Archive of Our Own ^beta

Disclaimer: I do not own the show or the characters of Once Upon A Time. There's no profit except priceless writing practice being made here.

"Emma!"

"Hey, Tiny!" Emma called back, happy to be recognised by a smiling face. Tiny - formerly Anton, the lonely giant atop the last remaining beanstalk, yes, that beanstalk - was easily the one person in town who was yet to ask anything of her.

She was just here, checking on the giant she had doomed to this place. That was her job as Saviour, to check on the secret crop of beans for portal travel that Tiny and the dwarves minus one were working on.

It was her job as Sheriff to check the safety of the workers. It was part of her job as Savior to protect them from villains, each other, and themselves. Emma hadn't realised, how much this Saviour mantle would weigh on her. Even her friendships were borderline one-sided as people expected her to fix their problems.

So sue her if she quite enjoyed the few minutes of conversation with Tiny she could have where he didn't ask her to do something for him as Sheriff, or expect her to find him a happy ending as Saviour.

And, blessedly, he wasn't anything like her mother, who continuously insisted Emma was paranoid and jealous - as though by virtue of being a woman she suddenly had no authority as Sheriff, or as Emma; bailbonds-person extraordinaire; who could sniff out a liar.

The only way Emma could be jealous of Neal was if she was jealous that he'd found his happy ending, happily forgetting she even existed and moving on. He'd sent her to jail for whatever reason he hadn't apologised for. She'd paid for it in regret and loneliness and giving up her son for eleven years, twelve if you added the pregnancy, and jail-time, and never found a stable job because of her record. He'd got a job and a crappy apartment (at least there was some justice) and a partner he wanted to marry while Emma hadn't been able to trust another person again. Not even her own mother.

If only Mary Margaret knew.

Actually, Emma had no intention of ever telling Mary Margaret anything beyond what she wanted Henry to know about his father, because she couldn't keep a secret to save her life and Emma didn't want to be the one to break Snow White's heart by telling her that sometimes love was just lust, or youthful, and sometimes people found other people because they were lost too and connected but still lied, and not everyone was true or love, let alone true love at first sight.

The woman was trying so hard to be her mother in the Enchanted Forest and had apparently realised that that wasn't what Emma needed, so now she was trying to be a friend like she used to be. It wasn't working. In fact, it was far worse because Mary Margaret still had that mum-tone whenever she spoke as though she was talking down to Emma and imparting advice without knowing the whole story. Apparently, Mary Margaret thought just because David had had a fiance in both Abigail and Kathryn when she'd met him, that Neal having a fiance also meant nothing. She also seemed to think that eleven years of no communication was easy to overcome, paying no mind to betrayals, youth, or even Regina saying that it probably hadn't been fate at all but magic drawn to magic in the world without it.

And, amazingly, Mary Margaret seemed to have forgotten that Henry having a father figure would affect his time with Regina, and his grandparents, and that father-figure in her de facto world, meant father which meant husband-of-the-mother. So, unless Neal was marrying Regina, that wasn't going to happen.

The dwarves hadn't turned around at Emma's approach, even now the six of them hadn't noticed her presence. But Tiny - formerly Anton, the giant from the top of the beanstalk - was glad to see her. Besides, the dwarves were more her mother's friends. Emma was glad to have one of her own. Even if it was only the one, and he was in more with the dwarves now these days.

Idly, Emma wished she had brought coffees or danishes to share, so she wasn't just checking up on the progress but making a friendly attempt to reach out. Then again, that might lead Regina and Cora to the bean field and she couldn't risk that.

"How's it going?" Emma asked.

For anyone else in the field, almost anyone else in town, Emma wouldn't have asked. Ruby was her mother's friend, Ashley was her mother's friend, Whale was the third to last person she ever wanted to see - Jefferson being the first, just the memory of him made her shudder, and Emma Swan didn't consider herself afraid of much - and she had to tolerate Regina for Henry's sake or else her son would never speak to her again even though the woman was remorseless and ruthless and made Emma ruthless too. Emma hated that side of herself and tried to distance herself from having to fight to make the woman that wanted her gone look at her as a fellow human being. The less they interacted the better for her mental health.

