This has actually been written for a long time and I do mean a long time, I just found that I wasn't happy with it and I couldn't work out why. I am still not 100% happy with it but I did work out that it was the Emma/Charming stuff that was proving difficult to write.

The next chapter will not take half as long to post.

Emma woke up to find herself in an unknown room, but judging from the rocking she was still on board the Jolly Roger. She turned over on the bed and saw her mom slumped in a chair beside the bed, Emma carefully lifted herself up trying not to make too much noise. Unfortunately all her best intentions were for naught because as soon as she moved the bed creaked and Mary Margaret all but flew out of the chair.

"Oh Emma you scared me." She said as she moved towards the bed placing a hand over her heart.

"How long have I been out?" Emma asked planting a hand by her side while reaching with the other on to straighten out the pillows behind her back.

"Only a couple of hours, Regina thinks the magic you two used down in the mine caught up with you."

"That's reasonable. Wait Regina said that?" Emma questioned after a second or two.

"Yep, I was as shocked as you are trust me."

"Where am I?" Emma looked around the cabin trying to work out where she was. She noticed the desk in one corner which was obviously where the chair Mary Margaret had been asleep in had come from. There were papers strewn haphazardly across the desk, a map of a land Emma didn't know on the wall behind it. There were lanterns on a couple of smaller tables on either side of the bed which hadn't been lit. Emma looked back to her left and saw two small portholes which had been covered in red fabric, this caused everything in the room to have a red tinge as the sunlight beamed through them. Emma found the room to be quite comfortable, especially the bed covered in its plush red coverlet with matching red pillows. At some point there had obviously been a woman involved in the decorating of the room.

"Hooks cabin," Mary Margaret said with a bright smile.

"Why are you smiling like that?" Emma asked her mom confused, the answer explained where she was and the opulence of the room but the smile was disarming.

"Well honey," Mary Margaret said as she moved to sit next to her daughter on the bed, she moved some pillows for comfort before continuing. "I think Hook likes you."

"Don't be stupid," was all Emma could think to say. She pushed her mom with her shoulder as she shook her head dismissively.

"Emma lets be honest he is good looking for a pirate. You are a beautiful young woman I can't blame him for finding you attractive. However I would prefer not to have a pirate in the family."

"Because having the Evil Queen, Prince Charming, Snow White, Rumplestiltskin and the Saviour in one family is clearly enough fairy taleness and adding Captain Hook would just take us over that limit."

"Exactly," Snow said with a smile.

"You are so strange at times," Emma shook her head bemusedly.

"At least you know where you get it from."

"Hey now, I get many things from you my love of cinnamon in hot chocolate, which by the way I still find strange because that isn't a genetic thing. Anyway I get that, my ability to tell if someone is lying and my chin. However I do not get the weirdness from you, because I am not weird." Emma pointed to herself as she said the final words.

"Stubborn, you forgot stubborn."

"I am not stubborn." Mary Margaret watched her daughter cross her arms over her chest as she spoke.

"Point proven." She smirked at Emma before continuing. "What did you mean that you get your ability to tell if someone is lying from me?" She turned her head inquisitively towards her daughter.

"I think it has something to do with people's inability to lie to you. Something about you makes people want to tell you the truth and trust me its annoying at times." Emma explained, she would never admit it to anyone but she was enjoying spending time with her mom she just wished her son was here as well. Her face must have betrayed her thoughts because Mary Margaret smiled sadly and spoke softly.

"We will find him Emma."

"How do you know?"

"Because its what we do, our family always finds each other." Mary Margaret shrugged.

"I just want to hold him and tell him I love him." Emma leaned her head on her mom's shoulder and smiled slightly as her mom rested her own on top. Emma could not remember ever feeling this unconditionally loved, not even with Neal. She knew that Neal loved her but it was different with her dad and more so with her mom.

"He knows Em, if he knows you then he knows. We'll find him and we'll all be together as one big happy family."

"You are amazing you know that."

"It's the Snow White thing, I'm always looking for that silver lining in life."

"I'm glad you are my mom. I told Jefferson as much when he kidnapped us, but now I know the truth I find I really am." Emma lifted her head off her mom's shoulder and looked her in the eye as she spoke.

