Killian didn't even turn around when she pushed open the heavy door leading to the roof. The squeak of the hinges was loud, muffled only slightly by the steady rain falling. He'd delivered a short, clipped report that bordered on militant and gave Zelena a jumping off point for delving into Milah's past and present, and then disappeared.

From the looks of things, he'd been up in the area dubbed the Crow's Nest by the first Captain Jones since then. The shoulders of his department-issued polo shirt were dark and shiny, saturated with water; his hair so wet it looked almost black in the dim light provided by a utilitarian fixture mounted above the door and what little could seep through the dense, dark cloud cover. Stepping slightly to the left, Emma could see his fists and jaw were flexing to the same beat, a ghost from his past and the crashing weight of the previously unknown fueling the metronome.

"Is there something I can do for you, Detective Swan?"

His tone was measured but Emma could sense his anger under the surface, not that she could blame him, and she kept her own mild and professional.

"Not at the moment. Is there something Ican do for you, Captain Jones?"

He turned toward her, eyes a glittery blue. For a split second he reminded her of how he had looked all those months ago on the side of the road outside downtown Storybrooke, all damaged and dangerous. Then his expression softened and he offered a small smile.

"Killian will do."

Emma huffed a breath out and smiled back, stepping toward him. He didn't move when her hands brushed against the sides of his torso or when they slid around to his back. The hug was one-sided for a moment before he rushed her, enveloping her in his arms. One hand slipped to the nape of her neck and he buried his nose into her hair.

In another time and place, she'd tease him about letting the opportunity to weave an innuendo into the conversation pass without so much as a move to undo his zipper at her offer to do something for him. But the absence of any of his usual frat boy frivolity was all the cue she needed that this was going to hit him hard.

They swayed in the night unbothered by the rain and the silence. The gentle movement was a stark contrast to the thoughts racing through his head.

Milah.

Milah was Dreamshade.

She'd spent the years since she broke their engagement traveling at a breakneck speed in the opposite direction as he, heading toward thievery and chaos while Killian continued on the path of service and order. There was no doubt in his mind that the older man she'd left him for was Gold. At the time, the necessity to seek out answers and names had felt futile, especially with Liam as the angel on his shoulder telling him to forget about her and move on. It had been easy throwing himself into his Naval duties then following his brother into the department.

Liam.

The most bitter pill to swallow wasn't that she'd left him. It wasn't even that she'd hopped off his dick and straight onto Gold's. It was that Milah, despite knowing Liam and coming a walk down the aisle away from having him become family, may have had direct culpability in his death.

"Gonna need that hair to stay attached to my head for a decent ponytail, Jones."

"Ah, hell. Sorry." He stepped back from her. "I didn't realize I had the Kung-Fu Grip going on there."

She fluffed her hair off her neck but stayed close and Killian scrubbed his face with one hand before dropping his forehead to hers.

"This is an unbelievable clusterfuck."

And it was. Before, when it was just Gold, Peter, Felix and a bunch of nameless, faceless assholes it was all still personal. The loss of brother and Officer Rogers' lives and closeness to which he came nearly losing Emma's and his own were already unforgivable. Knowing someone he'd once loved who had warmed his bed and filled his head with dreams of a future had been complicit in all of it was beyond reprehensible.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's the word circling around the bullpen. Will also tossed out a 'fuckpuppetry," which I thought had a certain poetic quality."

Emma's chilled hands rubbed over his upper arms and it dawned on him how long they'd been out in the elements.

"We should go inside."

He drew the heavy door open, wincing at the shrieking scrape of the hinges and motioned her to go first. She ducked inside the access stairwell to the roof but stopped abruptly and he barreled into her when the door swung shut, bathing them in pitch black. Killian caught her by the waist just before she pitched forward and felt her attempting to move aside to let him pass.

"You should go first. People will talk if we come together."

Despite the gravity of the situation, Killian couldn't help but tease, gripping her waist tighter and pulling Emma flush against him.

"Mmm," he hummed in her ear and slipped his thumbs through the belt loops of her jeans, letting his long fingers dance just over the juncture of her thighs. "I do love it when we come together."

"Killian."

"Emma."

If her tone held a warning, his held a promise and just to back it up, he used the looped denim to push and pull her in a suggestive to and fro, her delectable ass bouncing off of him lightly in the most intimate of ways. By the third pass he was half-hard, the adrenaline of recent revelations manifesting itself as arousal, and sneaking a hand up Emma's sweater to circle a nipple until he could feel it straining the black lace of her bra. She caught his other hand before it could slip all the way down her pants and the desperation he had, both for her and to experience something other than sorrow and range, took hold.

"Let me make you feel good, darling. Nothing makes me happier than you falling apart in my arms."

Killian could sense the war inside her head and restrained himself as he waited, settling on brushing his fingertips over the sensitive skin of her lower belly until she let go of his wrist and made quick work of the button and zipper of her skinny jeans. He was thankful for the stretchiness of the material, his large hand barely fitting in the tight confines but he was certain he could get the job done, even in close quarters.

