A/N: Hey! Kind of an early update, but I'm hoping no one minds. Thank you guys so, so much for your feedback. It means the world. I hope you enjoy this chapter!

-/-

She has one last order of business before she takes the job. It's unpaid, but Emma has always prided herself on being able to keep her promises. She isn't going to break the one she made to Henry. The kid has been through enough.

Emma spends hours trying to get the information through traditional means. She pulls up Henry's birth certificate, goes through those shady 'Who is your Mommy?' sites, and exhausts Storybrooke's court house.

The mother really didn't want to be found. The records are sealed.

Henry is just going to have to accept that.

It's not that she doesn't understand the mother, of course. She does. Too well, for whatever her reasons could have been. She's just not going to let herself be found, whether it's guilt or fear that motivated her to close the records in the first place. Emma has nearly resigned herself to this fact when she sits in the courthouse, after yet another government official informs her that, "No, being a private detective isn't grounds to open a sealed government document."

She considers if she would be able to do it as sheriff, but thinks about the prior abuse of power that ousted the last three public officials. Emma decides against it, for obvious reasons.

So, she sits at a bench, head between her knees, as she sighs. The kid asked for one thing and she couldn't even deliver on that. When Emma raises her head again, after much contemplation of how useless she suddenly feels, she notices something about one of the filing rooms.

The door is wide open.

She stands up, cautiously. Emma looks around for people that might notice what she's doing, but the receptionist is busy on the phone and the only other nearby courthouse patron, a man on another bench, has fallen asleep waiting for some document to get in. This might be her one chance to do sneak in and get what she came for.

What she's doing is slightly illegal. But, to be fair, she isn't yet sherriff.

She enters the room, easily. Sealed birth records, the sign on one of the cabinets says, suiting her purposes perfectly. Emma doesn't understand why these people still haven't upgraded to better filing systems, but she's thankful for it.

It's by a stroke of pure luck that she finds Henry Miller within five minutes of rummaging through the damn filing cabinet.

Emma pulls the certificate out, relieved to have finally done this and kept her damn promise. What she reads on it promptly makes her drop it like it's on fire.

'Mother: Emma Swan' is printed on it.

Emma's heart drops to the pit of her stomach with an overwhelming sense of pure panic.

As fucked up as it is, it makes sense. He's the right age. He's in the right area, if the limited information Ingrid told her about the woman who adopted him (who is now dead, apparently) was truthful. And the father section is left blank. Which...fits.

Because she ran away at 17 because of her own goddamn insecurities and met a guy who promised her the world and failed to deliver. Instead, Neal got her landed in prison for his own crime with a positive pregnancy test and few feasible options. She was just a kid herself, really.

She couldn't be a mother, didn't trust herself to be. The baby would be better off without her, anyway. Everyone would be.

(This was her thought process at the time, but there are definitely some of those patterns of thinking that stuck.)

(Patterns of thinking like not trusting herself with a kid.)

Emma picks the certificate up with shaking fingers, quickly putting it back in its place in the filing cabinet. She walks out of the room anxiously and no one gives her a second glance. It's not until after she off of the elevator to get to the parking lot that she throws up - quivering and miserable - into the nearest trash can thanks to the mixture of nerves and sheer anguish.

Serendipity, irony, fate...whatever you wanted to call it, it was a cruel and unfeeling bitch.

He's still better off without her, anyway.

-/-

Henry comes in again when she's packing the boxes in her office the next day. Her hands can't stop shaking, as much as she tries to calm herself down, and she nearly slices her thumb off when trying to use the tape roll with the jagged edge attached to it. Emma knows better than trying to open anything with the boxcutter, so she'll left helplessly stacking the boxes that she may or may not need for the station. The contents are probably hopelessly jumbled, giving she may as well be purposefully shaking them. It's a nervous tic she still hasn't managed to get over. It's only amplified further by the fact that her emotions aren't best described as 'nervous' as much as 'earth shattering despair and guilt'.

Henry's entrance only serves to put her more on edge.

(He must have inherited a terrible sense of timing from her. Hopefully he hasn't inherited much else from her.)

