Chapter 18

If there was one thing Emma hated, it was shopping. She liked to think it was because she was the no fuss type, perfectly ok with wearing the same thing everyday. Which she did pretty often, actually. Mainly because she was usually too lazy to do laundry.

Of course, she knew that deep down her hatred of shopping stemmed from the fact that she'd never been able to afford any of the nice clothes that she wanted. As a foster kid she had been lucky that she even any clothes, let alone nice ones.

But when Killian called and asked her to take Ava shopping, as she was outgrowing all of her clothes ("growing faster than a bloody weed", to put it in his words), she immediately agreed.

As agreed, he came over around 11 to drop her off. "Thanks again for doing this."

"Yeah, no problem. I love shopping." Emma lied.

He immediately smirked. "No, you don't."

"Yeah, no I don't." Damn him and his ability to read her like a book. "But I'm happy to do this for Ava."

As if on cue, Ava came bounding into the apartment. "Hi Emma!" She cried.

"Hey, Av. Ready to go pick out some new clothes?"

Much to her surprise, Ava stuck out her tongue. "No."

"You don't like shopping, do you?"

Ava shook her head wildly. "Yuck. Shopping boring."

"Wow, what do you know? Me too. But we have to go, so how bout this? If you're a good girl we'll go get ice cream after. Deal?" She held out her pinky.

Ava's eyes widened. "Ooh. Can we get choclit?"

"Sure. Whatever you want." Who knew the key to Ava's heart was through her stomach?

Ava looped her pinky through Emma's. "Ok." She grabbed Emma's hand. "Bye Daddy!"

"You're welcome to come, if you like." Emma offered.

"I'd really rather not." He responded. "Shopping is quite repulsive. Besides it'd be fun for you and Ava to spend the day together.

Emma was about to question his strange statement when Ava spoke up. "Byeeee Daddy." She repeated.

"Somebody's impatient." Killian chuckled. "Bye Av. Be a good girl."

"So. Your daddy said that you need a new jacket." Emma frowned as she perused the rack of raincoats hanging in front of her in the children's section of Macy's. "Which one do you like?"

In response, Ava wrinkled her nose.

"None of these, I see. Well too bad you kinda need one." She looked at the coat Ava was currently sporting, which was a bit shorter than normal. Clearly she needed a new one. For some reason the coat Ava wore looked familiar, almost like something Emma herself had picked out for someone before. Huh.

Emma sifted through the rack again. "What's your favorite color?"

"Yellow."

"Hey, me too!" Emma replied. "That's why I drive a yellow car." Also because she couldn't bear to part with it, but she wasn't going to admit that. "What about this?" She held up a bright yellow raincoat in front of the little girl.

"Ick."

"You're really picky, aren't you?" Emma placed the coat back on the rack. "How bout this?" She held up a different jacket.

But Ava's attention had been diverted to a loud video playing on the screen mounted to the wall above.

"Ava." Emma dragged the stubborn toddler back. "Come on. I know this isn't fun but the faster we get this over with the sooner we can have ice cream. Now, which jacket do you like?"

"Dat one." Ava pointed at Emma's arm.

"What…" Emma looked down. "Which one are you…oh." She realized. "You want a leather jacket like mine?"

Ava nodded. "Yeah. Pwetty."

"Aww, you think so? Thanks." Emma laughed. "Well I'm sorry, but I don't think they make leather jackets in your size."

Ava began to pout. "I want one."

"But…" Emma said quickly before Ava could start whining. "What if we find one that looks similar to mine?"

She smiled adorably. "Kay."

Whew. Crisis averted. For now.

Ava was remarkably calm when looking for shirts, picking out several on her own. Same with jeans. But when they got to shoes she was beginning to show signs of boredom.

"Hmm. Your daddy said he wanted you to get new shoes. Which do you like?" Emma asked as she led Ava through the shoes.

"No shoes." Ava replied, taking a seat on one of the comfy chairs, swinging her legs back and forth. She stuck her thumb into her mouth.

Emma sighed. Kids were so difficult.

"Ava. You have to pick a pair." Emma grabbed a pair of pink sneakers along with a pair of pink Ugg boots. Little girls all like pink right? "Do you like these?" She asked.

"I don't like pink." Ava huffed. "Can we get ice cweam now?"

"Not until we get you a pair of shoes. So the sooner we get them, the sooner we get ice cream. Ok?"

"Ok."

Emma walked through the shoes once more, grabbing several pairs in anything but pink. Weirdly she and Ava were pretty similar with their distaste of pink. "How about these?" Emma asked her, holding up a pair of black Uggs.

Ava thought about it for a moment, little finger tapping on her chin. Emma crossed her fingers, hoping she'd say yes to these.

"Ok." Ava nodded. "I like those."

Phew. Finally. "Good choice. I like them too."

"Can we get ice cweam now?"

Damn, she was persistent. "Of course, we just need to pay for all this stuff."

Emma set the vast amount of clothing on the counter, along with the black uggs and a pair of sneakers she managed to convince Ava to get.

"Will that be all?" The cashier asked. She was a matronly looking woman with silvery hair and a kind smile.

Emma nodded, pulling out the wad of cash Killian had given her.

"We're gonna get ice cweam." Ava happily told the cashier.

"Oh really?" The cashier asked with a smile as she removed the security tags from a coat that was indeed very similar to Emma's leather jacket.

"Yeah. Choclit."

"Awesome. That's my favorite." The cashier replied.

"That's Daddy's favorite too." Ava babbled.

"Here you go." The cashier handed Emma her bags. "Your daughter is beautiful."

Emma blinked. "Oh, um, she's not my daughter." She stammered.