But Tiny? He was hers. Probably the only true friend Emma had here in Storybrooke now that Mary Margaret was her mother and Henry was her son. Tiny she could talk to with no judgement, or preconceptions, or persona she needed to put on.

"Well," the friendly giant blushed. She forgot that he was as alone as she was, or they both used to be. He wasn't accustomed to off-handed kindness and as sad as that made her, especially seeing how bubbly Tiny was with his new brothers, Emma felt relieved that it wasn't just her who hadn't found a happy ending in this fairytale town. "Thanks, Emma."

Amazingly, when Emma came by to talk to Tiny - which she admittedly hadn't done since she got back from the shit show that had been New York and Neal making her feel like a stupid teenager again instead of a mature woman who knew what she was doing. One look and suddenly Emma was that broken girl in prison who meant nothing to anyone and she was only just realising how little she had meant that she could be lied to so thoroughly. One smirk and that laugh that used to make her insides tingle and how had she ever seen him as anything but a condescending manipulator? Just like his father - Emma wasn't putting up a front. She genuinely wanted to know how he was adjusting. At least the two of them could be a little bit unsettled together. The stupid pirate had escaped his quarantined room in the hospital, so she couldn't go and hide out with him - from Neal and Mary Margaret and Henry's suddenly hate-filled eyes. So Tiny was the only one left to talk to.

"And you're settling in?" She had heard snippets from David, who also checked on the crops, but he was more reporting how Leroy and the other dwarves were doing to Snow White than documenting the townsfolk to the station or to her.

"Yeah," he smiled, dropping his rake - plough? trowel? - and stepping toward her. "I've got a place at Granny's. She's lovely."

Emma nodded, happy for him. Proud, even. The lonely giant who hadn't trusted her, hadn't trusted humans at all, and wore the bean around his neck as a reminder, just like she did, because everyone she'd ever cared for, hell, everyone she'd ever known had betrayed her and abandoned her and it was the same for him. (Just like Hook did after her).

Honestly, Emma had not expected the Evil Queen's mother to bring the giant with her. It shocked Emma that Cora had even kept Anton alive. She killed an entire village without batting an eye. Why didn't she do the same for the last remaining giant?

Had Hook climbed down and then been forced to climb back up and bring the giant down with him? Or had the pirate convinced him that a sailor's life was better than being alone, accidentally conscripting Anton into Cora's band? Had Hook climbed back up, knocked the giant out, made him human-sized, and carried him down? Just thinking about that much climbing, let alone one-handed, made her exhausted.

Emma was curious, but didn't quite want to ask what the two men had spoken about for those ten hours Hook had been held captive. Had he even remained there the full ten hours?

"Yeah," Emma crossed her ankles where she stood. "Most people in this town are nice."

The conversation was stunted and awkward like it was every time, but what came next came from nowhere as far as Emma could tell.

"Do you know where Killian is?" Tiny asked her.

Emma was good with names and faces, it was a crucial part of her job. So she knew exactly who the giant was talking about. Couldn't exactly forget that accent and those eyes, could she? Or the leather pants underneath the blacksmith robes when he'd whipped them off, and the heavy end of his coat as it clipped her calf and the embroidery that haloed his jaw.

What she didn't quite understand, was why Tiny wanted to know.

"Oh," Emma frowned.

Only two people knew what she'd done. Mary Margaret figured that Hook was back causing trouble with Regina and Cora, lying low but plotting. Emma felt too guilty to reveal the truth. Still, Emma kept an ear out and tucked his prosthetic hand that he'd left on her desk (hadn't that been a shock to find!) in the draw where she'd kept his hook, knowing he'd know she had it and if he found the hook, he'd know where to look again.

Emma bit her lips together. She knew where the pirate had been and honestly, she'd expected him back sooner. Hook had somehow found his way in that magnificent ship that Neal looked delighted to see and tried to hide tears of a different kind when he stood by the helm (another secret he'd lied to her about). The fact they'd taken his ship didn't sit right with her, mostly because Hook wouldn't have a way back to Storybrooke.

