A/N: Well, I did promise this story would begin in June and here it is. I did intend for it to be posted sooner, but life happened and the fic didn't - sorry, folks! This chapter is a little on the short side, I know, but it sets up what's coming later. I hope there are readers out there who are interested in this third part to the trilogy. Please drop me a review and let me know what you think! :)

Disclaimer: All recognisable characters and any recognisable dialogue from Once Upon A Time belongs to the creators and writers, not me.

Book 3, Chapter 1

Emma ducked behind the tree and hunkered down low. Her heart was pounding in her chest, the blood hot in her veins. She was used to being the hunter rather than the hunted, but that didn't mean she was afraid. These woods had become her home as much as any other place. She spent time with her parents tracking animals, learning to ride, shoot arrows, and fight with a sword. More recently she had taken to going on her own little adventures in the forest around her castle home, sleeping out under the stars with friends she had made, spending all the time she could with the man she loved.

Concentrating on the view before her, she completely missed the fact an attack was imminent from behind, until suddenly a shadow appeared at her shoulder. She rose up then, turning at the same time, but she was too late. Strong arms grabbed a hold of her, and though she knew very well how best to escape, Emma fast realised she would be a fool to try.

"You cheated!" she insisted.

"What? How did I cheat?" asked Baelfire with an incredulous laugh. "I tracked you down because I know how, there's no cheating involved."

"Then you got lucky," she told him smartly, hardly able to keep the grin off her face. "And you're very lucky that you're you, because if some stranger had me in a hold like this..."

"You couldn't get out of this if you wanted to," he challenged her, almost hoping she would try just for the fun of it.

Emma didn't let him down as she struggled some against his tight grip. She then changed tactics entirely, pushing herself further into his embrace, her chest tight against his own. Her hands went up to his face and then she was kissing him like her life depended on it. Baelfire lost all concentration of keeping a grip on her as he got lost in the moment she had started. A second later, Emma pushed her whole weight forward, sending the pair of them sprawling, her on top of Baelfire who was now flat on his back on the forest floor.

"And I'm free!" she declared, arms raised triumphantly above her head as she grinned down at him.

Baelfire took a moment to get his bearings, and then propped himself up on his elbows, smiling as widely as she was.

"And I'm not complaining about the exit plan... or where it landed me."

Emma hated that she felt a blush rising in her cheeks, but had no way to control it. She loved Baelfire, that much she knew for sure, and he loved her. They had been together now, happy and content in their true love, for several months and she couldn't imagine ever being happier than this. They spent time at the Royal Castle together, and also with Bae's family at the Dark Castle too. Then there were times like these spent in the forest. They camped out with Robin's band, went on long rambles and played silly childish games for hours. It was a good life, and a happy one. Still, for all the confidence Emma had, as sure as she was of her love for Bae and his for her, she was essentially an inexperienced girl. Suggestive comments still had the ability to make her feel very strange and a kind of uncomfortable she couldn't quite hate.

"Hey," said Baelfire, reaching for her hand. "I love you, Emma."

"I know," she smiled down at him. "I love you too, but we should probably be heading back," she said then, getting up and brushing the first off her fur and buck skin. "You and your folks are coming to dinner tonight, remember?"

"I remember," Bae confirmed with a strange smile on his lips.

Emma didn't quite know what the joke was now. Sure, he had tracked her better than she had managed with him earlier, but she got her own back when she proved she had ways of means and getting the power back, especially where he was concerned. There was nothing to be looking so clever about as far as Emma could tell, and yet Baelfire seemed to have a secret he wasn't telling her, at least that was how it seemed to her.

"What?" she prompted, even as they walked back towards the castle, hand-in-hand.

"Nothing," he insisted, and yet the smile remained.

Something was going on here and Emma was determined to know what it was. From the way Bae was grinning it had to be something good, which was a relief, but there was no way Emma was going to settle until she knew what it was. She stopped walking and pulled on her boyfriend's hand to make him come to a halt too.

"Baelfire..." she said in a warning tone, but still he shook his head.

"Emma, I can't tell you," he insisted, turning into face her.

Her hand slipped from his own as she folded her arms across her chest, trying to look severe even the face of his infectious smile.

"You better tell me," she insisted, as determined as he had ever seen her. "Or I'm not moving from this spot."

