"Is it legal to keep those here?" Emma asked, as she watched Gold and August unpack large shipping crates full of weapons. During the week, her watcher had installed a large metal cage in the library, with further metal cupboards inside of it. And every day, the variety of weapons contained within them grew larger.

"Technically, I'm not sure any of this would be classified as legal," the other man pointed out, as he handed August an ancient looking axe. "But we must make do with the situation that has presented itself."

Emma rolled her eyes at the stuffiness that was always present in his tone, but at the sound of the gentle beeping of the stopwatch, hit the button to increase the speed on her treadmill.

Ever since she'd dropped her bombshell on August and Zelena, the three of them had been spending most of their free time in library. Gold had been happy to see that Emma was suddenly taking an interest in her destiny, and while she stubbornly refused to do the required reading, Zelena was more than happy to pick up the slack. Even though the idea of vampires and monsters had terrified her at first, she was finding it fascinating to read about an entirely different world from the one she'd thought she'd known.

"How are you not winded yet?" August scoffed, as he paused to watch his friend's pace pick up a little, as she continued her assessment. Gold had wanted to measure Emma's physical fitness, before he began her training. So Emma had spent all of her Saturday morning following some kind of fitness routine that he had devised, while her friends watched on.

"Slayer," she shrugged, because it was the only explanation she had for it. Emma used to get winded running up a staircase. Now, she could spend seventy-three minutes on a treadmill that was systematically increasing both the speed and incline she was running at, and still carry on a conversation with those around her.

"Ugh. I need to hit the gym more often," August mumbled to himself, as he began arranging the axes by their size, in the cupboards.

When the timer on the treadmill finally signaled the end of the session, Emma hopped off and moved over to fall into the seat beside her friend. She might not have been exhausted from the workout, but she was hungry. And thirsty.

"Whatcha reading?" she asked, as she reached for the tray of snacks Gold had laid out for the teenagers to pick at.

"Watcher's journals," Zelena answered, as she marked her page with a piece of ribbon and closed the book. "Mr. Gold let me start with the earliest ones he owned, and while these clearly don't date back to the very first slayer, they give a good history of what slayers have been through in the past, and what they're expected to do in the future."

"Cool."

Emma could definitely see the appeal in reading the journals. She could imagine that they would not only provide her with a wealth of knowledge and understanding on everything that was lurking in the dark, ready to attack her. But would also help her prepare for those attacks.

However, Emma had also seen Gold unpack those journals. There were never more than two that looked identical. A watcher would begin their journal when their slayer was called, and would end them when the slayer's journey ended. Which meant that most of the slayers from the past few hundred years hadn't lived long enough to fill more than two journals.

Emma might have been ready to accept her duties as a slayer, but she definitely wasn't ready to confront her own mortality.

"Well, these are promising," Gold declared, as he looked over the numbers that charted Emma's progress throughout the morning.

"Does that mean you're finally gonna start training me?" she asked. It wasn't that Emma was against the workouts he'd been putting her through. She'd actually felt good about doing them. It was more that she was itching for him to show her something real, so she could get out on the streets and put that knowledge to some use.

"I guess so," Gold agreed, as he pushed his glasses a little further up his nose. "But Emma, this is not something we should be rushing into. This is a whole new world for you. We need to take the time to ease you into this gently. To give you the best chance we possibly can."

"And how many people will die until then?" she snapped back. Gold's face fell a little, and she knew she was on to a winning argument. "You brought me into this world. And now I need to start doing my job. I checked the papers every day this week, to see if anyone had died while you'd been making me read about vampire lore, and taking my damned blood pressure. I need to be out there, Gold. Before someone else gets hurt."

Gold's face softened a little at her impassioned plea, but he still looked reluctant to rush into anything. Emma knew that he was only doing his best to protect her. But she also knew that she'd never be able to live with herself, if someone died because she wasn't out there doing her job.

So she decided to land her killer blow.

"If you're not gonna train me, I can always ask Killian to do it."

"Who's Killian?" Zelena and August called out. They had both been stood around a little awkwardly, as they listened to the argument taking place in front of them. They knew why Gold was reluctant to rush into training Emma, and they had both had their own fight over whether or not he was right to hold back on their friend. But neither one of them wanted to step between the watcher and his slayer.

"He's just some guy I met in town," Emma sighed. "He saved my life a few days ago."

"Is he a slayer too?" August asked.

"No. There is only ever one slayer," Gold stated firmly.

"So how do we know he can be trusted?" August had clearly lost interest in the weapons he had been sorting, as he was now stood just outside of the cage with his arms folded across his chest.

"Because he saved my life," Emma explained hotly. "I'm pretty sure if he was only out to kill me, he'd have done it by now. Or let that vampire do it for him. Plus, he was the one who warned me about the danger Zelena was in," she added, knowing that would help soften August's stance on the man.

"So he's on our side?" Zelena asked softly.

"Yeah. He is."

Emma's tone left absolutely no room for arguments in that statement.

