It's been a bad, bad month and I just need to make with the fluff for a bit. I have no idea what this is or where it's going, but it has my two favorite things, libraries and Captain Swan, and I can't really ask for much more than that.

Disclaimer: The views expressed by Emma Swan do not necessarily reflect the opinions of all (or any) library workers. She's in a bad place right now. But she'll get there, maybe with the help of a fairytale or two…

Emma side-eyed a baby stroller—no, a double-wide monstrosity—as it was shoved down the aisle between two rows of bookshelves, its plastic wheels scraping skinny spines until it stopped at "DIS" (that is, the Disney section). Excited screeches erupted from the pint-sized occupants. With the aisle effectively blocked, and her left eardrum possibly ruptured, Emma figured now was as good a time as any to take her break, and staged a tactical retreat. She pasted on a pleasant smile, backing out of the aisle as if it had been her intention all along, and pulled her cart of returned books with her while the Screaming Wonders debated between Frozen or Tangled picture books.

As soon as the stacks blocked her from view, though, Emma sighed in frustration.

She liked the job, really. Most of the time the patrons kept to the reading chairs or study carrels, leaving her to sort, straighten and shelve in relative quiet; monotonous, yes, but it gave her time to think. (Think—the exact thing she had avoided doing for the last ten months—but a broken lease never came with a broken heart discount and work was work.)

All that said, a public library plus kids meant forts built out of the Berenstain Bears and Mary Margaret's story time events attracted them like Snow White attracted forest critters. Judging by the rising noise level in the children's end of the library, tonight's reading of Beauty and the Beast promised to draw quite the crowd (and leave quite the proverbial literary wreckage).

The tell-tale click-clack of obscenely high heels broke Emma's concentration and she stopped to find Belle striding toward her from the reference desk.

"Emma," the brunette said softly, keeping up the pretense of a 'library voice' even as the toddlers in the aisle over shrieked. "Mary Margaret just called in sick so I have to take over her story time, only I have a hold list a mile long and now no time to fill it. Would you mind?" she asked, offering up a small stack of papers.

Holds. Not her favorite. Scurrying all over the building to find books for patrons who couldn't come in and look for themselves-and half of them neglect to even pick them up.

Over Belle's shoulder, Emma spotted another mega-stroller—this one a four-seater—rolling in through the main door. She snatched the papers from the young librarian with a rushed, "Sure".

Belle beamed. "I've been advising a professor on some research titles for a book he's writing. They're all for him, actually. You just need to pull the holds and then process them if he turns up before I'm done."

Emma paged through the list, seeing only hours of bending and crouching.

When she looked up again, Belle was shepherding kids down the aisle toward the large wooden rocking chair and braided rug that served as their story time corner. Sliding her loaded cart into a free spot at the end of a shelving unit, Emma grabbed an empty from the next stack as she made her way across the library, leaving the squeals behind her. She pulled her cart into the back end of the towering adult non-fiction stacks, then glanced at the rows and rows of spines before her, breathing the first call number on her list as she walked.

"Nine-ten-point-four-five, nine-ten-point-four-five…"

Finding a healthy stock of the number, Emma stopped and picked up and old tome with a spine so worn and faded, she had to flip open the cover to check the title.

On paper, browning with age and smelling faintly of time itself, boldly scrawled A General History of the Robberies & Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates.