Chapter 1:

She felt like she couldn't breathe. Her heart beat picked up and she felt as though her legs were going to come out from underneath her. This was Emma Nolan's clue from her body that it was time to lower the speed on the treadmill and start to cool down from her workout. As she did everyday at this point she opened her e-mail on her tablet and perused the mail as she started the cooling down process. "Spam, spam,... high school reunion?" She clicked the e-mail sent from the Storybrooke Alumni e-mail and skimmed the contents. Dear Ms. Nolan, We are pleased to inform you that it is time for the reunion of the class of 2005. We look forward to seeing you again. Sincerely, The Storybrooke Alumni. There was a link at the bottom of the e-mail that led her to a page dedicated to the reunion. While she checked her e-mail daily she was surprised that this one had slipped past her. She looked over the page and noticed that there was a list of former classmates that were going to be attending. Not surprisingly her twin brother David and his wife Mary Margaret were at the top of the list. She thought about continuing to look through the list but at that moment her friend Ariel walked in. She had attended Storybrook High with Emma and their select group of friends, choosing to go to New York with Emma when she had decided to leave town after high school. Ariel had gotten a scholarship to Juliard for her singing talent and somehow all the pieces just fell into place. Ten years later and Ariel was performing on broadway in a successful adaption of The Little Mermaid and Emma was chasing her dreams as a, well she hadn't gotten that far but she was sure the time was coming. Going to New York had been a side effect of love gone wrong for her and things hadn't always fallen into place. Ariel had always been there for her though, helping her out during the rough patches. Currently she was working as a special effects artist on a TV show taking place in the New York Police Department. It was the start of her deciding what she wanted from her life. She had always had an interest in police work but she wasn't really interested in saving the world. As far as she could tell she wasn't really cut out to be anyone's saving grace. So instead she just did makeup. It was an interesting profession "Hey Ariel. Did you get the e-mail about the high school reunion?"

"Yeah, I did. Like two weeks ago. Did you just get it today?"

"I don't know. I haven't seen it in my inbox up to now but work has been busy so it's not completely out of the realm of possibility that I just overlooked it. Are you going?"

"Yeah. It'll be a good opportunity for me to get home and see my family. My sisters have been driving me nuts asking me to come home for a visit. They want to meet Eric and I know that Dad is looking for some kind of flaw that he can use to try to get me to think he's not good enough for me."

"Or maybe he'll love him. You don't know." Ariel smiled a half hearted smile as she climbed up on the treadmill next to Emma's. "So is he coming?"

"He who?"

"You know who. I saw the page on your tablet. You had to have been checking over the list to find out who was going."

"I was but I wasn't looking for anyone in particular."

"Okay. Keep telling yourself that." As Emma closed quickly out of the page on her tablet and gathered her things to go to the changing room Ariel put in her headphones, picked up speed on her treadmill, and smiled to herself as her friend huffed away. She knew Emma well. She wouldn't admit that she was hoping to see her high school boyfriend but Ariel knew that it was all she wanted from the reunion and after all these years she hoped that she got it.

Killian Jones stood at his mailbox shuffling through the mail. As always there was more junk mail than anything else. It seemed like every day he was inundated with fliers and bulletins and post cards. He was about to toss everything into the garbage when he saw a letter with the stamp from Storybrooke High on it. He dropped everything else into the garbage and ripped open the letter. Dear Mr. Jones, We are pleased to inform you that it is time for the reunion of the class of 2005. We look forward to seeing you again. Sincerely, The Storybrooke Alumni. After reading the short letter he ran his hand through his hair as his mind traveled back to his days at Storybrooke High. There was no doubt that they had been the best of his life. Due completely to her. The girl that got away. However as soon as his mind started wandering back to that time he stopped himself. There was no point in revisiting that relationship. As much as he had loved her, and thought she loved him, she was gone and dwelling on the what could have beens wouldn't change anything. He took the steps up to his third story walk up instead of the elevator, giving him time to think about the possibility that he held in his hands. Maybe he shouldn't go to the reunion. Maybe he should leave the past in the past but then her green eyes flashed across his memory and he knew that he couldn't miss the opportunity to see her again. Even if it went awful just to see who she had become would be everything for him. He opened the door to his apartment and found his roommate and friend, Robin, curled up on the couch with his girlfriend Regina. He couldn't say that he was particularly thrilled with his friends taste in girlfriend but it wasn't his love life so he never said anything. Instead he just tended to make himself scarce whenever she was around. "What do you have in your hand there Jones?"

"A letter to our high school reunion. You going?"

"Oh yeah. Miss the chance to see all the guys from the team again? Not a chance." Robin had been the quintessential jock in high school and it was clear that he was eager to revisit the role. Life had turned out well for him but not as well as he'd wanted. He'd had a failed marriage to his high school sweetheart, Marian, resulting in their son Roland who she tended to keep from him. She wasn't really a fan of Regina either and often they butted heads over Robin allowing Regina to spend time around their son. Marian insisted that she was just looking out for the best interest of the child but seeing as Robin and Regina had been together for nearly four years it was doubtful that their relationship was temporary, as she often insisted. Robin did his best to be a present father to his son but more often than not he was relegated to the backburner in his own childs life, which created resentment towards his ex-wife. "What about you? You going?"