"Hey," David greeted, lifting his head from the paper to watch as his daughter strolled into the kitchen later that afternoon. "Where have you been all morning?"

"Just out with friends. Are you not working today?"

Emma hadn't seen much of her father since they had arrived in Stroybrooke. But she knew that wouldn't last forever. Once David had the station back on its feet, and running to his liking, she knew he'd start cutting back his hours. She just wasn't expecting it to happen so soon.

"I gave myself the morning off," he explained. "I wanna see how my deputies handle things without me for a few hours. And I thought I could have lunch with my daughter while I waited."

Emma flicked her eyes over to the clock on the oven and cringed a little at the time it showed. She'd missed lunch by a good few hours. "Sorry, Dad. Is it too late?"

"It's never too late for a lunch date with my princess," he promised her, folding away the paper to stand. "I made a pasta salad, is that okay?"

"Perfect," she assured him, as she slid onto one of the stools at the breakfast bar.

While David busied himself with fixing them both a bowl of food, and a glass of juice, Emma pulled the paper towards herself to thumb through it. It hadn't been delivered in time for her to scan that morning, but she would have assumed that any sudden and odd deaths would have at least made one of the first five pages. So she breathed a heavy sigh of relief when she realized that there were once again no mentions of any kind of death in town.

"So, you've made friends already?" David asked, when he'd finally taken his own seat once more.

"Only a couple. But I think they're gonna be good friends."

David nodded his agreement as he took a moment to enjoy his meal, before finally asking the question that every father dreaded asking their teenage daughter. "Would any of those friends happen to be male?"

Emma snorted at her father's lack of tact, and gave him a few moments to sweat it out while she ate in silence. "One of them is a guy," she confirmed. "His name's August. He and Zelena have been friends since they were babies. But I don't think he's the kind of male friend you're asking about, is he?"

"I'm um… I'm glad you're settling in well," David deflected.

He'd worried that pulling Emma out of school and moving her across the state would lead to his daughter resenting him. He knew that she was at that place in her life where sudden changes could lead to a fracture in their relationship. But David should have known he'd have nothing to worry about. Emma had always been good at making friends and fitting in. Of course she'd already managed to achieve both of those goals, less than a month into her move to Storybrooke.

"I'm hoping these long shifts won't last much longer," he offered. "I hate leaving you alone so long."

"It's okay," Emma assured her father. She already knew he felt bad enough about everything that had led to their move to the small town. She didn't want to make him feel any worse about the situation. "I'm having fun exploring Storybrooke. And there's an under-twenty-one's club that my friends visit often. So it's not like I'm sat home alone in the dark."

David stood from his seat to move his empty dish over to the dishwasher, but detoured to place a kiss to his daughter's forehead as he passed her. "I promise we'll do something fun together when things ease up at work."

"I'll hold you to that."

Emma spent an hour at home with her father, helping him decide on a color to paint the kitchen, before he finally left for work that evening. She then spent a further hour alone in her bedroom, working on all of the homework she'd been set that week. While the library was calling to her, along with the promise of fight training that Gold had reluctantly agreed to before she'd left that afternoon, she didn't want to start falling behind on any of her school work either. That would only make David worry. And Emma didn't want to add to her father's list of current concerns.

By the time she left her house the sun had already set, and darkness was beginning to draw in around Storybrooke.

But there was something different about it that evening.

Emma could feel it prickling at her skin, raising the hairs on her arms. She was certain she wasn't being followed. She didn't know how she knew it, she just did.

But there was definitely something wrong in Storybrooke that evening.

She pulled the stake from her jacket pocket and grasped it firmly in her hand, as she picked up her speed. Emma practically jogged her way to the high school, and then through its corridors to get to the familiar comfort of the library.

"Emma?" Gold asked, when she pushed through the doors with far more force than was needed. Zelena and August were already there, and their heads snapped round to face their friend at her dramatic entrance.

"Can you feel that?" she asked.

"Feel what?" Gold closed the book he had open in his hands and placed it gently down onto the counter, as he took a step closer to her.

"There's something wrong," Emma declared firmly. She didn't care how insane it made her sound. Every fiber of her being could feel it.

"What do you mean?" Zelena asked, as she stood from her place at the table. She looked a little confused by her friend's cryptic words, and a hell of a lot more concerned by them.

Before Emma could open her mouth to reply, the ground beneath her feet began to tremble. The trembles built into something much stronger, shaking the foundations of the school as the books around them began falling from their shelves, and to the floor.

August pulled Zelena over to the doorway of Gold's office, keeping her tucked firmly into his chest, as Gold reached for the counter to keep himself on his feet.

But as quickly as it had begun, the trembles stopped. Leaving the ground beneath them firm and solid once more.

"Earthquake?" Zelena asked, as she looked between her friends and the older librarian.

They weren't unheard of in the state, but they were rarely large enough to cause buildings move.

"No. That was not an earthquake," came another voice from somewhere behind her, hidden in the shadows of the stacks.

A voice that Emma recognized all too well.

"It was the Hellmouth."

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