Then again, the place wasn't on any maps and he'd found his way out of it and somehow to where she was in the city, so Emma knew he would be resourceful enough to find his way back to town. Maybe he even wanted to, if the way Neal looked at the ship indicated anything, or the way Regina had flinched and blushed at the mention of his name. Emma had almost growled at that reaction from the tyrant queen until she realised Hook would have said something had he cared for the woman in anyway. He certainly liked to be open and honest and talkative about his exploits.

Emma also knew that the pirate had an uncanny knack for getting out of handcuffs, so it hadn't surprised her when Neal said Tamara had called and told him there was no pirate in the storage closet of their apartment. No mention on Neal's end of whether his fiance thought a hostage was strange or deplorable.

The fact that Hook hadn't shown his face yet, though, especially because his ship was no longer cloaked and Henry quite liked to look at it from as close as he could get without trespassing and yet Emma had seen no glimpses of him, did alarm her.

There was something about the idea that David had floated - in passing, trying to be humourous when he saw them land the ship on the dock without its pirate captain - that maybe Killian would stay in New York and out of her hair that simply...unsettled wasn't the right word for exactly the way her stomach roiled and her jaw clenched at the thought of the man alone in a strange city, terrorising or flirting (one was far more likely than the other, he didn't seem to fight without cause) his way through town with no thought of returning to Storybrooke. 

She wouldn't be surprised. After all, what was one more person who never gave Emma Swan a second thought? And surely he knew staying away would be safer, with Gold and Cora and Regina and a bunch of heroes rearing to go against any villain they came up against. 

Yet, still, there was that secret part deep inside that looked out onto the horizon and hoped. 

"Is he missing?"

The moment the words flew out of her mouth, Emma knew her mistake. If she truly wanted to play herself as indifferent, she wouldn't have asked anything, or would have pretended to not know Hook was in town. Instead, she'd given Tiny a giant beacon notifying him that not only did she know Hook was in town, but that she knew where he should be in said town.

Tiny inched closer to her as though he was sharing an important message with her. "David and the princess released him from the infirmary, he said."

"He said?"

Dammit.

Then, to cover, Emma added: "I didn't realise you were friends." Which was not really a cover at all, and they both knew it.

Tiny shrugged those broad shoulders but offered no explanation. But only for a beat. The former giant could talk for hours, it seemed. Emma liked that. He'd been alone for a long time, that was something she understood intimately and endeared him to her and vice versa. The former giant, shy though he was, appeared to thoroughly enjoy nothing more than basking in the joy of being with people again (he still wasn't keen on humans. But the occasional company, yes). The dwarves were good for him, it seemed. Emma couldn't help but think that ten hours with the pirate who also quite liked to talk and seemed to understand loneliness desperately too, was undoubtedly good for the giant as well. At least, it seemed not to have discouraged Tiny from talking more. In fact, Emma laughed through her nose at the idea, the pirate's inability to shut up probably allowed the giant a great chance to learn to be assertive and curt.

"I've gotten to know him a bit."

Emma rose her eyebrows at that but couldn't question it, she'd asked too many revealing questions already. She'd left the pirate in the care of the giant when he'd told Emma to look forward and she'd find everything she was looking for and she believed him, she couldn't be a foolish girl again, she didn't have the heart to trust that sort of promise again. So she'd abandoned him, just like she had abandoned Henry when she figured she didn't have the heart and courage to do them justice.

"Ten hours is a long time, I suppose," Emma reasoned.

Tiny hummed. "Yeah, I'm glad he stayed."

Emma laughed, "Yeah." Hang on.

Emma flinched when she was struck by the thought, remembering a drug-addled Hook managing to wiggle - or something - his way out of handcuffs and find her in a foreign place, surely a motivated pirate could do the same at the top of a beanstalk when he was in full control of his faculties.

Tiny noticed and inched forward again, offering Emma a tentative smile. "He stayed the ten hours in my company when he didn't have to. I saw when he escaped the shackles you put him in, but he remained to talk to me. No one's talked to me in more than thirty years but in the space of a day I had you and then him in my company."

