A/N: Just a ridiculous little one-shot for your entertainment.
Emma didn't know how she even got into this situation. Especially after everything had run so smoothly - or more smoothly than ever - before.
They had returned from Neverland, all of them. Henry was safe, he was happy and had just started to forgive her for lying about certain things. They now lived in a house Regina had found for the two of them, one that lay a little outside of town but not far from the mansion. Emma had been glad to leave her parents in Mary-Margaret's apartment where they were trying to deal with the aftermath of their escape - and the fact that David had left an arm behind - and also to make another baby. Emma wasn't sure how she felt about that but she felt that her mother needed this, and she also deserved this second chance considering that she'd almost lost her husband.
Hook had stayed in Storybrooke, not surprisingly. He was around but conspicuously unobtrusive. Not that he had given up on flirting with her or calling her 'love,' but he gave her space and that was more than she could say about Neal who usually showed up at her doorstep every other day, demanding to see his son and pissed if she told him that Henry was over at Regina's. And Emma seemed unable to explain to Neal why Regina was even in Henry's life... in a way, Neal's reaction reminded her a little of herself after she'd come to Storybrooke, after she'd found out that the fairy tale-thing was true. She'd just banded with everyone else against the 'evil queen' - never mind that Regina had raised Henry to be smart and funny and compassionate. But things had changed, especially between her and Regina. How could they not after Regina had saved her father from certain death, Henry from a life as a lost boy... and Hook... It had all been so messed up, so...
Well, maybe this situation - the one she was in now - wasn't all that messy compared to what had happened in Neverland. Still, it was bad enough. Neal had asked her to dinner, she had agreed wanting to talk about Henry and maybe a more permanent solution to Neal just coming over whenever he felt like it. But when she'd entered Granny's, things hadn't looked like serious talk at all, or rather not like serious talk about Henry. Neal and Hook had sat at the bar, the lone occupants of the diner - not even Granny seemed to be around - and it had dawned on Emma what they wanted from her: an answer. An answer to the ridiculous demands they had already started to make on Pan's island and in the most dangerous circumstances possible. How they had almost been killed over it by Pan's shadow. And now they wanted to continue this nonsense.
Emma rolled her eyes.
"What's up, guys?" she said in way of a greeting, folding her arms infront of her chest, her legs solidly rammed onto Granny's ridiculously clean linolium. It was a fighter's stance.
"You look lovely, love. I always thought black was your colour," Hook complimented.
"No sweet-talk tonight, Killian. What is all this?" Emma made a sweeping notion around the diner and its lack of customers.
"We want you to chose," Neal said and stood.
"Well, I was gonna have a burger with fries but somehow I don't think the menu is what you want me to chose from," Emma gave back.
"No, we want you to chose between us. Me, the smashing captain of a pirate ship, and him, currently unemployed and sulking most of the time..." Hook stopped when he noticed the glum look Neal shot him. "But an overall nice chum, mostly," he couldn't help adding. It made Emma smile just a little which elicited one of Hook's very toothy smiles. The ones that usually made the blonde think of a crocodile, and quite ironically so.
Before Emma could say anything to this renewed demand of the two (adult) men in her life, the door to the diner opened and Regina stepped in, stopping short when she noticed the scene before her.
"A private party? And as usual nobody informed me," she said.
"Hardly a party, more of an intervention," Emma informed the dark-haired woman who gave her a small smile. Regina seemed to know exactly what was going on and her previous comment was mere charade. Emma just barely kept from laughing and was surprised at how glad she was to see the other woman.
"We were just in the middle of something," Neal said testily, it was the way he usually adressed Regina.
"So were Henry and I and then he said he wanted a burger, so I came all the way here." The mayor directed dark eyes at Henry's father, expectantly it seemed.
"The kitchen is closed tonight, love. But I heard you are a great cook, especially with apples?" Regina smiled at Hook.
"I think I have a new victim... for my turn-over," she mused and her voice sounded a little saucy, slightly like her evil self. Emma looked up at her. "Another time then," Regina sounded disappointed. She prepared to leave again but took her time to rearrange her scarf around her neck.
"So, who's it gonna be, Emma? The pirate or me?" Neal asked, ignoring Regina's amused look behind Emma.
"Henry, Neal. It's always gonna be Henry," she said.
"Dammit, Emma, you're always pushing him between us. He's our son, he's supposed to be the bond between us, not a barrier you can hide behind," Neal told her.
"That's what he would have been, Neal. If we would have stayed together, if I hadn't gone to jail, if you hadn't felt it necessary to sent me there. We would have been together as a family. But things turned out differently. You made your choice twelve years ago and now I'm making mine," Emma answered and Neal looked up at her, hurt.
"I thought it was for the best," he tried half-heartedly to defend himself.
"Maybe it was. Maybe this is exactly how it was supposed to be."
"I guess that leaves the two of us, love," Hook said, once again smiling brightly.
"Before you secure the booty, Hook...," Regina smiled to herself. "May I remind you that I'm here, too. Another... interested party, perhaps?" Emma looked at the other woman perplexed, Neal disbelieving and Hook... intrigued.
"Interested party, Regina?" he asked.
"Why not? I was on that island, Emma and I share a son... we made magic together which is more than you ever shared with her, Killian."
"Regina?" Emma asked, not sure where the dark-haired beauty was going with this. Was she actually saying that she might... want to be with Emma herself?
"Who is it gonna be, Emma? The pirate or the evil queen?" Regina smiled at her and once again the blonde was hard-pressed not to laugh. Regina was trying to solve this situation for her, she was being a friend... a friend with an undertone of seriousness as it seemed to Emma.
"It's still Henry," she said. "He's the only man I want in my life right now," she said to Hook and Neal, deliberately leaving room for 'a woman' in her meaning.
"As long as you remember to share him with me," Regina said. Emma smiled back at her.
"You said something about dinner?" the blonde reminded Regina.
"I'm sure I can whip something up from what I have at home," the raven-haired woman invited her.
"Let's go then," Emma agreed and they left the diner together, leaving Hook and Neal alone.
Hook looked over at the shorter man, frowning.
"What just happened?" he asked. Neal shook his head.
"I need a drink," he said.
"That's the most sense I heard all night, mate. Mind if I join you?"
"You can do whatever you want," Neal answered and grabbed his coat from the stool beside him.
"Lovely, you're buying," Killian said as he followed Neal out of the diner and into a cold starry night.