Disclaimer: I don't own Once Upon a Time or any of its characters, or any other recognisable characters. This is just for fun.

Author's Note: This is set during those apparently blissful six weeks after season four's Heroes and Villains. I love Captain Swan but it's slightly hard to believe a three hundred year old pirate would just hang up his cutlass and fall into domestication quite as easily as on the show and Smee mentioned that a few of Hook's crew ended up in Storybrooke in season three. So, here's my idea for a little bit of pirate mischief.

...

The Pig

Emma honestly couldn't believe it. Stood in front of her were six of Robin's Merry Men, looking decidedly less than merry, and four pirates, including a far too smug looking pirate captain. They were standing on the road outside Granny's with furniture and broken fence slats scattered around them like a hurricane had blown through. A hurricane fueled by stupid testosterone maybe.

When she'd gotten a call about a fight at Granny's she'd expected maybe Leroy and another dwarf shouting about who bought the next round, not a full on street brawl with flying patio chairs and Smee being thrown through the fencing. Thankfully Regina had taught her a paralysis spell which had brought everything to a stop before it'd gotten even more out of hand. Thank god none of them carried weapons anymore.

"Are you all kidding me with this? What is the matter with you all." She demanded. There was a moment's uncomfortable silence as they glanced at each other.

"He stole the pig!" Little John suddenly exclaimed, pointing a beefy finger right in Hook's face. John's face was bright red which did nothing to hide his rapidly purpling eye or the blood dripping from his nose.

"Why the bloody hell would I steal a pig? For decoration?" Hook shouted back. Killian of course looked almost normal, apart from a slight rosy blush in his cheeks from exertion, he looked no different than he had when she'd said goodbye to him that morning. In fact compared to the Merry Men the pirates all looked generally relaxed and normal, whether this spoke to their fighting ability or the fact that they always looked like they'd just been in a fight was difficult to tell.

"Who knows what pirates get up to?" Little John replied.

"Nothing involving a dead pig, that's firmly the realm of you forest dwellers. Lonely nights with just the trees and other men... must get hard." Hook sneered.

"Why you..." Little John cursed stepping towards Hook.

"Enough!" Emma shouted, silencing the argument. She glared at the groups of men in front of her. Suddenly noticing David standing next to Smee and looking sober but with a telltale swelling growing on his cheek. Before she could ask what the hell he was doing there, Killian chuckled.

She focused her glare straight at him but instead of cowering his grin grew even bigger. He took a sideways step towards her, Merry Men and pirates alike shuffling almost imperceptibly backwards, giving him centre stage. She crossed her arms, if he thought he was going to flirt his way out of this he was in for a sharp shock.

"I know you want us to be contrite Swan, but I'm afraid that's the most bloody fun I've had in weeks." He said.

What the hell? She felt a flash of hurt for just a second but couldn't kid herself. She'd been struggling to let go of the last few weeks and she's not the one who'd had her heart ripped out. In fairness after Ingrid's shattered sight spell she'd expected far more conflict than the basically amicable apologies that had been handed out. This probably was a much needed release of tension, maybe now things could start getting put behind them.

Sometimes she forgot being fishermen and shop workers didn't come naturally to everyone in Storybrooke. Looking around she realised the group mainly consisted of those who'd come over in the second curse, not the first, her mother choosing not to change people's memories like Regina had.

"I know we're not in the old world now but we lived there all our lives. You can forgive us a couple of slips back to the old ways?" Killian continued and gestured to both pirates and Merry Men. Killian's uncanny way of knowing what she was thinking, was allowing him say just the right things to let them get away with this. Damn him. "Actually David here has a lifetime of memories from this world, so he really should have known better. Shout at him to your heart's content Love."

"Backstabbing pirate." Her father muttered, but she could tell it was a token complaint. He seemed perfectly happy to let Hook take the lead with her. Emma made a mental note to dob him into Mary Margaret later.

