Got two requests for a continuation of chapter 34 with Emma's parents finding and confronting them, so here we go! I wasn't entirely sure how I wanted it to end as I was writing but this is what I came up with. Enjoy - it's a nice long one :) and Happy New Year!

35. Free

"Good, good!" Hook said, watching as Emma parried his attack and sidestepped out of the way. She was naturally nimble, thus making her footwork as superb as he could have hoped, and she had some minor experience with swords, having been taught a little by her father, but she had only learned proper stances; she didn't know how to fight like a pirate.

Soon enough, she would. Already, in the past week, she was beginning to anticipate his feints, starting to read his body language. He was doing the same though, and the next time he grinned was because he knew he had her.

He blocked her downward chop, pushing her cutlass up. He stepped in close to her and slid his foot behind hers. Face to face, only a few inches between their noses, she watched the smile that spread across his face. With that close proximity, her heart skipped a beat; she knew that look. And barely half a second later, she felt him give her a light push backwards. She let the surprise fill her eyes as she went to step backwards and tripped over his carefully positioned foot.

"Woah!" she exclaimed as she tumbled back. Just before hitting the deck, he grabbed her outstretched hand, stopping her fall.

"Remember," he said, that smirk still on his lips, "keep your balance."

She pursed her lips as she looked at him, unamused, but light danced in her eyes. He pulled her gently back to her feet, back to her position barely inches away from his face. Her eyes darted between his eyes and his mouth; it had only been a week since the first time she had met those lips with hers, but she doubted the feeling would ever get old.

Unbeknownst to the other, both of their hearts raced, quite perfectly in sync. He tilted her head up with a finger under her chin, closing those last few agonizing inches -

"THE ROYAL NAVY!"

Two heads snapped up to the crow's nest, their private moment completely ruined. They exchanged worried glances, hearts racing for an entirely different reason this time.

Hook ran to the crow's nest and called, "How many?"

"Two, Captain! Behind us!"

He met Emma at the aft, and the pair stared at the two black specks on the horizon. He brought his hand up to the small of her back, delicately placed but reassuring.

"We can outrun them," he said quietly in her ear, pressing his face into her hair. The scent of her hair mixed with the cool ocean breeze. It had turned into a kind of kryptonite he was unable to resist.

But he was jolted from his trance as he realized she was shaking her head. "We can't."

He turned her to face him, eyebrows raised. "Your faith in my ability is quite touching," he joked.

The smallest of smiles reached her mouth, but not her eyes. "I have no doubt you can outrun them, out sail them, any day, even with the wind against you." She placed her hand on his chest. "But we shouldn't, because that's all this will become. Day after day, running and outrunning over and over, always on the lookout -"

"Love, I'm a pirate," he reminded her softly, rubbing his hand up and down her arm, comforting. "My face has seen its fair share of wanted posters, I've done my fair share of running."

"Killian, please, listen to me. They'll think you've kidnapped me." He saw her eyes start to shimmer. "You'll be branded for treason, and they'll stop at nothing to hunt you down." She turned away from him, and he heard her voice start to shake. "I'm so sorry, Killian, this is all my fault. I was so stupid, to believe this could actually work, that I could stay here with you without any repercussions."

With a sad smile on his lips, Killian turned her face back to his. "I knew what I was getting myself into, Love."

Emma did not believe anything could be quite as loud as the CRACK of wood on wood as the plank was put in position to act as a bridge between the two ships. Nor as loud as the rapid thud, thud, thud, of her parents' boots as they crossed that plank and stepped onto the Jolly.

And then she saw their faces, and someway, somehow, that was even louder. The strange mixture of terror and fury seemed to scream at her, sending chills down her spine. And then relief, as their eyes landed on her, followed quickly by astonishment, as they searched but did not find any bonds holding her in place, no threatening knife held to her throat.

"This, Pirate, is your one and only chance to let her go," King David said. Emma knew her father; if he had planned to say that, he would say it anyway.

Emma stepped forward, even though King David had addressed Hook. "He did not kidnap me. I went with him of my own volition."

"Emma," her mother breathed, shaking her head in confusion, as if she could blink and they would all wake up in the royal palace for just another ordinary day. "You are a princess."

"I'm aware," Emma replied, "and he will not have the threat of treason over his head."

She watched her father's eyes grow wider and wider, bewilderment and anger vying for control. And then he trained his eyes on Hook. "You miserable bastard," he said, his voice as eerily quiet as the scrape of steel as he drew his sword from its scabbard. Without thinking, Emma took a step forward, placing herself between her father and her pirate. "What kind of dark magic is this, brainwashing? What have you done to her?"

