Author's note:
The cover artwork for this fic was done by the wonderfully talented powerfulmagics – go and check out her tumblr, her stuff is amazing!

I got the main idea for this story from Sarra Manning's Unsticky, which is one of the best books ever written and should definitely be read by everyone. Because of this, I can't really take any credit for the overarching plot.

I'm English and I know very little about New York, the American college system or how US courts and prisons work. I've done my best but please be kind if I've gotten anything wrong!

Chapter one

Emma picked up the book and gently thumbed the hard edge of the cover. It wasn't one of their best, she had to admit, but there was something about the way the words Zippy Craig were splashed across the glossy paper that would still draw children to it when they rushed past the store window. Maybe that would be enough to make their parents ignore the heavy price tag on the back.

She turned it over in her hands and sighed. She'd worked hard on this one, even though Ingrid has repeatedly tried to stop her from getting involved in it. It didn't matter how many meetings Emma had been dragged into so that she could take notes for the dumbass author – as far as her boss was concerned, she should stay as far away from the books as possible. Even now that it was finished and sitting brightly in the front window of Barnes & Noble, its cover adorned with drawings done by the illustrator that she had found after drunkenly meeting him at a bar in Chelsea, all she had received from Ingrid was an order to go and make sure that the stores were putting it in front of the new book that had been published by their competitor and not behind it, as they'd promised. Oh, and don't forget to pick up a coffee on your way back.

Emma pressed her lips together and placed the book back on its pile, then took a photo on her phone to prove to Ingrid that everything was to her liking. Stepping to one side, she let herself drift around to the other side of the new releases table, her eyes flicking over the covers. The store was quiet that afternoon, and there were only three other women in the nearby vicinity. Or there were, until the electric doors on the floor below them swished open and a pair of heavy footsteps began to stomp up the stairs towards her.

She should have heard him coming, but she was distracted by their competitor's book right at that moment. Ingrid had spent the last month spitting over it, but Emma had to admit that it looked pretty good.

"Hi, love," a voice said from behind her. She turned and smiled.

"Hey, Killian," she said. Normally he would lean in and kiss her cheek, but today he didn't. She assumed he was in a rush, because he looked slightly pink in the face. "Is everything okay?"

"Fine," he said, looking down at the book in her hands. "Is this yours?"

"No, I was just stealing ideas," she said, putting it down. When she glanced back up Killian wasn't looking at her – his gaze was elsewhere and it seemed weirdly hazy. She frowned, knowing better than to ask if he'd been drinking but wondering it all the same. "Are you sure you're alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," he said, pulling at his collar. Finally, he looked at her. "And hey – happy birthday."

It was the flattest Emma had ever felt. She forced a smile. "Thanks. Feels pretty special."

Killian didn't acknowledge the comment as he reached into his jacket pocket. It was the middle of June and 98 degrees outside, but he was the type of person to wear a leather jacket come rain or shine. The long necklaces that he insisted on wearing clinked together as he moved.

He produced a crumpled birthday card, which Emma blinked down at. He'd asked to meet her there, in one of Emma's favourite stores in New York, and she'd naively assumed it was because he wanted to take her out for a late lunch or give her a birthday present or even just to buy her a book because he'd forgotten to get something sooner. But instead she found herself looking down at the wrinkled pink envelope that was clutched in the hand of her boyfriend of almost a year with a creeping sense of disappointment crawling up her limbs. She pressed her lips together.

"Thanks," she said, taking it from him. She prised it open and found herself faced with a card that she somehow knew he'd purchased from the newsstand at the other end of the block.

Emma,

Happy birthday

From Killian

She blinked. "Wow. It sure is personal, isn't it?"

"Emma," Killian suddenly said, his voice higher than normal. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "I need to tell you something."

"Okay," Emma said, tucking a blonde curl behind her ear. "What's—"

"I think we should break up."

Bastard. He couldn't even wait for her to finish the fucking question.

She froze, the birthday card with its stupid fucking cats on it dangling from one hand. She was certain that someone had just cranked the air conditioning up. "I'm sorry?"

He at least had the decency to look ashamed of himself when he said, "You and me. I don't think we're working anymore."

The store had been quiet before he had arrived, but now it felt deathly silent. Emma could feel at least three sets of eyes on her.

She took a deep breath and forced herself not to yell, "You're breaking up with me? On my birthday?"

"I wasn't planning to. I—"

"Here?" Emma snapped, clenching her fists and not caring that the card was getting crushed. "Today?"

