9.

Hope Swan-Jones raced through the door of Granny's diner before coming to a halt and hastily scanning the tables for her dad. "Daddy!" she squealed when she spotted him and ran towards the booth her had secured for them. "I'm going to be a pirate princess and we're going on your ship and I can bring all my friends!" she told him in one long, excited ramble.

"Well, that all sounds...wonderful my little cygnet," he replied as he gave her a hug and pulled her on to his lap, even though he hadn't a clue what she was talking about. He looked up then to see Emma struggling through the door with their nine month old son in his car seat in one hand and the over stuffed diaper bag over her shoulder. He raced over to help, taking the baby from her as they greeted one another with a gentle kiss. "Hello love."

"Hey," she smiled and dropped the bag at their booth whilst getting Hope to scoot over so that she could sit down beside her.

"How were the parents?" he asked, whilst unstrapping Oliver and lifting him from the car seat, giving him a kiss on his chubby little cheek.

Emma and the kids had spent the morning visiting with her parents, whilst Killian carried out some much needed maintenance on his ship. They'd arranged to meet up for lunch at Granny's.

"They're good, they said hi," she replied, removing her jacket. "We had a nice morning actually. Dad enjoyed taking Hope for a walk around the farm."

"I see'd sheeps!" Hope told her dad as Emma got up to snag a high-chair for Ollie.

He gave his daughter an indulgent smile across the table.

"How did your morning go?" Emma asked him, knowing he'd had a list of tasks he'd wanted to complete.

"Good," he nodded whilst slipping off Oliver's jacket and hat. "I got done what I really needed to. There's still more I would like to…"

"Mommy!" Hope interrupted them, "I told daddy about me being a pirate princess on his ship with all my friends!" she grinned as she flung her arms out wide, toppling over the ketchup bottle.

"Aye, what is all this about?" Killian asked Emma and strapped Ollie into the high-chair

Emma sighed as she brushed her hair back over her shoulder. "I said we would ask daddy about that, not that we'd tell him!" she spoke to Hope. "Mom and I were discussing her fifth birthday next month and whether or not she wanted to have a party. Mom suggested she could have a costume party and obviously your daughter decided on being pirates straight away."

Killian grinned and gave his daughter a playful wink. "That's my girl," he said, making her giggle.

"Then I mentioned if she wanted to have a pirate party, maybe we could hold it on daddy's ship and...that's it, she was off. She has decided her birthday party is going to be on The Jolly Roger and it's going to be a complete Pirate theme."

"I see. Well, we can do that, right? If that's what she wants?" he asked as he got Emma to pass the diaper bag to him to find some toys to entertain the baby with.

"It's up to you. After all, it's your ship that will be overrun with kids," she shrugged.

"It's ours, love. We're married, what's mine is yours and vice versa."

"I'll remind you of that one day!" she laughed as Granny approached their table.

"What can I get you?" she asked, pen poised over her notepad.

"Chocolate milkshake!" Hope shouted at her.

Killian's head shot up, startled by his daughter's exclamation. "Hey, little lass!"

"Hope!" Emma admonished. "Try asking again, politely," she reminded the young child.

"Sorry," Hope lowered her head and pouted. "Please can I have a chocolate milkshake, Granny?"

"Of course you can, sweetheart," Granny smiled at her. She had a soft spot for the Swan-Jones children, as did most people in town.

The family put in their orders for food and began to make plans and suggest ideas for the pirate birthday party as Oliver happily banged a spoon on the tray of the high-chair, ignoring all the toys Killian had pulled out for him.

"Granny," Hope asked when she returned with their orders. "Are you my daddy's mommy?" she wanted to know as Killian and Emma shared a somewhat anxious expression.

Granny chuckled at the idea. "No, honey. What ever gave you that idea?"

"'Cause my Grandma and Grandpa are mommy's mommy and daddy, but...I haven't see'd daddy's mommy or daddy," she explained her childish intellect before taking a large slurp of her milkshake through the straw.

"Right," she nodded. "No, I'm not Hook's mother, people just call me Granny because I'm Ruby's Grandma." She didn't elaborate on the whole Red Riding Hood fairytale link, Hope didn't yet understand the story book significance of the people in town.

"Oh. Okay." she shrugged and bit into her grilled cheese sandwich.

They were all half way through their meals when Hope had more questions. "Daddy? Who is your mommy?" she asked curiously.

Killian looked up from shovelling some food into Oliver's open mouth. He shared a glance with Emma, unsure what to tell his daughter. He sighed then and wiped his hands, handing the spoon to Emma to continue feeding Oliver. "Her name was Alice," he began. "But I am afraid she died a very long time ago."

