Chapter 1

Her earliest memories were of a kind family, the Brown family. Remembering back, they had seemed perfect to her almost 3-year-old self, but Emma knew now, there was no such thing. Really, the first sign that they weren't perfect should've been the appearance of perfection. The second, the fact that they only wanted her and not her twin brother, but the social workers chalked it up to the young couple not being able to afford two children.

She'd missed her brother so badly, it sometimes hurt. At that age, Emma wasn't capable of understanding the deep wound being separated from her sibling would cause. And despite the fact that she was the one taken, she still felt a sense of abandonment without him. As young hearts tend to do though, she began to heal.

She was with the Brown family until she was almost four, which meant she had one year of seeming perfection. That was when the third and glaringly bright sign came. The couple decided to dump her back into the foster system; they didn't say why, they didn't give her warning. The social worker came for a visit, and when she left, she took Emma with her. The stress of losing her family had a huge impact on Emma. She didn't speak for weeks, and wouldn't eat for long periods of time; she cried every night, three thoughts ever present in her little mind - she was alone, she was unloved, and she could no longer remember her brother's name.

She was never adopted, and bounced through the foster system without a safety net to catch her when she fell into the homes that used her as a meal ticket, the homes with abusive foster parents, the homes with drunks, and the homes that just didn't care. As she entered teenhood she was sent to various group homes, where she eventually met him.

They'd moved here when he was 7, and shortly thereafter Rose Jones was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. She was the whole world to him and his brother, and in Killian Jones' opinion, father should've been the one with cancer since he was the smoker… and an arse.

He remembers his mother telling him not to speak that way, even as their father proved to be a coward, running away from the situation shortly after her diagnosis. To keep the boys together Rose signed the consent paper allowing Liam to enter the U.S. Navy at the age of 17. Liam would have to be the man of the house and raise his younger brother now, she'd told them, to which Killian proudly stated he could take care of himself just fine. He didn't know that in time, that'd be his only choice.

Liam finished boot camp and his schools, managing a month back before their mother's passing. In a stroke of what might be considered luck, Liam was granted repeated shore duty positions. As the boys had no other relatives, he was the only adult in Killian's life, and could not deploy. It was rare for accommodations like this, Liam had found a sympathetic detailer in Chief Nemo who'd lost his own family. Nemo knew the importance of these two boys only having each other, as he himself now had no one. For a little over 7 years, they were able to make a decent go of life after losing two parents. As Killian knows now though, if things seem too good to be true, it's likely they are.

She was almost 16 when he'd swept into her life like a storm, all smiles and pretty words. They'd clicked right away, or at least she thought they had. It was her junior year at yet another new school. Emma Swan had blossomed into a gorgeous young woman, unbeknownst to herself; she still only saw the ugly duckling when she looked in the mirror. She was the new girl again, but this time, someone took notice.

He was the first person to show her undivided attention and affection. She changed over the next year as she let him rule her world, some of the jadedness acquired over years of being alone fell away. She opened up to him, quickly clinging to the belief that he truly loved her, and even more importantly, he chose to want her. In return for that affection, he'd monopolized her attention, her time, and groomed her to bend to his every will. They went to school together, ditched together, he even hung out at the group home with her. Neal also taught her some of the tricks of his trade - a petty thief - and Emma was putty in his hands.

There had been signs, there were always signs, but Emma had chosen to ignore them. Who cared that his father was the richest man in town, yet Neal still chose to steal? Who cared that he got insanely jealous and overprotective when other boys would talk to her; he must love her a lot, right? She'd thought it was love, but it was nothing more than control. Deep down she knew that her desperation for love had made her blind, and in her opinion now, love will only make you weak. But, at the time, she believed there wasn't much else out there for a person like her, so she stayed. It beat being alone.

Killian was almost as old as Liam had been when Liam joined the service, so why the fuck should he need to go into the foster system? He thought he'd experienced the worst day of his life, the day that his beloved mother passed, but here he was looking at two naval officers who'd come to notify next of kin… and that was all he'd heard. When he came to, he was on his couch. He silently thanked his lucky stars that it'd all been a dream until he sat up to the crashing realization that this was the new worst day of his life.

They'd told him he was sole beneficiary to Liam's life insurance policy, and would be entitled to the insurance money once he aged out of the system. What bloody system, he'd yelled. He was old enough to be on his own, dammit. The state disagreed, and at almost 16, Killian Jones became a ward of the state.

He was put into the system and promptly landed in a fancy new teen group home, belonging to one Robert Gold. Rumor had it, the teen home was a front to launder Gold's dirty money. Befriended quickly by the spirited Mrs. Gold, he ate up the attention. They talked about everything; well, he talked, she listened. It was soothing to have found a parental figure to be able to confide in; it was soothing until it wasn't. He'd naively believed she cared about him, even though he knew one of the boys here was her actual child, although he wasn't sure which one.

A year into his time there, he was on his way to bed when he overheard her discussing the details of his life, and future, including the insurance money that would eventually come his way. Intent on finding out who the hell she was telling his business to, and why, he found himself shocked to silence when he heard the sordid details her husband was cooking up. Peeking through the cracked door, Killian saw Milah sat upon the lap of Gold, arms around his neck, his arms around her waist, as he told her to 'seduce the boy, just until the money comes, it'd only be a year'.

He was so disgusted, so angry, he slammed the door open, ready to fight. She'd jumped up immediately calling his name, but he'd seen red. He'd attacked the man, beating him until his knuckles were bleeding and he was out of breath, tears of rage blinding him, and violence coursing through his veins. No charges were pressed; Gold had just as much to lose as Killian, if not more, as all the shady practices at Gold's group home wouldn't be looked upon kindly by the state. He was promptly moved from the group home without consequence.