"I'm proud of you Emma. Even in my wildest dreams I never thought my daughter would grow up to be as kind, honest and strong as you." Emma could detect no lie in Mary Margaret's face, voice or eyes and smiled brightly at her.

"Right lets get back up top and find my son!" Emma all but jumped off the bed, immediately regretting the decision to move so fast when her head started spinning. "Woah, lets move a little bit slower."

"Ok," Mary Margaret said as if it had been her idea to move so fast. "Just be careful Emma, oh and honey."

"Yeah," Emma stood by the door out of the cabin and waited for Snow to catch up.

"Could you talk to your father at some point. I know its awkward between you two but I would love for you two to be as close as we are someday. Knowing Charming like I do he won't come to you because he won't want to crowd you, I think you need to make the first move towards him."

"What can we talk about?" The two women walked out of the cabin and headed back up towards the deck together.

"Well you are both dragon slayers," Mary Margaret shrugged from beside her daughter.

"That is something I suppose." Emma contemplated as they walked out into the sunlight.

"Hello there Swan, it's nice to see you up and about. Next time I'll carry you to my room myself." Hook greeted with a smirk and a wink.

"You really are disgusting at times," Emma turned away from Hook and walked down to the main deck followed by her mother.

"I told you," the brunette whispered in the blonde's ear as they approached her father.

"Are you feeling better now?" David asked as they reached him.

"Yeah, thanks for carrying me to the room," Emma smiled shyly at him.

"Well I'm gonna go..." Mary Margaret just pointed over her shoulder and walked away even though she had nowhere to go and nothing to do. The father and daughter just stood and watched her lean against the railing on the other side of the ship as she looked out towards the island they were heading towards.

"That was subtle," Emma said quietly as she turned her back to the ship and looked out towards the sea.

"Your mother never was very subtle." David mimicked his daughters position. "Are you sure you are feeling better?"

"Yeah I'm fine." Emma played with the cuff of her jacket as she stared out across the sea not knowing what to say. She looked across at David slyly and saw that he looked as nervous as she felt. "I never knew it would be so awkward having my parents in my life." She said quietly.

"I never knew I would feel so awkward around my daughter," David sighed. "We have nothing in common."

"Well I hear you have slain a dragon," Emma saw the movement of David's head as he nodded his assent.

"And placed a golden egg containing a potion made of mine and your mother's hairs in another."

"You placed the potion in the dragon that I had to fight to get back?" Emma turned to her father with a look of amazement on her face.

"Yeah, Maleficent."

"What?"

"The dragon's name, Maleficent."

"As in Sleeping Beauty?"

"What?" It was David's turn to be confused now, Emma smiled finally knowing something about the Enchanted Forest that her father didn't.

"A princess who pricked her finger on a poisoned spinning wheel. Maleficent was the witch who poisoned it, Sleeping Curse." Emma shook her head as she said the words, it still amazed her that everyone in the Enchanted Forest apparently loved a good sleeping curse. "She is actually called Aurora and mom and I met her in the Enchanted Forest."

"So she would be the Aurora Henry met in the Netherworld?" David was trying to make sense of the story.

"Yep..." Emma trailed off as she struggled for anything else to say. "This is just strange, its easy with mom we were friends before." She said eventually sighing heavily as the words came out. Emma turned away from her father and gripped the edge of the ship with such strength that her knuckles began to turn white.

"I get it trust me. I know that a lot of how you feel about me comes from what happened before the curse broke."

"Oh..." Emma bit her lip she had hoped she had managed to hide the disdain she had previously felt towards David better than she obviously had. "I'm sorry if it came across that I hated you."

"Em, you had every right to." David turned and leant his hip against the ship so that he was facing his daughter as he spoke. "I broke your best friends heart. I don't like what I did to her then Emma but I can't change the past. You have to know that now I would never do anything to hurt her. You, Snow and Henry are my life and without one of you I feel incomplete." Emma watched her fathers face as he spoke, she saw so many emotions swirling in his eyes love, anger, sorrow.

