Author's Note:

I'm still writing Days of Future's Past but my muse would just not let this idea go so I pounded it out and viola! Updates to this story will be VERY sparse, just as a warning, until I wrap up Days of Future's Past which is still a good ways from completion.

The idea for this came to me as I was planning a vacation to Myrtle Beach. First time since my divorce that I'll be going on vacation and first time in my life I'll be going by myself, so it's going to be a very soul finding experience I think. The muse picked that up and ran with it! This story is rated M just as a reminder. I've not yet written smut so hopefully I don't bungle it when the time comes.

WARNING: This chapter and subsequent plot for this story has a major trigger for physical abuse. You've been warned.

As always, I hope you enjoy and reviews/favorites/follows make my day!

Chapter 1: Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost

She was lost.

Figuratively and literally lost.

Emma Swan groaned as she let her head fall to the steering wheel of her rental car. The torrential down pour outside continued with fat raindrops pelting the roof of the dark red car, the sound almost drowning out her inner thoughts. Go to Ireland and find yourself, her brother David had said. What's the worst that could happen? Apparently the worst that could happen was getting caught in a tsunami on a dirt road in a country she knew nothing about while driving on the wrong damn side of the car.

It also didn't help she was hopelessly lost. It had been hours since she had been able to see more than a few feet in front of the car, the rolling green hills of the countryside replaced by the curtain of never ending rain. She had trudged along bravely hoping the storm would let up so she could see. She had been driving at a snail's space for over two hours when she had let Mother Nature win the battle and pulled off to the side of the road.

The side of the road was, of course, an understatement. The dirt road she had somehow found herself on was barely wide enough to fit the rental car down, let alone have room to pull off on. She'd already had two heart attacks – one thanks to a speeding truck who was clearly annoyed she had been in their lane (if you could even call it a lane, she'd honestly seen alleyways in New York that were wider). The second heart attack came after the rain had started when of all things, a sheep had decided that moment was the perfect moment to cross the little dirt path. It hadn't even flinched as Emma had slammed on the brakes, spewing curses that would have made a sailor blush. The sheep had merrily continued its journey undisturbed by the clearly lost foreigner.

Sighing in a combination of exhaustion and frustration she leaned back in her seat, closing her eyes as the lullaby created by the pounding rain threatened to lull her tired body into a deep slumber. How in the world had she found herself in this situation? Oh, that's right, she thought, one fuck up after another in her life. Her entire life had been one failure after another, all culminating into her agreeing with her brother's insane idea and leading her here – lost, exhausted, and stuck in what felt like Ireland's first rainfall in a century.

Emma Swan had obviously pissed off some God in another life to be dealt the life she had lived for the past twenty-eight years. Her bad luck had started mere hours after she was born with her parents, for whatever reason, abandoning her on the side of the road in a small Maine town. Her only saving grace had been that her older brother, David, was abandoned with her. At four years old he had managed to attract the attention of a passing car and lead them to her. The next fourteen years had been one let down after another as her and David were shuttled between various foster homes – thankfully, always together – and countless adoption failures. Most people looking to adopt didn't want to adopt a pair of siblings and more than once David had refused to be adopted when it was clear Emma wouldn't be coming with them.

That was her brother – ever the protective, heroic father figure. The nickname his wife had given him upon first meeting him fit him well – Prince Charming.

When David turned eighteen he had left the system and applied for guardianship of her. The months until the paperwork was finalized had been rough on Emma, though. David had always been there to make the foster homes somewhat bearable and without him there she had felt the walls start to slowly close in on her. By the time the courts granted David custody she had ran away from six foster homes, quickly picking up a knack for pick pocketing and stealing. At fourteen her life in the foster system ended but the bad luck she had been cursed with only continued.

