Chapter 1

"We're seeking our endless dreams in a world with no guidance... With tangled emotions and a heart-piercing beat"

Preliminary A/N: This chapter is completely Emma and Killian-centric, I hope you enjoy it. The quote at the beginning is from one of the TRC opening songs (Blaze), which is beautiful. I'll use quotes from this and other TRC songs throughout this fic because I think they really fit with the story and with both Emma and Killian.

"Haku-chan" is a diminutive to the Japanese word for Swan (Hakuchō) and you will understand why I introduced it now on the next chapter ;-)

Hope you enjoy this chapter!

Emma had awoken extremely early that morning… she had have a strange dream, of a girl with brown hair, green eyes and a strange outfit that seemed to come from the Arabian Nights story. She had glowing wings and was asking for her help, her hands reaching out to her and calling out to her with a strange name. What was it? "Haku-chan", whatever that meant.

She rose slowly out of bed shivering at the freezing cold, and started to look into her closet for what she would wear today. When she was finally dressed in a black tank top with a red turtleneck sweater over it, black jeans and her ever-faithful boots, she started rummaging through the drawers on her dresser for some kind of scarf to use. Suddenly, she found it: the scarf Hook had used to bandage her hand up on that beanstalk. She wasn't sure why she had held onto that for so long, but looking at it made her feel a strange warmth, that scared her. Before she even realized what she was doing, she held the black scarf close to her face and inhaled deeply. It smelled like the ocean, rum and leather with a hint of sandalwood and something else she couldn't quite place. It smelled like him.

She heard Mary Margaret at her door asking her what she wanted for breakfast. She looked up from the scarf with a twinge of blush to her cheeks.

"What is that?" asked Mary Margaret with the faintest hint of amusement to her voice.

"Oh, nothing, just a scarf I… plan to use today because it's very chilly." said Emma nonchalantly, wrapping it around her neck.

"Somehow I don't think it's your style. And I'm not sure I had ever seen it before. Is it new?" Emma could tell Mary –her mom, she corrected herself– knew exactly to whom the scarf belonged, but she didn't like the idea of admitting it to her, so she blatantly lied instead:

"Yes, just got it yesterday. Well, what were you saying about breakfast? I'm starving and in a dire need of one of your amazing hot cocoas."

Mary Margaret eyed her suspiciously but decided to let the matter drop… at the moment. They went to the kitchen together, where David and Henry were already sitting at the table, with two cups of hot cocoa.

She left for the Sheriff station at 7 sharp after saying good-bye to her parents and Henry.

Upon entering the station she felt as if the delicious –delicious? Are you freaking serious Emma?– aroma from the scarf around her neck was getting stronger, but then realized it didn't come from the scarf.

"Great," she thought "just what I need today, dealing with the infuriating pirate first thing in the morning. What could he possibly want?"

She had been avoiding him like the plague ever since that morning after his confrontation with Gold and his cane when he assured her they were going to have a long talk one of these days. It seemed she would have that talk today.

She entered her office and saw him in all his glory, his booted legs placed atop her desk and that infuriating smirk of his plastered all over his face.

"What do you want Hook? Have you come to turn yourself in?" Hook took a moment to look at her; she looked so good in red, and those pants and boots did wonders for her gorgeous legs. He looked back up to her face and that's when he saw it: his black scarf around her neck. He couldn't help but smile wider.

"It's Killian, love. And why would I want to turn myself in? I know that you enjoy seeing me in chains but I won't give you that satisfaction… yet. I'm actually here to report a robbery." He said nonchalantly, still comfortably seated on her chair.

"First of all, you need to put your feet down and get off MY chair. And second of all, what are you talking about? Did you rob someone?"

"Tsk, tsk, always the sound of distrust love. Of course I haven't, I meant someone has robbed from me." He said slightly annoyed while he lowered his feet and rose from her seat, leaving it to her with a flourish of his right hand.

"Really? Well, what was it then?" Emma asked professionally after claiming her chair back and starting to go through files.

"My ship." Emma looked at him with wide eyes.

"Your ship? You mean the one no one can see unless you want them to? Who would have robbed your ship, and more importantly, how?"

"Why, that blasted Crocodile of course. You know he never hesitates to use magic and since I haven't been able to exact my revenge on him, I'm positive he has done it to piss me off," His right hand was clenched into a tight fist and he was speaking through clenched teeth.

"OK, we can't be sure of that, doesn't Cora have magic too? And since as I understand it you ended your 'partnership' with her I'm pretty sure she wouldn't be so happy about that. I really need more to start an investigation. Are you sure it isn't just been made invisible somehow?"