Her whispered "fast, Jones" was unnecessary, partly because he knew Emma loved and got off on the dangers of semi-public sex and partly because getting caught in a compromising position at work would be career suicide for them both. But he wanted – no, needed – to be consumed by this beautiful creature that he loved so desperately and, despite all of faults and flaws, loved him back.

Their rhythm was so completely different in this moment than their rushed encounter just the morning before. Emma was positively soaking as his fingers slipped inside her, hooking just so as his thumb relentlessly circled her clit. Killian couldn't help but rut against her, not meaning to seek his own pleasure but feeling the build up just the same.

Her arm came up around his neck, cupping the back of his head and opening herself up to him just a little more as she arched. His cock was completely hard before long and Emma's shift in position had settled the thick ridge behind his zipper directly into the cleft of her ass. He wasn't sure if it was the location, the emotional charge, her bitten-back he shushed in the dark echo of the stairwell or a combination of all three but just as he felt her squeeze around his fingers and heave in a breath as she came, he did, too.

Wrapping an arm around her waist, Killian did his best to coax her all the way through her climax as he rubbed against Emma, using the softness of her ass to get himself off. He dropped his face down onto her shoulder, the satiny curtain of sunshine cascading down her back muffling a moan as his knees almost buckled from the force of orgasm.

As they worked to catch their breaths and set clothing to right, the reality of his juvenile impulse to come in his pants hit.

"Goddamn it." The abrupt sound of the short zipper on Emma's low-rise jeans accompanied his sentiment and she felt for his non-drenched hand, squeezing it.

"I'll go downstairs and integrate. You go back outside, roll around a bit to get yourself good and soaked, and then grab your go-bag and change. Nobody will be any the wiser." He could feel her reaching for the door to the lit stairwell and they both flinched as she pushed it open, flooding the cramped steps to the roof access with government-issue fluorescent light.

Emma's head cocked, listening for anyone and when she heard no footsteps heading their way, she went up on tiptoes and dropped a kiss on his lips. She squeezed his hand once more.

"This can't happen again here."

It wasn't an admonishment, just a fact, and they both knew it. He nodded and watched her until the door swung closed, enveloping him in the darkness once more.

"How's he doing?"

"Is he totally fucked up?"

Robin and Will bombarded Emma the moment she walked back into the bullpen shrugging off her wet jacket, speaking over each other, yet still thankfully managing to keep their collective voice down. She'd be rolling her eyes if she didn't know their hearts were in the right place, even though Will's query was, well, all Will. She jerked her thumb toward the task force room, indicating they should follow her. With as good a lead on Dreamshade as they'd had since Gold and Peter's incarcerations, she knew the office would have a skeleton crew if it wasn't completely empty.

She walked through the doorway to find the latter was true and made a beeline for the coffee machine plugged in next to an ancient toaster oven Emma was certain bordered on being a fire hazard. As she cursed the rude-ass person who took the last cup and didn't make a new pot under her breath, she thought about the risky, yet wholly hot encounter with Killian by the roof, knowing Will and Robin both knew better than to speak before she was caffeinated. Precinct coffee wasn't exactly hot chocolate with cinnamon but sleep-deprived beggars couldn't be choosers.

Jesus. With as much sex and she'd had with Killian under completely normal circumstances, she wondered if there was something fundamentally wrong with the way they channeled their feelings into fucking. They were now tied 1-1 in the random humping orgasm department. Maybe that's what people with baggage do – find another person with just as much baggage and take a trip to Random Hump Station.

Will and Robin had settled at their workstation, Robin shuffling papers, and Will pretending he suddenly found a sudden interest in organizing his four square feet of chaos. She flipped him the bird once she realized he was the coffee drinker without manners and he had the sense to look properly chagrined.

Leaning a hip on the piece of plywood balancing on two sawhorses that made up their makeshift coffee station, Emma answered their questions.

"It's not the most fucked up I've seen him." Robin and Will exchanged glances she interpreted as thank fucking God. "But this is a nut shot for sure. It's not just that they knew each other once upon a time. They were this close to getting married. Milah may not have pulled the trigger but chances are she wasn't ready to throw herself in the way of the bullet that killed Liam. Or the one that tried to take Killian."

Will spun in his chair and tossed the pencil he kept tucked behind his ear up toward the ceiling. He swore when it stuck and didn't come down, not that it kept him from grabbing another one just to have the same fate befall the second.

"Before my partner here litters our finely furnished room with his number twos," Emma chortled at Robin's pencil pun, "we'll go check in with Zelena. She said she'd keep us all informed when she finds a decent trail but it may help the Captain deal with some of this horseshit if he hears it from one of us. At the very least, it'll keep him from having to clench every time he gets some bad fucking news in front of the whole group."

Emma nodded. They were just about as close to a real-life Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum as two people could get sometimes but she couldn't have picked two better or more loyal friends for Killian.

"I'm going to go home and get a few hours shuteye. I'll have my phone on the night settings but have you yahoos as favorites. If you call or text, it'll come through. If there is anything that comes up, you'll let me know, right?"

