A/N: I'd just like to apologize for how long this took me. I have so much crap going on it's not even remotely funny. Then I kept deleting and re-writing because I didn't like stuff... but it's here now, right?

Disclaimer:

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
I don't own,
Please don't sue!

R&R?

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Stupid pirate.

Emma had been thinking about Killian's- Damn it, Hook. She'd meant Hook.

She'd been thinking about Hook's strange behavior since their encounter outside the pawn shop, and that thought was all she'd managed to conjure.

Stupid pirate.

A juvenile response to his stubbornness, yes, but it was better than nothing.

He'd give up eventually. Emma had extorted the truth from him before, she would do it again. The problem with Killi- Stop it! Hook! The problem with Hook was that he was willing to go to extremes to prove what he said was the truth (whether it was or not), and he'd only give in if he saw absolutely no other means of saving his skin.

She'd almost had to let him get ripped into confetti to get his goddamn name.

Stupid Killian.

Hook! She scolded herself. It's Hook. Just Hook.

She was trying to make herself sound less comfortable around him than she really was, noting Gold's comments about people thinking they were getting too friendly.

Gold wasn't the only one who'd mentioned Emma's growing... Friendship? They weren't really friends. Her acquaintanceship, she decided, with Killi- Hook. With Hook. Where the hell was she?

Right.

Other than Gold, others had approached her about 'getting friendly' with him: Ruby, Belle, Leroy, (the last two being extremely pessimistic about the subject) but mostly Mary-Margaret and David.

"It's no big deal, I don't know why everyone's making this such an issue."

"He's here for revenge, not to pal around with the locals."

"We're not 'palling around', I just don't think he's as horrible as everyone else says."

"He's a pirate, Emma, we worry."

It was one of the sweetest, most protective parental gestures she'd ever received, and she was grateful, but she still disagreed.

It wasn't that she had just suddenly decided to get chummy with him, but he was always hanging around somewhere, and he had never indicated that he was a danger to anyone in the town (besides Gold, that is). And being that Gold's having magic put a rather large damper on his plans, Emma knew that he was being careful. He was thinking. In the beginning, she'd been a little worried that he'd do something careless and rash, like he'd burst into Gold's pawn shop one day and get himself zapped into oblivion.

However, he was being discreet. Too discreet, actually. She wanted something to go on, some way to know what he was up to so she could deal with it accordingly and hopefully end up with neither Gold or Killian (Hook, not Killian, Hook!) dead. Alas, nothing.

She decided not to think about Killian (Hook, damn it!) too much, the man frustrated her.

Dinner now. You can worry Hook and his lying ass later. She thought, pushing the man in question from her thoughts.

Emma had made a point of buying soda. She wasn't a big soda person herself, didn't think Henry was either, knew Sophie didn't need the sugar or the caffeine - but she wanted to make sure she had a sure-fire way to get Gold's potion down her.

Henry was finishing his homework at the breakfast bar, Sophie was... Still laying on the floor surrounded by library books in the living room, thank God, and Emma had fetched dinner, including pizza, bread sticks, and said soft drink.

Emma had explained the situation to Henry, who was doing a very good job of pretending that Storybrooke was a completely normal town, and not filled with not-so-fictional characters. They'd agreed that they would act as normal as possible and act as if nothing overly unusual had happened, save for not talking about Fairy-Tale Land and strictly sticking to the use of everyone's Storybrooke names. If they tried too hard, they'd be acting suspicious and if they were acting oddly, Sophie would no doubt be disturbed. They didn't want to spook her.

Emma poured a glass of Pepsi, using a completely different glass than the ones she and Henry would use, making sure that this one wouldn't be mistaken for anyone else's. She emptied the contents of Gold's vial into the drink, swirling it around a bit before placing it on the counter and instructing Henry not to touch it. She called Sophie over from her place on the floor in the living room.

Simple small talk was all that passed between the trio while they ate. As planned, Sophie downed the beverage and was none the wiser. Emma hadn't really known what to expect as far as waiting for the potion to kick in, but when she'd cleaned the kitchen, checked Henry's homework, and gotten comfortable on the couch she began to wonder if Sophie should be acting any differently yet.

Nothing seemed even mildly different about the girl.

After sitting through a movie of Henry's choosing, Emma glanced over to find both Henry and Sophie soundly asleep. Emma nudged Henry awake, and he reluctantly staggered into his bedroom after a quick goodnight. Sophie had set up the pull-out sofa in advance of their film, so Emma tossed a blanket over her sleeping form and went to bed herself, finding no reason to keep herself up late.