"Emma," Killian said with a hint of a groan in his voice. This obviously wasn't going how he'd planned, and she could tell it wouldn't take much before he was the one yelling back at her. "Come on. Don't make a scene."

"Don't make a scene?" Emma demanded, and now she really was shouting. "You followed me into my happy place so you could break up with me on my fucking birthday, Killian. What am I supposed to do? How did you expect me to react?"

"I really didn't plan to do this now," he said, talking quickly and almost at a whisper. If he hoped that Emma was going to match his tone, he would be extremely disappointed. "I've been wanting to do this for a while, but the timing was never right. And then I called you here because I just wanted to give you the card but then I saw you and you were just..."

His sentence trailed off into nothing, and Emma felt something start to bubble up inside her like heartburn. "And I was what?"

Killian rolled his eyes. "You just look so distant and moody, and I couldn't hold it in any longer. This isn't working, so why drag it out?"

Emma felt herself flinch at his words, and she hated herself for it. "Distant and moody?"

"Will you keep your voice down?" Killian hissed. "This is exactly why I need to end things – nothing is ever good enough for you. You're impossible to make happy and you have so much baggage I can't even begin to work through it. I thought you'd be fun to hang out with but it's just not working out. I need something different."

To her horror, Emma felt tears pricking at her eyes. She gritted her teeth, forcing them back down. She wasn't the type of girl who cried – especially not over some dickhead man – and there was no way she was losing any more face today.

"Well, I'm really sorry to disappoint," she snarled, crossing her arms over her chest. Killian just scoffed back at her.

"You don't need to sound so butt hurt," he said. It always jarred with her when he used an Americanism in his lilting English accent, but it wasn't so much the contradiction as the actual offence of it that made her wince this time. "You weren't happy either. I'm just doing you a favour."

"You call this a favour?" she spluttered. "How many times do I need to remind you that it's my birthday today, you jackass? What part of this was meant to be kind?"

Killian looked around, glaring at the people who were obviously staring over at the scene that was unfolding in the middle of the Barnes & Noble children's section, and released a puff of air. "Stop making yourself out to be the victim, Emma. You always do this. I know you have a lot of issues but not everything is a big plot against you and your happy ending."

"I do not have—"

"Save it," he said, taking a step back. He was done here, evidently, and somehow Emma had come out as the loser yet again. "See you around, Swan. Happy birthday."

Her stormed off, the weight of this inconvenient task leaving his shoulders, and Emma was left alone with stupid fucking Zippy Craig staring up at her.

Noise in the store finally began to bubble back up again as she stared resolutely down at the multicoloured books. Her hair had tumbled forwards, shielding her face from view, and she took a deep breath, willing some of the humiliation to ebb away from her.

That fucking card was still in her hand. She looked down at it.

Another banner year.

She didn't hear the quick footsteps approaching her. When a hand latched onto her elbow, she jumped.

"Come with me," a woman's voice said, pulling her away from the table. "Now."

For a brief moment, Emma wondered if the store security guard was escorting her out for making a scene. She turned her head to look at the woman who was pulling her along and saw shoulder-length hair that was too dark and glossy to be simply called brown, tan skin, and the most perfectly fitted sleeveless shirt she'd ever seen in her life. A shiny red purse was clamped over one shoulder. She didn't look like a security guard.

Unable to find her voice or even her feet, Emma let herself being dragged across the floor and down the stairs. She didn't look round again: her gaze had naturally fallen to the pair of vibrant red heels that were walking along beside her scuffed sneakers, and once it was there, it refused to move. She suddenly felt exhausted, and so she just let this woman take her away – probably to kidnap her, although Emma didn't care all that much. She smelled nice and her fingers were surprisingly cool against Emma's bare arm, given the sweltering heat outside. She was also leading her away from the crime scene where the most embarrassing thing to ever happen to Emma had just taken place, and so she was willing to do as she was told for once.

When they reached the main exit, the alarm started beeping. The woman swore and turned back momentarily, taking three books that had been clamped under her arm and tossing them onto the nearest table. Emma glanced over at them: kids' books, from the Risk Child series. Not books from her company, and not very good ones either. In spite of everything, she summoned an eye roll at the murky grey and red cover.

The woman pulled her out into the street and veered sharply to the left, weaving through the crowds of tourists without slowing down. She never let go of Emma's arm, and it took a few minutes before Emma registered that she could pull herself free if she really tried.