"We're not in the Enchanted Forest." She said, turning to face them as a whole. "I know it must be difficult for you all but you just can't behave that way here. We have other ways of dealing with problems. You're not separate groups fighting for survival, you're all part of this town." She stared at each one, they did look pathetic, this group of dangerous ruffians being told off like children. She sighed. "I guess you didn't do any major damage. You'll fix whatever you have broken." She said quickly. "And I will not hear of anything like this again or I will lock you all up and we only have two small cells."

"Aye lass, you are both beautiful and fair." Killian grabbed her hand as she rolled her eyes, dropping a soft kiss on the back. She couldn't help the smile from breaking out on her face even as she jerked her hand away. "Your father was actually trying to break it up bless him." He whispered with a wink. Emma rolled her eyes. Stupid boys always sticking together.

"Get out of here. All of you." She said pointedly. Killian gave her a ridiculously extravagant bow before striding off towards the dock his crew trailing behind him.

"What about the pig?" An outraged Little John stomped over to her. "I suppose you're just going to take his word for it, sheriff." He said the word like it was an insult. Emma took a deep breath to blow away the last of her irritation before turning to face him.

"OK." She said making a display of giving him her full attention. "Someone's stolen a pig from you?"

"Yes. Your pirate."

"You saw him steal it?"

"Well no. But it was him. Who else would steal it."

"One of your men? You are a band of thieves aren't you?"

"It was our pig. We wouldn't steal something that was already ours!" John replied outraged.

"Ok ok, you're right. So tell me what happened." She said trying to placate him.

"Ah it was a beautiful thing. Huge. And I bought it this morning with legitimate money. We'd all clubbed together when we saw it in Peep's shop." A few merry men had hung back for John's moral support and started murmuring in agreement. Emma gave them a nod to shush them. "I was just finishing rubbing it down with the last round of seasoning salt. Friar Tuck's recipe, it's amazing, makes the meat totally juicy."

"Oh you were going to eat this pig." Emma said, relieved they were definitely talking about a dead pig.

"Yes." John said clearly irritated

"It was a whole pig? How were you going to cook it?" Emma asked.

"You've never heard of a hog roast?" John asked.

"No." Emma admitted. John looked surprised but then sighed the fight finally leaving him.

"You put the pig on a spit over an open fire. You have to build a frame that'll take the weight and allow you to turn the meat so it cooks evenly and catch the dripping and a cover to keep the heat from escaping and-."

"And it sounds like a lot of hard work." Emma said cutting him off

"Yes. Took us half the day to put together." One of the men put a consoling hand on Little John's shoulder and the large man actually sniffed. "But it's worth it. We were all really looking forward to it. I thought I heard a noise. We've got complacent here, stopped fearing attacks and now we've paid the price." The murmuring started up again and Emma sighed.

"This was at your camp in the woods?" She asked. The miserable men nodded. "So what was this noise you heard?" She prodded.

"Just someone moving amongst the underbrush. I left the pig to investigate. As soon as I'd gone five paces there were these bangs and the camp started filling with smoke."

"Smoke bombs." Another not so merry man piped up from the back. "You could smell the gunpowder."

"Exactly. Who uses gunpowder? Pirates." John said.

"And the dwarves for mining." Emma replied carefully.

"Well it wasn't dwarves who raided the camp. They moved fast, and they were laughing and making stupid noises at each other."

"You could identify them if you saw them again?"

"No. I just said, the place was filled with smoke and they were making all that racket. We kept getting turned around. The best any of us saw were just flashes of people running. When the smoke finally cleared the pig was gone."

"Any idea how many people?" Emma asked actually feeling intrigued now.

"No." Little John admitted. "But it had to have been at least six. It'd take two people minimum to carry the pig and then the rest to keep us busy chasing our tails."

Emma gave them a smile of commiseration. "I'm sorry, someone definitely attacked you and stole your pig. But I doubt it was the pirates." John opened his mouth to argue, but Emma continued before he had a chance. "Smoke bombs and sneaking away isn't really their style is it? They normally announce themselves. This happened this afternoon?" They nodded. "Well Granny's already complained to me that they'd been sat here since lunch getting drunk and rowdy. And I'm pretty sure there's only a few of them in Storybrooke, it wasn't them." The Merry Men appeared to think over her words. "I will look into this. Can I come back with you now and see your camp?"