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The sun was just beginning to dip below the horizon, sending a warm glow of auburn and gold dancing across the waves. Killian's still highly-active mind was buzzing with anticipation. He turned the pearl over in his hand, examining its smooth exterior.

"So... That little thing's going to take this entire ship out of Neverland?" Her voice was innately sharp and enterprising, ringing out clearly over the sounds of the sea. It never failed to slap him awake out of one of his reveries.

"In theory."

"I don't trust it. Not for a second."

"Wendy dear, I know. You remind me constantly."

"Well, can you blame me?" She asked. "What happened in the caverns doesn't even come close to what I've seen them do-"

"Love, I've been sailing for as long as I can remember. I've heard just as many mermaid stories as you have; probably more."

"But they're not stories!"

"I don't trust the halfbreeds any more than you do, but on this particular occasion I have a certain amount of faith in this one."

"So we just so happen to find the one mermaid who isn't completely demented, and-"

"Wendy, hush."

"But Killian!" she stomped one of her feet in a display of frustration.

Killian rolled his eyes at the protest, slowly turning his head to give her a correctional glare that would convey his growing aggravation.

Wendy let out a flustered sigh at this before mumbling something he didn't quite catch.

Killian did have to admit, the girl's stubbornness attested to her strong spirit, something he had to admire in someone her age (and size), and he'd grown sort of fond of it. Even though on occasions such as this it could turn against him.

"Anyhow," he said slowly, "We're there."

"Took long enough..."

"Smee!"

"Yes sir?"

"Ready the men - we're going home."

Smee turned to begin yelling orders at the crew, and within minutes the ship stopped most forward movement and began to just float placidly.

Killian waited only a few moments before giving one last glance around and tossing the pearl hard against the deck. It shattered, the tiny fragments shimmering slightly before they slowly disappeared.

"Nothing's happening, it's not working."

"Give it a moment," He replied.

Just as he was ready to curse to himself for being a fool, the perfectly placid water around the ship began to move. It was slow at first, like the ripples left by an object being thrown into the water. Slowly, they grew. The ripples swirled and churned until they created small waves, enough to cause the previously still Roger to rock gently. The waves rocked the ship from the front backwards, causing the bow to rise up slightly before sinking again. The slight breeze that had been nothing to mention a moment ago, picked up speed and gusted against the sails.

"It's working." Killian mused.

The small waves grew, but instead of simply tossing the ship, they swept upwards past the sides, sending a spray of seawater across the deck as the stern rose, sending the nose of the ship downwards again.

"Are you sure about this?" Wendy asked, widening her stance to keep her balance on the now tilting, shifting deck. He noticed a slight change in her just then. He doubted that she'd completely dropped fighting him over this, but her tone of voice no longer held a note of cynicism; she was timidly voicing her concerns rather than battle them to the death. She was suddenly less willing to be confrontational and most of the bravado melted away into apprehension.

"Mostly," Killian replied, trying to soothe her anxieties. He didn't like to lie unless the truth would cause problems for him, and in this case, saying he was absolutely positive would have been far from the truth. He wasn't doubtful of the pearl's magic (he'd gotten to Neverland with a bean, after all), but he did feel just a bit uneasy when the waves crashed higher and splashed more vigorously across the deck.

The ship now smacked furiously against the waves, causing enough motion to send even the strongest pair of sea legs into an unbalanced stagger. Wendy stepped closer to Killian's side, trying to stay balanced as the ship rocked unpleasantly beneath her feet. Killian steadied himself against the mast, catching Wendy by the arm as she fell when the ship jerked sharply. She grabbed his coat sleeve with her hand nervously to keep herself upright. The water continued to writhe below them, swirling itself up the sides and into a miniature maelstrom that began to pull the Roger down towards it. Foot by foot, the water began to swallow the hull of the ship.

"What if it doesn't work? They've tried to sink the ship before..."

"Just wait..."

Wendy waited, but the twisting of her stomach only worsened. The ship continued to push downward into the sea, the water inching higher and higher above where it rightly belonged. The waves continued to rush up the sides, but now they were delivering far more water and she suspected that they were helping to push the ship downwards into the sea.