David did the best he could being nothing more than a kid himself but Emma had been a handful, constantly getting into trouble at school, always skirting the edges of the law. Looking back she always felt bad for everything she had put David through during those early years. He never lost his temper though, always seeming to understand why she acted out and taking every adolescent stunt Emma threw in his face in an infuriatingly calm stride. Somehow amid her antics he had put himself through the police academy and became a police officer, a fact that had not deterred Emma's pension for dabbling in a life of crime.

At sixteen her bad luck curse struck with ferocity. She had stolen a car, a childish whim after a particularly nasty day at school having to listen to taunts from the preppy girls. She had picked the first one that she had stumbled upon – a bright yellow bug. Only after driving away with it she learned she had stolen an already stolen car, complete with the original thief asleep in the backseat. Neal Cassidy had been his name, a twenty-year-old who had run away from his over bearing rich father. An instant attraction had flared, bright and hot.

David had not been happy about the young love, coming close on more than one occasion to outright banning Emma from seeing Neal. She had been blinded by love though, completely wrapped in the spell Neal had weaved. Until one day the spell had been shattered and the failure that was her life hit what she thought was rock bottom. It had been a simple plan, really. Emma would go to the train station, pick up the watches Neal had stolen from a small town pawn shop and meet him at the designated location that night. She hadn't been thrilled with the idea of leaving David to take off to Tallahassee but she knew her brother would understand why she needed to get out of that Arizona town.

Only it hadn't been Neal that met her under the covered bridge that night but the police. She would learn, years later through a mutual friend that Neal's father had finally found him and offered a fresh start, one Neal had accepted. Gold's only catch was there could be no Emma. Gold Consolidation's heir couldn't be seen with an underage girlfriend with a knack for theft. Emma had been so ashamed she hadn't even called David from the neighboring town's jail until a week later. True to his calm nature David hadn't exploded, simply used his weight as an officer to get the charges dropped. The only anger she saw from him was directed at Neal – fucking Neal – and she was certain, even to this day that if David Nolan ever came across the coward his calm exterior would drop for the fraction of a second it took him to punch the other man in the face.

Deciding a fresh start was in order for both of them David had moved them from Arizona to the quaint little Maine town of Storybrooke. And for a short time, life settled down for the siblings.

David became fast friends with the small town's sheriff, Graham Humbert and became one of the two deputies underneath the Irishman. He had also quickly became enamored with the Mayor's step-daughter, Mary Margaret Blanchard, the pair falling into a whirlwind romance that lead to them getting married shortly after David turned twenty-five. Emma stopped her life of crime, hunkering down in her final year to graduate high school with honors, determined to make not only the best of this fresh start but to make David proud of her. Bonding with others had never been easy for her but Ruby Lucas and Elsa Arendelle had weaseled past her defenses, the three of them quickly becoming thick as thieves.

At eighteen Emma had made the decision to change her surname. David had been hurt at first but had understood her reasoning. Unlike him Emma didn't have the first memory of their parents and felt no connection to the Nolan name – to her it was simply the name of the people who had abandoned them all those years ago. She had taken Swan as her last name after her favorite fairytale growing up, The Swan Princess. She felt it was fitting and provided her with another fresh start.

The next few years were blissfully uneventful for her. She split her work time between helping Granny, Ruby's grandmother, out at the local diner and doing odds and ends around the police station. She had been content with that for a while, glad to have a place she could call home that she didn't have to leave after a few weeks or months. Her romantic life remained in the stone ages. She refused to let anyone else in after the Neal debacle, no matter how many times her well-meaning sister-in-law set her up on blind dates. Emma kept it strictly to one night stands or friends with benefits, quickly ending it if things seemed to be going further than that.

When she was twenty-two she had helped Graham find one of the few people in their small town that had skipped out on bail and she was suddenly like a dog with a bone. She liked the thrill of the chase, finding those who thought they could hide. It was strangely therapeutic for the girl who had always been lost. There weren't many bail skippers in Storybrooke though, not even enough for them to have a local bail bondsperson. So Graham had set her up with one of his friend's based out of New York to get her started in the business. David had threatened to deflate the Irishman's tires on his favorite cruiser for it but as always, her brother seemed to know when Emma needed to do something.

