The first weeks back in The Enchanted Forest passed in a whirlwind. Emma never would have guessed that a royal family could stay so busy. It seemed like the buck stopped with Charming and Snow for every issue, big and small. Regina was around, but she seemed to be taking a perverse kind of joy in absolving herself of any and all official duties, swanning around the castle in a staggering array of outfits that would make drag queens weep with envy.

Snow and Charming threw themselves back into their official duties with gusto. Watching them, Emma was struck with the idea that their quiet life in Storybrooke might have failed to satisfy their mutual need to fix things, although neither of them would ever admit it.

Henry took to life in The Enchanted Forest like an old pro. He learned to ride in a week. Snow started teaching him archery, Charming started teaching him fencing. Regina started teaching him to dance, all the peculiar formal court dances from that world. He was on his way to becoming a proper young courtier.

The residents of Storybrooke gradually shifted back into place in The Enchanted Forest. Some people, like Granny, Ruby and the dwarves, stayed on at the castle, adopting various official duties. Others, like Princess Abigail and Frederick, found their way back to where they'd lived pre-Storybrooke.

Neal visited his father's old castle one afternoon and wound up staying there. Cleaning up the wreck it had become gave him something real to focus on. Belle eventually washed up there, too. She was lost without Rumple, and still deep in mourning. She wanted to be in the one place where she'd been with him in this world, so she went back to his castle. It was a big place, so Neal let her stay. She wandered the halls like a ghost. Like a dusting ghost, since she insisted on cleaning, no matter how many times Neal told her to stop.

Robin and his Merry Men had their camp in the woods not far from Rumple's castle. In short order, Robin and Mulan came to visit Neal, and soon the cavernous halls were filled, more often than not, with Robin and his men, plus Mulan.

Henry split his time between the two castles. Snow and Charming's, and when that got too dull or when all the adults were busy with tedious kingdom-running duties, he took off for his father's, which became something of a home for wayward fairy tale characters.

Full of misfits and outlaws, it might have been the perfect place for Hook, had he deigned to visit, but he wouldn't. Instead, he loitered at Snow and Charming's castle, as close as he could get to Emma while only rarely getting to speak to her. The kingdom, at least at first, seemed to have swallowed her whole.

As soon as things started settling down into something like a routine, Emma noticed that Snow and Charming had taken to pulling her into any meeting they could manage. It might be about big things, like a briefing from the Blue Fairy, or something she was amazed even came to the attention of the King and Queen, like a minor property dispute between farmers.

It was the same today. Emma had been reading (The Enchanted Forest had a wide-ranging yet bizarre choice of reading material) when Snow popped her head into her room and asked her to sit in on a meeting with them. She didn't bother to argue. She'd tried that for the first two weeks and it didn't work. Sighing, she set down her book, The History of the Ogre Wars, vol. 3, and joined her parents in their receiving room.

She took her seat in her designated chair at her father's side, and settled in to be bored to tears for the duration. Today the dwarves were discussing some sort of security issue, some re-training of the palace guards or something. Seemed that under Regina's reign, they'd become a bit heavy-handed with their tactics and Snow didn't approve.

"While we're addressing security," Snow added at the end of her impassioned speech about prisoners' rights. "Something's got to be done about the dungeons."

"What do you mean, Your Majesty?" Leroy asked her.

"Well, it's dreadful down there. Trust me, I've been imprisoned there."

"Your Majesty," Leroy said hesitantly. "Aren't dungeons supposed to be sort of… dreadful? I mean, they're dungeons."

"But people have a right to a basic level of care regardless. Don't you agree, Emma? You worked in law enforcement. And you've been down in those dungeons, too. They'd never pass muster in your world."

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure they're in violation of the Geneva Convention down there. But aren't the rules different here?"

Snow smiled patiently. "We're the royal family. The rules are whatever we make them. That's why we're here."

In a flash, Emma understood why Snow kept dragging her into these meetings. She wasn't there to keep her parents company. She was being trained. Because one day she'd be the fucking Queen of The Enchanted Forest. She'd be expected to hold court and sit in on briefings and settle disputes and rule fairly.