The crew had begun to cluster on deck, retreating from below when the hull had begun to fill with water. The ship wasn't just sinking, though. It was being sucked downwards by some magical force. The water had not calmed, but the ship was rocking very little due to it being mostly submerged now. The waves rushed up and over the deck, and Wendy stepped even closer to Killian's side when small waves swept against their feet as if they were standing at the edge of the beach.

The deck was nearly level with the waves when the water rushed once more over the ship, enveloping it entirely. With one more pull from unseen forces, the ship was engulfed and swallowed into the depths.

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Emma turned slowly, eyes darting around the premises, trying to pull any image possible from the inky blackness surrounding her. It was so dark it was like she'd been swallowed in it completely. She didn't know if she couldn't see because there was no light here, or if it was because there was simply nothing there to see.

"If I died and went to heaven, I totally got screwed."

"You're um, not in heaven."

"That's comforting," Emma snapped at the invisible voice. "So I'm in hell? Not such a bad place, considering."

"Emma, you're not dead."

"Oh, that's always a nice thing to hear," Emma replied. "So... are you going to tell me where the hell I am?"

"You can't see?"

"No I can't fucking see! It's dark!" Emma was highly irritated with the voice who seemed to know everything, and at the same time have no sense of the obvious.

"That's not a good sign. It means you've hidden what's here. Why would you do that, Emma?"

"I can't tell you why unless you tell me where I am!"

"You're in your heart."

"I'm... what?"

"In your heart."

"Like... literally, or figuratively?"

"Your figurative heart, of course. You can't literally go into your heart, that's absurd."

"Because some random-ass voice telling me I'm in my own heart is somehow not absurd?"

"I'm just you, but more honest." The invisible voice said.

"Oh yeah, that's much better. I'm literally talking to myself. And more honest? Are you saying I'm a liar?"

"Only to yourself."

"What is this about? How did I even get here?"

"Not important. Follow me, you have some people to talk to."

"I can't follow you, I don't know where you are. It's dark, remember?"

"Don't follow me, then. Just walk."

"This 'ghost of Christmas past' thing is getting old really fast, just so you know." Emma took a tentative step forward, then another. She still couldn't see a damn thing, but she found that the floor (or ground... whatever) was smooth and level so she continued to walk until she noticed that she didn't feel... alone.

"Go ahead." The invisible voice said. Emma felt like it was no longer talking to her. She was unsure about who else could have possibly just gotten addressed, but she didn't want to be rude by intruding on whatever hushed conversation was happening around her.

"Emma," A new, male voice entered the scene.

"What? who are you?"

"Ems, it's me." Emma froze in place.

"...Neal?" God, she really had hidden what was here, and up until now she thought she'd done a damn good job of it. Her first instinct was to block it out, to cover her ears. She didn't want him here, she wanted to scream at him to get out and never come back. She wanted him gone.

"Mom!"

"Henry?" Emma cried. She suddenly didn't want to hear the other voice. She wanted to hear Henry, only Henry. She spun around blindly, searching for the source of the cry.

"Mom, wake up!" Two hands were shaking her shoulders, pulling her out of her slumber. She opened her eyes with a gasp, to find her son standing over her with a frantic expression on his face. She cringed at the bedroom lights, which Henry had apparently flipped on.

"Hmm... Henry? What's going on?"

"Sophie's gone!"

"What?" Emma staggered out of bed and bolted after Henry and into the living room.

"See?"

"Jesus, I thought we just did this!" Emma charged towards the front door, which was hanging ajar. "You're sure she's nowhere in the house?"

"Positive," Henry replied. "I woke up because I heard her talking in her sleep. By the time I'd gotten out here, she was just... gone."

Emma ran back to her room, pulling on a pair of jeans and frisking the pockets of her coat for her phone. She found the item and began hitting a series of numbers before clapping the phone to her ear and pulling on the jacket she'd removed it from.

"Who are you calling?"

"Mary-Margret and David, I'm going to need help finding her."

"Can I go with you?"

"I can't just leave you here... We'll have to find a place for you to hang. I wonder if Ruby could help..."

"How far could she have gotten? It hasn't been very long."

"Someone on the run can go a long way in a short time. She ran from me before her accident, I slip her a memory potion and suddenly she runs off again. Something's up, and if she's trying to get away she could be anywhere in Storybrooke by now. Also, if her memories came back, that's proof that she was affected by the curse. We've got to stop her from crossing the town line - she doesn't know anything about it." She paused when a groggy voice came through the earpiece. "David? Yes, I know what time it is. We have a situation."