"If mom can forgive you for the past then I suppose I can as well, but I don't think I can ever forget what you did. I know I will never forget the look she had on her face after you spoke to her that day in the Sheriff's office; I can never forget the sorrow that settled in my heart as I watched her cry over you." Emma knew she was being hard on her dad but she needed him to understand the full extent of his actions. There was one thing she wouldn't admit though, at least not out loud, she would never admit that she wanted her father to love her, that she wanted him to hug her and tell her everything would be alright. That was just not going to happen...well yet anyway.

"I suppose I can't expect more than that." David looked deflated as he spoke. "I just want a chance to be your father and to know you like your mother does." He turned his body back so that he was facing the sea and hoped that Emma hadn't caught the tears that had started to fill his eyes as he had spoken. He blinked a few times to try and clear his eyes.

"It's not that easy," Emma pushed away from the railing and paced away from her father before returning to her position. "You are my father so I guess I love you," she turned and saw the small smile on his face as he continued to look out at the sea. "I want to be close to you, I want to know everything that wasn't in Henry's book. I want you to be proud of me, I want you to forgive every terrible thing I have done in my life but more than that I just want you to love me. I can't believe I just said all that!" Emma buried her face in her hands to hide the shame she felt at admitting something she had promised herself she wouldn't yet.

"Oh Emma, honey," David placed his hands on Emma's shoulders and turned her so that they were facing each other. He gently pulled her hands away from her face and blue met blue as her hands fell to her sides. "I do love you. I have loved you from the moment Snow found out she was pregnant. I never want you to doubt that and as for being proud of you I already am, you are the strongest woman I know. I don't know what you have been through and I hope one day you can tell me but I will never ever believe you have done anything terrible."

"Trust me I have done terrible things." Emma continued to meet her father's gaze as she spoke so that he would know she was being honest. "One day I may even tell you, because lets be honest I can't tell mom she has me on some kind of pedestal." David laughed loudly and glanced over at his wife, he saw her spin her head quickly but he knew she was watching them.

"She just loves you."

"Yeah but its hard trying not to fall off when you are that high up."

"You kind of have her on a pedestal as well though," David shrugged, at Emma's confused look he continued. "She's your mother and your best friend so in your eyes she will never do anything wrong. It's not a bad thing all girls idolise their mothers, I just thought I would let you know you have done the same to her. You two are more alike than you care to admit."

"Yeah well she's Snow White there's no pedestal high enough for her. I'm sorry," Emma mumbled.

"For what?" David wrinkled his brow as he asked the question confusion shining in his eyes.

"For everything, I know this isn't how you imagined having your daughter in your life-"

"I'll have you anyway I can." Charming cut Emma off before she could finish. "Just so you know after we find Henry I will help you find Neal." Emma stood shocked for a second before all but throwing herself at Charming and hugging him tightly. He was bemused for a second before he returned the hug knowing it would probably be awhile before he received another one.

"Thank you," Emma whispered in his ear.

"Anytime, anything." He responded before letting his daughter go. "I mean it Emma, I will help you with anything, anytime. I love you absolutely and unconditionally, nothing will ever change that so never doubt it."

"I love you too. Mom thinks that Hook likes me." Emma said bluntly, abruptly changing the subject and lightening the mood slightly, she watched David stare over her head at the captain. He narrowed his eyes and Emma knew Hook was watching them, when his gaze returned to her she knew Hook was looking elsewhere.

"Oh he definitely likes you. It is the only explanation for everything he has done, he has spent hundreds of years being a selfish pirate and suddenly he wants to be someone else. That is definitely down to you. Things really do change around you Emma but he isn't good enough for you." David smiled and winked at his daughter with the last statement. Emma felt her heart leap; without knowing it she had waited a lifetime to hear her father say those words. Now that he had, even if they were the same age, she was thrilled that he disapproved of at least one man in her life.

"Shall we go join mom?" Emma asked, David nodded and taking a chance he pulled Emma into his side as they turned to walk across the ship. Father and daughter both smiled as their arms slid around shoulder and waist respectively. It was less awkward now but David knew Emma would never forget what had happened while he was cursed, he could only hope that with time he could erase those thoughts and replace them with memories of the man he truly was. David was a coward but Prince Charming was anything but and he would prove himself worthy of Emma's love and more importantly her respect and forgiveness.