Under August Booth's teaching she had become one of the best bail bondswoman in New York City. She made frequent trips back home to Storybrooke – because somewhere amid her life Storybrooke had become her home. It was while living in New York she had literally run into perhaps the biggest failure of her life – Walsh Green. He had been a handsome stranger she had barreled into while chasing a millionaire skipping out on extortion charges. She had been reluctant to give in when he persisted in asking her out on a date because Emma Swan didn't date. Eventually she had relented and for a while things were good.

Until they weren't and her bad luck curse struck again.

In the beginning he had been sweet, charming, the perfect gentleman – everything Neal hadn't been. He was in public office, a small time councilman who had his eyes set on bigger things. She bought him home to meet everyone for her twenty-fourth birthday and David had instantly disliked him. Emma wrote it off as her brother being his usual protective self and turned a deaf ear to even the concerns of Ruby, Elsa, and Graham. They couldn't put their finger on it but something about the New Yorker set their teeth on edge they told her.

It wasn't long until she saw started to witness firsthand what they meant. It started off small – a jab here, a raised voice when they weren't arguing there. In the grand scheme of things she didn't put the separate pieces together until the night of one of his fundraisers when things went from small to large. She could never remember what the fight had been over but it had escalated quickly and ended with Walsh slapping her. He was immediately apologetic and too stunned to do much else, Emma had shoved it under the rug. She had left for Storybrooke the next morning for Ruby's wedding to the local doctor, Victor Whale with a dark bruise already forming on her cheek.

The anger among her friends had been instant, the only thing keeping David and Graham from driving to New York to hide Walsh's body being Emma hiding the keys to their cars. Even sweet, non-violent Mary Margaret had threatened to break out her old archery equipment and put an arrow in Walsh's sensitive area. Emma had tried to write it off as a run in with a bail skipper but that something that had set all their teeth on edge was glaringly obvious to them.

The next two years were the same vicious cycle – Walsh would lash out and Emma made excuses to her friends and family. And then on a hot summer day Mary Margaret had called her with news that instantly made Emma's stomach drop. Graham, a perfectly healthy thirty-year-old man had had a heart attack, right in the police station. Emma had instantly rushed home. She took turns with Mary Margaret and Regina Mills, Mary Margaret's older step-sister and their town's current Mayor, sitting vigil by Graham's bedside. When she wasn't living off horrible hospital food she was helping David at the station to keep order in the small town. Graham eventually pulled through but the prognosis wasn't good. Graham had a heart condition and Victor would never be able to release him back to full police duty.

Regina had instantly appointed David the new sheriff and asked Emma to stay on as the new deputy. Walsh had been furious. He said their life was in New York after all but Emma truly hadn't cared. She may have loved Walsh and made excuses for his physical and emotional abuse but Storybrooke was her home and her family needed her. After a few weeks of tense texts and emails Walsh had shown up out of the blue at the police station, much to David's disgust. He had cited that he loved Emma and if this is where she wanted to be then he would make Storybrooke his home too. She hadn't been overly thrilled, hind sight telling her that even then she knew she needed to get out of the relationship.

But she had had so many failures during her short life and she didn't want her relationship with Walsh to be another, no matter how toxic it was.

Walsh quickly embedded himself in Storybrooke's high society, somehow acquiring ownership of the local newspaper and a seat on the council, both of which made Regina's blood boil in private. The abuse continued, less than it had been in New York with the presence of Emma's friends and family close by. They weren't stupid though and knew no matter what they said to her that Emma wouldn't listen. All they could do was watch and hope that one day Emma woke up.

That day came St. Patrick's Day 2014.

It had started off like any other day with her taking an unexpected early shift from David. Her poor brother had been up all night with her newborn nephew and promised her unlimited bear claws if she took the morning shift. While Graham could never come back to full duty he was the official paperwork clerk at the station now, something to keep his hands and mind active as he fought with early retirement. When a somewhat refreshed David had come in at five to relieve her she had laughed and accepted the box of bear claws, biding them both a farewell and to call her if the town's usual drunks caused too much trouble.

