Chapter Text
1.
When they arrive in Storybrooke, everyone disembarks save for Hook, who lingers behind them watching the happy family. He only looks at them for so long before he must turn away, a tight pain in his chest.
He has other things to do, he tells himself. After all, they’ve just arrived. He is so used to docking the Jolly Roger that he’s already running through the mental list of things he needs to do before Emma turns and looks at him.
“Hey,” she says softly. “You coming?”
Hook takes a moment, then shakes his head. “No, lass, I’m not.” He gestures to the ship around them. “I’ve got to take care of my girl.”
Emma purses her lips then nods. “Okay,” she says, “I’ll see you later?”
The last statement ends in a question, and he throws her a wink and a grin. “Oh,” he says, stepping towards her, “I told you there’s still fun to be had, love.” Emma just rolls her eyes and starts down the gangplank, following Henry and the others.
That is when he turns away, smile disappearing from his face as he heads below deck to survey his ship.
For the first hour, while the sun is still up, it’s easy for Hook to get lost in the rhythm of maintaining his old girl. He checks the sails, notes which ropes need to be repaired and how low he is on ammunition and gunpowder. He checks his freshwater reserves below deck, grabs some to take back up to his cabin. He is low in rations, and he supposes that he will have to seek provisions before he heads out to sea again.
If he heads out to sea again.
He takes the water upstairs and leaves it out in the sun while he surveys the deck for damage. He is tired and that smell must be coming from him. He is ready for a wash-up and a change of clothing.
The movements that he makes – swinging on ropes and climbing up and down stairs, traveling through the hold – leave him with a slow burn in his muscles that continues to distract him from his thoughts. He is grateful for it because he does not want to think right now. He just wants to burn off this restless energy that floods through his veins.
Eventually, as the sun begins to sink to the horizon, he returns to his cabin and strips off his jacket, his vest, and his shirt. He grabs a scrap of cloth he keeps near the washbasin and tries to wash the grime of Neverland off of his face.
His stomach growls, bringing his thoughts back to the happy (if odd family) that exited his ship – the family that he very much did not want to think about right now. Hook knows that there may be a scrap of salted pork or biscuit somewhere in the ship. He could always go into town and find food, but he won’t.
He made his decision not to follow them unless there was trouble before they landed. He is exhausted, mentally and physically and emotionally, and the thought of walking into that diner with the Charming family, the Dark One, and Regina makes him uncomfortable. He knows that the little dwarves and all the other inhabitants of the town still think of him as Cora’s accomplice and as a villain, and he doesn’t want to be judged right now.
He’s done a lot of that on his own this past week anyway.
Hook dumps a jug of water over his head, wetting his hair. He still hasn’t spoken much to Emma since she cornered him about Liam, and he feels uneasy about that. There is so much that the wants to say but doesn’t, because he’s already said enough and there’s only so much that one can say to the object of their affection before coming repetitive.
He runs the scrap of cloth across his face, wiping off the kohl that lines his eyes. His fingers twitch when he thinks about watching Emma leave to go find Henry and Pan, the easy way that her parents touched her and how badly he wanted to offer her some comfort as well. His fingers twitch when he thinks about how he wanted to be at her side when she returned with Henry. Instead, he has been at the front, at the helm, doing whatever possible to save Henry and bring them home.
He has been spending so much time moving so as to keep his mind off of everything and now that he’s standing still, everything starts to flood back in and it’s discomforting, to say the least.
He changes clothes, but does not put back on his vest and jacket. He takes off his hook as well, leaves it on his bedside table. It doesn’t matter much if he’s in his shirtsleeves and unarmed – it’s his ship, after all.
Hook doesn’t know what he should do. He wanders his cabin, fiddling with items, debating if he should make a list of supplies that he needs or if he should sleep. His thoughts keep drifting back to Emma, how he’s not sure what to do if he stays in Storybrooke, if he will even be happy here. He wants to be happy with Emma – wants to make her happy, wants to be the one to comfort her – but there are a lot of obstacles and he’s not entirely sure what she thinks about him now. He wants to fight for her, or at least put up enough of a fight that it’s obvious his intentions are good and true, but, well, there’s a lot that Emma needs to figure out and he doesn’t want to hover over her shoulder, waiting.
He can wait just fine right here.
There’s a knock on the cabin door and he reaches for his sword, which he has left on his desk. He doesn’t know who would board a pirate’s ship let alone knock, but his nerves are on edge at what he might encounter after all they’ve been through.
It is Emma, holding a white bag, arms wrapped around herself.
“Let me in, it’s freaking freezing outside,” she says.
He steps aside, standing in the doorway as she makes her way over to the large desk that takes up most of his quarters. It’s like he’s conjured her from his thoughts – blonde hair shimmering in the candle light, the smell of food wafting through the air as she takes boxes out and puts them on his maps. He can’t even protest right now – he just closes his eyes, brushing them with the tips of his fingers.
He has to be hallucinating right now. Lack of sleep, lack of food, total exhaustion.