"Hey," she said, and when the woman didn't respond, she repeated it a bit louder. "I'm fine now. You can let go of me."

The woman stopped walking, ignoring the crowds of people who nearly crashed into them, and looked over her shoulder. Emma felt herself choke slightly: she had the darkest, most intense eyes that Emma had ever seen, and her lipstick somehow perfectly matched the red of both her shoes and her purse. As she looked back, her lips pursed thoughtfully, and Emma could tell she was being regarded. She did her best to not shrink underneath her gaze.

"I think," the woman said, and God, her voice. It was like chocolate and gravel and 60 cigarettes a day. "You need a drink."

Emma blinked. "It's three o'clock in the afternoon."

"True, but if I heard you correctly, it's also your birthday," the woman said, and carried on walking down the street. Her fingers were still on Emma's elbow, but her grip has loosened. Emma fell into step beside her without thinking. "I think you deserve one."

Emma didn't even consider arguing with her. It was hard to say whether that was because she'd been totally worn down by the day's events, or because the woman's general demeanour was so intimidating that the thought of saying no to her made her break out in a light sweat. Either way, the grasp on her elbow was more comforting than it was threatening, and so Emma let herself be led along, her birthday card still clamped in one hand.

They found a bar two streets down and the woman held the door open for her. Emma walked slowly inside, still half expecting this to be the part where the kidnapping happened, but instead found that it really was just a bar. Emma was even fairly sure she'd been there before, but after enough tequila, most of these places tended to blur into one. She just hoped this wasn't one of the places where she'd skipped out on a bar tab and never returned again.

The woman guided her over to a booth and settled down into the seat opposite her. Emma looked up and groaned – face-on, she was even more beautiful. Emma, meanwhile, was sticky from sweat and pink-cheeked from all the drama, and she couldn't imagine what she must look like sitting opposite her.

Emma was almost certain that this wasn't a place that had table service, and yet a man with a greying beard and untidy sideburns came hurrying over to take their order within seconds of them sitting down. There was something about the woman's presence – her rod-straight posture, her constant look of expectation – that Emma imagined always lured people towards her like that.

The woman ordered a glass of merlot and then looked pointedly at Emma.

"Um," Emma said, shifting awkwardly. "I'm not really supposed to drink during working hours."

The woman rolled her eyes, and looked back towards the waiter. "She'll have a scotch."

Emma stammered, "But—"

"Scotch," the woman repeated, not taking her eyes away from the man's face. "Neat."

He dutifully wandered off. Emma noticed a new redness in his face that she assumed followed this woman around wherever she went.

When she looked back across the booth, she found herself being watched. Toned arms were folded neatly along the edge of the table and dark eyebrows were slightly raised.

"Thanks," Emma said slowly, although she had no idea what she was thanking her for. "What's your name?"

She hated herself for how nervous she sounded. The woman smirked, a delicate twitch at the corner of her mouth that told her she found her endearing rather than annoying. She replied in that voice that Emma already couldn't get enough of. "Regina."

Emma nodded. "Thanks for rescuing me back there."

"That's quite alright," Regina said, tilting her head. "I suppose I should wish you a happy birthday, but it feels like that would be a bit bittersweet now."

Emma smiled faintly. "Maybe a little. It wasn't very happy when I slept through my alarm and got hauled out by my boss in front of the whole office, but by now I just feel like the entire day is trying to shit on me."

She thought Regina might scold her for swearing, but she laughed. It was an actual laugh, deep and throaty, and Emma felt herself burn up at the sound of it.

"I'm sorry to hear that," she said. Her eyes never left Emma's face. "The boyfriend. Were you dating for long?"

"Not even a year," Emma shrugged. "I knew it wasn't going to last forever, but... you know. I didn't expect it to end then, or like that."

Her cheeks prickled at the memory of it and she dropped her gaze, wishing her drink had arrived already so she could distract herself with a bracing gulp.

"Can I be frank?"

Emma lifted her gaze. "For some reason that feels like your default setting."

"That man," Regina said, ignoring her, "was a child. He would never have been worthy of you, and this afternoon's display just proved it."

"You don't know anything about me," Emma said slowly. "He could be a million times better than me."

"He's not," Regina said, her voice firm, like there was no room for arguing. "Don't believe that for a second."

Emma could feel some of that day's annoyance bubbling back up inside her. "It's not really any of your business though, is it?"

"Isn't it?" Regina asked, lifting her eyebrows. "You weren't exactly discussing it privately. Don't give me a front row seat if you don't want me to comment on the performance."