The cashier raised an eyebrow. "Really? Wow. You could've fooled me. You two look quite a bit alike."

"Oh, because of the hair?"

The cashier shook her head. "No. Not just that, at least. You and her have the same face shape. Nose too. And the look in your eyes. You sure you're not related?" She asked teasingly.

Awkward. "No she's just a friend's kid."

The cashier nodded. "Oh I see. Sorry about that." She handed Emma the bags. "Have a nice day."

"You too." Emma called as she took Ava's hand. "Ready for ice cream?"

"Yeah!"

As they walked down the street, Emma was struck by how oddly normal this seemed, walking with Ava, her little hand clasped in Emma's bigger one. And not just that. They interacted so easily, something Emma didn't think was possible as she was usually terrible with kids.

If she didn't know better she'd think she'd met Ava before.

She shook her head, trying to rid herself of these thoughts. She was being ridiculous.

They reached the ice cream parlor that Emma frequented fairly quickly. As it was a nice day, there was a long line.

"Did you have fun today?" Emma asked.

Ava shook her head.

"Yeah, figured. Shopping's pretty boring, isn't it? But now you have lots of new clothes to look pretty in."

Soon they reached the front of the line. "Let me guess. You want chocolate?"

"Yep!"

"Two chocolates." Emma told the bored teenager behind the counter.

"That'll be 5.75."

She handed her the money and soon they were out of the crowded store.

"Yummy!" Ava said as she licked her cone.

"I can see you're enjoying it." Emma laughed. Half of the cone was dribbling messily down Ava's face.

They headed back to Emma's apartment, where she sat Ava down on the bathroom counter to clean the brown smears from her face.

"Holy crap." Emma laughed. "Half of the ice cream's on your face. Did you even eat any of it?" She ran a warm washcloth down the little girl's face. "There. All good." She lifted Ava up and set her on the floor. "What do you want to do till your dad gets here?"

"Draw!"

"Ok, then." She settled Ava in the kitchen with a pad of paper and her crayons. Emma was about to go and dig up something for dinner when there was a tug on her sleeve.

"Draw wif me." Ava held out a red crayon.

"Oh. Um, I don't know. I'm not really that good at drawing." But she couldn't say no to the earnest little look on Ava's face so she grabbed a piece of paper and sat down across from her.

"What are you drawing?" Emma craned her neck to see what Ava was working so hard on, her little nose scrunched up in concentration.

Ava covered her paper with her arms. "It's a secret!"

"It's a secret, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah. Alrighty then." She felt silly, drawing with a crayon, something she hadn't done since she was a kid. She settled on randomly doodling a bunch of cats. Fairly easy enough.

Drawing was more fun than she remembered and pretty soon there was a knock on the door.

"How was shopping?" Killian asked as Emma let him in.

"It was...an adventure."

"Daddy!" Ava cried as she spotted her father. She immediately ran over, clutching several drawings in her fist.

"Hey, princess." He scooped her up. "How was your day with Emma?"

"Fun."

"That's good. Did you get lots of new clothes?"

She nodded. "For you." She held out one of her drawings.

"Thank you. It's beautiful." He said as he tucked it into his pocket. "Ready to go?"

"Yeah. Bye Emma!" Ava called.

"Thanks again." Killian said as Emma walked them to the door. "Really, you have no idea how thankful I am to you."

"It was nothing." Emma responded. "Ava and I had fun, right Av?"

Ava nodded. "We got ice cweam."

"See? Besides you probably saved me from an inevitably boring Saturday."

"Well then. How would like me to save you from a boring Sunday?"

"A-are you asking me out? Again?"

Killian shrugged. "Perhaps I am."

"I don't know." Emma replied. Spending more time with him sounded amazing, but there was this part of her that wondered if it was such a good idea. She still knew nothing about him.

"Come on, love. You can show me around this bloody confusing city. Nearly got lost twice today."

"Directionally challenged I see."

"Finding my way around, perhaps. But you'll find that I'm not challenged at all when it comes to, ah, other more enjoyable activities." He raised his eyebrows suggestively. "Want a demonstration?"

"Do you always flirt with women who take your daughter out shopping?"

"Just the pretty ones. So what do you say?" His eyes glinted amusedly.

"We'll see." Emma responded. "Bye Ava." She closed the door after them, already thinking ahead to a long, hot shower when there was the sudden pitter patter of tiny feet followed by a frantic knock on her door.

"Ava?" She asked in surprise. "Did you forget something?"

In response, Ava held out one of her drawings. "For you."

"Another one?" Emma bent down to Ava's height. "Thanks! It'll go nicely with the other one."

Ava smiled shyly. Suddenly she reached out and wrapped her arms around Emma. "Thank you."

Oh. Um, ok. She hadn't been expecting this, but it felt nice. "For what?"

"Shopping."

"Aw, don't worry about it. It was fun."

And then Ava did something that made Emma's heart nearly stop. She stepped forward and kissed her cheek. "Bye Emma." She said before toddling back to where Killian was waiting.

Later that night, the cashier's words ran continuously through Emma's head.

"Really? Wow. You could've fooled me. You two look quite a bit alike."

Sure, she and Ava both had blonde hair. And maybe a similarly shaped chin, if you squinted your eyes and tilted your head. But that was it.

But about the cashier's comment about the "look in their eyes"? Whatever that meant. Maybe she'd been alluding to both of their bored expressions. Now that she could understand.

Emma stifled a yawn as she rolled over, already falling asleep. The last thought running through her mind before she succumbed to exhaustion was that it wouldn't be so bad if Ava was really her daughter.