A few notes: A couple of reviews have said that Emma isn't fiery enough. I am aware that she's not quite her canon self, but that's the point. In this AU, she's not a 28-year-old woman who's grown up abandoned and alone her entire life, bouncing around the foster care system and forced to give up her son as a teenager in jail, but a 19-year-old girl who's been raised by her loving parents in a stable home, and who's always had everything she needed. In short, she doesn't have the same walls or instincts or need to fight as grownup, broken Emma, and I'm consciously writing her character to reflect this difference. But, um, things ARE going to happen to push her in that direction. . . I say no more. Also, we will find out more information about Storybrooke and whether or not there's a curse, and what the circumstances are if so, starting in this chapter.

Chapter 4

It was Emma who broke the silence, after they'd been staring at each other for almost a minute. "All right," she said. "So talk."

Professor Jones blew out a breath, dragging a hand through his rumpled dark hair. He turned away, tension evident in every line of his shoulders, then spun back. "What were you doing in my office, lass?"

Well, there went any remaining hope of secrecy. Yet she felt almost relieved; the cloak-and-dagger stuff was a drag, and in turn, she gave him the courtesy of not playing stupid. "I was looking for the necklace you stole from my dorm room."

He blinked, badly thrown. Apparently he had still been under the impression that he'd been a lot smoother about that than he was, and for a moment, she saw something like fear in his face. They'd both just realized they were treading on forbidden ground – the knot in her stomach, the racing electricity in her veins, the way she couldn't take her eyes off him. She was close enough to reach out and touch him, fixated on the hollow in his throat where his pulse was hammering, the quick, sketching movements of his elegant, long-fingered hands. She watched them move, describe the air, the space around him, the way he turned back, the look on his face, she. . .

Hadn't heard a word he'd said.

"I – I'm sorry," Emma said, blinking. "Can you repeat that?"

He stared at her, as if trying to tell whether she was joking. He nervously checked his watch; he was probably running on a schedule, or didn't want the next class to come by and start banging on the door. As if pleading to some patron saint for patience, he inhaled gustily through his nose and then out. "I apologize, Miss Nolan. That was a bit of a mistake on my part."

"A bit of a mistake? You were in my room!"

Professor Jones flinched. She hadn't thought it was possible to put him off his guard again, as sleek and composed as he was, but now she'd done it twice in two minutes. "Aye, lass, that I was," he breathed, his normally lilting accent thickening into a broader brogue, rich and dark and menacing. "But you won't be telling anyone that."

She crossed her arms, as much to steady herself as to express defiance. "Why not?"

He grinned. It wasn't one of the demure, professional smiles he employed in class, but a roguish leer, and it made her feel as if every stitch of clothing had dropped off her body. "Because you don't want me to tell anyone about your lad and his little side venture, now do you?"

It actually took Emma a moment to process this. "Are you – did you just – " Instead of backing away as she wanted to, she took another step, closing more of the distance between them, until the air sang and hummed with a lightning current. Her heart was pounding, but she couldn't be sure if it was due to his open threat to expose Neal (how the hell did he know about that?) or his sheer physical proximity. "Are you blackmailing me?"

He had the decency to look abashed, at least. "Miss Nolan, I apologize. That was impolitic, but not irrelevant. I have been searching for some relic of Robert Gold's longer than you can possibly imagine, and I do not desire to make a spectacle of it. Give me back the necklace, and you never have to talk about or think about this ever again."

Emma hesitated. She was tempted, of course, but she also thought that he had overplayed his hand. By revealing that he knew about Neal moonlighting as a pot dealer, he'd also revealed that he'd done quite a bit of digging into her life. He couldn't have known about her when he'd chosen to come here, as his surprise at finding out her background had been very real, but what if he had known. . . what had he known?

No. There was still too much of a mystery here to let go of. And she didn't quite like what he'd said. "Give you back the necklace? It's mine, it belongs to me. I could loan it to you, but if I do, you owe me an explanation. At the least."

He eyed her for a long moment, then turned away, gazing heavenward as if to implore the Blessed Virgin to send in the heavy cavalry (he was Irish, he wore a silver cross around his neck, and he taught at BC. He was almost certainly Catholic). To the ceiling tiles, he said, "Justice."

"What?"

"It's really no concern of yours, my dear. But it so happens that Robert Gold is a wanted man."

"What?" This rabbit hole was getting deeper all the time. "Wanted by who?"

Professor Jones' grin this time was completely mirthless. "By me."

"For what?"

