right. Perhaps that was unsurprising, given that she was apparently colleagues with a woman of (to say the least) unknown motives, but it made Emma extremely wary, even more so than usual, about letting her guard down with these people. Law enforcement? My ass.

Despite this, however, the night passed uneventfully. The food was good, the drinks plentiful, and Emma cut herself off after two; she was starting work tomorrow morning, after all, and didn't want to go in with a hangover. The main problem was remembering to turn when someone called her Ruth. She didn't know where the middle name had come from, but it had been Emma Nolan's, and she hadn't seen any reason to get rid of it. It might be a drag going by a fake name around her neighbors, but she still didn't want them to know who she actually was.

She excused herself around 10pm and headed up the stairs back to her apartment. The place was still a mess, half-unpacked, but she fished out her clothes and hung them up in the bare bathroom; it was so small that you could barely turn around without hitting your ass on the sink or the toilet. As she regarded herself in the mirror, she wondered when, if ever, this place would start to feel like home. She was lucky to have it. She was.

After a moment, Emma sighed and turned away, rumpling her fingers through her long, tangled hair. She'd have to remember to set her alarm early enough to take a shower, and –

Something, some faint sound, made her head turn sharply. She might have been imagining it, but she thought she'd heard it, either at the door or the window. As if someone was there.

Emma narrowed her eyes, moved out into the living room, and jerked the door open, hoping to surprise anyone lurking outside – someone like Tamara, for example. But it only swung onto the deserted hall. Nothing. No one.

She shut it.

No one there.

Somewhat to Emma's surprise, her first month at her new job went off like a house afire. Indeed, so did the next one. She completed the preliminary certification courses, started to train with a firearm, and went through a metric fuckton of hours in simulators, followed by an equally mind-numbing brigade of computer tests and paperwork. Most of it was paperwork, in fact. There was also the usual office drama, petty regulations, and anal-retentive accounting departments who wanted everything in writing, three times. If she had envisioned a glamorous life traveling the world and catching crooks like some female James Bond, fast cars and lipstick and guns and glory, she was disappointed.

Nonetheless, she liked it. It was something she was good at, and her willingness to work ridiculously hard quickly impressed her supervisors. James George had taken a particular interest in her, in fact; they spent most of their evenings training at the facility gym. He did remember her from the whole marijuana fiasco, and one muggy July night as they were leaving late, he said, "You're probably wondering if we ever caught your guy, huh?"

Emma tensed. "What?"

"The guy who put the whole mess on you. Neal. You heard from him recently?"

She and her boss might have a good relationship, but not so much that Emma wasn't fully aware that he was asking in a decidedly professional capacity. If she copped to knowing anything about Neal, or that they'd been in contact, that was going directly into the evidence dossier to be explored as a potential lead. Apparently that meant they hadn't caught him, and she had no idea how that made her feel. "Nope. He's been MIA ever since he framed me and booked it."

"Classy." James snorted.

"Yeah. Speaking of which, how's Jack? She was my lawyer. What's she doing?"

"I don't know. We broke up a while ago. She got sick, and. . ." James shrugged. "Couldn't spare the time to take care of her, so. . . yeah."

Emma stared at him. "Classy."

"Hey, I don't judge your love life, you don't judge mine. And as a matter of fact, there's something I have to tell you. I needed to make sure you were clear because the agency received a tip a few nights ago. We're still putting together the details of the case and figuring out what kind of personnel we're going to assign, but this has the potential to be huge."

Emma's curiosity was piqued. "What?"

"According to the source – we're still verifying all this, and I don't need to tell you that this is strictly confidential – we've got somebody interesting coming to town. All kinds of stuff on his rap sheet. Murder, kidnapping, general scum and villainy. He's not actually somebody the federal guys are familiar with, so they're trying to pin him down as more than just a code name, work out who we're dealing with. Right now, all we know him as is Shamrock."

"Really," Emma said. James worked for the U.S. marshals as well as with the ATF, and he did do the kind of hands-on perp-busting she was itching to get started with. "Who called in the tip?"