"Kid, what did I tell you about walking here?" Emma sighs, exasperated. She's trying to pretend like everything is normal and gets the distinct feeling she is failing miserably. How her voice almost warbles as she says it probably isn't helping matters. Neither is her horrible attempt at a firm and authoritative posture. "You know it's dangerous."

"Did you find my birth mother?" he asks, brown eyes (the color of Neal's) hopeful and wide.

Emma feels nauseous. She sets her palms on the desk and takes a deep breath, head bowed, before finding the words she wants to say. "You're not going to like what I have to say, kid."

Henry frowns. "Why?"

"Trust me on this," she mutters, combing her hand through her hair in agitation. "You're better off not knowing."

A tense pause passes between the two of them.

"Is she dead?" Henry asks, almost sniffling out the words. "Is my mom dead?"

Emma sighs, contemplating. She could lie to him. He'd be better off if she lied to him, she thinks. Or he could come back ten years later after he finds out the truth and hate her for the rest of his life.

Granted, him hating her is already more than a possibility here.

But she owes him answers, the answers she never got when she was abandoned on the side of a road without so much as a note. She at least owes this kid - her kid - what she used to yearn for. After all, aren't parents supposed to want for their kids what they were deprived of?

And that's what she is - a parent.

The thought is enough to make her head throb.

"She's not dead."

Henry lets out a long breath of relief.

"She's not dead," Emma repeats to him, leaning down on her haunches until she's eye level with him. "Your mom, she...she had you when she was at a really bad place in her life. She was young, only a few years older than you, and she made some bad decisions that landed her in jail. She gave birth to you handcuffed to a bed and knew she couldn't be the mother you deserved. She wanted you to have a better life, better than what she could give."

Henry frowns. "Is that why she gave me up?"

'Giving up' isn't her favorite phrasing. You give up something you don't want. And all she wanted in that moment was to hold Henry, but she couldn't. He deserved better. He still deserves better.

Emma thought about those words - giving up - for a while, after. The words define themselves as resigning oneself to failure, which is hardly a concept she's unfamiliar with. She didn't so much give up on Henry as she gave up on herself. And, typically for her, that made the situation even worse by doing so.

Gaining faith in the world again - let alone herself - isn't as linear of a process as it should be. So maybe 'giving up' fit. Now she just has to figure out how to do the inverse of that.

Emma blinks back tears as best as she can, trying to hold her composure. Her voice cracks, despite her efforts. "It killed her to do it, kid. You have no idea how tempted she was just to keep you and never let you go. But she didn't want to be selfish and keep you when you deserved so much better than what she could give."

His brow furrows for a minute and he looks at her thoughtfully. "You're my mom, aren't you?"

What would the inverse of 'giving up' be? Allowing yourself a chance at success?

She adjusts a hair covering his forehead, still crouched down in front of him. "Yeah, kid. I am. I'm sorry it took me this long to realize it."

To her surprise, he meets her response with a bone crushing hug. Emma starts crying, genuinely crying, then. She rests her chin (the chin she passed onto him - God) on top of his head and folds herself around him protectively. It's insane how naturally the instinct comes to her. Her hands finally still and Emma finally manages to calm.

She never wants to let him go.

-/-

It physically pains her to drop him off at his foster parents' house (not that they're worried where he is, as Henry dully informs her) and say goodbye to him.

But, she has to. Emma parks the bug along the curb in front of his house and turns to Henry in the passenger seat, feeling the tears in her eyes start to swell up again despite her best efforts.

"Can I visit you again?" Henry asks, voice so small and hopeful she could honestly collapse into full on sobs.

It's been an emotional few weeks, to say the least.

"You can do more than that, if you want," she broaches, carefully. "I thought that maybe...you know how I told you that my mom adopted me? I was thinking that maybe I, if you wanted and your foster parents..."

Emma flounders for a minute. Maybe he doesn't want to have the mother that abandoned him in his life in such a permanent way. Maybe she's best off to visit every once and a while, to him, like a cool aunt instead of a trustworthy mom.