"I'm not sure completely yet but I think so. I mean it's basically just a road trip from here to Storybrooke so I can't see why not. Besides it would be good to see some of our old friends." He shrugged his shoulders as he made his way to his bedroom. There was no doubt that Robin knew the real reason why he wanted to go to the reunion but thankfully his friend stayed quiet. Regina didn't know anything about his high school girlfriend and he didn't want to get into the story now. The past was in the past. Even though he was going to be dredging it up very soon. When and if he saw her they would figure out what to do, if anything. In the meantime though it was still a month away until the reunion and he had a life to live in the meantime.

It was surprising how quickly the month passed and before she knew it Emma was standing in the guest bedroom at her brothers house getting ready for the reunion. He and his wife were moving about the house hurriedly, making arrangements with a babysitter for her little nephew James, and trying to get ready. This house was the same house that she had been raised in, although in an unconventional manner. Her and her twin David had been found on the steps of the fire station in baskets in the middle of town shortly after they were born. In their baskets were notes with their names, date of birth, and a plea from their mother to take care of her children and to keep them together. They had been placed into foster care right away but it was hard for them to find a long term family because most people only wanted one child. The courts had attempted to separate them a couple times but it never worked. David was a very protective older brother and he would fun away from his foster home to try and find her. He never actually managed to locate her but the behavior was enough to turn the foster family off and he would get moved to whever Emma was. Which was how they ended up in this house. This was the old group home that her and David had spent their time in when they weren't in foster homes. It had fallen into some disrepair and the state had shut it down, moving the group home to a more appropriate facility. David had been saving money since his early teens and when they were twenty he somehow managed to scrape together a down payment to buy the house. It had never been a home for them but it was the closest that they had every had. He wanted to keep that feeling of safety that he'd been provided in knowing that there was always the group home to go back to and he wanted to make sure that Emma always had a safe place to call home. She had spent far too much time feeling as though she didn't belong to anything and if there was any way for him to fix that he would. Even though they were twins he had always been more than just a big brother. He had been her protector. She didn't even want to imagine what her life would have been like if it had just been her left on the steps of that old fire station. Now even an orphan like her had a childhood home to go back to, albeit not of the normal variet. Her eyes lifted to the mirror and she took in her appearance. She was wearing a black off the shoulder dress with a sweetheart neckline and cap sleeves that was fitted to her waist and the flared out to her knees. Her blond hair was styled in loose curls with the sides pulled back. It was, in her opinion, the perfect mix of formal and casual. If he was there she didn't want to run the risk that he would think she was dressing up for him. But she also didn't want to not look good on the off chance she saw him. She was completely unsure how she would feel about about seeing him again after all these year. There had been men since him of course. There had been Neal, whom she had believed she loved, and there had been Graham. Still she had held something back from both of them. She had only given her whole heart once and she was about to see the boy, now man, that she had given it to for the first time in ten years. At least she thought she was. She never checked the list of people planning on attending and even now she couldn't decide which outcome she wanted. Him coming or him not coming.

Killian tried to pretend that he wasn't putting way more attention into his appearance than he normally would but once the half hour mark passed and he still hadn't completely decided what to wear. He had run the gamut from jeans and a nice sweater to a full suit. He probably would have spent another hour searching for clothes if he didn't hear Robin shuffling around in the next room. "Killian, are you about ready? We have to be there in half an hour. You cannot seriously still be getting ready. You're a guy."

"Haha Robin. I may be a guy but I still want to look good. Not all of us have the label of high school start athlete to fall back on."

"You were an athlete as well Killian."

"You know as well as I do that they did not look at soccer players the way that they looked at the football and baseball players."

"Don't forget basketball."

"Right. How could I forget? I'll be out in ten minutes. He looked through his closet and finally settled on a pair of black jeans with a white belt, a white button up shirt, a black slim fit v-neck button down vest and a black and white striped skinny tie. After putting the outfit on he grabbed his fathers compass that he carried everywhere and put it in the small pocket near the bottom of his vest and rolled his cuffs to just below the elbow. He glanced at himself again in the mirror and was pleased with what he saw. Ten years had aged him of course but not in a negative way. He knew that the boyish angles of his face had over the years turned into a chiseled jawline. He tried not to think about his appearance too much but he wasn't blind to the reaction of women. He knew that they considered him to be at least fairly attractive. He slipped on a pair of black dress motorcycle boots and grabbed his wallet before leaving the room. Regina was standing in the living room in a red dress next to Robin, who had dressed to the nines as well. "Well, well look at you Killian. If I didn't know better I'd say that you were dressed to impress. Is there a girl that you're hoping to see after all this time." He bristled at the comment, all too aware that she was closer to the truth than he would like to admit. If he didn't believe with everything in him that she was going to be there he would have dressed in his normal jeans and a nice sweater. Just knowing that she was going to be in the same space as him though changed everything. There wasn't a part of him that wasn't conflicted. He wanted to go back in time, to right the wrongs that had torn them apart but that was impossible. He knew that she may not want to see him. Worse yet she could have the life that he'd always envisioned them having together with someone else but he couldn't resist. The pull of her was too strong. He had to know what life had been for her. If all the dreams she had for herself had come true. He knew that his dreams for himself had been forever altered by losing her. The life filled with love and family that he'd dreamt of was gone and he found himself now living the bachelors life. Watching his friends get married and have children of their own. There was no resentment. Just a sharp pain at the memory that at one time he had believed that would be them. "There's many girls that I hope to see. I had good times with a lot of my old classmates." Robin didn't waste a second before he helped Regina with her coat, clearly wanting to end Killian's discomfort. "Ready to go there mate?"

"Lead the way."