"For a murder he committed many years ago and got away with scot-free. Let me ask you a few questions, if you have the time." Again that glance at his watch. Tick-tock. "Growing up in this Storybrooke of yours, did people ever just drop by? Did you ever have outsiders, strangers, new mates in school? Even summer visitors on holiday?"

"No," Emma admitted slowly, confused. "But we're really boring, like I said. It practically felt like the same day over and over sometimes. Nobody needs to come visit – "

"Next question," he went on, cutting her off. "Does this Robert Gold of yours have an insatiable desire to make deals? Always a favor for this one, a favor for that one. Seems to be a harmless enough eccentric, but you don't want to cross him. Lives alone, I'm wagering? Never heard of a woman in his life? Likely has you or someone close to you under his thumb for something, some inconvenient little matter he tidied up in the past. And if he does, he never forgets."

Emma could only stare at him in complete consternation. The description, of course, fit the pawnbroker to a tee, and sent a cold sludgy mass avalanching down her spine. "If you have a problem with him," she finally stammered, "if he really is a murderer, why didn't you just – "

"Why didn't I go to Storybrooke myself?" Killian Jones finished. "Why didn't I phone the police, or the FBI, or any one of a thousand other commonsensical solutions? I would like you to ask yourself that question, my dear, and then several dozen more. I trust you've a keen enough intellect to work them out on your own. In the meantime, you may keep the swan necklace if you like, but it would be far more convenient for us both if. . ." He held out his hand.

Emma's eyes flicked to it. It was his left hand, and there was something strange about it, just visible under the cuff of his shirt. There was a faint, fading band of grooved scar tissue that completely encircled the wrist, like a deep burn or a flesh wound or. . . what even. . .

He realized that she was staring. He pulled it back, flicking a piece of dark hair out of his eyes, a gesture as smooth and natural as if he'd meant to do it all along, and offered her his right hand instead. But as he did, his gaze darted to hers, and there was a brief, peculiar moment of vulnerability. They knew that they had each other by the short hairs, could ruin each other's life and academic career if they opened their mouths, and yet for all the threats he'd made, she didn't get the sense that he was actually prepared to carry them out. He'd embroiled her in his plot, yes, but he was aware of the consequences. He didn't want to hurt her. He was asking her to trust him.

Emma hesitated. Then she turned, went back to her backpack, and dug the necklace out from its pocket, not entirely sure that this wouldn't lead to her being charged as an accessory for murder (why did Killian – Professor Jones – want to find Mr. Gold? He'd said "justice," but that covered a whole array of possible outcomes). Yet against her better judgment, her awareness that this could be legally as well as morally wrong, out of some strange spark in her that recognized something in him (and not just his face, pretty as it was, but something that made her feel as if she was coming home) she crossed the classroom to him, opened her fingers, and overturned the necklace into his hand.

He looked at it, then at her, then at it again, as if he hadn't expected her to give it up. He appeared genuinely confused, and deeply touched, and his eyes met hers again. Their faces were very close, enough for her to feel the warmth of his breath against her skin, the ache in her fingers with her desire to reach up and curl them around the fine arch of his cheekbone, the porcelain skin and dark stubble, to trace his lips, smooth the anxiety and the ancientness from his soul. He might be only in his early thirties, but he seemed much older. She honestly did not know what would have happened next, if they had not been interrupted by a brisk knock at the door.

Professor Jones sprang back from her as if he'd been electrocuted, or as if he was waking from a trance, and shook his head. Then, turning away, he strode across the room and unlocked the door, to admit a baffled-looking colleague. "Everything all right, Killian?"

"Fine, Jim."

"My class starts in five minutes. Thought I was going to have to call security to get them to open up, or maybe I was going crazy and had the wrong day. Like those dreams when you're giving a lecture naked."

The other professor attempted a self-deprecating chuckle, but Emma saw his eyes flicking curiously to her. She was still having trouble getting her face under control, stopping the heaving breaths she'd been drawing, and it occurred to her at that moment that this was probably not the best position for a professor to be caught in – especially a professor as young, gorgeous, and already infamous as Killian Jones, especially not alone in a locked classroom with a blushing blonde coed. She drew herself up and flashed as bright a smile as she could. "Everything's fine. We were just. . . discussing my research project."

"Research project," Killian repeated hastily. "Aye."

They smiled in unison at his colleague, who was clearly more baffled than ever. Then they hastened past him, made a mutual exit, and shot in opposite directions like meteors.