She just found out that she was his mother yesterday. It's not like she can take up the mantle just like that because - well, how could she?

At the end of the day, she just wants to do what's best for him. That doesn't mean she's part of that equation, necessarily, if he doesn't want her to be.

"Would you really adopt me back?" he inquires wondrously, looking at her as if she's just told him that Santa came early this year.

"Yeah," she replies softly, gazing at this boy - her son - with a similar sense of wonder. "I would."

The broad smile he gives her is worth everything.

-/-

Emma is sworn in as sheriff hours later.

David beams the entire fucking time and Mary Margaret isn't much better. Lancelot, Gwen, Marian, and Robin are all supportive throughout the entire thing, much to her relief. She doesn't really care about what Peter thinks (she really needs to fire him - he's high at least half of the time and she caught him grumbling about how much better things were when Tolemac was sheriff literally five minutes after she's took over).

It's a change, for sure.

Maybe a needed one.

(She tells David the news about finding Henry, about her conversation with him when she dropped him off. He goes from a 10 on the happiness scale to about a 15, already excitedly talking about how much fun Henry's going to have with his uncle and how he's never going to want for anything for the rest of his life. Just like that.)

(They didn't let Ingrid and David in when she gave birth to Henry shackled to the hospital bed. They visited her after, but the prison staff wouldn't even let them hug her as she cried through her explanation of why she couldn't be the mom the kid deserved. Now, she's a sheriff and a mother and David lifts her off her feet in a bear hug when she tells him the news.)

-/-

"I need your help," Emma announces, the most polite she's been in entering the room in over a year.

"My, how the tables have turned," Ingrid replies idly, toying with a pen on her desk, "It seems only a blink ago I was asking the same of you."

"It was weeks ago and I delivered," Emma says in exasperation, quickly regretting her decision to be polite.

Ingrid raises a dubious, perfectly manicured eyebrow.

"I delivered as much as I could, you know that," Emma amends.

She sighs. "Fair enough. What do you need help with?"

Emma seems taken aback for a moment by her response. "...That's it? That easy?"

Ingrid looks honestly confused, leaning back a bit in her chair. "What do you mean?"

"I thought I was going to have a pull teeth and threaten to blackmail you to get that response," Emma replies, sitting down in the chair opposite of Ingrid. "I'm almost disappointed."

Ingrid smiles wryly, shaking her head in a gesture more affectionate than frustrated. "There's always next time. What do you need?"

Emma sighs, biting the inside of her cheek. She's unsure of how to explain the situation, completely, and she came in here with something like an adrenaline rush propelling her forward. Defensive Ingrid is familiar to her (at least, more familiar to her this past year). Understanding and almost caring Ingrid? A foreign enemy, one that has her on edge and waiting for the other shoe to drop.

As if reading her thoughts, Ingrid softens. "You can tell me, Emma. I know I haven't exactly been the best person - let alone mother - lately. But if I can help you, let me."

Emma lets her elbows rest of her knees as she threads her fingers through her hair. "His name is Henry."

Ingrid doesn't press her further, just waits.

"The kid I gave up when I was seventeen, his name was Henry," Emma murmurs, the words barely audible. "After running away from home with Neal and you and David not finding me until I was already in prison for his goddamn crime...you told me to do what I felt was best for me. And I - I had to do what was best for him. For the both of us, probably. I gave him up for adoption and you used your connections to find him a good home so he wouldn't have to grow up the way I did."

"And I did," Ingrid says, quietly. "A woman who was aching for a child just like I was when I adopted you and David. Stable job. Level headed. A good choice for a mother."

"Yeah, well," Emma replies, a little brittle. "She's dead now. Or at least, that's what Henry says."

"You met Henry?" Ingrid asks, voice still kept as soft as possible.