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Killian was flopped back into a chair, sitting with his feet propped up on his desk, not giving a damn about the maps and navigational charts under his boots, chin resting on top of his fist. He didn't know how long he'd been there, exactly. Long enough for it to have gotten dark. He hadn't noticed it getting dark. He'd just glanced up and, well, it was night. It took him a few moments of sitting there in the dark like that to convince him that he should move.

Get a light. Go to sleep. Do something.

He reluctantly stood, realizing he must have been in that position for a very long time if the stiffness that had spread throughout his body was any indication. He stretched, starting with his arms then turning to stretch out his back, staying in that position until his muscles quivered beneath the soft fabric of the strangely-styled shirt he'd acquired. He pulled a lamp that he was just barely able to see nearer to him before he fumbled around his desk for the lighter he'd pilfered from Emma's desk one morning.

There were a few (okay, a lot of) things about Storybrooke that he was not keen on (Cars being among them. He saw their usefulness but had less and less desire to be near them as the days went by.), but there were some novelty items that he'd found quite accommodating. Like Emma's lighter. She'd pulled it out of her desk drawer to melt the end of a fraying nylon shoelace she'd been fussing with. Killian thought it was the most agreeable thing he'd ever seen - it was plain perfect - but didn't say anything for fear of coming off as ignorant and misinformed. She'd not noticed its disappearance, so he was guessing that she didn't use it very often and would not miss it.

With a simple flick (A simple flick. He loved it.), he illuminated the dark cabin with the lamp he kept on his desk. He glanced at the clock. God, he'd been sitting there for longer than he'd feared. He'd been thinking for too long. Now the day was gone and he had nothing to show for it, not even the simplest solution.

Options. Problems. He didn't like the fact that his options would only serve to confuse the problems, no matter what course of action he took. He was good with problems, that skill was never called into question, but when he had more than one big problem to dissect it drained his head of all reasonable thoughts and he couldn't solve a single one of them.

He had a one-track mind, and it had just gotten violently derailed (for the second time) by a small female who had no idea what kind of chaos she was really causing. He hadn't expected to ever see her again. She had gone, and that had been the end of it. Not that he'd never wondered, and thinking on it now he berated himself for not even considering that he'd run into her in Storybrooke. It had occurred to him for only a second that whatever place the curse was transporting them to would involve her, but it had occurred to him, and he'd ignored it. He'd pushed the ideas that were building in his head away because he had been close, so close to killing Rumpelstiltskin. Nothing else had mattered. Not who he had to work with, not who he had to face, not who he left behind. Now here he was back in the same tangled mess he'd been in to start with, and it was worse now because he'd burned a lot of bridges when it came to allies. As a matter of fact, anyone who'd met or heard of him previously had a pretty unsavory opinion of him. He'd had a few altercations with some locals.

Actually, that was how he'd gotten into the habit of being around Emma so often. She'd arrested him and thrown him in the holding cell one afternoon, and well, they got to talking. Emma had said that although no one was very happy about him running around, she wasn't worried about him for the most part. She did warn him that she'd be keeping a close watch on him.

Well, Emma could wait and Emma could watch, but he wasn't going to give her any reason to get skeptical. He didn't really have anything for her to be skeptical about; Until now, that is. He could have covered his ass a lot better than he had under other circumstances, but he'd been caught too off guard. He was lucky he'd come up with what he did considering the conditions, half-baked and lame as it was. Still, he cringed when he thought of his lack of preparation.

Deal with the girl first. She will be the bigger problem if the Dark One finds out.

He strode to the other side of his cabin, leaning against the window frame to stare out at the marina. He hadn't docked there, the Jolly Roger was just a little bit in-your-face over there, but he could see the other boats floating quietly offshore. Usually it helped him think, - or stop thinking, in some cases - but it wasn't helping him do either of these things tonight and he wasn't happy about it.

He considered trying to sleep, but he reasoned that he would lie there awake for possibly hours, something he hated. He weighed a few more options of all the things one could do by one's self at two AM, and he settled on the least productive but most mentally liberating - rum. He'd have to go down into the hold to get some, so he grabbed the lamp and followed its flickering light across the deck to the lowest parts of the ship.

There was an uncomfortable feeling looming around him, nagging the back of his mind. He couldn't get rid of it no matter how hard he tried to shake it, and he finally decided to stop fighting it and figure out exactly what it was. The rum would help.