At that his grin wavered a moment, and then was back twice as big as he opened his mouth as if to speak, but then lunged forward, grabbing Emma around the waist. He lifted her clear off the ground and into his arms with ease.

"Bae!" she complained, albeit half-heartedly. "C'mon, be fair!" she insisted, struggling a little to be set down, because she really did want to know what was going on here.

"Okay, okay," he relented then, letting her down, but keeping his arms around her yet. "But I want it known that this was not the plan."

"The plan for what?" she asked, both amused and confused at the same time.

Things became a little clearer when Baelfire let her go and backed up a step, looking awfully serious. This couldn't mean what Emma thought it did, no way, and yet it was seeming more and more like it with every passing moment.

"Emma," said Bae too seriously. "You know how much I love you. I never tried to hide it, and I never wanted to. You're the most amazing woman I ever met in my whole life, and for all the years I have lived in various worlds, I can't imagine living another day without you," he said, his smile breaking through then as he took her hand in his own and sunk to one knee before her. "So, I was wondering, Princess Emma of the Enchanted Forest, will you marry me?"

There were tears in her eyes when he was done, and a lump in her throat that prevented Emma from giving an immediate answer. Swallowing hard, she nodded frantically until finally the woods came.

"Bae... Yes! Yes, I'll marry you," she insisted.

All at once he was kissing her, and then her feet left the ground again as he spun her around and around. Emma didn't complain at all this time or try to fight it. She was giddy enough before he ever picked her up, it really didn't matter what happened now. They were engaged, her and Baelfire, and true love would bind them forever. It was a perfect moment as far as Emma was concerned, but the laughter died in her throat when Bae finally put her down again and met her eyes with his intense gaze.

"You make me so happy," he told her definitely, moving her hair off her face with gentle hand. "I... I didn't know I could ever feel like this."

"Me either," she admitted breathlessly.

"And we're going to have an amazing life, Emma," he promised her, leaning in so close she could feel his words against her cheek. "I swear, I think about this future we could have, you and me, kids one day, maybe. It's all I ever wanted, and since I met you, I know there's nobody else I could ever have that with and truly be happy."

He kissed her once more, almost as if to seal the promises he spoke of. Emma kissed him back, glad of the moment, sure of their love , and yet she was pulled up short by the way Baelfire spoke of the future.

When he asked her to marry him, Emma hadn't hesitated for a second in accepting. This was true love that they shared, it would make no sense to refuse a man she cared so deeply for, that she genuinely wanted to spend the rest of her life with. She wanted to be with him, but a wife and mother, that was what Bae was asking Emma to be, and the sudden realisation of exactly what that entailed suddenly hit her like an anvil to the head.

Settling down, raising a family. It was a lovely idea, but Emma didn't want that now. In a few years maybe, when she was older, when she felt the time had come to live forever behind castle walls. Right now she was young, only seventeen and only just beginning to enjoy the newfound freedom of being old enough to go out into the world a little. She still wanted all those adventures she dreamed about as a child, but she hoped to have them with Baelfire at her side. If he was thinking of settling down already, Emma seriously started to wonder what she had so easily agreed to. She hated the idea that she may in fact have given the wrong answer to his proposal but now it seemed too late to take it back.

"The Enchanted Forest. Never did think we'd see these shores again, Cap'n," said the first mate with the biggest of grins on his face.

"Make no mistake, Mr Smee," his Captain told him then. "We are not here for your pleasure nor even for my own. I have vengeance to complete, both for myself and my love," he insisted, looking down at his lack of hand, recalling to clearly how his heart had come to be shattered by the Dark One's dastardly acts.

After too many years spent in Neverland, Killian Jones, known to most as Captain Hook, was back in the same realm as Rumpelstiltskin with the knowledge and power to end the evil imp's life. To think the Dark One had been briefly in Neverland so many years ago, and Hook had not known it until he was gone. That was Pan's doing, a nasty trick to pull, but the boy did like his games. Here in this world, Hook knew what he was doing. All he had to do was find the Dark One's dagger and finish him, then his vengeance would be complete.

"You think this is where the boy ended up too, Cap'n?" asked Smee then, speaking obviously of Baelfire since no other made sense. "If he did..."

"If he did then we will be doing him the service of ridding him of a monster that could no more be a decent father than a crocodile could," said Hook definitely. "After all, that is all the Dark One ever really was, just a crocodile, and like all reptiles, he can be skinned."

To Be Continued...