"Hey, look," Emma said at the exact moment that the waiter reappeared with their drinks. He jumped at her tone, skulking away again without a word the second he'd placed them on the table. "You took me out of there for some unknown reason, and that was your decision. I didn't ask for that and I didn't ask you to bring me here and I didn't ask for your opinion. This has nothing to do with you."

"Who says it has to have something to do with me for me to have an opinion?" Regina asked, sipping her wine. "It was Emma, right?"

Emma blinked. "Sorry?"

"Your name. Emma," Regina asked, staring levelly. "I think that's what your gentleman friend was shouting at you from across the children's section. Is that right?"

"Yes," Emma said through gritted teeth.

"So, Emma. If I see someone being mistreated, I'm perfectly within my rights to step in. I'm also allowed to ignore it and walk away if I want to. I saw the way he was talking to you and I wanted to make sure you were okay."

"Not enough to interrupt when he was pointing out my character flaws in front of a dozen strangers, though," Emma muttered. To her surprise, Regina smirked at her.

"I'm afraid that's because I can't walk that fast in these shoes."

Emma laughed through her nose. She lifted her glass and took a sip of the scotch that she'd promised herself she wouldn't drink. "You're definitely an interesting woman."

"I've heard that a few times," Regina said, bringing her own glass back to her lips. Her gaze was so steady and calm that Emma could feel herself being taken in by it. Everything Regina did felt like a manipulation of some kind, and it took Emma too long to realise that she was willingly letting it happen to her. When Regina was watching her so intently, it felt oddly like a compliment.

As if she'd heard the thoughts rattling around in her head, Regina's lips quirked upwards. "Tell me about yourself."

Emma asked. "Why?"

"Because I think you might be an interesting person too."

The words lit a fire in Emma's stomach. Her gaze automatically dropped as she said, "I'm really not."

"Try me."

Emma could never turn down a challenge, and so she felt herself straighten up against the hard back of the booth. "I work in publishing."

"Doing what?"

"We publish kids' books," Emma said, wrapping her fingers around her glass. "I'm assistant to the editor."

"The boss who yells at you and won't let you have a drink on a Friday afternoon?"

Emma felt a flicker of a smile cross her face. Regina hadn't even met her yet, and yet she already had Ingrid down to a T. "That'll be her."

"She sounds like a delight," Regina said. "Do you enjoy your job?"

Shrugging, Emma said, "Usually. I like the work itself, but a change of company would be nice."

"Why don't you look somewhere else?"

The long pause that followed her question was not lost on Regina. She narrowed her eyes when Emma eventually answered, "Just never had the chance, I guess."

"You've never had the chance to go on LinkedIn?"

"No," Emma said flatly, pushing down the panic that was starting to twist through her intestines. Diversion was her best option for getting rid of it. "And what do you do?"

"I work in art," Regina said, only giving away enough to let Emma know that she was just as important as she suspected.

"You're an artist?"

"No," she replied. "I work in art. It's very different."

"It doesn't sound that different to me."

"One makes money," Regina said. "The other doesn't."

"I see," Emma said, but she didn't. All she knew was that Regina's eyes on her made her feel comfortable and uneasy in equal measure. She took another sip of scotch. "I guess if you're wandering around Barnes & Noble at 3pm, you're either doing really well or not well at all."

Regina smirked at her again. "That's quite astute. Which one are you?"

"Definitely the latter," Emma said. A thought struck her. "How come you were shopping in the kids' section?"

"I was buying a present."

Emma snorted. She couldn't help herself. "You shouldn't be buying those books you'd picked up for anyone."

Regina's eyebrows shot up. For the first time since they'd met, she looked surprised. "No? Why is that?"

"Well, first of all, that publisher doesn't sign any writers based on talent or artistic merit – they're notorious for hiring friends of friends or celebrities or sometimes even just people who send in bribes. Second of all, the series you picked up is just no good. There's no message behind it, no relatable characters, no point to the whole thing. The author has basically admitted that he had a really nonsensical dream when he was seven and is now charging people $12.99 to see it dragged out over 200 pages."

Regina blinked at her, and Emma sighed.

"Okay, maybe I'm biased," she admitted. "But I have recommendations that are better."

"Go on." It was a challenge, and they both knew Emma wasn't the type to step back from it.

She reached across to the far side of the table and grabbed a napkin. When she looked back at Regina, she was already holding out a pen for her.

