Killian woke realizing he had slept in the chair all night, watching the girl - his daughter sleep. He had a daughter. He had a daughter with Emma. Emma is in a sleeping curse and their daughter thinks he can rescue her. Once upon a time ago he would have done anything for Emma. But her father had killed Liam. He couldn't help but think what his life would have been like if he had never met Emma.

"I can hear you thinking." Aria announced from the bed. She sat up and looked at him her green eyes narrowing in suspicion. "You're not thinking about backing out are you?" she accused.

"No, I am not backing out. Although I don't think you understand what you are asking, I am not your mother's true love. I am no one's true love. "Killian glanced down to hide the pain in his eyes." I made a lot of choices that brought me to where I am today some good some bad do I regret it yes? Can I fix it? I don't know."

"Do you want to fix it? Do you still love my mother?" Aria asked peering into his blue eyes.

"More than my own life, I have loved her from the minute I saw her and I will love her till my dying breath or beyond, But I don't know if I can ever make things right. I know you don't want to think it's true but your grandfather set my brother and me up to die. And that cannot be forgiven."

"My grandfather did no such thing did you ever ask him?" Aria asked eyes blazing with anger.

"No. I did not. I knew." Killian answered. He turned away and started to walk to the door assuming she would follow. When he opened the door he looked back at her. She was kneeling in the middle of the bed tears running down her normally strong face her eyes held a bitter retreat. Killian was taken back by the look of defeat on her face.

"Arabella…." Killian began and slowly walked towards the young girl.

Aria snapped her face up to his and gone was the bitter hopelessness form a few minutes ago it was now replaced with raw unadulterated anger directed right to him. "My name is Aria! The only person who has ever called me Arabella is in a sleeping curse that you are too ignorant to break. I'm leaving. "She stormed past him in such a blue that he wasn't sure what had happened. He sighed and followed her.

"Aria, I'm sorry. I am not letting you leave by yourself. There are bad people out there that you wouldn't be safe at least let me get you back to Mist Haven. I can offer you passage on the Jolly Roger."

"NO." Aria crossed her arms against her chest and pouted like the child she was. Killian sighed and did the only thing he could think of. He scooped her up over his shoulder and carried her kicking and screaming to the docks. He nodded a greeting to any curious onlookers.

Aria had never been so embarrassed in her life. He father had just thrown her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He carried her to the docks. He set her feet and she stared at him in shock for five seconds before choosing the one thing she knew to do, she stomped on his instep and ran. He father was fast she didn't expect him to be able to move that swiftly in all the leather. He caught her and plucked her up off her feet again and strolled on deck and straight to his cabin and dropped her then turned and left locking the door behind him. Aria swore and pounded on the door until she ran out of energy. She strolled to the bed and stretched out. Instantly she fell asleep.

When she woke it was to find a small tray of food sitting beside the bed and a note that read "Come up on deck when you awake. –Killian." Aria plucked an apple from the tray and bit into it while exploring the cabin. It was the bookshelf that caught her attention she rushed to it and ran her fingers over every spine smiling. Her father was a bookworm like her. It made her want to ask him about every book. Removing one at random she opened it inside the front cover was an inscription "To Killian, may we forever travel the high seas. Love always, Liam."

"Uncle Liam," She whispered. "Grandfather talked so much about you. He didn't do what my father accused of him. I will find a way to get your brother to see the truth. I promise." She shut the book and placed it back on the shelf and chose a second one it look like it was in Greek. She wondered if her father knew Greek, and if he would teach her.

Aria set the apple core back on the tray and made a sandwich from the meat cheese and bread that also set on the tray and tucking the book under her arm she headed upstairs to battle her father.

Killian watched her walk on deck and nodded when she started to walk to him she stumbled a bit but not obviously. He bolstered commands at his crew as they watched her walk across the deck to the wheel.

"Hello Lass. I see you found the food I set out for you."

"Thank you. Do you speak Greek?" she asked curiously setting the book by the ships wheel.

"Aye and several other useful and not so useful languages it was just one of the many things I learned while in the king's navy."

"Will you teach me?" She showed him the book under her arm.

