A/N: First of all, I want to say THANK YOU guys for all the favorites, follows, and reviews this crazy little fic has gotten. I love knowing that you guys are enjoying it, it really really makes me happy.

Secondly, how frickin' great was "Tallahassee", huh? Best episode of the series so far, IMHO. Of course, it does mean that everything in this fic is AU like whoa. But I'm okay with this, because I want to tell THIS story, and I want to tell it MY way, and I hope you guys enjoy the ride. It's going somewhere big in the near future, I PROMISE.

This chapter is another kinda short one, and I apologize for that, but they will get longer the farther along we go. Right now, we're just in the beginning stages of Emma's journey. There are miles and miles to go.

Chapter Two
The Priestess
"I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it … "

Of course there were curious looks the second Emma and Killian walked in the door, but Emma shot all three of them a warning look. "Don't even start," she said, shaking her head at them.

"Wasn't he … locked up?" David asked. "Didn't we decide that was safer?"

Emma sighed, sitting down at the table, watching Killian out of the corner of her eye as he wandered around, taking stock of his new surroundings. "We did," she agreed, "but you can't just keep a person locked up for no reason." She didn't really want to admit that he'd gotten out.

"It's cruel and unusual punishment," Killian added helpfully. Emma glared at him, everyone else ignored him. Except Henry, who was looking at him with cautious curiosity.

"So you brought him here?" Mary-Margaret had that "Are you out of your mind?" look on her face, the one Emma had gotten to know quite well when they were in the Enchanted Forest.

"Well … yeah?" Emma said, shrugging a bit. "I can't have him just wandering around town."

Killian gave a winning smile to the other three at the table. "Emma seems to be under the impression that the town is hers to protect," he said with a conspiratorial grin.

"Stop helping," she told him, which just earned her a wink from him.

"Why are you here, anyway?" David wanted to know. "Never did get an explanation on that one."

"Well," Mary-Margaret began, before Emma cut her off.

"He helped us," she said. "We wouldn't have found the compass without him. And I probably would be crushed under a giant's boot if not for him." The words came begrudgingly, but that didn't make them any less true. There was a moment, clear as day in her mind, when he'd physically put himself between her and the giant, allowing her time to get away …

"But why is he here?" This time, it was Henry who wanted to know.

"Ah, so he speaks," Killian said. "Was starting to wonder if he was mute."

Everyone continued to ignore him, looking instead to Emma. "You mean, here as in Storybrooke?" she asked, shifting a little in her chair. "He has … unfinished business?" She looked to Killian and he gave a shrug and a nod at her assessment. She nodded. "Unfinished business with Mr. Gold — Rumplestiltskin." She looked at the others imploringly then. "But he can't know that Kil — Hook is here," she added quickly. "Which is why … I brought him here."

David was quiet for a long moment. "I don't like it," he said finally.

"I know you don't," Emma said, "I don't expect you to. But this is my decision. He's a citizen of Storybrooke now, and that means he's my responsibility." She glanced at Mary-Margaret, then looked away quickly, wondering if she would say anything else. Such as the fact that everyone else had wanted to leave Killian behind, but Emma had insisted that they keep their bargain with him.

If anything happened to him, it really would be her fault.

"Where's he going to sleep?" Henry asked, looking back and forth between Emma and Killian warily.

"In my room," Emma said tiredly, not thinking until she was met with four sets of raised eyebrows and one very inappropriate smirk. "Oh, what is wrong with all of you?" she snapped. "I meant, he can have my room, and I'll sleep on the couch!" She threw up her hands and stood up from the table then. "I'm tired. Can we just continue this tomorrow?" She didn't wait for them to answer her, she started for the stairs, throwing a look over her shoulder at Killian and nodding for him to follow her.

She was more than a little perturbed when instead, she saw that he had taken her spot at the table. She heard the words "pirate ship" and rolled her eyes. Well, there went Henry's support. Hell, even David was listening pretty intently to whatever dumb story Killian was telling them, complete with animated facial expressions and a lot of gesticulating.

Damn that pirate and his too-charming-for-his-own-good ways.

"Fine, I'm just going to take a bath," she said, knowing no one was listening to her anyway.

She was wrong. Her eyes met Killian's for a split second and she caught the hint of a smirk on his lips before she stomped her way up the stairs, before he could say anything really offensive, or at all.

She went to her room, rifling through her dresser to gather up everything she would need for tonight and tomorrow, so that once she got Killian settled in here, she'd have no reason to come back in. That just seemed like a distinctly bad idea, all around. She gave a quick scan of the room, doing that stupid teenage thing where you make sure there's nothing embarrassing in sight, because if there was, God knew Killian would comment on it later.

Her arms were full of her clothes and toiletries and she was just starting to reach for the handle on the door when there was a knock. "What?" she asked, a little bit more irritably than she intended, assuming it was Killian.

"Emma?"