Without thinking, Emma took it and scrawled down the names of five books that were from a similar age bracket to the ones Regina had picked out herself. Two were from her own company, but three were ones she'd picked up on her various trips around the city's bookstores.

She slid the napkin across the table, where it absorbed a spilled drop of alcohol on its way, and waited for Regina's verdict. She read the list without expression.

"You've read all these?"

"Yeah," Emma said, trying not to sound defensive. "It's kind of my job."

"Do you have children?"

"No," Emma frowned. "Do you?"

"What drew you into publishing in the first place?" Regina asked, ignoring her question. She was still looking at the list.

"I don't know," Emma shrugged, glancing at her watch and wincing. She pulled her glass closer to her and drank half of it without so much as a shudder. "Got to pay the bills somehow."

When she looked back up, Regina was smiling at her in a way that told Emma she didn't believe a word of her bullshit. Even so, she said, "I suppose that's a reason."

Emma quickly drank the rest of her scotch and ran a hand through her hair. "I'm really sorry, I have to get going. My cell's been buzzing for the last four minutes and I'm pretty sure I know who's calling me."

It was a lie, but Regina didn't acknowledge it. Instead, she folded the napkin neatly in half and slipped it into her purse.

"Understandable," she said, looking back up. Her gaze was intense as she added, "I hope you don't get in trouble when you return."

"I'm always in trouble," Emma replied, tucking her hair behind one ear. She reached into her pocket to fish out some money, but Regina was already waving her off.

"Forget that," she said. Her wine glass was still mostly full, and it didn't seem like she planned on leaving any time soon. "My treat."

Yet again, Emma felt herself blushing. She forced a smile.

"Thanks. That's nice of you."

Regina smiled back. "Consider it a birthday present."

"Do you make a habit of buying total strangers birthday presents?" Emma asked before she could stop herself. She was sitting with her hands clenched in her lap, and she really needed to get up and leave, but for some reason it wasn't quite happening.

Regina laughed. "I can't say that I do. Consider yourself to be special."

That was a word that affection-starved Emma very rarely heard, and it sent a tingle rushing down her spine.

Then her phone really did start vibrating from her pocket. She pulled it out with a sigh.

"I've got to go."

"Of course," Regina said. She watched as Emma stood up, but didn't join her. Instead she reached out one hand, waiting for Emma to take it. "It was nice to meet you. Emma."

Her name was its own sentence, and Emma shivered. Regina's fingers were cool against hers.

She pulled away abruptly, forcing another smile. "Maybe I'll see you around."

Regina waited for a full five seconds before replying, "I don't doubt it."

Not knowing how she was supposed to respond to that, Emma gave her a terse nod and headed for the door. The scotch she'd drunk in less than five minutes made her slightly wobbly, but she made sure her step was firm as she walked out onto the street, deliberately not looking back.

Ingrid was nowhere to be seen when she got back to the Caterpillar office, but Emma knew that wouldn't be the case for long. She slipped in along the side wall, bypassing the bullpen where the subs and art teams sat, and sought out her desk just outside Ingrid glass-walled office. The air conditioning had been broken for weeks and she could feel the dewy city air sliding in through the open windows, but that wasn't the reason why her cheeks were so hot.

She collapsed into her chair with a heavy sigh and waited for her computer to wake up again. She'd been sitting for barely 10 seconds before a figure appeared at her side.

"Hey," Elsa said, leaning against the edge of Emma's desk. Her white-blonde hair hung in a loose braid over one shoulder. "Ingrid's been looking for you."

Emma groaned. It was a sound that Elsa had become long used to.

"Of course she has," Emma said, glancing over at the empty office to her left. "Where is she?"

"Not sure," Elsa said, picking up Emma's overused stress ball and tossing it into the air. "She was huffing about having to take a meeting with that pain in the ass agent who won't speak to anyone except her, but that was a while ago. Maybe she's gone to get her own coffee."

There was a pause, and then Emma threw her head back, sighing loudly enough to make half the editorial team look over. "Fuck."

"She said you would forget."

"Well, thanks for the reminder," Emma snapped. It was a testament to their friendship that Elsa didn't even wince at her tone anymore.

"I didn't think you needed reminding. You get her coffee five times a day," Elsa said, her eyes on the ball that she was still tossing in the air. "You have been gone for a while, though. Was there a problem with Zippy Craig?"

"No," Emma said, looking towards the elevator and wondering whether she could sneak out to Starbucks before Ingrid returned. "It was all fine."