"No love, the Jolly Roger can't be hidden from me. If it was there, I should be able to see it—even if it had an invisibility spell. It is definitely gone." His hand had relaxed and he was now staring intently at Emma's eyes and his scarf adorning that pretty neck of hers.

"OK, then I will start an investigation and let you know what I found out. If that's all, I do have a lot of work to do." She rose from her chair and motioned for him to leave, holding the door open. She heard Hook chuckle and he was suddenly inches from her with this right hand closing the door and locking it with the key that was dangling from the lock, tucking it safely inside one of his vest's pockets.

"Oh no, love, that is not all. Seems we're going to have that talk after all, whether you like it or not." She could feel his breath caressing her cheek and felt dizzy. Hook looked at her one more time before going to seat on the chair opposite her desk but turning it around to still look at her.

"Please, do have a seat Emma, I have the feeling this is going to be a long talk, and even though I do enjoy watching at your legs, I prefer to look at your face." Hook stated with that irresistible smirk. Emma sighed heavily and sat on her chair again.

"What do you want Hook? I thought you had said you were 'done with me', why would you want to talk to me at all?"

"Well, Swan, I actually said that to convince Cora I was on her side. You know, I did have to get to Storybrooke after all. But I'm really curious now at your explanation on why exactly did you left me up on that beanstalk."

"So it's back to Swan, right?"

"Since you insist on not calling me by my name, I figured we shall better be in equal terms." He snapped with a hard look on his face.

"OK, Killian. There, are you happy?"

"Well, not particularly love. Although I have to admit seeing my favorite scarf around your neck is not bad for my ego. Why did you keep it?"

Emma felt flustered and removed the scarf, handing it back to him "Well, I didn't realize I still had it until today and it was chilly outside so I decided to wear it."

Hook looked at her and her extended hand offering his scarf back with an amused grin.

"Oh, no need to give it back to me love. You keep it; I think it looks a lot better on you."

Emma shot him an exasperated glare and placed the scarf on her desk. She looked back onto her files and started sorting them out trying to ignore Hook –Killian, she corrected herself.

"So I'm getting the silent treatment now? Well, you know how much I love a challenge, Emma, so why don't you let me do all the talking? You know we've established I'm pretty good at reading you, so I shall try to prove it again." Emma didn't lift her gaze from the paperwork, so Killian started talking once more.

"You left me on that beanstalk because you can't trust your judgment after being hurt by all the people who claimed to love you most. You have been abandoned so many times that you now need to beat everyone to the punch and abandon them first. You are just afraid of letting others see you for who you are, of sharing too much about yourself; and for someone so good at spotting liars, you're just living in a big lie yourself. Am I getting warm, love?" Emma couldn't help but catch the innuendo there, but she was growing angrier with him by the minute. She got up from her chair and went to the files cabinet, her back to him. He continued talking.

"You knew I was telling the truth too when you were trapped in that cell, I would never have betrayed you or left you chained up on that beanstalk. You were so scared of what that entailed that you couldn't even look at me in the eye after that." Emma felt him behind her then, his breath on her neck and his warmth keeping the sudden cold she felt at bay. She had tears running down her cheeks.

"You don't have the right to claim that you know me, you know nothing about me, we barely spent one day together and you weren't even able to tell me what really happened to the woman you lost. So don't you dare talk to me about trust!" She was yelling now and turned to see him, her hands balled in fists at her sides. He saw him grow tense and thought he would leave, but he only got closer.

"Love, forgive me but I won't share anything more with you, nor would I leave as you were surely expecting. You are the most amazing and infuriating woman I have ever met, and you have been a distraction to me since I got here. At first I tried to brush it off, but you somehow have crawled under my skin and I see you are as broken as I am. Neither of us will leave this office until you trust me. I have to make you trust me Emma! I need it; I desperately need to feel something, something that doesn't have to do with the loneliness and blackness of my revenge…." Emma looked at him wide-eyed. She couldn't see a hint of a lie in his blue eyes and that was scarier to her than thinking of all the bad things he had done on his path to revenge. She collapsed on the floor and started quietly sobbing. Killian sat on the floor in front of her and pushed a strand of her blond hair behind her left ear, waiting patiently for her to stop crying.

"You reminded me of him…so full of life, charming and infuriating at the same time. You smiled at me after you told me who you were, and I just could sense you were trouble." She stopped for a minute, unsure on whether or not to continue her story.