"Then he came up with that other lady a few days later. Maybe the next day. I don't know, but I don't think he was too happy about it. Certainly, he wasn't as happy as he was when he was in the foyer with you," Tiny told her. "He apologised as she attacked me with her magic. With his eyes, you know?"

Emma did know. The man swaggered with that hateful glare; take no prisoners, give no quarter, never apologise, but then he smiled so softly when he gave her a compliment and looked at her with big soulful eyes when he drew his sword and warned her that blades hurt amid sexual innuendos and lied to her when he showed her a bean with betrayal on his face.

"He did it again just last week," Tiny told her. "In fact, it was the first thing he did. Not so much an apology but he let me out and told me leaving me inside, let alone in the cage with no food was not his intention," Tiny announced cryptically. "Before I mistook your father for Prince James. Killian had been in the hospital for being hit by one of your moving vehicles and the first thing he did was find me to offer food and goods in compensation for something out of his control."

Tiny beamed like he was proud of the pirate brother he'd found.

"I'd already been introduced to the dwarves by then and I have no idea how he found time to find me and avoid being killed by the witch who wishes him dead, but he made the effort." He smiled wider, if that was possible, and lowered his tone just like David did, like he was imparting advice. "He's a good man."

Emma waited for the, "for a pirate," that her father had used to describe Hook when she got back from New York. He objected to the flirting he'd apparently enacted toward both her and Mary Margaret, but David had quite liked Hook's "plucky attitude" about getting out of the hospital, saying he was "helpful, for a pirate."

It never came.

Tiny must have read Emma's confusion in her furrowed brows, because he went on to explain: "Poor dockworker was turned to a fish by her evil highness and merciful Killian kicked him into the water. She would have left him flopping for air until he died."

"I didn't know that."

"And he's always been good to me."

Always seemed like a bit of an exaggeration. Tiny was kept in a cage by Cora and the pirate, Hook would have been violently angry atop the beanstalk for ten hours, and that was the extent of their interaction. Always, might be a truism, but it gave the impression of a long friendship of more than three encounters.

"He comes by and sits by the tree just there," Tiny explained.

Emma blinked.

"Believe me, he cursed up a storm about it at first," Tiny laughed, "Trying to help till the soil with his hook until Leroy mentioned something about being hit by a car. Don't worry. After I learnt that, I made him sit in the shade tying knots."

Emma hadn't grown up talkative, quite the opposite actually, a product of knowing no one was listening. But, in her adulthood, or late teens, she'd learned to speak up for herself, learnt to speak her mind and damn the consequences (something she felt she couldn't do anymore or else she risk losing Henry and her parents).

What she hadn't encountered before seemed to be in abundance in the last few weeks: Speechlessness.

"He seemed to enjoy that," Tiny promised so sincerely, but Emma hadn't wrapped her head around what he was saying. "After he stopped grumbling."

It was the soft, apologetic smile paired with the exasperated eye roll, that made it click for Emma. That was how Regina looked at her when she was handing Henry over after a weekend, promising enrichment and lamenting the attitude she got in return. That was how she herself had addressed Regina when she'd been trying to be on her good side but desperate to be a mother too.

Tiny was trying to placate Emma about Hook's time away from her, as though they shared custody of the pirate.

Emma sat crosslegged, slumping over and picked at the grass.

No. That wasn't quite right. Tiny was promising her something. Wary of her.

Not wary of the pirate.

"I just," Tiny faltered for the first time. Emma felt herself go pale, her cheeks tingling as her blood pooled along with her stomach in a lump in her throat. "It's been a while. I'm worried."

Emma could see where the grass had been poked and prodded, little holes dug deep in the rich black soil as though someone with a stick had been bored. No, not someone, Hook.

Emma shrugged, "He's good, you know? Resourceful."

"Will you -" for the first time, Anton faltered. Emma couldn't tell if that was the giant was suddenly reverting to shyness, not uncommon, Emma herself often realised she'd been talking and was hit by a wave of oh, sorry, I've taken too much of your time, or afraid to ask for clemency for a villain. Was that common for the people of Storybrooke, if so she better knuckle down in the precinct and change that ethos. "Will you look for him?"

"Yeah," Emma nodded, "I'll find him."