A/N: Sorry for the late update... I think I told you I won't be posting as quickly. Anyway, I hope you'll all enjoy it :D

Emma stomped her way up the stairs of the building, the disturbing itch she felt in her guts when she arrived at the meeting with the DA, the mayor and the private detective who looked at her oddly, August W. Booth or something similar, now the familiar stomach ache she feels when she knows something isn't right.

She got into the apartment and leaned tiredly against the closed door.

"Swan?"

She jumped lightly at Killian's voice. "What happened?" he asked.

"They're going to claim she murdered someone," Said Emma. "And they've been lying the entire time they told me that. She's innocent."

-xxx-

"Apparently she was having an affair with a guy named David Nolan. His wife's heart was found in a jewlery box of Mary Margaret's. Obviously, with her fingerprints on it." huffed Emma.

"Well, innocent or not, sounds like she's completely screwed." He said, frowning.

"Yeah." Sighed Emma. "I can't let this happen to her." She added.

He chuckled. "Of course you can't." It would have been extremely out of character if you could. He added in his mind.

-xxx-

Regina sat in the gray couch in her office.

"Was that your idea of keeping them away for each other?" asked King George. "Framing her?"

"It had to be done, their true love is dangerous."

"I thought you said only it's product was an actual threat, this daughter of theirs." He reminded her.

She grinned, a malicious gleam playing in her eyes. "I won't deny I'm enjoing this little playground we built with this curse. Remember we only cast it so we could finally pay our so called children back as they deserve."

King George smiled. "And indeed we did, Madam Mayor. This is their punishment, after all. They should be suffering."

"Your sheriff knows you're lying." Said a voice from the doorstep. They both turned to see the man they hired to frame Mary Margaret professionally. August W. something. Regina's expession became darker by the second.

"What makes you say that?" she asked, her tone dangerous. To her annoyance, he shrugged carelessly. "She just does. I know people of her kind. Perhaps you should have considered someone a bit more... controllable, for the job?"

Regina bit her lip in anger, making him shrug again.

"Look, lady, I don't really know what is going on in this town of yours, and I don't really care as long as I get paid. But if you hired me to set an old teacher up, I can assume you are involved in just about everything that is going on, and not in the good way."

"Just mind your own business." She spat out.

"Indeed I will." He chuckled."

After he left the office, he felt the urge to scream for about an hour.

Finally.

He had found her his best friend, from whom he was separated for almost 30 years by a curse.

Emma.

"I am setting sail to Neverland." Whispered Emma when she could see his eyes moving behind his eyelids, thre first sign of him being awake.

He opened one eye to see her sitting on the edge of her bed in the tavern room.

"Come again?" he sat up, confused and alarmed.

She sighed, runnung her fingers through her messy blonde lockes. "I know you heard me."

He rubbed his face with his palm. "Why?" he asked, and it was clear from his tone that it wasn't a pleasent surprise. Her heart clenched at that, but she couldn't tell if it was from happiness or sadness.

"I can't stay here." She chose to say. It was true, after all, a curse was coming. But his eyebrow was shot up.

"No, that's not all of it. You're running away from something. What is it?"

She sighed again, her shoulders rising and falling heavily. His good hand was sent to her shoulder, pulling at it lightly to make her look at him.

Cold fear fluttered in her stomach at the sincerity she saw in his almost-too-blue eyes.

"Love, what is it?" he asked again. He could practically see the wall she had built around her heart for protection shaking, the inner sturggle making her eyes shimmer with tears he knew she would ever shed when she's not alone.

"I have reasons to believe there's a big curse coming." She decided to say eventually, her eyes everywhere but on his. "I have decided it would be wise to avoid it."

He pressed his lips together, and then grabbed her wrist, catching her eyes with his. "This isn't running from something, lass." He said. "I know all sorts of running from my very own experience. And this, what you are trying to do, is running from someone. And believe me when I say, that even when you don't think so, the one you're running from is usually yourself."

She gulped as anger washed over her. But It disappeared slowly as she thought of the things he said.

Was the curse the only thing she was running from?

Yes, it had to be.

But why was she running instead of warning people?

Well, this one was easy. She was a pirate.

His voice suddenly invaded her thoughts.

"Why did you tell me of all people, love?" he asked softly. "About the curse. Why not tell your parents-"

"I don't have parents." She growled darkly.

"Are they... dead?" he asked gently.

"For as far as I concern they are."

The look in his eyes made her sigh.

"They stopped looking for me, Hook." She whispered after a long silence in a tone that broke his heart. "I was seventeen when he took me with him. Nineteen when I killed him, when I cried and stared at his blood on my hands for hours, after two years of nothing but violence; 20 when I became one of the most feared pirates on the high seas by myself. I was just a kid. Their kid. But I'm not a kid anymore. It has been over 10 years, And they have stopped looking a long time ago."

He knew she didn't want his pity, but felt the urge to hold this broken woman in his arms, promise her he'll never let her go. That he'll stay.

But he didn't.

Because everybody leaves, eventually. And they both knew it.

"Love, there is no guarantee they have ever stopped looking for you," he tried, moving to sit next to her. She snorted out a bitter laugh.

"Oh, if they would have kept looking for me they would have found me already."

"What makes you say that?" he asked. "Who are your parents, love?"

She laughed bitterly at that.

"Snow White and King James."

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