"Again, more code names. Identified themselves only as the Librarian." James shrugged wryly, as if to apologize for all the cloak-and-dagger stuff. "But you've been doing great on your tests and your sims and everything, and the higher-ups are thinking it's time to get your feet wet. Once we've got the intel clearer, we're going to try to intercept this guy and bring him in for a little chat. That's where you come in."

A grin spread across Emma's face, a little flicker at first and then broader. "Bring it on."

Over the next few days, as the investigation heated up, she worked harder than ever, determined to give them no reason to rethink assigning a rookie to this delicate sting operation. It wasn't like she was dealing with the Sicilian Mafia or a Colombian drug cartel, but it was still a sizeable task, especially if the Librarian was correct that this guy was coming in from abroad with murder on his mind. Catching an international killer was harder than busting the clueless idiot trying to stick up the 7-Eleven with a sawed-off handgun, and even if the agency wanted her to take part, they weren't sending her in if it looked like she was going to get waxed.

Emma, for her part, was supremely confident in her ability to handle herself, but it was true that this was a different kind of defense than the kind she'd been playing all her life, and she did have to stay on her toes. Both here and at home. She'd successfully dodged any more barbecue invitations from Greg, but as she was picking up her mail a few days ago, she'd dropped an envelope and was reaching for it only to have it retrieved by Tamara, Greg's girlfriend and the very reason Emma wasn't attending any more friendly neighborhood shindigs. The other woman had looked at the address, appeared confused, and said, "Emma, huh? I thought it was Ruth?"

"It is," Emma lied. "I guess they got mixed up. I get Comcast ads all the time with the wrong name. You know." She tried to restrain herself from snatching it back. "See you."

That had left her unsettled for longer than it should. It wasn't like Tamara had come busting into her place in a ski mask that night, demanding answers. It was probably all in her head; there was no reason for Tamara to connect her standoffish upstairs neighbor to a girl she'd once offered, through an intermediary, to help find her parents. She was probably just one of those annoying do-gooders who stuck their noses in where they weren't wanted. Or a social worker or something. Or whatever she and Lacey freelanced about, which was more than a little disturbing.

With all this in her head, Emma was grateful for work to distract her. And at last, the news she had been waiting for arrived. James called her into his office, and told her that it was a go. They'd tracked Shamrock down, set him up, and they were ready to go in for the kill. In fact, she was meeting him tomorrow night at the Renaissance Hotel on the Boston Harbor waterfront, in the lobby bar. He was under the impression that she was going to be passing him special information about his planned assassination. Instead, she was going to be wearing a pair of earrings that were bugged and GPS'ed. They would record every detail of the conversation, and if the waiting agents heard what they were scanning for, they'd be strolling in to introduce Shamrock, an Irish-sounding sort of guy, to some of Boston's Irish finest.

Emma prepared as meticulously as a samurai. She was allowed to have the morning off, and she slept late, had lunch at the café down the street, and then returned home to get the show on the road. She shaved and showered and moisturized, did her hair, and slipped into her skintight red dress, feeling a bit like she was in a James Bond movie after all. The other James, her boss, hadn't told her how to dress, but going all femme fatale was never a bad idea in Emma's book. She did her nails, put on her golden swan necklace, and then the bugged earrings. They were a pair of matching gold-crystal teardrops, looking like fine jewelry and nothing more, but she heard the faint static hiss when she switched them on.

That concluded, Emma slipped into stiletto heels, grabbed a silk scarf, and then her purse, heavy with the weight of her service handgun and ATF badge inside. She really didn't want to open fire in a crowded Boston bar, but she was going in after at least a potential and possibly actual murderer, and thus not unarmed. This wasn't supposed to be a full-bore undercover operation, but it was very likely that the night was going to end with an arrest. If he tried to run. . . well, she wasn't expected to do the chasing and capturing herself. That was what her backup team was for.

Despite the heavy heat of the sweltering summer night, Emma found she was shivering as she stood out on the curb, waiting for her ride. They pulled up a few minutes later in an unmarked black car, and the shock of the air conditioning hit her as she stepped in. She slammed the door, and they were off, rolling into downtown.