"I was investigating Gold, believe it or not. He was...visiting...his mother. I saw him first on Christmas Eve, then again a few weeks ago. He talked to me about how his foster family ignores him and I feed him some bullshit speech about family. Next thing I know, he shows up at my office asking me to find his birth mom like he thinks his life is a noir movie and the question of his maternity can be solved by Sherlock fucking Holmes," Emma says, bordering on hysteric. "I didn't know he was my kid. I just wanted to get him out of my office - I work in a shitty neighborhood and I don't need kids getting hurt on my watch. And he just seemed so earnest and I...I told him I would find his mom."

"And you did." Ingrid supplies, matter-of-factly, gesturing to Emma.

Emma scoffs. "Some mother I am."

"I don't think I'm in a position to be giving advice on being an ideal mother, at this point," Ingrid shrugs, leaning back in her seat, "Does Henry know you're his mother?"

"Yeah," Emma replies. "Now."

"And what was his response?"

"He was happy," Emma says, in something like disbelief. "Here's the woman who abandoned him and gave him up and who he can probably tell is just an all around fucking mess and he was happy."

"You're not a mess," Ingrid corrects. "You're not. You're a hero, especially to him."

Emma rolls her eyes. "Some hero, especially to him. I don't think he would appreciate morally gray private detectives with no interpersonal skills."

"Morally gray," Ingrid repeats. "Please. I'm morally charcoal. You're the palest of silver."

"What, not going to defend my interpersonal skills?"

"Can I ask how many of members of my staff you told to 'fuck off' every time you break into my office?"

"I didn't break in this time," Emma points out. "But you've made your point. You need to get better staff, they're really bad at keeping people out of your office."

"You didn't come here to tell me all of this," Ingrid comments, idly, elbow on her desk and chin resting on her knuckles.

"To insult your lackeys?"

"No, to just tell me about Henry. I'm grateful you did, but I'm shocked you told me of all people, given the circumstances."

Emma exhales. "I came here because I need a lawyer."

Ingrid fills in the blanks. "So that you can adopt your son?"

Emma answers immediately. "Yes."

"Alright," Ingrid replies, calm and concise.

There's silence between the two of them for a few seconds.

"This is the part where you tell me I have no idea how to be a mother or how to take responsibility for as much as a goldfish," Emma supplies, self-deprecatingly.

"Hm," Ingrid says, shaking her head. "No. Here's the part where I tell you I'll support whatever decision you make, just like I did when you were seventeen. And if that decision is adopting Henry and getting custody of him, I'll fight tooth and nail to make that happen."

Emma feels a small, hopeful smile encroaching on her face, in spite of herself. "Who are you and what the hell have you done with my mother?"

Ingrid grins, wryly. "It's the same one, believe it or not. I just took a leave of absence for a while, is all."

Emma pauses, expression wistful. "It's nice to see her again."

Ingrid interrupts her just as she turns around to leave. "By the way, sheriff, congratulations."

-/-

She'd be depressed by how easily Henry's foster parents agree to her adopting him if she wasn't so relieved to have him. Ingrid tells her the entire thing is a cakewalk. And just like that, Henry is legally her son.

She panics and flounders, for a moment, when she first brings Henry to her place. He visits more and more as Ingrid gets closer and closer to getting Emma full custody, though, so by the time he actually moves in they're both almost used to it, almost used to each other.

Mother is a weird title to add to who she is, at first, but one she welcomes every time her kid grins at her.

Emma's apartment has an extra bedroom that's been collecting dust, thankfully, so the day she formally gets custody of him she and Henry go shopping while an overly excited David and Mary Margaret paint his new room.

("You like blue, right?" Mary Margaret asks Henry when David and her come into Emma's apartment with armfuls of paint and rollers from the local hardware store.

Henry can only nod excitedly and hug the both of them while they make a valiant attempt not to drop anything.)

He seems wondrous during the whole process (even just picking out a bedspread, which makes her tear up a little bit) and shit, if he's this impressed with her lackluster parenting skills thus far...

Emma has had him in her custody for a day and she's already wrapped around his finger. It's that easy.

-/-

Both Arthur and Albert have their hearings scheduled for a few months in the future. It isn't soon enough, for her tastes and she's sure the family of Billy's, but it's something. Emma was right about Kathryn, though, and the A.D.A who is going to be presenting the case to the grand jury - Ursula - is sure to get nothing less than an indictment. And, based off of the defense attorney the two of them hire that she's seen the women literally make dissolve into tears, they'll get a conviction, too.