Over the next few weeks, Emma's life – to her own bewilderment – actually settled into something approaching normality. Whatever it was that Killian was planning with the necklace (when had he become Killian to her? She had to remind herself to call him Professor Jones) he at least didn't seem about to pull off some poorly judged casino caper, and he honored his part of the bargain to not involve her in anything else. Honored it so well, in fact, that she couldn't help feeling bereft.

She went to a few parties with Neal, but her heart wasn't quite in them, and each time he tried to get her to come home with him afterwards, she found a new excuse. She wanted to ask him about his roommates, she wanted to ask him again about Robert Gold and how he knew him (as she was now quite sure) and so much more, but she could never find anything that felt like the right time. And as long as she kept her mouth shut, Neal stayed genial and even understanding about her sudden and total lack of libido, but it was plain that he was getting annoyed. At last, the fifth or sixth time she turned him down, he exploded, "C'mon, Emma, the fuck is this really about? Is there something going on with that teacher of yours, and you're not telling me?"

Emma's jaw dropped. "What? No!" It was too fast, she knew, even though there wasn't. Not technically. "I am not sleeping with my history professor!"

"Good for you, you're not a slut," Neal said sarcastically. "But don't act like nothing is wrong, because I'm not buying it."

"Wha – " She stood up in a huff, much louder than she should have, considering they were doing homework together in the quiet area in the library. Receiving a crop of death glares from the surrounding carrels, and having no desire to treat her classmates to more voyeuristic gossip than they'd already overheard, she lowered her voice and hissed, "That's really rich! I'm walking on eggshells around you right now! I can't even hint like something's wrong, or you run away and shut down and then reappear and pretend I was making it up!"

Neal stared at her blankly. "The hell are you talking about? I'm not the one with the problems. I'm just trying to live my life. You're the one spazzing out."

This was so unfair that it took Emma's breath away. She reached down and jerked her notebook out from under his arm, ignoring his squawk of, "Hey, I was using that!" As another wave of disapproving "shhh!"-s came crashing down on them, she stuffed it into her backpack, grabbed her coat off the chair, and marched away.

By the time she was heading out of the library into the gray end-of-September Friday afternoon, he was running to catch up with her, once more full of excuses and apologies. "Hey. Hey babe, calm down. Calm down, I'm sorry. Don't take things so personal, okay? It was a dumb thing to say, and I blew it. Come on, Emma, don't be mad at me. I'll make it up to you."

"Why are you always making it up to me?" Emma said exasperatedly. "Can't you just not screw it up in the first place? Look, Neal, I like you and I like being with you, but this isn't the way I want things to be. I feel like we need to take a break and think stuff over. Tomorrow is family weekend anyway, I can't hang out with you. My parents are driving down from Storybrooke to see me, and they'll be around here. So I'm definitely not partying."

Neal stared at her again, more confused than ever – and then, dawningly, horrified. "They're coming here? From that place. . . back home, where you said. . ."

"Yeah," Emma said impatiently. "My parents are coming to visit me. You know, like normal functional people do? Is that all, or can I go now?"

Neal had nothing to say to that. He stepped back, still looking stunned. There was a small voice in her head that was screaming at her not to blow it, to act nice, to be a lady, that if she ruined her chance with this guy, she'd never have another, with anyone. But for once, she ignored it. Instead, she shouldered her backpack, and walked away.

Emma was woken the next morning, far too early for a Saturday, by her phone ringing and her mom excitedly telling her that they'd just crossed the Maine-Massachusetts border and would be arriving ahead of schedule, around eleven. Seeing as it was a four-hour drive from Storybrooke, and that was assuming no distractions, detours, or pointless construction projects on southbound I-95, that meant they'd left around seven goddamn AM, which made Emma roll her eyes and sigh, but secretly hide a smile. She'd oftentimes wished for siblings growing up, just because it would be fun to have a playmate (and somebody to take the heat off whenever her parents were pissed) but the upside of being an only child was that you got all the attention, love, Christmas and birthday presents, and tuition money.

Emma tossed the phone back on the night table and dozed until about 10:20, at which point she jumped up, commandeered the suite shower, washed her hair, got dressed, rushed back into her room to throw her things under the bed and make it look like she'd been cleaning, and grabbed her wallet and keys to throw into her purse. It was finally a sunny day, so she slapped on her knockoff Oakleys and headed out.

From Walsh, it was a straight shot down to the parking garage, and Emma reached it (she was pleased to note) with five whole minutes to spare. She stood hopping anxiously from foot to foot until she finally saw her dad's old brown truck (he refused to get a new one) turning in off Chestnut Hill Drive. Three minutes past eleven (surprising, as the Nolan family had never been good with time) they were joyously rushing into each other's arms as if they'd been apart for years.

