"Stop pacing, sister. She back on the ship."

"Shut up, Clotho," Lechesis snapped. "She is so damn stubborn! We have to do something."

"What makes you think that? They were designed for each other," Clotho asked. "They will find love."

Lechesis stopped her pacing and frowned down at her feet. "They will find love, but she can make the path to get there long and arduous. You've seen that possible future too, sister."

"I have. And yes, I admit it brings me sadness, but it's her choice. She gets to choose," Clotho pressed.

Atropos listened from around the corner. She had seen the different possible futures too. There were routes Emma could take that meant it would be years before she found love with Killian. "Stubborn woman," she muttered to herself. She turned away from where her sisters were talking, without alerting them to her presence, and went into her workshop.

She was the Fate that determined death, cutting lifelines and deciding the timing of a person's ultimate demise. What her sisters didn't know was that she could use her power in more subtle ways.

She walked into her workshop and quickly locked the door. Next, she pulled out her magnifying glasses and retrieved Emma's life string from the drawer she secretly kept it in. As she held it up to the light, she smiled.

"There they are," she muttered as she crossed the room and grabbed up her smallest pair of scissors.

Along the part of the string that corresponded with the current time were small loops that broke apart, arched out, and connected back to when she would fall in love.

Atropos snipped the longest loop immediately, trimming and killing the possibility of a five-year struggle against love. She then worked her way through them all, trimming away and eliminating the three-year battle, the one-year struggle, and so forth, and each time smiling and feeling really good about herself despite how she was breaking all the rules.

Once her self-appointed task was complete, she smiled at the string and held it to the light. "You're a thing of beauty now."

She quickly worked to return everything to its place so she could remove herself from the room and any possibility that her work could be discovered.

As she walked away and went to the backyard to sit among the trees as if she had been there for hours, she couldn't help smiling. Atropos felt pride in what she had just done. After all, she didn't change Emma's fate or force her to do anything. What she did was to ensure that she would find her happiness and not get in the way of her own True Love.

Emma shivered as she walked through town with Killian. Something in her felt altered, and she couldn't figure out what it was. She then looked over at him, and all she could rest her mind on was the idea that he was being extraordinarily good to her.

He found her in the woods, and even after she held his own sword to his throat, he helped her escape her home and offered her free passage on his ship. Not once did he make her feel like she was in the way, either. She even gave her a room to stay in. Something that was a precious commodity on a ship.

Then he tried to talk sense into her, and all she did was argue with him. And when he proved to be right about her being bent on putting herself in danger, he didn't brag. He just saved her and killed the man that tried to hurt her.

And beyond all that, he readily agreed to her request to have his crew teach her to protect herself. Once they were back at sea, of course. Which only meant she was welcome aboard again without any fanfare or requests for monetary compensation.

If she had been on the Jolly Roger, she would have thought the ship was intruding in her thoughts. But here in town, she knew her overwhelming desire for him was all her own.

Emma was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she didn't see the danger coming. The clash of metal on metal drew her to the present, and she saw Killian disarm a man and run him through the gut with his blade.

Her eyes were then drawn to the others around her as the men cursed and took off running. The dead man had not been the only one who had been trying to attack them.

As she shivered again, Killian turned to her with concern. "Emma? Are you okay?"

She looked up into his eyes, shook her head, and pressed her body against his. "How could I be at all injured? You didn't let them anywhere near me. Did you?" She was genuinely asking. She didn't know since she had been completely locked in her own mind and lost in thought when the attack happened.

Killian registered that he was still holding his bloody sword and now apparently her. He was shocked by her reaction to him having just killed a man. He handed his sword to Smee, who had run over after the commotion ended. Next, he pressed his right hand to the small of her back. "I know you're not injured. I didn't let him get close to you. You're right. But I did just kill a man —again."

Cocking her head, she blinked a few times as she looked at him in confusion. "I don't understand. He's the one that's dead. Why wouldn't I be okay?"

He wanted to shake her and force some sense into her. Why would she be okay? She was sheltered and wouldn't have ever seen death, and now she's seen it twice in two days. And both times, he was holding the bloody sword.

"I killed two men. No matter the reason, that has to be upsetting."

Emma shook her head a little bit. "I haven't seen death before." She then looked at the dead man on the ground, blood pouring from his chest wound. Looking back up at Killian she said, "It's not a pleasant sight. But he attacked you. Why would I be upset over you doing what you have to?"

Killian was frustrated over her reaction. She was entirely sheltered and yet she was looking him in the eye and pretending it didn't bother her. Lier.

"You can't be okay with this! You're sheltered and you've probably never seen death before. Just be honest with me and drop the fake bravado."

She smirked, which he thought was an odd reaction. "I might not have seen death. In that, I am sheltered. But I'm not going to get upset over what just happened. "

"Why?" He asked, bewildered.

"I have the sweetest mother you could ever meet. She is all kindness and sunshine and love. Yes she's killed men before. Always because it was them or her. I was raised to survive. I'm just not good at protecting myself."

"Your Mother?" he muttered, caught off guard.

"And my Father, godmother, godfather, their friends, even Granny. I was raised to believe that life is filled with hard decisions. Yes, I was sheltered, but it was because they wanted to protect me from having to live the life they did. I see that now. They just missed that I didn't want to be protected and weak. I want to have an adventure. I'm not going to shy from death. I refuse to be swayed from my path."

Emma reflected on just how much she meant what she said. Killian felt like fate for her and suddenly it felt like the clutter and noise that surrounded her was stripped away. He was her path.

As Atropos watched, she wanted to curse. She realized she did way too good of a job trimming Emma's fate. There was no way her sisters were going to be fooled.