"Then why do you look so stressed?"

Emma looked up to find Elsa's pale blue eyes watching her carefully. They'd been working together for two years, having rallied together on Emma's very first day at Caterpillar Books. Emma had been sitting bolt upright behind her desk, desperately hoping that the phone wouldn't ring, when Elsa had swept past wearing a glittery sweater that Emma still remembered to this day.

Emma had undoubtedly had a little bit of a crush on her, because her cheeks had stained pink when Elsa had come over to her later that day to ask how she was finding everything. Over time that nervousness had ebbed away into what Emma regarded as a real friendship – one that invariably involved too many tequila shots, bitchy emails about the latest stick up Ingrid's ass, and just the right amount of space to stop Emma from wanting to run away.

In spite of that respectful distance, Elsa knew Emma and her many different moods better than anyone else did. Now she was eyeing Emma's fidgeting hands and bitten lips with concern, knowing that Emma never told her what was wrong unless she was asked.

Emma shrugged. "I had a weird afternoon. It was too hot to be traipsing around the city, and then there was a whole thing with this woman..."

"What woman?" Elsa asked. She was still throwing the stress ball, catching it easily without even looking at it, and Emma suddenly wanted to slap it out of her hand. "I thought you were meant to be seeing Killian?"

There was a pause as something clunked down inside Emma's chest. With her head filled with scotch and thoughts of Regina, she'd completely forgotten about him.

She heard herself laugh out loud. "I did. He dumped me."

"He what?"

The hurt came creeping back as Emma nodded, trying not to meet Elsa's gaze. "Yep. He gave me a birthday card, and then he broke up with me. Right in front of our new book."

Elsa nearly slid off the desk entirely. "What the hell! I hope you didn't get any blood on Zippy Craig when you punched him?"

Emma laughed, but it was a hollow sound. She felt a hand squeeze her shoulder.

"Seriously," Elsa said, her voice dipping. "That's completely fucked up. Are you okay?"

"I'm not sure," Emma said, twirling a pencil between two fingers so she could focus on that instead of having to look up. "I'm definitely not as upset as I should be, but that's probably because I'm so pissed off."

"Were you going to marry him?"

Emma rolled her eyes. "Doubtful. I'm not sure I'm really the marrying type, though."

"Well, not with him," Elsa said. "Shit, Emma. I can't believe he did that. And on your birthday. What kind of asshole does that? Did he at least have the decency to be screwing somebody else behind your back?"

Emma snorted, her cheeks going red as she remembered Killian's scathing character assessment of her. "Not that he mentioned. Apparently I'm just too moody for him."

"I like your moodiness," Elsa declared, and she said it with such conviction that Emma didn't register that she should be offended. "Emma, you're much better off without him. What a dick."

There was enough venom in her words to make Emma smile again. "He is, isn't he?"

"How did you leave things?"

"Well," Emma said, her stomach twisting. "He walked out when I started yelling. I don't think I gave him the reaction he was hoping for."

Elsa snorted. "Good. I'm glad. Did you go after him?"

There was a long pause. "No. I got... distracted."

She didn't look up, but Emma could sense the cloudiness falling across Elsa's face. "By what, exactly?"

Red shoes. Red lipstick.

"This woman sort of... kidnapped me."

"I'm sorry?"

"Maybe that's the wrong word," Emma said, talking more to herself than to Elsa. "Maybe she rescued me. I'm not sure. Either way, she came over and took me away and bought me a drink."

The next pause was longer. Eventually Elsa asked, "Why?"

"I have no idea. I guess she felt sorry for me."

"Or she had a crush on you."

Emma snorted loud enough to hurt her sinuses. "Yeah, definitely not."

"Why not?" Elsa asked. "You're a catch."

"Killian doesn't seem to think so."

"Killian's got his head up his own ass," Elsa snapped. "His opinion doesn't count for anything. Why wouldn't this woman be into you?"

"Because. She was..." Emma's sentence trailed off as she tried and failed to sum up exactly what Regina was. "Sophisticated."

Elsa's eyebrows shot up. "Is that code for 'snobby'?"

"Maybe a little. But she was nice – we talked and she was interested in me, and she helped me forget about Killian for a bit."

"Was she old?"

"No. Older, though," Emma said. "In her thirties, probably."

"Was she hot?"

Emma's cheeks burned, and Elsa no longer needed an answer.

"Oh dear," she smirked, crossing her legs. "No wonder you look so distracted."