Emma sniffed, did her best to disguise it, and hugged David and Mary Margaret tightly; she liked to act cool and adult at college, but she was still their little girl at heart. One of the other corollaries of growing up with no siblings was that you actually had to talk to your parents about stuff, even the weird and embarrassing stuff. At least within limits, a point that was nicely underlined when her dad let go of her, glanced around with narrowed eyes, cracked his knuckles, and said, "So, when exactly do I get to meet this Neal character?"

"David," Mary Margaret said reprovingly.

"Hey, I just think I have a right, okay?" David shrugged. "I didn't say I was going to do anything, I only want to get a look at him. You never tell us anything about him, sweetheart."

"He's. . . you know." Emma waved a hand lamely. "A guy."

Mary Margaret caught her eye with a distinctly sympathetic expression, but the three of them headed up to Lyons with the rest of the students and their families; at least, those who weren't completely mortified to be seen with them. Once they'd gotten brunch and sat down at one of the many extra tables, David said, "We've been looking into Mr. Gold for you."

"Oh?" Emma tried to sound casual. "Anything interesting?"

"No. That's the funny part." David forked a large bite of scrambled eggs into his mouth. "Nothing at all, in fact. Of course, it was hard to think up a good excuse to get into the vital records office. Mayor Mills isn't really the cuddly type."

"Yeah, her?" Emma cut up her pancakes. "Hasn't she hated you for, like, ever?"

"Hate is a strong word, Emma," Mary Margaret reminded her gently. "Regina's a complicated woman, but she wants what's best for Storybrooke."

"So did she let you in?"

"Actually, no." David shrugged. "But do you remember Graham?"

"The. . . sheriff?" Emma again did her best to play this off, when in fact she'd had a hideous crush on him, the cause of much of her existential angst at age sixteen. "Oh yeah, what about him? Hasn't he always been Regina's little Polly Pocket?"

"So we thought," Mary Margaret acknowledged, "but he caught us trying to, er, let ourselves into the records office, and for some reason, he decided to help us. I'm glad he did, but frankly, I'm not sure how well he is. He says he's been having dreams about wolves, running in the forest, ever since you left town."

Emma squirmed. "Me? What makes him think I have anything to do with it? I was gone last year, he wasn't having weird dreams then. Besides, how is that an appropriate thing to say to a teenage girl's parents?" Putting aside the fact of everything it wasn't appropriate to say to a professor. . . but no, she was being good and not thinking about him. "So tell me. You really found nothing on Gold?" She shouldn't have expected them to. In the event that she was going to buy half the bill of goods Killian was selling about Gold being a fugitive from justice and a murderer and whatever else, owning the town would extend to removing a few inconvenient sets of paperwork.

"Nope," her dad said, "and honestly, we pushed our luck by looking even once. He found an excuse to drop by the house a few days later, all very pleasant. Wanted to tell us that he'd found the windmill, in his shop."

"Oh, that ugly thing?" They lived in a rambling old Victorian with a sign in the yard – The Nolans – and when Emma was a kid, it had been accompanied with a kitschy knickknack windmill that was barely a step up from a plaster garden gnome in its tackiness value. It had disappeared when she was ten or so, around the same time that Gold had stopped their house from being foreclosed upon. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"We were wondering that ourselves," Mary Margaret said. "Until he made an off-the-cuff remark about how easy it was to find things if you knew where to look, and how it was always better to look for things from our past that should be found again, instead of digging for bodies that are better kept buried. Then he smiled politely, thanked me for tea, and showed himself out."

"Oh." Emma swallowed hard. "Yeah, I'd say that was pretty unambiguous."

"Indeed," a voice remarked from behind them. "Whatever happened to the art of friendly teatime conversation?"

All three of them jumped, Emma the most of all, nearly spilling orange juice down her shirt. When they turned, they saw exactly who she had been hoping and fearing to run into. Professor Killian Jones, as impeccably turned out as usual, giving every appearance of milling casually among the brunch crowd, smiled and said, "These would be your mum and dad, Miss Nolan?"

"Uh. . . yeah." Emma swallowed again; her pancake felt as if it had gotten lodged in her throat. "Uh. . . Mom, Dad, this is my history teacher, Professor Jones. Professor, this is my dad, David, and my mom, Mary Margaret."

"Pleasure." Killian shook each of their politely offered hands. "Aye, your daughter's in my course. Smart lass, hard worker. You must be very proud."