(Apparently Ingrid has agreed to represent the Gust family pro bono for a civil lawsuit against Tolemac, Spencer, and the mayor. It's progress. small as it may be.)

-/-

It's a few weeks into being a sheriff that Emma slowly realizes she has no idea what the hell she's doing.

"We need to hire some new people," Emma mutters, head in her hands at her desk. "We were understaffed already and, granted, this department is now a hundred times better without Spencer and Tolemac, but between them and Peter getting fired, our numbers are dwindling."

"Peter was a miserable prick," Lancelot sighs, arms crossed, "I'm not too sorry to see him go. I do agree that we need more people, though."

"So what academy trained cops want to join a disgraced police force in a small town?"

Lancelot sighs, leaning his hip against the front of her desk and scanning the station contemplatively. "That's the billion dollar question."

Emma thumps her head against her desk.

"We still have some good cops, though. I mean, look at Robin and Marian. Look at Gwen."

Emma lifts up her head to grin at him. "You still like Gwen, don't you?"

Lancelot stiffens before quickly getting up to walk away from her desk. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"I'm not here to deny that she's amazing and courageous and her hair smells like pomegranate, okay?" Emma teases with a grin. "But you've been harboring that crush for what must be over a year now. You had a thing for her when she got here right before I left and you still do to this day."

"I didn't ever say anything about how her hair smells," Lancelot rebuffs defensively.

Emma cocks her head to the side. "So you're not denying the crush, huh?"

"You're insufferable," he sighs, but the words have no bite.

"You know what's insufferable? Living a life of regret because you never told someone how you felt about them."

"And you would know all about that, wouldn't you?" he hums.

Emma stiffens.

Lancelot notices this, quickly. "I'm so sorry, Emma, I didn't mean to-"

"It's not about Graham," she assures him quickly. "I swear."

"Thank God," he breathes a sigh of relief. "Damn, well, who was it abo-"

Henry comes through the door just then and Emma gladly takes the perfect opportunity to evade the question.

"Henry!" Emma exclaims, coming up to hug him. "How was school?"

"The best," he says with a broad smile, "it was the best. Miss Blanchard showed us this really cool thing with a paper volcano."

Emma grins fondly at him. "Mary Margaret is keeping you kids busy, huh?"

(Yes, her sister-in-law is her son's teacher. It's convenient how that works out.)

David walks in a few seconds after, Henry's bag in his hands. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I honestly kind of miss this place."

Emma smirks at that, raising her eyebrows. "Of course you start missing it as soon as I get here. What's that saying about grass being greener?"

David gives her an exaggerated sigh. "Forgive me for wanting to work with my sister."

She laughs, shaking her head. "Thanks for picking him up, David,"

"It was no trouble," he assures her. "Honestly, I'm a little thankful to get out of the office. Regina's decor was...unsettling to say the least? We've been cleaning her office out."

"Oh," Emma frowns. "What was so unsettling about it?"

"We found drawers full of replica hearts," he says, voice going up an octave with how uncomfortable it clearly makes him. "They had names on them."

Emma winces and Lancelot groans.

"That's weird. That's really weird."

"You're telling me," David mutters. "Anyway, I should probably get back to work. Have a good day, you guys."

"You too!" Emma and Lancelot answer in synchronization.

"Is this Henry?" Gwen asks, pausing in her walk by Emma's office.

"Yup!" Henry replies, cheerfully. "Do you work with my mom?"

Gwen grins widely, kneeling down to meet Henry's eyes. "I do, actually."

Emma beams, not being subtle at all about pointing at them and mouthing 'she's good with kids, too!' if only just to bother Lancelot about it further.

Lancelot's hands cover his face as he quickly retreats from the situation. "That's, erm, my pager. I have a call. I have to leave."

"You're trying to pull that with the Sheriff?" Emma asks, incredulously.