"I was seventeen years old: he was a thief, and so was I. I stole the car he had stolen from someone else and found him inside it, and after that we started stealing together to survive. I fell in love with him, I was so happy for the first time in my life. I was so sure I had met the one person who would never abandon me. I believed in everything he said to me, I believed him when he told me he loved me. We were going to travel together to a town near a beach, but he had stolen some pricey watches and they were looking for him, there were flyers with his face on it and a 'Wanted' sign, just like in Robin Hood. He had hidden the watches and I thought it would be a good idea for me to retrieve them since the police wasn't looking for me. He could sell them and we would have enough money for our dream house by the beach. But he left me instead, waiting for him, with one of the watches strapped to my wrist. He called the police and told them I was the thief, and I took the blame for it… I found out I was pregnant the first week after I was thrown in jail, and Henry was born behind bars; I had to give birth to him in the most complete loneliness, and I even had to cut the cord with a makeshift knife." She stopped talking at that moment and cradled her head between her hands instead, sobbing even harder than before. She felt Killian tense behind her, and she could tell he was really angry.

"That bastard… I could have never done that to the woman I claimed to love, I'm a pirate but I do have a code of honor." He wrapped his arms around her and she hid her head on the crook of his neck while she continued sobbing. "I'm sorry Emma, I'm so sorry, no one deserves that, you didn't deserve that and if I ever find him I assure you my fist will find his face before he can even utter his name."

Emma continued sobbing for a while, and Killian felt sadness and rage towards this coward and pathetic excuse for a man. He couldn't be angry with her anymore, he understood perfectly why she couldn't trust him, and for the first time in more than 300 years he felt real shame of the man he had become.

"I have never told this to anyone Killian. I… you have to know that I did trust you back there on the beanstalk, I trusted you completely and that was what scared me the most, because I also trusted him and somehow got blindsided. I'm really sorry." Killian felt another pang of guilt.

"Please, Emma, don't say that. I'm sorry, I was hurt by what you did because I felt betrayed, and I trusted you too, up there. You made me feel a lot of things I haven't felt since Milah died, but I should have never went back to Cora." he shook his head with shame and guilt.

"She was waiting for me when I climbed down from the beanstalk. I was desperate because my stupid pride was preventing me to go back to you, and since I had betrayed Cora by stealing her bracelets she told me she would go to Storybrooke without me. I couldn't let that happen and I did all those awful things to get back on her good side. I hated having to take that girl's heart, and to trap you on that cell, but I just couldn't bear the thought of not getting to your realm and not avenging Milah" She looked up at him with a questioning look in her eyes, and he knew it was his time to share.

"I met Milah at a tavern on a little town where the Jolly Roger had docked. I was with my crew having fun and she had this fire in her eyes, a thirst for life that matched my own. I was just a mischievous pirate back then, and although I'd already had my share of affairs with many beautiful women, I had never met someone that could be my match. She was married to the Crocodile; he was not the Dark One yet, just a puny excuse of a man and a coward who had deserted a war on their realm. We fell in love and she ran away with me. Her husband came looking for her the next day, and to save her honor I didn't tell him she had left him of her own volition, I made it seem as I had kidnapped her. He wouldn't even pick up the sword I threw at him for a duel to win her back. A man unwilling to fight for what he wants, deserves what he gets. We left and she became my second in command and my mean respected her and followed her orders as they were mine. I had the happiest years of my life with her" He paused for a minute and then sighed. Emma understood just how difficult this was for him. "The only thing Milah ever regretted was leaving her son behind, he was only six years old when she left. She just didn't think life at sea was fitting for a little boy, and he told me that her husband did love him very much and although he was a coward, he was a good father." He paused again and looked down at his hand, now curled into a fist again.

"We returned to that town eight years afterwards, and the Crocodile found me. He had already become the Dark One, and challenged me to a duel at dawn. I had to lie to him and tell him Milah was dead, I was so worried he would kill her; but when he was about to rip my heart out, Milah appeared by my side and pleaded for him to stop. We had found a man that was going to trade a magic bean with the Crocodile, and Milah stole it from him to use as leverage for the Demon to let us go. We returned to our ship and Milah gave me the bean to hold on to until the Crocodile left. He had agreed to let us go until he asked her how she could have left their son." Killian's voice cracked a little before continuing.

"But instead, he ripped her heart out and crushed it to dust, right in front of me, I couldn't help her, it was because she confessed she had never loved him." Emma saw one single tear run through his face and took his right hand in hers. "Then he cut off my left hand since I tricked him into believing that's where I had kept the magic bean." He slammed his hand into the file and stifle a sob.