She hoped she sounded like the request was more professional than personal. When the detectives nodded and stepped out, Emma gathered her things and followed them out, stopping by Killian's office. She knocked twice on the metal doorjamb to get his attention.

"I'm heading out, Captain."

He rolled his chair back and she could see he had indeed changed his clothes. The black jeans had been traded for – what do you know? – another pair of black jeans but instead of an official Bangor PD polo, he was wearing a cream-colored Henley with a blue plaid shirt she'd seen before and even worn herself, usually to avoid a naked trip to the kitchen on a chilly night for post-sex orange juice. If she wasn't feeling the effects of exhaustion from her double shift creeping up and over the shitty cup of coffee she'd just downed, or the fact that she'd already had one hell of an orgasm recently, she'd be feeling that pull low in her belly at his rolled up sleeves and fluffy, nearly-dry hair.

"Do you want to take the truck? I can drive your car home."

He said it at a normal volume and Emma's eyes darted around, looking for anyone who may have overheard.

"Why don't you say that a little louder?" she hissed.

Killian waved his hand and repeated what Zelena had told him about everybody knowing they were a thing and nobody caring.

"Huh." Emma stood dumbly, rolling that around for a minute. "Does that mean I can change my address and won't have to haul my ass down to that P.O. box I rented so H.R. wouldn't know we're living together?"

He slouched in his chair, fishing around in his pocket and pulling out his keys. Tossing them to her, he sat up straight again and sassed her, this time lowering his voice.

"Darling, as long as you haul your ass somewhere and let me watch, I don't care what address you use."

"Yes, I think we both know how…enthusiastic you can get over my ass."

Killian's eyebrows shot up and his mouth rounded into a comical "o."

"Is that how's it's gonna be, love? You'll hold a man's desperate desire to be with the woman he loves against him?"

He flatted his hand over his heart dramatically.

"I think you were the one holding something against me."

Emma tilted her head and touched a finger to her chin, mouth pushed out in a moue.

"Get the fuck out of her, Detective Swan. You'll be properly reprimanded at a later time for that mouth."

The stuffed stress ball he kept on his desk whizzed just past her head as she turned saying, "God, I hope so" under her breath.

The steady rain they'd experience on the roof had given way to a torrential downpour and Emma was grateful to have the truck. Her VW hated anything deeper than a superficial puddle and the thought of hydroplaning all the way home no matter how slow she drove wasn't appealing. When the houses thinned out a bit and there weren't poor souls huddled under umbrellas on city sidewalks, she even careened toward a few deep pools, hooting as muddy water sheeted up past the passenger side window.

Pulling into the driveway, she decided to park as close to the house as possible, not only to cut down on the chance she'd slip in the mud walking from the garage to the front door but to save the floor of Killian's man cave, aka the garage, aka The Garage Mahal. He cursed Mother Nature every time it rained and their vehicles left tracks.

Kicking off her boots and leaving them on the front porch, Emma let herself into the house and closed it behind her, shoving Killian's keys in her pocket before heading to the alarm panel. He had turned his home – our home, Swan, for the hundredth time – into a veritable fortress and spared no expense after Gold unceremoniously showed up in the bedroom. The control panel was ridiculously complex and in the week after it was installed, Emma had managed to completely fuck up twice and had to make hurried phone calls to the alarm company with their own system shrieking in the background. She was used to it now and nimbly keyed in her code that allowed her to move through the house but locked and armed all of the exterior doors and windows.

Making quick work of a banana that had seen better days and a Go-Gurt, she went upstairs and considered face down/ass upping it in bed instead of taking a shower. But she wanted to hit the ground running when she woke and trudged into the bathroom. By the time Emma was scrubbed, smoothed and scented, she was so sleepy she found herself nodding off brushing her teeth. Throwing on a pair of panties, she slid under the covers and melted into a pile of down and dreams.

"Captain Jones."

"Hello, Killian."

The voice was smooth and refined. Older. There was a hint of derision that, looking back, he guessed had always been there.

"Milah."

Ships passing in the night. Or midday.

He'd come home to trade cars after the sun broke through the clouds and burned off the early morning rain. Finding the helmet on the foyer table bereft of truck keys, he snuck upstairs to their bedroom to find her pants, wondering why he even bothered to check the helmet when she forgot to use it most of the time.

She was sprawled diagonally across the bed, covers pulled down past her waist. She was bare from the waist up – and barely clothed from the waist down, he noted with no small amount of pleasure – and on her stomach, arms folded up and under her head. He took a moment to admire the lean muscles in her arms and back. By God she was strong, in more ways than one, and he found himself struck by his love for her as he often was in stolen moments like this.

Getting back to the task at hand, he found her jeans discarded carelessly on the bathroom floor and reached into the front pocket, closing his fist completely around the keys before drawing them out so they wouldn't jangle. On his way out, Emma thrashed a bit, fighting an invisible foe and he quickened his pace.

Emma needed more sleep and he needed to get the hell out of there before she woke and asked where he was going. He didn't want to lie to her face but he also knew he wouldn't be able to find the words to tell her he'd agreed to a face-to-face meeting with his former fiancée.