Thank you for all the reviews and enthusiasm over this fic, and I hope it doesn't disappoint. Emma is going to be stubborn for a little while longer, but don't worry, she'll open her home and heart to Killian before long. Enjoy, and see you back for new chapter of Monday.

It's been three days and Killian hasn't shown his face around the house since the afternoon they've had the talk, but Emma still can't relax. Currently she's darting around the living room in search of Sienna's stuffed bunny, painfully aware of the fact that she's going to be late to work because she still has to drop her sleepy daughter off in the kindergarten.

"Sienna! Did you find him?" Emma yells down the hallway and runs her hands through her hair in exasperation, disturbing the locks she had wasted too much time on this morning. "Nevermind, I found him!"

Emma kneels next to the couch and pulls Miss Panda the bunny from under the coffee table, shaking her finger at his cheerful smile.

"Why do you always have to hide?" She asks him and smiles at her own silliness, imagining what the surly teenagers she works with every day would think if they knew she's prone to talking to her daughter's favorite toy.

"Mommy, where is he?!" Sienna sings as she rushes into the living room and Emma holds out the bunny, smiling as she watches Sienna hug him to her chest and kiss his head.

"You should be more mindful of where you leave him", Emma tells her and ushers her toward the front door.

"He ran away", Sienna says and jumps down one step at a time while Emma locks the house and rattles the knob to check it's firmly closed.

Emma manages to get Sienna to the kindergarten and herself to school on time, sliding into her chair at 8 a.m. on the dot and pushing her hair out of her face with a relieved sigh.

"Had a late start?" Ruby asks and sets a cup of coffee on Emma's table before dropping down in a chair across from her.

"A bunny crisis", Emma answers and blows at her coffee, hoping Ruby won't ask about Killian and wishing she hadn't spilled the beans yesterday even though at the time she just couldn't keep it to herself.

"I thought maybe Killian showed up again. I was about ready to go check", Ruby says, and Emma rolls her eyes, but secretly she feels warm and fuzzy because no matter what Killian says, she's got somebody who loves her and who will always be there for her; her best friend.

"Maybe he gave up", Emma muses and Ruby just gives her a pointed look. "It could happen."

"You're not listed anywhere, and even if you were, he shouldn't even know you're the one who adopted Sienna. Face it, Emma. He would go to the end of the Earth for that girl", Ruby says softly, which earns her a glare from Emma.

"Whose side are you on anyway?"

"Your side", Ruby tells her calmly and rests her elbows on the table, leaning forward before she continues. "But you might as well face the fact that this won't go away if you wish it so."

"If he shows up again I'll just call the cops", Emma says, knowing full well that she's not going to do any such thing because it's too easy to put herself in Killian's shoes.

Emma sips her coffee and Ruby just stares at her for a while, looking like she's picking her next words carefully.

"I think you should give him a chance", she finally says and Emma feels a nasty stab of betrayal.

"I thought you said you were on my side."

"What can it hurt?"

"I can't believe you", Emma says and starts shuffling papers around her desk.

"From what you've told me, he just wants to spend some time with Sienna."

"That's how it starts!" Emma exclaims, her heart rate picking up speed and her breathing becoming labored because she'd heard enough horror stories about parents coming out of the woodwork to claim their kids to last her a lifetime. "If I let him into her life soon he's going to try to take my daughter away from me."

"Okay, okay, calm down!" Ruby says quickly and grabs hold of Emma's hand, squeezing gently in reassurance. "Nobody's going to take Sienna for you, and if anybody tries, I'm going to be there to hit them upside the head with something heavy."

Emma manages a smile and assures Ruby she's fine, but her friend sticks around until the first student shows up, uncertainly hovering in the doorway.

"We'll talk more later", Ruby says and walks out, flustering the student with a beaming smile that makes him trip over his own feet on the way to Emma's desk.

"What did you do this time, Brian?"

Emma is a tiny bit later than usual when she goes to pick up Sienna from the kindergarten, but she's so preoccupied with trying to remember everything she needs to get in the store on the way home that she doesn't even entertain the possibility that Killian might show up anywhere other than her house.

She walks through the playground outside the kindergarten and stops dead in her tracks when she realizes that Sienna is outside, contentedly sitting on Killian's knee and showing him her bunny, talking in a ringing, excited voice.

The blood in Emma's veins turns to ice and she shakes herself out of her stupor quickly, stalking across the yard and debating whether she should kick him in the shin or not, opting for a less violent approach only for the sake of her daughter.

"What are you doing here?" She yells, startling both Killian and Sienna, her heart squeezing in her chest because her daughter seems to withdraw deeper into her father's arms.

"Good day to you too, Swan", he says curtly and stands up, surrendering Sienna as soon as Emma holds out her arms for her.

"Mommy you're squeezing too tight!" Sienna exclaims when Emma hugs her to her chest, trying to get over the horror of what could've happened.

Killian could've taken her daughter and disappeared.

Emma could've lost her baby girl to never see her again.

"Lass, she's okay. Gods, you're shaking", Killian says, his voice coming from a great distance as he wraps an arm around her shoulders and guides her to sit down on the bench he'd been occupying when she found them.

"Don't cry, mommy! Killy took care of me until you came!" Sienna tells her and caresses her cheek with her little hand, pressing the bunny against Emma's neck and making kissing noises.

Emma just holds her little girl, acutely aware of Killian sitting on the other end of the bench, silently watching them.