"Aye, if you wish. That is not Greek however." He pointed to the book." It is codes that Liam wrote. I have been trying to decipher it since his death."

"Neat." She glanced at the book in her hands in awe. She glanced out the horizon before them, "Are you taking me home?" she asked.

He just nodded his jaw was set in a lock position and it didn't appear to be comfortable. She sighed and sat at his feet and opened the book. She studied it for a long time before retreating wordlessly to the captain's cabin rifling through the desk she pulled out a pen and a piece of parchment, she began to decipher the words in the book. She was bent over the parchment and the book when Killian strolled into the cabin hours later he took one look at her and felt a twinge of something he didn't know how to name. He lit a lantern and walked to where she sat and placed it in front of her. She then looked up at him and her eyes were so much like Emma's he got lost for a moment. When he shook out of it he looked at her and she was string at him.

"I can't help but see your mother when I look at you." He spoke quietly.

"Funny my grandmother said more than once that she saw Jones in me at every half step."

"Aye you have my spunk. Your mother's eyes the shape of your face is like my mother's and your nose is Liam and if I'm not mistaken your hair holds a bit of curl to it that would be from my brother also. I see a great deal of King David and Queen Snow in you too, you were raised very well and I see the obvious love you have for them." She smiled her eyes glassy from the thought of looking like her family.

"Grandfather told me Uncle Liam was an honorable man and the best soldier he ever met. He didn't have any portraits of him or you for that matter. What did he look like? Do you have any portraits of my Grandmother?" Killian shook his head but reached for her pen and parchment and as he started to draw a quick sketch of his brother. The words on the paper caught his attention. "Did you decipher that code language?" he asked in shock and awe.

"Not very much of it, deciphering is pretty easy once you figure it all out one of my Grandfathers guards taught me his name was Graham. He told me to look me for easy words like "the" or "and" and then you can guess the letter and then other words and the more words you can decipher the more of the alphabet you can learn then you can learn all the words."

"That's incredible. Deciphering is a fine talent for a naval officer but I'm sure your grandmother wasn't overly fond of it." He began sketching on the back side of her paper, first he drew Liam then his mother and then he drew Emma as he remembered her.

"My grandmother said I was more like my mother than she thought. I would rather be tromping through the woods on a horse than dancing at a ball with a prince." Her words caused an unexplained shiver at the thought of his daughter and some handsy prince dancing at a ball then he remembered Emma when he met her and the prince she trampled all over.

"Aye, I can understand why she said that." A half smile appeared on his face as he thought about the first time he had been dragged to the palace. "I met Emma when she was merely fourteen. She fell for me immediately, "he joked. A wide honest grin crossed his lips as he replayed the memory of Emma tripping and falling into his arms. "I fell in love with her the night of her fourteenth birthday. I had just met her but felt like I knew her my whole life. I didn't want to be at the miserable stuffy ball but your uncle Liam made me attend and not only did I have to go I had to wear a suit. I was only sixteen I wasn't officially a member of the royal navy but I was allowed to be on deck with Liam as a squire. I did all the dirty work mopping the decks peeling potatoes scrubbing the captain's shoes. It wasn't a bad life they treated me fairly and taught me to sword fight and how to sail I was the youngest guy to reach lieutenant since the captain himself. I was bound for Captain. Then it all went to hell."

"Aria had tears falling down her face as she picked up the parchment and stared at the face in the sketches. She looked up at the sound of the door slamming her father had just stormed out of the cabin. She sighed it was like baby steps take a step and fall on your arse. Get up and try it again only to do the same damn thing. She pulled out the pocket watch she carried with her and stared at the faces of her grandparents and her at age five. She missed them terribly but she had to get through to her father. Somehow.

Killian sat in the crow's nest he would never admit to anyone that he was hiding. He was simply in the one place that he could get a bit of peace and quiet. He sat knees to his chest and thought. He thought about his brother Liam Oh he'd be rolling on the floor at the thought of Killian being a father not that he think Killian would make a bad father just the whole idea of Killian falling in love with the princess had made Liam grin like an idiot. The fact that he had a child with her would make him laugh like a loon. He watched as a blue bird landed on the crow's nest and stared at him at first Killian tried to blow it off then he noticed in the far, far distance the telltale sign of the castle and the bright green forests surrounding it they should be docking by the next morning then he would drop the girl off and go. Something caught his eye. A tiny scroll tied to the bird's foot. He untied it and unrolled it reading the words.