“Close the door, Hook, it’s cold outside,” Emma commands him, and he obeys. He would always obey.
Emma turns to face him, studies his face. “You look younger without the eyeliner,” she points out. “Anyway, I thought I’d bring you dinner.”
The expression that crosses his face must be easy to distinguish, because she continues without missing a beat. “When I was in the system, sometimes my foster families would celebrate birthdays or something else and I wouldn’t know what to do because I wasn’t family – I was some interloper sleeping in a spare bed and eating their food.” She takes a deep breath, hands curling at her side. “I was never family, even though I did everything right – or, at least, I tried. So I’d say that I had homework, and I’d hide in my room until I thought they forgot about me.”
He can’t breathe or think – she’s hit the nail on the head, this beautiful woman that he loves, and he smiles, appreciating her discretion. She could have called him out when they docked, she could have made an issue about his hesitance, but she didn’t.
You and I, we understand each other.
“Thank you,” he tells her, eyes flicking to the weirdly shaped boxes.
“Okay, so I’m not sure what you like so I brought a bit of everything,” Emma says. There’s a blush her checks –is she flustered? He can feel heat rising in his cheeks too, standing here without his vest or coat or hook, hair wet, feeling exposed in ways that he hasn’t in years. Everything about this, every artifice that he’s constructed over the years is stripped away and he feels like he is more vulnerable than he’s ever been since he was a young boy. He would give her his heart if she only asked.
“This is a cheeseburger – it’s basically just beef and cheese and bread – and these are fries, they’re just potatoes, and this is something that David thought you might like, he said he ate it a lot as a kid so I guess some things cross realms so – “
He recognizes the food in question and he smiles. “Aye, my mother made that – she called it cottage pie but it was fairly popular in the region where I grew up.” He can see the meat and gravy buried below potatoes, with peas and carrots and small onions, and his mouth waters.
Hook closes his eyes for a moment. The sheer amount of thought put into this – for David to help Emma bring him food, for Emma to be here in the first place – is overwhelming right now. It is too much to think about this kindness from her family, though it does not surprsise him that they would be kind.
It surprises Hook that they would be kind to him.
“You haven’t seen the best part yet,” Emma says, turning to a brown paper bag. She pulls out a bottle of rum, and hands it to him.
“Granny doesn’t know,” she says with a wink. “I thought it was only right to replenish your supply.”
“You didn’t need to do that, love,” he says softly. “You should be with your family right now.”
Emma looks away, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Don’t you have, like, a wood stove or something? You’ll freeze out here.”
“I’ll be fine, lass,” Hook says. “I’ve endured worse.”
Emma looks concerned for a moment, but she hands him the bottle. While he opens the rum, she is rummaging throughout his cabin and finds two glasses. He fills them both.
“You better eat before it gets cold,” Emma says. Hook nods, and pulls a chair up to the table, eagerly eyeing the cottage pie that she brought him. Emma pulls up another chair and sits beside him, picking at the fries. He raises his eyebrows at her hand and she merely bites into the fry in front of her with a smug grin.
They eat in companionable silence, though eventually he does say something. “I’m grateful for this kindness, Emma,” he tells her, the food and rum warming his body. “And for your company.”
“Of course,” she says, her eyes soft in the candlelight. “And thank you, for everything that you did for us. I don’t think I’ve thanked you enough.”
He swallows his food, shrugging his shoulders. “Of course,” he responds, because he doesn’t know what else to say. There’s no way to describe the feelings that rise in her chest at her presence in his small quarters, no words to make sense of how it feels to be here, with her. He looks down at his food, looks back up at her to see her looking at him with a strange look in her eyes. She catches his gaze and flutters her eyelashes, shifting in her seat and looking away.
“I should probably get back.” She stands, and the scrape of her chair against the wooden floor is so loud in the small space. He stands up too, because it is polite, though she looks at him strangely for a moment.
That’s when she crosses the distance between them and kisses him.
She rests her hands on his shoulders, the moment of her lips soft against his, and it takes his slow, rum-sodden brain a few moments to process what is happening before it is done, and she is stepping back, looking at him from under heavy-lidded eyes. She licks her lips, and he wants to desperately to reach for her, to pull her back into for another kiss, and then another, and another.
He licks his lips to, and looks away. He takes a step back.
He will win her heart, but he knows that it is hidden away behind walls of iron and chains of steel. While she has opened to him, slowly, there is still much distance to be covered before they will be there yet.
And he will wait, and win her heart, because she will choose him. Or, at least, she will kiss him a few more times if he plays his cards right.
“Breakfast,” she says, walking towards the door. “Tomorrow morning at Granny’s. It’s on the main street, has a sign out front that says, well – “
“Granny’s – “ he finishes. He smiles. “What time, love?”
She shrugs her shoulders. “Whenever. I’ll see you then?””
His smile grows. “I wouldn’t miss it, love.”
A blush rises to her cheeks and she tucks her head down, pulling the door open and heading out into the darkness.
He sits down in his chair, staring at the food in front of him. He touches his fingers to his lips, and smiles slowly.