"I have done nothing to her, Your Majesty," Killian answered, his voice steady, his demeanor composed. "I would never do anything to hurt her, you have my word -"

"Your word," King David spat. He let out a short bark of humorless laughter. "And what does the word of a pirate mean, exactly? Because I would take that as a solid 'maybe I'm telling the truth.'"

Emma balled her fists in frustration. She looked to her mother, but the only thing she could read there was sadness and...pity? "Father -"

"Yes!" he shouted, finally raising his voice. "I am your father, you are my daughter, and as such you will -"

"I am your daughter!" she cried, "but I am NOT a child!" David looked as if she had slapped him in the face instead of interrupted his sentence; Snow had her eyes closed. "I'm eighteen years old! Tell me, why am I old enough to marry but not old enough to choose whom? Why am I old enough to rule a kingdom but not old enough to rule my own life?"

David paused, at a loss for words but angry momentum carrying him forward nonetheless. "Because-"

"She's right, David."

Emma exchanged a slack-jawed look with Killian, while David turned to his wife, looking at her like she had thrown a punch to his gut. "Snow," he said quietly, "she's too young to know or understand."

"She's no older than you were when you defied your father, broke off your engagement, and fell in love with a wanted bandit." She stepped towards him and brought a comforting hand up to his cheek. "How different is this?" She didn't give her husband time to answer before she walked to Emma and took her daughter's hands in her own. "Why did you do this?" It was not an accusatory statement, nor was there any demand behind the words; just genuine curiosity.

Emma took a deep, shuddering breath, unsure now that she was given the opportunity how exactly to express the feelings she had kept bottled up inside. "The palace began to feel like a prison," she admitted. "Rides through the forest weren't enough. I was always surrounded by guards on the same paths that I could walk blindfolded. There was never anything new or exciting or...or liberating." She swallowed. "So I snuck out my window. I wasn't sure where I was going, and this had honestly not been my plan." She gestured to the Jolly and the open sea. "I was going to be back before dawn. But somehow it happened, after I met Killian, because I had never felt more free."

"Why didn't you ever say anything to us?"

Emma looked into her father's eyes, vaguely wondering if it was possible for her to hurt him more than she already had, and desperately hoping it was not. "I couldn't. You and Mom never seemed to be around. The archery lesson, the trip into town, the family dinner, the ride in the forest, it was always tomorrow." She looked down at her feet. "And I never wanted to say anything, because I didn't know if there was something going on that my complaining would only make worse. I didn't think it would be fair if -"

She was cut off as two pairs of arms wrapped themselves around her and her face was smushed into her father's chest. "I'm so sorry, Emma," he muttered close to her ear.

She shut her eyes tight and held on to this moment. "If I return home, I want freer reign." Tears started to leak from her eyes. "And no harm will come to Killian."

She felt her father tense, and when he pulled away there was a hardness in his eyes that was only somewhat softened when his wife touched his arm. "No harm will come to the pirate," he conceded. "Consider this your probationary period," he added, addressing Hook directly.

Hook gave a quick nod in response, but Emma could see the tension in his shoulders, in the crease on his forehead. She removed herself from her family, threw her arms around Killian instead, and immediately felt him relax. "I'm sorry," she said.

"Nonsense," he murmured back, stroking her hair.

"It would have been easier had you never met me."

He chuckled lightly. "Easier, perhaps. But nothing good ever came easy." She pulled away when she felt him move a bit. From his pocket, he drew a leather box, the compass she had seen him use multiple times during the week. "Here," he said. He took her hand, opened it, and placed the compass in her palm. "I want you to have this."

She lifted the lid of the leather box and watched in confusion as the arrow first pointed to Killian, then to her parents, then back again, swinging between the two directions nonstop. "I don't understand..."

"A compass, Love, doesn't necessarily point north. It points you in the direction you want to go." He looked down at the arrow, still whizzing about. "You're torn." He shut the lid, took the box in his own hand, opened it, and saw the arrow flipping between Emma and the open sea. "As am I."

"No one ever said you can only have one home."

"Exactly," he said, taking her hand again. "For now, though, that is where you belong. This is where I belong." He gave her back the compass and curled her fingers around it.

"For now?" she repeated.

No mischievous glint in his eyes, no corner of his mouth upturned in a smirk, no light, easy-going tone in his voice. Just hope, sincerity, and a promise: "I'll be damned if I let it stay that way forever."

Hopefully not too bad, I really had no idea where I was going with this because I didn't know how I wanted it to end soooo let me know what you think!