"Yup," he replies, undaunted, and grabbing his coat.

Emma shakes her head as she laughs. "Suit yourself, DuLac!"

Maybe things are getting a little lighter, lately. Maybe she's getting a little lighter. Emma has the son that plagued her thoughts all the years she spent without him. She has her job, one she's actually able to do without guilt plaguing her. Hell, Emma has even mended the mess of her familal relationships - she's closer with David than ever and at least making progress with Ingrid.

What more could she want?

-/-

Once Emma comes back for her night shift, Lancelot is singing an entirely different tune.

"Sheaskedmeout," he says, the words coming out all at once.

Emma raises an eyebrow. "You want to repeat that?"

"She, erm," Lancelot coughs, clearing his throat. "She asked me out. In front of people. To dinner. I said yes."

Emma gives him a high five so hard her hand stings. "I told you she had a thing for you, too!"

"And you had nothing to do with this?"

She shakes her head, a mischievous grin lighting her expression. "Absolutely nothing."

Lancelot squints. "Why do I get the feeling that you're lying?"

"Because I am."

"You played matchmaker," he accuses, "I wouldn't have expected that from you."

"Yeah, well, I'm full of surprises. And I'm the best boss ever."

"And the best boss ever," he adds with a grin, "Though your organizational skills drive me up the wall."

"It's not messy if I know where everything is." Emma defends herself, gesturing to the stacks on her desk.

"You and I both know that's a damn lie."

"Those are traffic stops, those are filed complaints, and those… I'm not sure what those are. I should look…"

"About telling people how you felt," Lancelot starts, a little reluctantly. "who were you…"

Emma can tell where he's going with this. She thinks of the voicemail she left, the one that she never got a response back from.

"Regretting not telling how I felt?" she offers, leaning against the brick and crossing her arms. "It's a long story."

"...Guyliner guy that helped you put up signs for Dave's campaign?"

She can't hold back a laugh at the name. "Now who's messing in other people's business?"

He raises up his hands defensively. "Just returning the favor."

Emma shakes her head, her smile fading as she contemplates what to say, how to explain it. "Yeah, um, he left. It was my fault. I basically told him to go. Pushed him away, because that's what I'm good at. Much better at that than I am at matchmaking."

"What did he say?" Lancelot asks, curiously. "When he left?"

"To take all the time I needed," she reveals, frowning.

"Maybe that's what he's doing," Lancelot suggests. "Taking the time he needs. That you need, too."

"Yeah," she sighs. "I doubt that."

-/-

It's eight in the morning on a Saturday when Emma hears a knock at the door.

Emma groans. She makes a note to herself to explain as candidly as possible to Mary Margaret what the concept of 'sleeping in' was. She's always been guilty of visits at the crack of dawn, and since Henry - early riser that he is - moved in Mary Margaret has only gotten worse about it. It's not as if she doesn't appreciate the thought, but Emma would maybe appreciate sleep more. She opens the door with the speech on her lips, ready to go.

She wasn't expecting the person at the other side of the door to be who it was.

Killian still looks the same, even after all the time they haven't spoken. His facial hair is a little thicker and his posture a little more tense (which is more explainable by his decision to come to her door after their last encounter than it is by the passage of time). It's only been a few weeks, but Emma - with everything that's happened in the meantime - feels like it's been years.

He gives her a small smile in greeting. It's still enough to make her feel a little exposed and defenseless.

"Killian," she greets anxiously unsure of what even to say, "I…"

"It's been a while, Swan," he replies, hands (prosthetic and flesh) jammed into the pockets of his jacket. "I hope I'm not intruding."

She never told him about Henry. Emma never told much of anyone about Henry, but now would be the time to do it with Killian. If her jumbled emotions and sharp edges weren't enough to deter him, the fact that she's now the mother of an eleven year old might be.

(And if it is, then he was never worth it in the first place, but that's not a line of thought she can afford right now.)

"Actually…"

As fate would have it, Henry chooses that exact moment to poke his head through the door, wiping the sleep out of his eyes and clad in his pajamas.