Her heartbeat took off at a rapid patter and her breathing got shallow. Snow and David were listening to Leroy explain something to them, leaning into each other, already conferring before they'd said a word out loud. They looked like a King and Queen. Not like her. She was a bounty hunter. A hired gun. An orphan. What did she know about ruling anyone? She was the one who'd been alone her whole life.

"Excuse me for a second," she muttered, shoving back from the table and walking from the room as quickly as she could. By the time she hit the hallway, she was running. She found a staircase and kept running, all the way up. And then up another, smaller staircase, and still another until she was sprinting up a tiny stone spiral staircase at the top of the castle.

Emma burst through a door and out onto the battlements, breathing hard. She flattened her palm against her chest and just focused on getting air into her lungs.

"Swan?" Killian was standing at the crenelated wall, and he turned as she stumbled out onto the roof. "What's wrong?"

She waved her hands in front of her, because she couldn't speak yet.

Killian crossed quickly to her, the skirt of his leather frock coat billowing out behind him. He grasped her arm and crouched to peer into her face.

"You look as if you're being chased by ogres."

She shook her head forcefully. "I just needed a little fresh air."

"Fresh air," he said skeptically. "Up on the roof, at breakneck pace."

"I just needed to get out of there for a minute."

"What happened?"

"Do you realize that I'm supposed to be the fucking Queen one day?"

Killian smirked. "Yes, very often Princesses become Queens. I believe that's how the business is set up."

"I can't be a queen."

"Well, you will be. It's not like deciding whether or not to put your name on the list. Here, you're just on the list. You were born on the list."

"That's crazy. I'm American. We vote for our leaders. And nobody would ever vote for me."

"You might be surprised."

"Oh, I'm sure. I've been in prison."

"You were framed. By the son of The Dark One. That makes you a folk hero in their eyes."

"I didn't go to college."

"College doesn't exist here."

"I'm a single mother."

"To a prince of the realm. Exceptions are made."

"I can't dance."

Killian was silent for a moment and then he burst into laughter. "Dancing? What the bloody hell does that have to do with anything?"

Emma huffed and threw her hands in the air, striding away to stare over the battlement walls. "They have balls and shit here. I've seen Regina teaching Henry. All these complicated ceremonial steps he's supposed to know so he can properly dance with the Princess of Lower Windbag or whatever. Because that's the point of being a Princess. So you can dance with the Princes and forge royal alliances and manage realms. I can't do that stuff. Any of it."

Killian crossed to her and put his hand on her shoulder. "Swan, look at me."

She threw a sullen, frustrated glance over her shoulder.

"I mean it. Turn around and look at me properly."

Emma sighed and turned to face him. He took her right hand and raised it to his shoulder, then took her left hand in his. His left arm settled around her waist. She could feel the gentle pressure of the metal hook against the small of her back.

"Now eyes on mine."

She met his eyes and her stomach bottomed out to her feet. She hadn't been this close to him, face-to-face and alone, since Neverland. Any doubts about the reality of what had happened between them there vanished as her whole body surged awake. Good God, he was beautiful. The blue of his eyes was unreal.

"Now," he continued, a sinful smile curling the corners of his mouth. "Don't look away. Trust me."

She wanted to laugh at that, Captain Hook asking her trust him. But she found she couldn't make a sound because her mouth had gone dry. And besides, she did trust him. She'd never considered that before but now that she had, she knew without a doubt that it was true. Somewhere in all the helping and life-saving and feats of daring, she'd come to trust him implicitly. With her life, if it came to that. More importantly, she'd trusted him with Henry's life.

"What are we doing?" She finally managed to squeak out.

Killian smiled again. "We're dancing, of course. Look down, Swan."

She did. Somehow while she was getting caught up in his eyes and his scruff and his hand holding hers and his hook pressing into her back, they'd started moving. She hadn't thought, she'd only looked into his eyes and followed where he led. And he led her into a dance.

"I'll be damned."

"You're a natural, Emma."

Of course, now that she was aware of it, she promptly screwed it up, missing a step and stomping on his foot instead.

"Ow."

"Sorry, sorry..."

"No harm done, Swan. I've taken worse beatings for you. I'm surprisingly hard to exterminate."

