"You're up early."

David dropped his mug into the sink; the ceramic smashed against the stainless steel as he spun around to face his daughter.

"And jumpy," Emma teased, her eyes flicking down to where her father's right hand was now resting on the gun strapped to his hip.

"Jesus Christ, Emma. When did you get so sneaky?"

"Slayer reflexes," she explained, reaching for her favorite mug in one of the kitchen cupboards. "Gold says that now my training has started, those reflexes and instincts will begin to emerge. Unfortunately, I seem to be getting the lousy ones like stealth before the ones that could actually make a difference to my training – like strength and skill."

Emma turned away from the coffee machine with a steaming mug cradled between her hands to find her father staring at her like she'd grown an extra head.

"You uh… you do remember the conversation we had last night, right?"

"Yeah," he croaked out, because David wasn't sure he'd ever be able to forget that. He'd spent most of the night awake, researching vampires and Slayers on the internet and then pacing around the lounge. He'd been through the pros and cons of resigning his position and moving them across the country again over and over in his mind, before he'd finally come to the conclusion that it would never work. According to the very limited information he'd found online, the tile of Slayer would simply follow his daughter wherever she went, until the day she died. Which meant that in the end, he was left with only one viable option. The best way for him to keep his daughter safe was to help her shoulder this burden that had been thrust upon her.

"Yeah, I remember. It's just uh…"

"It's a lot to process," Emma finished for him. "I get it. I was there myself, not too long ago. Do you uh… do you maybe wanna come to training with me this morning? You could meet Gold and talk to him about it all. He has lots of books that might help you understand what being a Slayer entails. And who knows, your keen Sheriff's eye might even be able to see something that we're missing."

"Missing?" he asked, finally turning his attention down to the smashed mug in the sink as he began to fish out the broken pieces.

"Yeah. We're uh… we think something big is going to happen soon. Here. In Storybrooke. We just haven't quite worked out how it'll happen yet – or where."

"Is this something that I should be concerned about?" he asked.

Emma smirked a little as she watched the conflicted-dad look on his face morph into the concerned-Sheriff look her father wore so well.

"I don't know," she told him honestly. "Maybe… Probably."

Now that she was thinking about it, Emma was starting to believe that having her father on their side could only be a good thing. David would know more about what was happening in the town than anyone else ever would. He could help Emma work out where best to focus her attention and hopefully, with her father's assistance, she could save even more innocent lives.

"Why don't we head to the library now?" she suggested. "Everything we have and know is already there. I'm sure Gold's been working through the night again. He's a bit of a nerd."

"The library?" David asked, completely skipping over Emma's commentary on a member of the school's faculty. "As in… the school library? The library that hundreds of high school students use on a daily basis? That library?"

Emma snorted out a laugh as she downed the last of her coffee and then dropped the mug safely into the sink. "I think you're grossly overestimating how many students use the library regularly."

David gave her his best disapproving-father glare and Emma chuckled again.

"It's okay, Dad. Gold doesn't keep the books about Slaying with the stuff that the rest of the student body can access, and we don't leave all of our murder-boards on display for them either."

"Murder-boards?"

"Oh, yeah. This ain't no shoddy operation," she teased. "I'm not exactly sure it's a professional one either, but we're doing the best we can."

David nodded his head in understanding as he followed his daughter from the kitchen and into the hall. He still couldn't quite wrap his head around Emma and the whole Slayer thing that had been dropped into her lap, but he knew his daughter well enough to know that when faced with a huge amount of responsibility, Emma would do her best to shoulder it all with minimal complaints. In that respect, he couldn't imagine fate choosing a better person to defend the innocent against vampires and… whatever else lurked in the shadows. That didn't stop him from wishing fate had chosen someone else, however.

"So… the school?" he asked, pulling open the front door and gesturing for Emma to step out of the house ahead of him. David took a moment just to check himself for his badge, gun, and phone before he locked the door and then made his way around to the driver's side of his truck.

"Yep. Gold should be expecting us." When her father shot her a confused look, Emma quickly amended her statement. "Okay, he should be expecting me. But don't worry, we took you back to him last night when you were unconscious. He knows what you saw and he knows that I'd have told you the truth if you asked about it. I'm sure he's expecting you too."

"We? Whose we?" David demanded, as he climbed into the vehicle and watched his daughter take a moment to check over her reflection in the side mirror, before she did the same.

"Just me and a friend," Emma dismissed easily, but it was with the kind of tone that told her father she was hiding something else.

David found himself a little relieved about that. He wasn't entirely sure he was ready for any more bombshells just yet. It was taking every ounce of control he had to stop himself from locking the doors and just driving until he got his daughter away from Storybrooke and away from anyone – or anything – that might be trying to hurt her.

"Seriously, Emma. How many people in this town know you're a Slayer?" he asked instead.

"The Slayer," she corrected a little testily, before muttering, "And you're already starting to sound like Gold. I'm not sure this is such a good idea."

David shot his daughter another curious look that quickly melted into a fond smile as he reversed out of the driveway and headed straight for the local high school.

Thanks for reading and reviewing.

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