Emma took his right hand in hers and gently squeezed it. "That's so awful Killian, I know how much it hurts to think about things we cannot change, and I understand your desire to avenge her death because what he did is unspeakable but… and please don't get mad at me for saying it…but killing him is not going to bring her back or please her."

"You don't understand, Emma," said Killian with such a complete sense of sadness that actually made her heart ache. "I can't let that blasted Crocodile go unpunished for what he did to Milah because… because I'm the reason he killed her. She ran off with me because she didn't love him and yearned to see the world, and to live a life full of adventures. The crocodile was a coward then and was still a coward as the Dark One, but I incurred his wrath, and when we had that fateful encounter with him I couldn't protect her. And the worst part is, I was a coward too, for I couldn't even tell her I loved her. She died in my arms, I saw her precious heart turned to dust right before my eyes, and even then she had the courage and strength to tell me she loved me, and I… I was silent…" Killian finished with a mirthless chuckle.

Emma tentatively brushed his hand and squeezed it a little harder. "You were in shock; you really can't blame yourself for that. I'm sure Milah knew you loved her, and I'm also sure she knows how much you love her, even now. I like to think that our lost loved ones do watch on us from wherever they are, somehow. She knows you love her." Killian noted she had used the present tense.

"But… you can't kill Gold—the Dark One." Emma continued without removing her hand from atop his.

"Sounded like a true Sheriff there." retorted Killian with a little annoyance.

"I'm not saying it just because I'm the sheriff," Emma hesitated a little and moved nervously. Killian could tell she was struggling with herself on whether or not to share whatever it was she wished to share with him in that moment.

"Snow, my mother… she tried to kill Regina once." Emma finally said.

Killian chuckled and looked at her disbelievingly. "Now love, if you wished to tell me a lie I think you could do better than that!"

"It's not a lie… I read it in Henry's book. She took a potion Rumplestiltskin gave her to forget about my father after King George sworn to kill him if he ran away with my mother, as they had intended. That potion not only made her forget about my dad, but made her angry and hell-bent on getting revenge on the woman who had killed her own father and sent the Huntsman to rip out her heart, drove her away from her own home. She went to Rumplestiltskin again to ask for a weapon to kill Regina, and he gave her a special golden arrow that never missed its target. My Dad managed to stop her on time because Rumplestiltskin told him that if she were to succeed on killing Regina, her heart will become as dark as Regina's…" Killian turned to look at her, with confusion in his eyes.

"Well, love, I'm afraid my heart is not white, I have done pretty bad things over these 300 years. I'm not a good man…" Killian said with a hint of sadness he was surprised to feel.

"I know you think so, and I don't mean to say you are the epitome of virtue and goodness but you're missing the point…if you kill Mr. Gold—your Crocodile, you will become as bad as him, you will effectively turn into the thing you hate most, into the person you so wish to avenge. You will become successor to the power of the Dark One if you kill him." Killian looked at her suddenly horrified. How hadn't he thought of that? He remembered Cora saying there was one special dagger with which he could kill the Crocodile but she hadn't say he will become the Dark One if he ended his life thusly. He had to admit it did made sense, though, and he felt a sharp pain in his heart. What would Milah think of him then?

"See? I know Milah would not bear to see you turn into that being of darkness." Emma squeezed his hand ever so slightly again and added in a whisper, "And neither will I…."

He did hear that last part and turned to look into Emma's eyes again. He felt a delicious warmth spread from her fingertips and a faint glow growing where their hands intertwined.

Emma heard footsteps approaching and Henry's voice calling her. They got up from the floor and Killian handed her the office keys. She opened it and saw Henry accompanied by four people –two men, a teenage boy and a teenage girl– she had never met. Why were they in Storybrooke? Only that was not entirely true, the girl was exactly like the one from her dreams she once had long ago. The girl had sandy brown hair and emerald green eyes, and that white and purple outfit from the Arabian Nights. She walked up to her and said:

"You are the Haku-chan, you have wings too. Thank you for taking care of my feather…."

Emma was shocked and Killian looked utterly confused at the four strangers….

A/N: I'm sorry I took so long to update but this was a pretty difficult chapter to write, I wanted to convey all the baggage and hurt both Emma and Killian have, and I can't believe its 4000 words long. I hope you guys like it, next chapter will have a lot going on too and lots of action. Again, I have no words to thank the lovely Sandy, my beta. You are the best honey! 3

Please leave a review, I love reading your input =)