A/n: Special thanks to AMiserableLove for helping me out with this story. Thanks so much for being awesome, dear! You can thank her for it not being even more angsty! lol
Shock.
A strange flood of relief.
Fear.
A chance to bring a father and son back together - another chance to make things right.
These are things that the Captain of the Jolly Roger felt when they first came upon a healing Neal Cassidy – Baelfire – holed up in a small, abandoned cave in Neverland. His wound still pained him, but was healing, and despite his pale face and clammy, feverish skin - weakened from days of taking care of himself since he had been transported there - the worst of the process was over. Still, Hook insisted on letting him take his quarter's until he was well, rather than making him sleep in the crew cabin (supposedly to avoid him infecting the others with his fever) – a move that seemed to startle most of his passengers, but he received no more than questioning looks and he offered up no answers in return.
As those first few hours passed, the story of how he had ended up in Neverland came out. Stories of unforeseen portals and monsters and forgotten companions from the Enchanted Forest. Everyone seemed on the edge of their seats as he spoke, most of all Emma and the Crocodile - Mr. Gold - Rumpelstiltskin, whatever his bloody name was. Then came their story, the story of why they were there, and the emotions written on Baelfire's face chilled him to the core in a way that he hadn't expected.
Loss.
Soul crushing loss.
Loss of his son, and it seemed from the forlorn gazes cast at the lonely blonde – loss of love.
He seemed more focused on his father and Emma and finding his son more than anything else upon learning that Henry had been kidnapped – something that Hook thought should have pleased him. He had brought the broken family back together in as much as he could, not for the Crocodile, whom he still despised, but for that scared boy who had lost so much.
In a way, maybe it was what Milah would have wanted.
Still, Hook watched from afar, captaining the ship, occasionally engaging in polite conversation, but nowhere near speaking with him of such things as he wished he could, things of times that were long past – not that his pride would have allowed him that anyway. It seemed well enough. Bae was more or less neutral in manner rather than hateful when it came to the pirate after finding out how much he was helping them in their search for Henry. Hook hadn't expected any differently, but the smallest of thrills still coursed through his body when the man occasionally cast him a slight but familiar smile behind distrustful eyes, as if thanking him for what he was doing, thanking him for being the man that he had never expected him to be.
It'd been centuries since he was the boy that he had taught to sail and now he had a boy of his own to worry about – Swan's boy. The thought continued to feel strange and foreign to him. Emma Swan and Baelfire had a child together, who had been adopted by the queen, grandson to the bloody Crocodile, and now they were all on a ship desperately seeking young Henry's return. He could only shake his head whenever he tried to understand the strange series of events that had brought them all together, finally culminating over three hundred years of drama into one, possibly final adventure.
And Swan.
She had been distant with everyone on board since the loss of her son – rightfully so. She was depressed, full of anger, full of pain. As much as he tried to lift her spirits, her smiles only lasted seconds, maybe even minutes if he was lucky, and then it would dissolve back into the hard set jaw and pursed lips of a woman on a mission. Those few weeks spent on the Jolly Roger before finding Baelfire he had seen her begin to fade into the shell that he had when Milah had passed – someone consumed with purpose and anger. He lived for that semblance of a smile or a mocking laugh at his playful quips. He loved watching her hardened features relax into a smile and appear carefree, if only for a moment.
When they found him – her face changed again. And just like that, with all these thoughts of redemption and hope and seconds chances – jealousy.
Shock.
Relief.
Confusion.
These were the things he saw soar through her expression when they happened upon him in that damp, musky cave, and what he continued to see everyday when they were together. He saw shock and relief that he was alive, but confusion about what she was supposed to do next. He knew from her vague words on the beanstalk that he had hurt her in some way, but still, somewhere deep down – there was hope. Hope that if no matter who this man was or what he had done to her, if he could seemingly rise from the dead and appear in Neverland, that their son would be found alive and well too. She began to look at Bae like Hook himself had looked at him so long ago. He had been his only connection he had left to Milah and he wanted to hold onto him for that, for her memory, for his love for her. Now, the same man, grown, was her only connection to Henry.