He grabbed the nearest glass bottle available, and realizing it was empty, tossed it to the ground in frustration. He'd always had a decent supply on hand, but he hadn't restocked in a while and given that he'd taken to doing what he was doing tonight (with the insomnia and nagging problems), he'd depleted his resources bottle by bottle.

Damn it.

There was that one place in town... They'd more than likely still be open at this time... Oh, but he hated to do that. Drink in public, that is. If you were celebrating with friends it was one thing, if you were trying to loosen your thoughts, it was another.

Oh well, he'd live.

He walked back to the deck, extinguishing the lamp once he was outside and the stars gave him enough light to see by. Once he was off the ship, he covered the distance between his ship and the rest of the marina in a few minutes, and once he'd reached the paved sidewalk that would lead him to his rum, the uncomfortable feeling was hanging over him again.

He hated not knowing exactly why he was so uncomfortable... The unidentified problem C! Of course, he should have known.

For the hundredth time he replayed his thoughts, trying to find clues that would solve the mysterious problem C and still he hadn't managed to unravel the tangled mess that apparently existed only in his head.

He sifted through his thoughts for any possible explanation for there being a problem C as he walked briskly towards the Rabbit Hole (Granny's was closed). Each step took him past buildings that were silent at this time of the night, the dim streetlights casting an eerie glow across the pavement. It was perfectly quiet, a far cry from what he'd find at his destination, so he decided to enjoy it while it lasted and forget about untangling his elusive problem.

For a long time, the quietness was disturbed only by the sound of his footsteps. However, when he paused to check that he was going in the right direction, he realized that the methodical tap tap tap against the cement had continued.

Someone else was walking nearby.

How odd, he thought. He listened for a moment, trying to pinpoint the direction of the footfalls. There was too much of an echo with the empty streets, the sounds just bounced off the buildings. He turned to scan the area for any signs of the footsteps' owner, but saw nothing and concluding that they were around some corner where he couldn't see.

The footsteps grew louder, but his gut instinct wasn't telling him that there was any danger, so he continued on his way. The louder the footfalls grew, the louder the echo became. It was still hard to decipher exactly which direction they were coming from, but Killian determined that they were most likely coming from the direction behind him.

He turned a corner, and jumped in surprise when he almost ran over a blonde who was walking too quickly to really see where she was going.

"Swan?"

"God... you just scared the shit out of me!" Emma placed one hand on her chest as if to slow her heartbeat. Her words were breathy, as if she'd been walking like that for a while. The minor adrenaline rush probably hadn't helped either.

"What are you doing out here? There's some very unsavory characters about at this time." He winked. Emma rolled her eyes. He realized that he hadn't really meant to say anything flirtatious, it had just come out.

Bloody hell, that was it.

The unidentified problem C! How could he have been so stupid?

Emma.

"If I tell you, you have to help."

"I beg your pardon?"

"If I tell you why I'm running around in the dark at two-thirty in the morning, you have to help me. And you can't mock me, because this is the second time it's happened and you're going to say something sarcastic."

"Who, me?" He said innocently.

"Goodnight." She moved to step around him.

Well, he did kind of want to know. But then again, now that he'd figured out that Emma was his mysterious problem C, he really needed that drink.

"Alright," he said. "Pirate's honor."

"Yeah, because that's something to go on."

"You want my help or not?"

Emma paused.

"I lost the kid."

"Henry?"

"Hook!"

"How in the name of God do you lose the same child twice in one day?"

Oh, fuck. She'd forgotten that he didn't know about Gold's potion. She'd forgotten that she'd very specifically not told him.

"It's easier than you'd think," she replied. "We have to find her before she crosses the town line. Up for a search?"

"Even I can kept better tabs on her than you lot, and I'm not even involved in your kidnapping scheme," He replied. Before Emma could protest to the comment about the 'kidnapping', he finished with, "So I guess it's only sensible that I assist you."

"Good," Emma replied. "Ruby's trying to track her, David and Mary-Margaret are checking out by the woods. I told them I'd take the marina. You can help me."

"We should check the bar. That's where I'd go."

"Ha ha, very funny." She stepped around him a continued her power-walk towards the marina, and with one last longing glance in the direction of his previous destination, Killian followed.

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A/N: If you reviewed or have been following, I'd like to thank you -again- for sticking by me with this! I know I've said it before, but you guys are the reason I keep writing this. Thank you for the encouragement. (teary-eyed hug)

God, I wasn't going to do this... but I have to give another shout-out to Honeydewmelon56 for giving me a shout-out on her profile. =D You are awesome!