"Shut up," Emma said, grabbing a random collection of invoices and sorting them into a pile. "It's just hot in here."

"It's not that hot," Elsa said, her voice serene and saying a billion things all at once. Emma glared up at her.

"You're permanently cold," she said, eyeing the pale forehead that had never seen a bead of sweat in its life. "Your opinion doesn't count for anything either."

Elsa smirked back at her. "Whatever, Em. Are you going to see her again?"

"No," Emma said way too quickly. "We didn't exchange numbers. I don't even know her last name."

She expected this to make Elsa wilt with disappointment, but if anything it just seemed to bolster her. "If she was actually interested in you, I'm sure that won't stop her."

"You're definitely making a bigger deal out of this than it is," Emma said, pointedly ignoring the ringing phone on her desk. "She was just being nice, that's all. Besides, I literally just broke up with someone. Like, within the hour. I'm not interested in anyone else yet."

Elsa was looking at her with the deadpan expression that Emma knew meant she wasn't buying a single one of her lies. But before she could pithily sum up how dumb Emma was being, the elevator doors pinged open.

"There you are," Ingrid bellowed from across the room, not reacting when Elsa toppled off the edge of Emma's desk. She stormed across the office with her venti soy latte clutched like a weapon in her hand, her pinned blonde hair remaining perfectly still as she walked. Her eyes were on Emma, unblinking and unforgiving. "Where the hell have you been?"

As Elsa crept away murmuring apologies, Emma steeled herself for only the second-worst thing to happen to her that day. "I'm sorry, Ingrid. The stores were crazy and then there was this whole mess with—"

"When I give you a simple task, I expect you to finish it," Ingrid cut over her. She reached Emma's desk and leaned against it, her coffee tilting dangerously over the invoices that Emma had been sorting. "I expect you to return within an hour, and I expect you to have the goddamn coffee that I asked for."

Emma should have known better than to argue with her by then, but the heat was muddling her brain. Before she could stop herself, she heard her own voice protesting, "I couldn't do all five stores and Starbucks in an hour. Strand alone is more than—"

"Shut up," Ingrid snapped. She had long mastered the art of speaking loudly enough that every person in the room could hear her, but low enough to cut through every bone in Emma's body. "You're on thin ice as it is, Emma. You're lucky to be here, and you know it – don't think I've forgotten that just because you've finally learned how to use the photocopier."

She pushed herself away from the desk and stormed into her office. The delicate click that came from her door as it closed was more than a little anticlimactic after the tirade of abuse that had just come out of her mouth.

Emma swallowed down her anger and her embarrassment and went back to her invoices. Seeing Emma getting hauled out in front of the entire room was by no means a rare occurrence in the Caterpillar office, which meant that by now people had at least stopped staring. She could hear the whispered chatter though, and she could feel the tips of her ears heating up. The phone rang again, and this time she picked it up.

There were four letters waiting for Emma when she got home. Her roommate had helpfully left them resting against the vase of flowers in the hall, like the brightly coloured petals would somehow soften the angry red words stamped across the envelopes.

Emma pushed them deep into her backpack and trudged into the kitchen. She found Mary Margaret curled up in a chair, one bare foot dangling below her and her fingers fiddling with her dark pixie cut. Her phone was clamped to her ear, and when Emma entered the room, she held up one finger.

"David, I've got to go," she said, then burst into fresh giggles. "Don't say that!"

Grimacing, Emma went to the fridge and grabbed a beer. She was due to go back out with Elsa and some of their other work friends in an hour so she could spend the night crawling from barstool to barstool, cursing Killian's name and decidedly not thinking about the dark-haired woman who'd swooped in to her rescue that day.

Once Mary Margaret had finally managed to say goodbye to her boyfriend, she tossed her cell onto the table and sing-songed, "Emma! Happy birthday!"

Emma forced a smile. "Thanks."

"Oh," Mary Margaret said, her joy visibly fading. "Not so happy, maybe?"

"Not exactly," Emma said, groaning as she settled down in the chair opposite her roommate. "It's been a bit of a crappy day."

"Work problems?"

"Partly," Emma said, hesitating. She knew she had to tell Mary Margaret about what had happened with Killian, but it was awkward: he and David were old friends, and Mary Margaret had been desperately in love with the idea of the four of them going out on double dates together, even though she and David had been together for a full six months by that point and it still hadn't happened yet. Killian was in a horrifying rock band – something he thought constituted as a full-time job – and half a year ago Emma had forced Mary Margaret to come with her to one of their performances. She and David had met there, and the giggling hadn't stopped since.