"She died?" Hope asked, alarmed.

"She did, when I was a very young boy."

"Oh," Hope muttered sadly and stared into what was left of her milkshake. "What about your daddy?"

"He, erm, he's gone too," he told her simply, the guilt of the part he'd played in his death laying heavily on him.

"That's sad," she said and reached for her daddy's hand. "But, you have Uncle Liam?" she spoke of Killian's half brother whom she had met a couple of times when he'd been in town.

"Technically you have two Uncle Liam's. One of them isn't here any more though. And it is sad, because I know my mother and your first Uncle Liam would have adored you and your brother. They would have been very proud and I'm sorry they'll never get to know you."

"I like them too," she decided and picked at her left over fries, satisfied now that she knew the answer.

Emma gave Killian a tender smile across the table and reached over to grasp his hand, before Oliver squawked loudly and banged his spoon on the table, demanding more of his pasta.

Sensing the now rather melancholy atmosphere at the table, Emma hastened to change the topic of conversation. "Perhaps we can have some jello at your birthday party. You know how much daddy loves it," she told Hope with a secret grin.

"Mommy!" Hope giggled, "daddy really, really hates jello!" She thought her mom was being funny.

"You know," Emma continued, "the first time your dad saw jello, he didn't think it was real. He asked me what it was."

"How was I supposed to know that wobbly gloop was edible, it didn't look like it. And then I tasted it and decided it most definitely wasn't edible!" he grimaced at the memory.

"He also thought it was a medicine because they gave it to him in hospital," Emma whispered to Hope loudly, teasing him further as they both giggled at his expense.


A few weeks later and the pirate birthday party was in full swing aboard the Jolly Roger. A dozen or so kids all dressed in various kinds of pirate regalia, plus one, for some unknown reason, dressed as a parrot, ran around the deck of the ship with their fake swords. The young crew were chasing the once feared Pirate, Captain Hook, staging a mutiny to take over his ship.

Emma, in full pirate wench costume, watched on in both amusement and admiration as her handsome husband surrendered to the tiny pirate crew, flat on his back on the deck of the ship with about a dozen plastic swords pointed at him.

"Okay, you win. The ship's yours!" he exclaimed, wincing from a particularly exuberant kid who was poking their sword into his neck.

"Yay!" The kids all cheered and ran away squealing, taking over the ship, fighting over who was going to be at the wheel. All apart from Hope, who jumped on her father with a giggle.

She was having the time of her life, running around with her friends, high on sugar and exhilaration as her daddy played make believe games with them all, dressed in his pirate fineness. It had been some time since Emma had seen him dressed in his old leathers and she wasn't going to deny the sensual feelings that exuded within her.

Killian had sailed The Jolly Roger out to sea a couple of miles and Emma had put a protective charm all around the ship so that there would be no kids accidentally falling overboard. Her parents had insisted on joining in on the fun of their granddaughter's birthday, so they were on board too helping out. Currently they were both down in the galley preparing the pirate feast whilst Henry and Ella were busy filling cardboard pirate chests with some party loot for the kids to take home. Emma's nine year old brother, Neal, had vehemently protested that he was too old and too cool for a little kids birthday party, but he'd been spied joining in the games and chasing after his brother-in-law with the other kids.

"Attention crew. Grub's up!" Snow called, poking her head up from the hatch.

The kids all whooped and hollered, waving plastic cutlasses and hooks as they ran towards her where she quickly got out of their way. Hope jumped up from her dad's lap and followed her friends to the galley, leaving her dad on the floor of the deck. With Ollie, dressed in his own baby pirate costume, balanced on her hip, Emma offered Killian her hand to help him up from the floor.

"Thanks, love." He grinned and gave her a swift kiss before moving to follow the kids.

"Hold on," Emma said, pulling on the back of his long leather coat.

"Yes?" He turned slowly, with one eyebrow arched high on his forehead.

She pulled him in close. "You've still got it, pirate," she patted his cheek softly as he studied her with playful, twinkling blue eyes. "How about you keep that get up on for later?" She looked up at him and met his eyes, giving him a sly grin. The pair of them completely oblivious to the nine month old who was privy to their conversation. Luckily he was too young to have a clue as he happily sucked on his thumb.

"Hmm, does someone want to play adult pirate games in private?" he asked with a knowing smirk.

"Perhaps," she winked.

"Only if you leave yours on too," he told her eagerly, eyeing the rather low cut blouse of her costume, the tip of his hook running along the lace at the hem.

"It's a date," she agreed and sauntered away with a sway of her hips.

He watched her go with a wry shake of his head as she left him him standing alone, before he caught himself and followed her to re-join the party below.