"Who are you?" Henry asks, in true eleven year old fashion.

The kid definitely inherited his sense of timing from her.

Killian looks a little surprised to see him, understandably. He looks as if he shakes the shock off quickly, though, meeting her eyes from some source of confirmation. Emma nods, unsure of what else to do. Much to her surprise, Killian then kneels to Henry's eye level. "Killian Jones, lad. It's nice to meet you."

He offers his hand out for Henry to shake. Henry accepts it instantly.

"I'm Henry."

"Well, it's nice to meet you Henry. Firm handshake," he commends with a broad smile. "I can already tell you're going to go far. I just have the one hand, see, so I have to make mine all the better to make up for it."

Killian looks up at Emma, a silent question in his eyes as to what he should do next.

Emma bites her lip. "You should come in. We need to talk."

"Aye," he nods, standing back up. The words aren't said accusingly, just as if he's stating a simple fact. "I think we do."

-/-

Henry busies himself with reading (she can't believe he's gotten to this point in his life without reading a single damn Harry Potter book, honestly) and Killian and Emma move themselves to her small kitchen to 'talk'.

Whatever that entails.

"Where have you been?" Emma asks, a little stiffly.

"Went to London, for a bit," Killian shrugs, though his gaze is much too intense to be casual. Not that this is a change of pace, truthfully. "My brother had some property over there and I figured I needed to clear my head. Couldn't think of a better place to do it. If I didn't reply to anything on my phone, it's because I didn't have service out there."

She nods, considering his words for a moment. "Do you miss it? England?"

"This place has been my home for almost as long as I can remember, Swan. I moved here when I was about twelve or thirteen," Killian shakes his head, waving off the thought. He meets her stare after a moment. "It helps that I'm finding Storybrooke has other charms worth staying around for."

Emma isn't sure what to say, to that. Her mouth goes dry and she remains stuck in place. All she can manage to do is gape at him, at loss for a witty reply. A few weeks pass and he's already right off the bat with his feelings.

"I reckon it won't surprise you that I have questions of my own about what happened in my absence," Killian adds, carefully.

"I had him when I was seventeen," she murmurs, eyes flitting to where Henry is reading on the couch. "It's a long, painful story, but I gave him up for adoption because I...I knew I couldn't be the mother he needed."

"You seem to be doing a fine job of it now." he says softly.

Emma scoffs. "I'm trying to, at least."

He nods in understanding.

Her eyes are still fixed on Henry. There's something about Killian - in all his earnestness and understanding - that makes her want to divulge more than she should. "You want to know how I met him? Really met him?"

"How?"

"Christmas Eve," she exhales, a little shakily, "this kid at Gold's tells me to make the most of the family I have. I see him there again, and he tells me about his foster families and I give him some speech about how you find your place in the world, your family, eventually."

Killian gives her a soft grin. "Isn't that precisely what you've done, Sheriff Swan?"

"You heard about that?" she asks, her voice an octave higher in surprise.

"You're a bit hard to miss, Swan. I reckon the mayor feels the same way. The only thing I evidently missed out on was the explanation of how you found your son again."

Her lips twitch. "I still haven't finished that story, by the way. I found out the kid was mine when he knocked on the door on my P.I. office and asked me to find his birth mom."

Killian's eyebrows shoot up his forehead. "He did that?"

"Mhm."

He chuckles. "Oh, he's definitely yours then."

"What's that supposed to mean?" she rebuffs playfully.

"He's inherited your investigative skills and resourcefulness, to be sure," Killian says conversationally, gesturing to her and then Henry. "And judging by the stories you've just told me and the short time that I've met the lad, he has your heart."

"Not exactly one of my coveted characteristics," Emma scoffs, rolling her eyes. "Next you'll be saying my even temper or my endless supply of patience or my clean mouth."

Killian shakes his head slowly. "I meant what I said, Swan. You've a good heart, as much as you like to pretend you don't."

Emma almost smiles at that.

"It's one of the things I've found I quite admire about you, Emma," he adds, with the sincerity of his words burning in his gaze.