"I didn't mean to upset you, Swan, I just…", he trails off at her death glare and gives Sienna a gentle smile. "I should go, little love. Take good care of your bunny, so he doesn't run away again."

Emma is completely speechless, spellbound by the soft lilt of his voice and the way he talks to Sienna as if he'd been doing it for years; he's the first man who had known just what to say to her daughter, and she acknowledges bitterly that it shouldn't surprise her so much.

After all, he is Sienna's father.

"Nooo, don't go, Killyyyyyyyy", Sienna whines and wiggles until Emma is forced to let her down from her lap, feeling betrayed and at a loss as to what to do.

Killian throws a surprised look at Emma as Sienna leans against his leg and offers him her bunny.

"Can you look after him? Maybe he won't run away from you", she says with a hopeful smile and Emma curses herself because she'd completely lost control over the situation.

She should've taken Sienna and ran off as soon as she found them sitting there thick as thieves.

"Won't you be sad if you give him to me?" Killian asks her gently, shifting the bunny into the crook of his left arm and lifting Sienna on his lap a little clumsily but not the least bit uncertainly.

Emma is sitting next to them with her hands rolled into fists, angry but unable to bring herself to cut their meeting short because she doesn't want to upset Sienna.

She glares at Killian over her daughter's shoulder and silently wills him not to accept the bunny because there's no doubt in her mind that Sienna is going to be asking for it in a few hours and she's going to be inconsolable until Emma gets a hold of him again.

"You'll take care of him", Sienna answers Killian's question and smiles, her chubby fingers poking at Killian's stump almost absentmindedly; she appears to be over the initial sadness for the loss of his hand and her movements draw Emma's attention to a tattoo in the shape of a hook that stands out next to the neat but brutal scar which marks the abrupt end of his forearm.

Killian tries to appear unaffected, but she realizes she can read him as well as he can read her, and Sienna's gentle touch means more to him than he's comfortable showing.

"You might not miss him, little love, but he's going to miss you", he says after a minute of silence he spends just looking at his daughter as if she's the brightest star in his sky, and Emma feels her reluctance slipping away like sand through her fingers, which finally prompts her into motion.

"Take the bunny, Sienna. We've got a lot of shopping to do", Emma says in a voice that brooks no argument and stands up, holding out her hand for Sienna to take.

"Can't Killy come with us?" Sienna mumbles but obediently takes the bunny and slips from Killian's lap.

"Sorry, sunshine. I think it's best if we parted ways for now", he tells her, gently nudging her toward Emma.

"I'd appreciate it if you refrained from showing up like this again", Emma hisses at Killian, her lips pressing into a thin line at the stubborn look on his face.

"You were late, Swan. If you truly had Sienna's best interest in mind, you'd be glad I showed up", he tells her sardonically and gives her a challenging look that makes her blood boil. "I missed over three years of her life and I can't bear to miss another day."

"Stay away from her", Emma says under her breath, making sure he can see the threat in her eyes before she starts pulling Sienna away.

"Bye, Killy", Sienna calls over her shoulder, waving at Killian and looking like she's about ready to cry.

"Bye, Nenny", Killian returns the greeting and winks, ignoring Emma completely and giving his daughter a bright smile, a picture of relaxed nonchalance as he sits on the bench and watches them walk away.

He might be fooling Sienna, but Emma can see through his calm façade; she's more than aware of the depth of his pain, but she still marches off, telling herself that Killian had already gotten more time with his daughter than he should have.

And yet, she can't stop feeling guilty, she can't help feeling the stab at her heart as she straps Sienna into her car seat and glances over her shoulder to see Killian remaining where he was, his elbows on his knees as he watches her get into the car and drive away.

She imagines it feels like she's driving away with half of his heart, the other half held securely in Sienna's hands.

"What did I tell you about talking to strangers?" Emma asks her daughter in a voice that's just a little bit too high.

"Killy isn't a stranger, mommy. He's your friend", Sienna tells her with a smile that unnervingly resembles Killian's, her legs dancing in the air, and it's only then that Emma realizes her daughter had not only sat on somebody's lap for more than a minute today, but also gladly returned to it.

Killian is the first person who had managed to keep Sienna from displaying her quicksilver ways in all their glory, and for the first time since she had met him Emma wonders if maybe she should give him a chance.

"If he comes to get you again, stay with your teacher and wait for me to come", Emma says, adamantly refusing to even try to trust him.

It would be too dangerous when so much is at stake, and she ought to give Sienna's teacher a piece of her mind for letting her daughter stay with a man she'd never seen with her before, even if Sienna had told her that he was Emma's friend; somehow she thinks that Miss Blake had given in more due to Killian's charm than what Sienna had to say about his supposed friendship with her mother.

"But-"

"Promise me, Sienna", Emma tells her sharply but Sienna shakes her head, her curls flying around as she stubbornly keeps her mouth closed. "I haven't seen him in a long time, baby. He'd been through a lot and I need to make sure he's okay before I can leave you two alone."

There's no chance in Hell she'll ever willingly leave Sienna alone with Killian.

"His scar isn't ouchy anymore, mommy. He told me", Sienna says and Emma glues her eyes on the road, racking her brain for some way to outthink her daughter, but aside from telling her some made-up cautionary tale that will frighten her, she comes up empty.

Sometimes it's really hard being the parent of a clever child.

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