She had arrived at her and Walsh's small apartment to find him sitting on the couch on his third bottle of scotch. The tension immediately filled the air as he calmly stood and walked toward her. She knew the calm before the storm look but was in no way prepared for the ferocity that he unleashed on her that night. She had apparently missed an important lunch held in his honor that afternoon, causing Walsh to look like a fool while she went off and played deputy. The beating that ensued was the worst he had ever inflicted on her. Until then it had been isolated slaps or grapping her so hard he left bruises but that day it had been nothing short of a beating. He railed on her for hours, screaming at her that his life had taken this pathetic turn because of her. It was her fault he had to leave the vast opportunities of New York to come to this out-of-the-way town, that she was the reason he was having to play in the small league of politics in a town that was ran under the tight thumb of Regina Mills.

When he left her bloody and broken on the living room floor to stumble to the kitchen for another bottle of scotch she had managed to send David a text she thought she would never have to send. The storm is raging. David may have kept his disdain for Walsh barely in check through the years but he had made Emma promise that if something, because Emma refused to openly admit to the abuse, ever happened she would use that sentence. It had been a code they had established when they were kids in the foster system that meant something was bad and the other needed to come immediately.

Walsh had come back into the living room, drinking heavily from the new bottle of scotch. He had straddled her and was about to continue the beating when the door to their apartment had been kicked off its hinges, David and Graham storming in. Everything after that was a blur to her. She knew from the official reports that David had ripped Walsh off her, Graham barely able to restrain the six-foot sheriff from punching him in the face. She had flashes of Mary Margaret leaning over her, whispering that everything would be okay. Her next memory had been waking up in the hospital.

The next few weeks had been gruelling for her – broken ribs and nose, a dislocated arm, fractured facial bones, and a concussion kept her confided to the hospital bed for most of them. Walsh screamed to anyone that would listen that he was being set up, somehow calling in a favor to the governor to get released on bail and have his trial moved out of town. Emma hadn't seen him since the night of St. Patrick's Day, David and Mary Margaret keeping a close eye on her as they secluded her away in their home to recover. His trial day came and went but Walsh never showed. He had never been held accountable for what he had done and had fallen off the grid, his money or high powered friends keeping him hidden.

She spent the last year looking over her shoulder, wondering when he would pop back into her life. She had moved on the best she could by throwing herself fully into deputy duties as soon as Victor had cleared her, helping out at Granny's on the odd night, and baby-sitting James until she was certain she knew every line from the movie Peter Pan by heart. The kid really had a thing for Captain Hook. She went out on the weekends with Ruby, helped Elsa organize weekly events at the local library, and had even aided Regina a few months ago when she had adopted a ten year old boy from Boston. Nothing she did seemed to shake the feeling that had settled into her bones after the beating from Walsh – the failure, the soul numbing pain of once again having the rug ripped out from underneath her, like she had lost a piece of herself when she had never truly been whole.

Which is why she currently found herself trapped in a rental car with the steering wheel on the wrong side, trapped in a storm that was apparently going to last until the year 3000, in Ireland of all places.

She really was going to kill her brother for this. Scratch that, she was going to kill David and Graham because Graham was the one who had suggested Ireland. More people went to Ireland to find themselves than visited the Egyptian periods, or so Graham had stated. At the time she had thought why not? She had more than enough weeks of vacation built up and David had just hired Leroy on as a second deputy to help out during the tourist months. Now stuck in this car she was beginning to wonder if a simple drive down to Myrtle Beach wouldn't have been just as good.

Running a hand down her face she reached into the passenger seat for her cellphone, remembering before her right hand connected with the inside of the door that the passenger seat was currently to her left. She quickly pulled up her text app, thankful that a few years ago she had talked David into getting an iPhone so she didn't have to pay out the butt for text messages on this trip.