...

David had slunk off into the dinner to put a steak on his face, so Emma went to the camp alone. She hadn't done a lot of normal police type work since she'd got to Storybrooke and found herself enjoying the opportunity to look for evidence like a regular sheriff.

The smell of gunpowder was still lingering in the air and she found the remnants of a couple of the bombs. They were definitely homemade and a little bit sloppy too. Like they'd been made in a rush. That fit with Little John buying the pig on the spur of the moment. Whoever stole it must have seen him buying it and decided to take it that day.

Her mother had taught her several good tricks for tracking in the forest and Emma easily sorted out the heavy deep tread of the Merry Men's daily footprints from the interlopers' steps that were randomly crisscrossing the camp. Weirdly they seemed to be made by several different sized feet but all shallow, made by people much lighter than the thieves the camp belonged to and looked like the people making them had been running at speed. The paths they took were also chaotic with no obvious purpose. Not trained to be efficient then, Emma thought as she stared at them.

Then again, there were two sets that exited the trees on one side of the camp, crossed in unhurried and firm steps straight to the spit where the pig would have been and exited on the opposite side without any evidence of hesitation or the random changes in direction the other sets had. So the other's were a literal smoke screen while two people had calmly walked up and taken the pig. That suggested some level of teamwork and strategy.

She stepped back to survey the whole site again, imagining the smoke filling the air and the disorientating shouting Little John had described. In an instant her mind flew to another realm, to a dark jungle where she'd desperately looked for her son, a place she'd fought a band of lost boys.

Emma felt a clash of mixed feelings, bringing the lost boys to Storybrooke had been her idea, she had promised them homes and happy endings. But many of them had had a difficult time adjusting to the new realm and new life without Pan. Curses and missing years hadn't helped and Emma had lost track of many of them, only getting called up when she had to act as truant officer or chastise them for shoplifting or vandalism. Now she thought about it David had mentioned that he'd had to break up some sort of fight they'd gotten into recently. The tensions from shattered sight must have affected them too. She couldn't help feeling that she had not really lived up to her promise to them. She gave a sigh, this had to be them, she just had to prove it, and when she did she'd use this as an opportunity to focus on them. She'd been these boys dammit she should know what to do to help them.

...

Emma pulled her jacket's zipper right up under her chin while she concentrated on keeping her balance on the rocks she was walking over. The cold breeze coming off the bay, although pleasant in town, cut right inside her clothes now she was standing on the exposed shore.

So, it hadn't been as simple to prove the lost boys had stolen the pig after all. She had expected to waltz into the school and be told her usual truants were missing, but strangely they had in fact all been in school that morning when Little John had bought the pig. So although they could have run out of class at the end of the day and made it to the camp to steal the pig, how could they have known it was there or had time to plan and make the bombs? But then the fact that they all happened to be in school on the one day she was sure they were committing a crime was pretty suspicious on its own.

Something felt a bit off about the whole thing. Emma felt like she had all the pieces she just couldn't get it all together in a shape that made sense. The execution of the raid smacked of the lost boys. How many others in town would have the balls to rob the Merry Men in their own camp? But they were still a group of poorly educated, directionless, teenage boys, the speed and efficiency of the operation as a whole was definitely not them, and someone made the smoke bombs. Did they have a new leader? A new Pan?

The worrying thought had sent Emma out in her bug patrolling the homes of the boys and thankfully as the day changed from dusk to night, it had paid off. She spotted one of the older boys jumping his garden wall and running off to the shore, where Emma now stood watching him help two other boys load a row boat with small lumpy bags.

"Swan." Killian's voice made her jump and stumble on the slick stone. His hand immediately grabbed her arm and pulled her back so she fell into his chest instead of the wet ground. For a moment she let herself enjoy it, his solid frame holding her steady, his warm arms around her. She rested her hands against his chest feeling his heart thumping, right where it should be. "What are you doing here?" Moment over.

"I'm the sheriff. What are you doing here?" She snapped back, pulling away.

