Alex was half asleep, nodding off and snapping back awake every few minutes. Beside her, Emily kept a constant vigil over the clock as two AM ticked ever nearer. They needed to leave the moment Maggie and Finley arrived and, as such, she refused to let herself nod off.

The sudden knock on the door was almost startling amidst the stark late night silence that neither woman seemed to want to break with words. Vigilant nearly to a fault, Emily opened the door slightly, just enough that she could peer through the crack to see who was on the other side.

Instead of finding Maggie standing on the other side as they'd anticipated, though, the door was flung open, the chain ripped off as the four Doyle men came bursting into the hotel room.

"Get out," Emily commanded, doing her best to sound authoritative and threatening, in spite of the fact that there was very little they could do, outnumbered as they were, if they weren't in the mood to play nice...

They quite obviously weren't in the mood to play along, judging by the way they proceeded to throw Emily back against the wall with a sound of cracking ribs. It was clear that Emily would have liked to struggle against the display of power, but for the moment she seemed to restrain herself.

"Emily!" Alex cried out. She clearly wanted to go to her wife's aid, but Emily very subtly shook her head in a silent indication that she was okay. For the moment, they were going to play along...at least until she had a better idea of what they were up against.

Moira sauntered into the room then, head held high like a monarch surveying her subjects. "You think you can just gang up on Maggie," she mused, "But when it's done to you, it's a different story..."

"What are you talking about?" Alex asked, genuinely confused as to what it was Maggie had told them about the afternoon's events, surprised she'd told them anything at all.

"Is that what you're going to do?" Moira asked, "Pretend like you didn't jump Maggie at work?" She shook her head, clicking her tongue as if in disappointment. "Shame on you. Shame on both of you, badgering and bullying her to give up her boy. You're lucky Maggie doesn't have a little mama grizzly in her... Come between that kind of mama and her baby, you're fixing to get your hand bit...or worse! If somebody tried to come between me and one of my boys, tried to talk me out of my child..."

Alex shook her head urgently. "That's not what happened," she insisted.

Moira scoffed, shook her head. "It's no wonder Maggie doesn't want to go with you. Thinking you know what's best for everybody..." she said with a condescending little laugh.

"I never said she shouldn't marry Killian," Alex said.

With a snort, Moira replied, "I never said you did."

"He hit the boy," Alex accused, locking eyes with Moira and silently pleading for some kind of sanity here. She rounded on Killian. "I saw you. Across from the grocery store."

"Is that what all this fuss is about?" Moira asked with a dismissive little wave as if mountains were being made out of molehills.

Alex, though, didn't see it that way. "He hit Maggie too," she continued.

Moira raised a brow, turned to Killian, expression unscrutable. "Come here." Killian reluctantly approached his mother. "You hit your wife?" He said nothing.

"I saw him," Alex repeated.

"How'd he do it? Was it like this?" She slapped Killian across the face once, twice. "How'd you do it, Killian?" she asked again.

If Alex was shocked by seeing a mother slap her son, she didn't let on. "It was harder," she said.

Moira raised a brow, glanced from Killian to Alex and back. "Harder?" she repeated. "Like this?" She backhanded Alex across the face.

Alex gasped – in pain and shock – and brought her hand up to cup her reddening cheek.

Emily's blood was beginning to boil, overshadowing any fear she might've felt over being outnumbered by such obviously dangerous people. She moved to go to Alex, but Killian's brothers loomed over her and she knew she wasn't going anywhere...

"Like that?" Moira asked as Alex regained some of her composure.

Alex, though, wasn't backing down. "Like that, but harder," she said.

Moira looked almost impressed by Alex's refusal to be kowtowed. "Well, Killian, I think you're going to have to show us how you did it..."

For several millenia long moments, no one said anything, no one dared to move, barely even breathing as they all waited to see what it was that Killian would do under his mother's commanding stare.

Then, Killian took a step towards Alex...and Emily wasn't about to watch her wife get hit a second time. The second she moved, though, Killian's brothers were on her, throwing her to the ground.

"Emily!" Alex cried out again. She made a move to go to Emily's side, wanting to examine the quickly blossoming bruise on the side of her face, but didn't get more than a step towards her before her way was blocked by Killian's towering form.

"She's alright, Alex," Ian insisted. "She's fine."

Emily pushed herself to sit up, wiping away the blood trickling from her nose with her sleeve.

"You want to try talking this over again? Like civilized people?" Moira said. "Or maybe you'd like to get some sleep so you can get an early start back home tomorrow?"

"Or..." Ian said, locking eyes with Alex, "Maybe you'd like to send your wife home and you can stay on here for awhile... I can take you back when you're ready. Of course, by then, you might decide you want to stay..." He let them read between the lines as to what he meant, though it was hardly subtle, the way he was eyeing her up and down.

He advanced on Alex, until he backed her into the bed and she lost her feet as her knees hit the edge of the mattress. He grabbed her wrist, moving to pin her to the bed...but before he could, the sound of a gun cocking could be heard as Emily pointed her pistol at his head.