"Remember," the agent in the front seat told her as they pulled up in front of the Renaissance. "If anything goes wrong, if anything feels weird, get out of there immediately and call us. We'll be thirty seconds away. You're set?"

Emma touched her earring, finding the little transmitter. "Yeah."

"Good girl. Okay. Operation is on. . . now."

Emma opened the car door and stepped out onto the sidewalk, heels clicking as she headed up to the glass doors, a steady current of people flowing by her to all sides. The doorman showed her in, and she stepped into the hotel foyer, glancing around. They'd given her a generic physical description, but she still hoped she didn't have to start walking up to random guys and asking them if they were a murderer code-named Shamrock. Yeah. Not going to go over so well.

She took a seat at the glowing blue bar and ordered a cocktail. Took a sip. Heart pounding, palms wet. Fuck it, she wasn't scared. Not at all. Just alert, on edge, adrenaline-highed. Her first real assignment and she had better not screw it up. She was –

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw somebody entering the hotel and striding through the lobby, heading with purpose into the bar. A man. Fit the preliminary description. Tall, dark-haired. Smart black suit, purple tie. Shit. Action. This might be him. Glancing around as if he too was searching for someone. As she watched, he moved closer. Looked up, looked at her, and –

Oh my God.

Oh my God.

No.

The last two years had not been among the best of Killian Jones' life, and with the representative sample he had to choose from, that was saying quite something. After that, after whatever in bleeding hellfire had happened with Emma in the Wadham College gardens, he had been left full as shattered as she was. She said she remembered – she said she remembered him hurting her, leaving her. Both of which he had. No denying it. But if she'd seen it. . . seen something, known it, woken up. . . if the shadow had been after her as well, after both of them, after her for God knew what reason and after him because he was Hook, he was its mortal enemy by default. . .

No. Milah was his love, his true love. He couldn't accept anything less, after how long and how hard he had fought his solitary, centuries-long battle for her. He too had to wake up, to realize what a damned fool he was being. Remember why he'd done anything. Let go. Let her go.

You're a bloody coward, Jones. He knew it too, and knowing it scorched him to the core. But the only other option – going back to carry off and ravish an unwilling woman who plainly wanted nothing at all to do with him – made him once and for all into a pirate again, and for better or worse, he respected their choices when it came to him. And after so long, the only way he knew how to show devotion to a woman was obsessively crusading to destroy anyone who had hurt her. And so, he had spent the last two years teaching at Oxford, planning how exactly he would take down Gold, and hunting the shadow relentlessly. It wouldn't go after Emma again. Not if he had the barest thing to say about it.

It had struck Killian as well that he appeared to be getting his revenge for Emma before he'd even gotten it for Milah, and it made him furious. He reminded himself that he was just practicing for Gold, and whenever he absolutely had to see Wendy – only a few times, as they tended to keep their careful distance – he managed to make it sound as if he was adjusting far better than he was. He'd lied to her about his revenge so many times, about still wanting it, that she genuinely thought he'd given it up by now, that he'd stay as a professor and no harm done to anyone. But it was the summer vacation, meaning that he wasn't due back at Oxford until October and thus had plenty of free time, and his two-year deadline was up.

Killian had allowed a few extra months for Emma to move away from Boston after she graduated, presuming that she wouldn't want to stay; she'd run, like him. But now, now that he was certain she'd be gone, he was returning to America for the first time since he'd left. Get in touch with Tamara again, do what he had to, go to Storybrooke, and end Gold for good.

Then he could go back. Back to what?

Something. It had to be something. Oxford. Life. Something. He'd find it. He'd work it out.

As Killian Jones walked into the bar of the Renaissance Hotel, he was determinedly shoving aside the questions. He was sick and bloody tired of them, and he felt a thousand years old and ready to be through with it. Not that you could tell. He hadn't really aged since he'd come back from Neverland; after three centuries stuck fast, his body likely didn't yet remember how. But get this done, get the information as to how to get to Storybrooke, and then –

And then, he looked up.

Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh Jesus bloody Christ, no. No. No.

It was. It was.

It was her.