"I'm a man of the sea and I'm rowing out to that small island to have drinks and reminiscences with old friends." He said his eyebrow cocked and an irritating smile on his face. Emma's eyes followed his hand as he pointed out to a small rocky island a few meters out in the bay.

"You're going to drink and reminisce with lost boys?" She asked incredulously.

"Aye Love, we have many years of shared experiences. Don't fret I have both alcoholic and non alcoholic beverages." He nudged the crates at his feet. Emma stared at him hunting for the lie but not quite finding it, her gaze drifted back to the little island and the boat of lost boys disappearing around its shore, feeling uncertain.

"Forget it, she's not buying it. Just bring her. We'll be late as it is." Henry's voice made her jump a second time, but she brushed off Killian's hand without losing her balance. Her son appeared out of the darkness, scooped up one of the crates and bounded down to shoreline before she could form a coherent thought. She turned her glare on Killian who gave her an embarrassed grin before motioning for her to join the boy at the water.

"Mi'lady would you care to join us for a small Neverland reunion?"

...

Ten minutes later they were climbing out of the row boat onto the island. Killian had explained it was actually a peninsula which got cut off at high tide and formed a sheltered and hard to access rock which was apparently the perfect spot for pirates to let their hair down.

Rounding a corner of tall rocks she came into a small sandy cove protected from the winds and lit by a large fire pit around which were various groups of both lost boys and Neverland pirates. Piles of bread rolls and pots of sauces were lined up on a folding table next to a large man with a peg leg, who stood next to a frame over the pit on which hung a large carcass which frankly smelled mouth wateringly good.

"You stole the pig!" Emma exclaimed shoving Killian in the chest as he set down the crates "What? You and the other pirates planned it and left the lost boys to do the deed while you alibied yourselves at Granny's?" She didn't know why she was asking, of course that's what happened.

"You wound me Swan. How was I to know what the lost boys were planning? I am as much a vic-."

"To Captain Hook! Founder of the feast!" The shout from the beach cut off his obvious lie and was immediately echoed among the pirates with some lost boys hesitantly joining in.

"Maybe I was marginally involved in the late planning stage?" Killian tried, scratching behind his ear.

"You lied to me, you kept this a secret, you got Henry involved? For what?" Emma growled.

"For them, well, no okay it was for me." Killian replied clumsily. He grabbed her hand and forced her to sit on the rocks next to him. "I know I lied. I'm sorry Emma, but I knew you would put a stop to this and I needed it. I don't know if you'll understand but I needed to feel like myself again. The damn Crocodile got into my head Love. After all these years he beat me again and it was my own fault. I'm the one who went to him, I foolishly thought I could force his hand." He laughed at the irony of his own words. "But I ended up his puppet unable to fight, to warn you of his plans, to prevent my own death. But even now he's been defeated, banished from everything he held dear, I can't shake the things he said, about the man I was or the man I'm trying to be, for you."

Emma felt her resolve crumbling as he spoke. The horrible drive from the mansion to town after speaking to Anna was still fresh in her mind. The growing panic when he didn't answer his phone. The guilt, knowing he'd been acting strange but not having had time to act on it. She hadn't even wondered about all the time Hook and Gold had spent together, mortal enemies suddenly working together, when did that make sense? Then feeling the dark magic pouring out of the clock tower, seeing his heart bright and red in Gold's hand and knowing she was too late to save him. She knows now her heart just couldn't take something happening to this man. Her pirate. But she hadn't learnt from her mistakes, he'd been hurting and she hadn't noticed, still hadn't taken the time to work out the reasons for his behaviour. Well not again.

"So stealing the pig helped you go back to who you were." She said carefully, trying to show she wanted to understand, but Killian shook his head.

"I know who I was Swan. That's not a man I'm eager to return to. But the Crocodile was right about one thing, I'm not suited to being nothing but a docile follower either." He sighed and turned to scan the people on the beach. "I know I've purposefully not talked about my life before we met, I'm ashamed by much that I have done in the name of blind vengeance, but not everything in those hundreds of years was darkness, and even the parts that are, it would be poor form to turn my back and forget it all."