I want you to know this vacation is going FANTASTICALLY! I am currently caught in what I can only term the Storm of the Century and have yet to even find this blasted town Graham suggested. Tell that infuriating Irishman he owes me six months of bear claws for this. Or hot cocoa. I'll let him pick his poison.

David's reply was almost instant.

WHY ARE YOU TEXTING ME WHILE DRIVING IN A STORM EMMA RUTH SWAN?!

Emma rolled her eyes – typical over protective David response.

I'm NOT driving, David. I'm currently on the side of the road after an almost run-in with a sheep.

Graham said to ask did you not see the 'sheep crossing the road' sign.

Emma snorted. No, I must have missed it along with the little green men at the end of the rainbow.

I was told to tell you to not mock the Irish while you are in their country. Why aren't you in Drogheda yet? Your plane landed five hours ago!

Emma groaned. Had she really been driving around the countryside for four hours?

As I said, there's this little storm going on. I can't see a damn thing!

Emma, this is Graham. What was the last road sign you remember seeing?

What happened to your phone? Honestly? The one when I left Dublin.

Christ, Emma. How is it you found people for a living for so many years but aren't detailed oriented enough to pay attention to road signs? As for my phone it lost a fight between Leroy and David's truck.

Emma couldn't help the laugh that bubbled out of her, her fingers flying across the screen of her iPhone.

How did THAT happen?!

Long story involving Regina's famed apple tree. Do you remember seeing a ruined castle atop a high hill?

Emma frowned, mentally tracking every landmark she had seen since leaving the airport in Dublin. She had seen that castle in a brief flash of lightening; the tumbled stone walls a sharp contrast against the almost black sky.

Yeah, I did. About thirty minutes ago.

Good, you aren't lost then. Stay on the road you are on and you will literally run into Drogheda. And I mean literally. That main road you're on dead ends at the town.

I would not call what I am on a 'main road', Graham.

Don't mock Irish roads, Emma. You'll be fine. I'm handing you back to David now. HAVE FUN!

Emma sighed. Well, she wasn't lost, at least according to Graham. She just had to continue on this non-existence road in this hellish storm until she hit the town. The chime of an incoming text brought Emma out of her thoughts.

How are you feeling, Em?

She smiled at the familiar nickname David had used their entire lives. I'm exhausted, annoyed, angry, scared… but I'm holding my own. How is my little Captain Hook doing?

A miniaturized picture appeared in her conversation with David. Tapping on it her screen lit up with the most adorable picture she had ever seen – James in a red and black onesie that read Pirate-In-Training while wearing an eye patch and holding a little plastic hook in his left hand, his toothy grin warming her heart.

I think my ovaries just burst.

Let's keep them in your pants. This trip is supposed to be about finding yourself, not some hunky Irishman to give you a car full of kids.

I'm going to tell Graham you think other Irishmen are hunky.

He'll live. Now go, it's got to be almost 7 PM there and Graham says night should be falling soon. Drive safe and let me know when you get settled into the cottage. I love you.

She fired off a quick I love you, too before tossing her phone back into the passenger seat. The rain had still not let up, although she noted she hadn't heard a clap of thunder in a while. Sighing she restarted the car and slowly made her way back onto the barely one-lane road. Graham had been right and dusk had clearly set in while she was on the side of the road. Her headlights were barely cutting through the night and rain at this point.

This was a stupid idea. Why did she ever let Graham and David talk her into this? Why did she have to fly over 3,000 miles to come find herself? She never should have lost herself. The simple fact was she never knew who she was to begin with. She didn't want to be that child that had been left to die on the side of the road. She didn't want to be the little girl no one wanted to adopt or the idiot who had let love blind her. She definitely didn't want to be the woman who had let a man tear her down emotionally and physically. So who was she then? Who did she want to—

There was a sudden bright flash in front of her and she shrieked. Her foot slammed on the brake a split second too late to keep the front of her car from slamming into the brightly colored sign declaring that she had finally found Drogheda.