"We are, thanks." Mary Margaret beamed, looking slightly starstruck. Even if her mom was a happily married homemaker and squeaky-clean schoolteacher, Emma couldn't say she was surprised; she'd seen Killian's effect on unsuspecting females at close range too many times. "What class does she have you for?"

"Eighteenth-Century Europe I. I'm teaching the sequel next semester, assuming they don't fire me first." Killian laughed, as if it was all a joke, but his eyes had performed the briefest of sideways flicks to Emma, as if testing the continued confidentiality of their secret. "As well as a Victorian literature course. Keeps me busy."

"I imagine so," Mary Margaret said admiringly. "I'd love to sit you down and pick your brains on Jane Eyre, if you – "

"Hon, he's probably got a lot of families to introduce himself to," David interrupted. "But we do appreciate it," he added hastily to Killian, clearly not wanting to look quite so gauche as to be spotted chasing off a suitably laurelled member of the intelligentsia. "She's a teacher too, elementary school, so we know how hard your job is."

"It's not a job if it's fun, aye?" Killian smiled. "But no, of course, we as the faculty appreciate all the sacrifices you as parents make to send your children to us. This isn't too far from home though, I gather? She said something about Maine?"

"Yes," David said. "Storybrooke."

"Storybrooke," Killian repeated. "Long drive?"

"Not bad. About four hours, straight shot up 95 to 295. On the coast, just north of Belfast."

"I see." Killian smiled again, nodding. Then he turned to Emma, bid a polite farewell, and subsided into the crowd. She tried to watch him go, but in a few moments, lost sight of him.

"He seems very nice," Mary Margaret said dreamily. "Are you going to take his class next semester? I would. I wouldn't even mind if he was reading the phone book."

"Mom!" Emma smacked her on the arm, cheeks heating. It was bad enough to be hopelessly and madly infatuated with your professor (all right, she'd admitted it, it must be a pattern in her life) but it was worse when your mom was doing the same thing. "Hello! Dad's sitting right there!"

"Dad is going to cut her a break on this one," David said wryly. "I have eyes too."

Emma made an incoherent choking noise, had to duck under the table to cough, and took rather a while about straightening up. Then they finished their brunch, and she bundled them out the door before anything of a further embarrassing nature could occur. Such as Neal. She really wasn't ready for the Neal introduction. Not now. Possibly not ever.

Emma spent the rest of Saturday and Sunday knocking around Boston with her parents: visiting the historical museums, hitting up the trendy Beacon Hill boutiques so Mary Margaret could do some shopping (mostly of the window variety, as their finite budget had already been taxed to cover the cost of the trip down here) and touring the Constitution and pretending to be pirates for a photo-op, which did not endear them to the hard-nosed Navy lifer showing them around. All in all, they had a great time, and it was with sincere regret that she kissed them goodbye late on Sunday afternoon; they both had to be back in time for work tomorrow morning. "Have a safe drive, okay? Text me when you get home."

"Of course, honey," Mary Margaret promised. "We'll see you for Thanksgiving, right?"

"Maybe." As a matter of fact, Emma had a standing invitation to go to London with Wendy's family over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. It was a hell of a lot more glamorous than Storybrooke, but she didn't want to crush their hopes early. "We'll figure it out."

With more waving and blowing of kisses, David and Mary Margaret headed out, and Emma stood watching until the truck was gone. Then she turned and trotted back to her dorm, feeling pleased with herself that everything had gone so successfully. There, see. Just get the Neal situation sorted out, and her life would be back to copasetic.

She plopped down at her desk, opened her laptop, surfed to her BC email – and frowned.

The top message in her inbox was from Killian, sent out to the class at about 12:15 pm yesterday, politely informing them that due to a family emergency, they were excused from meeting on Monday. He hoped to be back in time for Wednesday's session, but matters were still up in the air. He was going to have to fly to Ireland, and appreciated their understanding.

12:15 pm.

Emma frowned, calculating in her head. 12:15 pm yesterday. Saturday. 12:15 pm was twenty minutes, max, from when she and her parents had met and talked to him in the dining hall. Twenty minutes, max, from when David, all innocence, had told him how to get to Storybrooke.

About four hours, straight shot up 95 to 295. On the coast, just north of Belfast.

"Oh God," Emma said aloud. Her stomach was turning to ice water. She didn't know if that was what he'd needed her necklace for, if it was some kind of talisman or what (why would he need a talisman? Anyone could have driven there if they wanted to, get directions on the Internet or anything!) but the horrible truth was already crystallizing in her head.

Killian Jones hadn't gone to Ireland.

He'd gone to her hometown.

And Robert Gold – whoever, whatever he actually was – was waiting for him.