She laughed. God, it felt like the first time she'd laughed since she'd landed in this realm. That couldn't be true, could it? It felt true. It was certainly the first time she felt this loose and buoyant. Right now, up on the battlements, the sun setting on the distant bay, with Killian's arm around her, she felt a sort of boneless, easy joy that she hadn't felt in longer than she could remember.

They'd stopped dancing. They'd stopped moving at all. Killian had backed her into the battlement, and now she leaned into the sun-warmed stones, staring up into his gorgeous face, drunk on a handsome man and dancing that felt like breathing.

Killian let go of her hand. His fingers danced along her jaw, a whisper of a touch, testing how receptive she was. Very receptive, it turned out. Her hand, now free, found his shoulder, her arms linking loosely around his neck. His palm slid back into her hair, this time with a purpose. His head dipped as he leaned in, but he didn't kiss her. She was ready for it. She was all but standing on tip-toe, waiting for his lips to find hers. Instead, he kissed her cheek, then pressed his cheek to hers. It felt far more intimate, in a way. She could feel the bristle of his beard, the warmth of his breath on her neck.

"Emma," he whispered on an exhale.

Then she felt his lips, but on her neck. She closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the rough stone wall. Gentle kisses trailed down her neck and then back up, heading for her mouth. She threaded her fingers through his hair and made a fist, urging his head back up.

His hand traced over her shoulder to the edge of her fussy blue silk dress. It takes forever to get out of these clothes. That was the only thing she was thinking as his fingertips traced her neckline. Killian and his nimble fingers seemed up for the challenge, though. She'd just felt the first hook give when a rough voice called out.

"Halt! Unhand the Princess, you villainous swine."

Killian's head dropped back and he groaned. Emma opened her eyes just in time to see a phalanx of palace guards surround them, swords drawn.

"You have got to be kidding me," she muttered.

"Seize him!" one of the guards shouted.

Then the guards were on Killian. Two grabbed his arms, another put a chokehold on him, and he was being hauled backwards away from her .

"No guys, you don't understand..."

Her words were swallowed up in their shouts and scuffling. Killian was starting to fight back. There was no way this would end well.

"I said unhand him!" She shouted as loudly as she could. That seemed to do the trick. All the guards froze. The three restraining Killian released him. Killian shook them off his arms and shrugged his shoulders to straighten his coat.

"Are you sure you're all right, Your Highness?"

"I'm fine. You can go."

"It's just that we saw the pirate accosting you, and we-"

"That's enough! Snow's on to something. You guys need some sensitivity training. Maybe an Internal Affairs division." She looked the head guard up and down. "And definitely some new uniforms."

"Your Highness?"

Emma waved her hands at them. "At ease. Dismissed. Whatever. Just go."

"Yes, Your Highness."

The guards retreated around the corner of the battlements. Emma turned to Killian.

"I'm really sorry about that. They don't..."

Killian held a hand up to stop her. "They saw a pirate attacking their Princess and they did their job."

"Killian," she sighed. "You're not..."

"No," He stopped her again and then turned to go. "I know exactly what I am."

Emma watched him disappear down the staircase and slumped against the battlements. Then she groaned and turned to face the wall, leaning on her elbows. What the hell had just happened here? Well, she knew what happened. She'd gotten tangled with Killian and started making out. The man addled her hormones and her brain.

She remembered his face when that guard accused him of accosting her and she winced. He put on a brave face and acted like he relished in his bad reputation, but she hadn't missed that flare of pain at the accusation. And she definitely hadn't missed the way he'd stormed off the battlements once he was free. He'd been hurt and insulted, and she was afraid she hadn't done enough to make it right.

Sighing, she looked across the stunning view visible from the roof. It really was beautiful here. Like a picture in a storybook. Looking around, she wondered what Killian had been doing up here in the first place. She was so panicked when she stumbled out here, it hadn't occurred to her to ask. Then she looked out over the treetops. You could see the harbor from here, filled with merchant ships coming in to dock. And past the mouth of the harbor, you could see the open ocean, nothing but a flat blue expanse all the way to the horizon.

Killian had been up here keeping vigil for his ship. It was easy to forget when he spent so much time lurking around the hallways of the castle, but he was a pirate at heart. And part of him desperately wanted to get back out on that ocean.

Emma couldn't help but wonder how long she had until he left. All the charm wore off The Enchanted Forest when she imagined being here without him.