"Is she with you?" Was all it said Killian pulled a charcoal out of his pocket and wrote under the single question, "Yes." Then he rolled up the note and retied it to the bird's leg and sent him home.

Aria climbed into the crow's nest and sat next to him mirroring his position. She said nothing just laid her head on his shoulder and sighed. Killian eventually broke the silence.

"We will dock at Mist Haven in the morning." Aria raised her head and looked at him."

"Will you tell me more about my mother?"

"She was the most beautiful girl I ever saw. She was barely seventeen when you were conceived." Killian he thought for a moment then continued. "We wrote back and forth forever and then one day she just stopped."

"My grandmother took ill and she had to help raise my aunts and my uncle." Aria sighed. "My youngest aunt is only three years older than me."

"Aye, the curse," Killian said.

"Not really a curse. It was more, poisoning I guess. It was caused by the curse but not part of the curse, an unexpected pleasure for Regina. Since it wasn't part of the curse it couldn't be cured by true love's kiss. The plant you brought back from Neverland didn't cure it either. My mother made a deal with the dark one. She gave up all her magic to help my grandmother. Then Regina found out that my mother was with child and she tried to kill me before I was born but one of the guards Dopey He is one of my grandmother's dwarf friends, he stepped in and it caused him to become a tree. My mother sat under that tree every day while he was pregnant with me and tried to find a way to fix it. The day I was born Regina showed up? She nearly killed my mother while she was in labor. My grandfather's guard Graham stepped in and tried to save her but Regina scooped us up in a purple haze and my grandmother said that they sent out a search party and then we just popped back up and I was born and crying and my mother was in a sleeping curse. "

"Quite peculiar indeed and no one contacted me or anyone for years has anyone tried to break the curse?"

"Yes Princes came from different lands to attempt it but no one has been able to, my grandparents never lied to me about you." Aria looked over at him," Grandmother told me that you were a brave soldier that fought in the King's navy and fell in love with my mother , They approved of you very much by the way. My grandfather didn't but he said he wouldn't approve of anyone for his little girl just like he would never approve of anyone for me. Grandmother said you were a very handsome man who wore his heart on his sleeve for everyone to see. They weren't thrilled that the princess my mother had a baby but they also said they wouldn't trade me for any amount of jewels in the world." Aria studied hi profile then turned back to the horizon." My mother still loved you, you know."

"How do you know that if you've never met her?"

"She kept your ring. Never took it off. She understood what happened to Liam hurt you she just held out hope that you would return to her."

"Maybe, But it's inexcusable what your grandfather did to my brother."

"And maybe he didn't do it, maybe there is another explanation." Aria Insisted.

"Maybe, but I'm not holding my breath." Killian stood and climbed down the ladder leaving Aria in the nest alone.

"Uuuugggghhhh, "She fell over backwards rolling her eyes. Her father was as stubborn and pigheaded as her grandmother claimed her grandfather had been when they met.

Morning fell on the sea as the Jolly quietly cut through the waves to dock In Mist Haven. Killian took a deep breath remembering the last time he had been there. He looked back to find Arai not where he had expected her he rolled his eyes and marched to the Captain's cabin where Aria had taken residence during their journey. He knocked on the door and when it opened he was stunned.

Aria stood before him her blonde hair hung down past her waist and was caught back at the sides by two combs. She wore a long blue gown made of sapphire colored silk and poofed out like girl's dresses do. She glanced up at him and smiled and he was thrown back in time to Emma at her birthday. "Aria, lass," He whispered. "You look beautiful, just like your mother." He bent forward and pulled her to his chest in the first open display of affection he had shown her he pulled back and cupped her cheeks and kissed her forehead. When he pulled back they were both crying. Aria wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him. "I love you, Papa"

Killian laughed shakily "Aye, love you too." He smiled at her. He had a daughter.