It was Mary-Margaret. Emma sighed, not sure if it was from relief or frustration. She knew what this visit meant, and she wasn't sure she was up for that conversation right now. "Come in," she said finally.

Mary-Margaret pushed the door open, peeking her head inside. She had that concerned expression on her face, and Emma set her stuff down, knowing this was going to be a long talk. "What's up?" she asked, as though everything were completely normal around here.

"I was going to ask you the same thing," Mary-Margaret said, shutting the door behind her and moving to sit on the edge of Emma's bed.

"What do you mean?" Emma asked innocently.

Mary-Margaret fixed her with that look of hers, the one that made Emma shift uncomfortably, as though she were still a kid. She had no idea how Mary-Margaret managed it.

"Well, I couldn't leave him locked up!" she finally said, throwing her hands up in defeat. "And I will feel better if I know where he is at all times, won't you?"

Mary-Margaret didn't speak for a few moments, giving Emma a serious look, as though she were weighing her words. "You sure that's all this is about?"

"Oh, my God, yes," Emma snapped, getting annoyed now. She was sick of the looks and the innuendos and the implications that she felt anything more than duty toward the damn pirate. "Do you honestly think if I wanted to jump his bones, I'd bring him back here?"

She said that pretty loud. She wondered with a wince if they'd heard it downstairs. Oh, hell.

Mary-Margaret bit back a grin. "All right, all right, that's a fair point," she conceded. "Still … bringing him here … "

"I was going to take him to Granny's," Emma confessed, sitting down on the bed next to her mother then. "But … I don't know, at the last minute … "

"Worried about Ruby?"

"What?" Emma asked, too quickly. "No! Of course not. Why … why would I be worried about her? Why would I even care?"

"I don't know," Mary-Margaret said. "Why would you?"

"Stop doing that," Emma grumbled. "I know what you're thinking, and you need to just stop thinking it. There's nothing going on, not now, nor will there ever be."

She sighed. "I'm the one who insisted we let him come back … it's my fault if something happens to him."

"Emma, you have got to stop taking all responsibility for everything," Mary-Margaret said, not unkindly. She put her arm around Emma's shoulders and squeezed gently. "It's not good for you."

"Nothing I do is good for me," she muttered. "It's not that easy to just stop, though." She gave a half-hearted smile to Mary-Margaret. "But this time, I promise … you just have to trust me. I know what I'm doing. And what I'm most emphatically not doing," she added pointedly, earning a laugh from Mary-Margaret.

"I hope so," she said. "I know what it's like when your feelings cloud your judgement. But Emma?"

"Mmm?" Emma asked, looking at her.

"Sometimes it's okay to act on feelings, too." Mary-Margaret stood up then. "But you're tired, and you don't want to keep talking to me about this, I can tell. Just … whatever it is you think you're doing? Be careful, all right?"

Emma frowned as Mary-Margaret left the room, sitting on the edge of her bed for several minutes, lost in thought, before she remembered what she'd set out to do in the first place. She stood up and began gathering up her things again, moving to the door and using the tip of her boot to nudge it open.

She was not all that surprised when she saw Killian standing just outside the door. "May I help you?" she asked him blandly.

"Was going to ask you the same, love," he said, smirking again. Always smirking. Emma really kind of wanted to ask him if it was some kind of tic or something that caused it. Annoying, smug, handsome bastard.

She fixed him with a bored expression. "And what would I need your help with, exactly?"

"Oh, I don't know," he said, eyes glinting with mischief. "Might need someone to help you scrub all those hard-to-reach places, yeah?"

Emma gaped at him for half a second before she used her free hand to grab him by the front of his shirt and pull him back into her room. He chuckled. "Knew it was all just a pretense to get me alone," he said, leaning in, his arms going around her.

She shoved him back, shaking her head at him, her eyes flashing. "You have to stop that!" she hissed at him. "If you are going to stay here, in my house, with my family, with my son around, you can't keep making these innuendos, got it?"

His smirk didn't exactly vanish, but his expression did regain some semblance of seriousness at her expression and the tone in her voice. "All right, all right," he said, holding up his hand in surrender. "I'll behave. Pirate's honor."

She glared at him. "That's not worth much," she told him, pushing past him to open the door so she could leave. "This is where you're staying … for now," she muttered before she pulled the door open. "Don't touch my stuff."

"So you've said," he said, voice low, and she realized then just how close he was standing to her … again. She did her best to ignore the goosebumps that rose on her skin when he spoke in that tone, glad to be wearing a long-sleeved sweater right now.

Her eyes flicked up to his and held for a beat too long. There was something unreadable in his impossibly blue eyes, and it made her heart flutter in a way that it hadn't in a very long time. He reached up with his hand then, pushing a strand of her blonde hair behind one ear. "One day, Emma," he said softly, but he didn't finish whatever thought came next.

It was okay though. His words jarred her from her reverie, and she turned away then. "Not gonna happen," she breathed before she left the room.