Emma finally leans up to hug him, arms tight around his neck. Killian props his chin on her shoulder as both of his arms move to encircle her waist. It feels warm and familiar and, damn, she's missed this.

"I missed you," she admits, a little quietly.

She can feel him smiling, though she can't see it. "I missed you as well, Swan. I don't think you know how much."

Emma squeezes her eyes shut. "I think I can guess."

They stay like that for a moment, just breathing each other in.

"Is he your boyfriend?" Henry asks curiously, entering the room and successfully interrupting the moment.

"No!" Emma immediately retorts defensively, withdrawing from Killian's embrace with a little reluctance. They step apart, but his hand and prosthetic linger on her elbows and her hands move to his chest in a gesture so automatic she can hardly notice it. "He is not my boyfriend."

Killian raises his eyebrows, but his tone makes it clear he's joking. "Careful, love. That level of passionate denial could hurt a man's feelings."

"You're not my boyfriend," she says again, brushing her hair out of her face with her hand and stepping back a little further. His touch leaves her arms and she misses it, a little. Emma knows him. He won't make her uncomfortable if he can help it, but if Killian really wants something more…

She blows out a puff of air, straightening her posture. Emma can't think about that, right now.

Killian puts his hand up defensively. "Wasn't denying that I wasn't, Swan."

Henry scrunches up his face. "Isn't that a double negative? We just learned about those in school, they're kind of confusing."

"Smart la- leave your poor mother alone," Killian replies good naturedly.

Emma lets out a sigh of relief.

"I've got to get to work, soon. They're a little harsher with me now that I've taken that vacation of sorts. It was an honor to meet you, young Master Swan." Killian says affectionately, dropping to one knee to get to eye level with him once again.

"You're pretty cool, Mr. Jones."

He ruffles his hair. Emma can't believe she's never found out he's this good with kids (her kid). "It's Killian to you, lad."

Henry grants him a small smile and a nod and, god damn it, now Killian has got him, too. Her feelings are so jumbled right now they're impossible to make sense of, and this isn't helping matters. At all.

Killian stands up to face Emma, once more.

"I'll be in touch," he promises.

The corners of her lips twitch as she reaches for his hand, instinctively twining his fingers with hers. "Good."

He stares at their joined hands for a few seconds, transfixed, before he leaves.

-/-

That isn't the only interesting encounter she has that day.

"This is a weird question," Ruby, the girl from 4B, starts cautiously. A load of laundry is in her hands when Emma sees her in the hallway of their building, "but you're the new sheriff, right?"

"Yeah," Emma replies. It still sounds foreign to hear, but it's somehow become her reality. "That's me."

"I heard you guys were considering hiring new deputies?"

"Oh?" she replies, now much more invested in this conversation. "Are you considering joining the force?"

Ruby shakes her head quickly. "No, no, no. Nothing like that for me. It's just my girlfriend, Mulan. She used to be on the police force back in her home state, but she moved in with me a few months ago. Mulan has been working at a private security firm in the meantime, but now that she feels like this town's police force is a little less…."

"Corrupt and problematic?" Emma offers, only wincing a little bit.

Ruby gives her a half-hearted laugh. "Yeah. That. She mentioned she'd be interested in applying to work for you guys."

"Tell her to send her resume in. We need all the help we can get."

"I will." Ruby smiles.

"I gotta get to work," Emma curses, looking down at the time on her phone. Ruby nods in understanding, but if Emma has an opportunity like this for another deputy she needs to take it. "Again, please get her to apply! You should hear back from me soon if she does."

"I will," Ruby promises, swinging the laundry basket in her hands a little. "And thank you!"

-/-

As it turns out, Mulan is a hell of an addition to the team. With years of experience under her belt and military training from when she was younger, Emma is convinced the woman could easily kick her ass without breaking a sweat. Mulan might even be too qualified for the job, but she happily takes it all the same.

Mulan cites something like 'being able to make a difference'.

As cheesy as it sounds, it's kind of exactly what they need.

-/-

A/N: How do you guys feel about this chapter? Let me know in the reviews!