Emma sighed and came out with it. "Killian dumped me."

Mary Margaret blinked at her for a second. In her love-addled brain, things like break-ups simply didn't happen. "Oh, Emma! Are you sure?"

"What?" Emma asked. "Of course I'm sure."

"Sorry," Mary Margaret said. "I just... What happened?"

And so Emma repeated the whole sorry tale, her voice flat and tired. Mary Margaret's eyes grew slowly wider as she listened, and by the time Emma had described Killian storming out the door without her, her hands were pressed over her mouth.

"That's terrible!" she gasped. "Emma, I had no idea! David never mentioned anything. Maybe Killian just had a touch of cold feet?"

"Supposedly he's been thinking about me and all my issues for a while," Emma muttered, picking at the label of her half-empty beer. "Which is really good to know."

Mary Margaret sighed. "Emma, I'm sure he still loves you."

"He never loved me," Emma said. When her roommate tried to correct her, she waved her off. "I'm serious. We never said that to each other - neither of us are that kind of person. We had fun together and I tolerated his band's crappy music because he was cute and charming and everything, but we weren't in love. I'm not even surprised he dumped me, I'm just pissed off that he did it so badly."

"So if he asked you to be his girlfriend again, you would say no?"

"Of course I'd say no," Emma said. "I do have some pride."

The flash of uncertainty on her roommate's face was yet another blow to her confidence.

"Anyway," Mary Margaret sighed. "I'm really sorry. That's a really crappy thing to happen on your birthday."

Emma felt her jaw clench of its own accord. To Mary Margaret, the dumping seemed to be a random event with no instigator behind it – it wasn't selfish and awful that Killian broke up with her on her birthday; it was merely an unfortunate coincidence.

"Yeah," Emma said slowly, waiting for her to at least call him a dick. When it didn't happen, she pushed her chair away from the table. "I should go get changed."

"Are you still going out tonight?" Mary Margaret asked. "Do you want me to come with you?"

Emma had a flash of remembrance of the last time Mary Margaret had gotten drunk: she'd ended up throwing up spectacularly in their shared bathroom, the contents of her stomach pink and purple from the fruity cocktails she'd been sucking down. Emma couldn't smell passion fruit now without wanting to hurl.

"You're okay," Emma said, backing away. "We'll only be going to those sports bars that you hate."

Mary Margaret wrinkled her nose. "I don't get what your obsession is with those."

Emma shrugged. "Cheap beer and drunk men for Elsa to flirt with. There's nothing to hate."

"If you say so. Try not to get too wasted."

Emma left the room promising that she wouldn't, as if her roommate was her mother and not just someone she'd ended up living with after she'd spotted the cute little apartment advertised on Craigslist 18 months ago. Mary Margaret's father, who was more devoted to her than possibly any father was to his daughter, had bought it for her when she'd moved to the city for college. Even though she didn't exactly need the extra rent money, she'd obviously been lonely living by herself. Emma's attic room was tiny, but the rent was cheap and it was a far sight better than the hovels she'd jumped between when she'd first moved to New York. She'd vacated the majority of them after three months at the most, leaving behind a pile of envelopes with her name on and some serious backlog in weekly rent payments.

After she'd climbed the rickety staircase up to her bedroom, Emma tugged that day's letters out of her bag without looking at them. The box under her bed was starting to overflow, she realised as she pulled it free. She'd have to buy a bigger one.

With a sick feeling squeezing at her stomach, she shoved the envelopes into the box and pushed it back out of sight. The beer she'd drunk had left a foul taste in her mouth.

Downstairs, she could hear Mary Margaret on the phone once more. She was laughing hysterically, even though Emma had met David plenty of times and although he was a good guy, he was nowhere near that funny.

Tumbling back onto her bed, she stared up at the ceiling and listened to the laughter coming from beneath her feet. She had less than an hour left to get ready and go back across town, but she couldn't force herself to move. Something heavy had settled on her chest.

Mary Margaret's giggles reminded her of another laugh she'd heard that day. It had been richer and more sincere, and it had made Emma feel like she'd earned it.

Emma closed her eyes and pictured Regina's face; the way she'd watched Emma so intently while she'd been talking. Her dark eyes had never strayed from Emma's green ones.

The weight on Emma's chest felt somehow heavier. She took a breath.