Emma thought about the Hook she'd met in the past. For all she had heard about the dangerous Captain Hook, even from the man himself, he hadn't seemed all that different from the man she knew. The man she now possibly loved. In fact compared to when he'd first come to Storybrooke he had seemed less filled with vengeance and hate, just another sailor relaxing in a tavern. It made sense that he had good memories of being a pirate too, hundred's of years focused on pain and hatred would have driven him mad otherwise.

"But I still want to be a better man than I have been, I want to change to be worthy of you Swan. I have changed somewhat I think?" He looked to her for confirmation and she found herself speechless at the level of hope and longing that filled is eyes, only able to nod in reply. "I realised I can try to be an honourable man and be the pirate captain." He nodded at the people now crowded round the fire collecting bread rolls and slabs of juicy meat. "I'm still responsible for them, the pirates at least, they were my crew, my shipmates and now they're stranded here in this unfamiliar world with little to avail themselves on. The lost boys similarly, we understand a lot of each other's troubles, I wasn't lying when I said we had a lot of history together. This, Swan, stealing the damn pig? It was to remind us what we are capable of, it was to celebrate who we were so we can better understand who we are now. This is a slice of our old world here in our new one. We may never return there but it will always be within us." Killian's voice had been rising as he ended his speech and by now the whole cove was avidly listening to his declaration, looks of enthusiasm on the faces of pirates and lost boys alike.

Emma had never seen him commanding men but she was could tell this wasn't the first rousing speech he'd given. And damn if it wasn't working. She almost wanted to join up and sail away with him. Almost.

"I appreciate how much you've changed Killian, never doubt that, and I would be disappointed if you gave up all your pirate traits." She said, earning a raised eyebrow and a lecherous smile from the man in question. "I even accept why this... escapade is so important to everyone. But I meant what I said before, you can't keep doing this. I am the sheriff in this world, I have to follow this world's rules and so do all of you. You understand that. This has to be a one time thing. We'll come up with another way to help everyone feel at home." Emma made the last statement as a promise to everyone listening.

A small ripple of relief flowed around the beach as they realised she wasn't going to arrest anyone and they returned to their general merry making. Henry ran up holding two rolls, a thankful smile on his face, although he was a fool if he thought that was last Emma was going to say to him about being involved. Emma and Hook took the offered hot rolls, Killian watching her expectantly as she eyed the food suspiciously "What is the big deal about this stupid pig?" She asked.

"Just try it." Killian said and popped a piece of meat in her mouth before she got another word out.

She couldn't help the small groan of pleasure as she tasted the meat. It was so soft it melted in her mouth like butter, and there was this salty spicy taste that left a soft tingle on her lips. Hook handed her a beer and the bitter taste just added to the flavour. Emma was brought out of her gastronomic orgasm by the sudden appearance of the pig's head.

The lost boys had stuck it on a stick and were bouncing it up and down whooping around it and laughing. They turned in a mock procession and drove the stick into the sand in the shallows, before bowing to it and running off again.

"Look! Now you made Lord of the Flies real too!" Emma said pointing at the gruesome thing and smacking Hook on the arm.

"Lord of the... flies? Who's lord of flies?" Killian asked completely baffled.

"The pig."

"The pig is dead Swan." Killian replied slowly, trying to decide if she was alright.

Emma shook her head really not wanting to get into it, despite her lingering misgivings she felt herself relaxing. They sat leaning against each other watching the boys prancing around to music the pirates were playing on an accordion. Killian's arm came around her and she curled into his warmth. The scene could've been lifted from an illustration from one of those silly Adventure Stories for Boys books. She'd always been jealous of the kids in those stories. Henry bounded past, his face full of food and Emma could feel a big smile slide on to her face and an amazing feeling of contentment filling her up for the first time in maybe ever. Maybe the old world had some good things to offer after all.

"You are going to buy Little John another pig." She said, cutting her pirate captain's protests off with a kiss.

The End

...

Note: I hope you enjoyed reading this. Might write a couple more shorter drabbles a long the same piratey theme. Please leave a review and let me know what you thought.