Hook told himself that he didn't know why he felt the uncomfortable prick of emotion when he saw them standing just a little bit too close one day, staring out into the sparkling blue of the Neverland ocean waves. He didn't understand why his body lurched forward ever so slightly at the helm, not far from where they were standing, when he saw Bae accidentally rest his hand just a little bit too close to hers. He didn't know why it hurt when she casually moved hers closer, slowly lifting a few fingers to rest over his, a ghost of a sad smile on her lips as she met his eyes.
"We're gonna find him, Emma."
"I know we will." Now her hand had fully enveloped his, giving it a comforting squeeze before she pulled back awkwardly, averting her eyes.
He had been her love – most likely her first love, her only love, based on what she had confided to him shortly after they had met. She deserved happiness after all she had been through, so why did it hurt so bloody much to see it supposedly happening again before his very eyes?
He knew why, he just couldn't bear to think of it.
Hook tried to forget the day he had retrieved vital information to finding Henry from the mermaids and how she had thrown her arms around his neck in silent thanks. He tried to forget the weight of her in his arms and the smell of her hair. He tried to ignore the memories of how it felt for her lips to caress his, first hesitantly, then with more passion and how he had warned her with a warm chuckle that kissing him in front of the covetous sirens was a bad idea, half-expecting, hoping that she would kiss him again in a more convenient location. And in that moment, he had become her source of hope, her light flickering in the darkness. After the kiss, she had broken away from him, her body language implying that nothing had happened, but her eyes had still been thanking him with all of her heart in a way that touched him…. In a way he hadn't been in years. In the days following, their search continued as normal, but Hook noticed that her jaw wasn't set quite so hard and her eyes weren't quite so sad.
But that had been before they had found him.
It was different now. He wasn't her sole source of hope anymore.
The innocence of Neal and Emma's behavior around each other and the occasional genuine smiles she still cast the pirate's way didn't prepare Hook for what came weeks into the newcomer's stay on the Jolly Roger. His hand had barely brushed the doorknob to his quarters when he heard soft, whispered moans that froze his movements.
"Neal…"
Hook's heart throbbed painfully, his chest tightening when he realized what he was hearing.
"Emma…god…I missed you so mu-" His words were cut off when he let out a quiet groan, followed by low, feminine shushes – whether to silence him for the sake of decency or to halt his words of affection, Hook didn't know.
Offense and hurt welled up inside of him, but he was too much of a gentleman - he cared too much about Emma to barge in during such an intimate moment.
Bae's – Neal's voice was so content, so full of love and awe and Hook was torn as he turned away from the door, stalking back up the steps, retreating back to the helm that had been his rock for so many years. His eyes, now a dark, stormy blue flitted to the scratched out 'starboard' and 'port' he had scrawled into the wood. Complicated swirls of pain and betrayal and jealousy warred against the part of him that said this was right, that this was as it should be.
Well, Hook, love has been returned to where it should be.
The very thought sickened him, his stomach whirling, and his throat tightening.
And then it all turned into anger.
She had kissed him. She had held him and let him hold her, and just like up on the beanstalk, he felt that they were the same. She made him believe that there was hope for his blackened heart and now it was all gone – dashed to pieces like a fragile piece of glass against stone. Bae – Neal, he didn't know which he was either - had broken her heart once before and she had fallen back into his arms simply because he was the only part of Henry that she had left. In his own bloody bed. Arrogant thoughts of being the captain and a time when punishments akin to walking planks would be in order for such a disrespect overtook him – but the age for that was long past and he could never bring himself to harm either of them over something that he himself had not fought against.
A man not willing to fight for what he wants deserves what he gets.
He'd brought this on himself.
Hurt and then fury with himself for feeling it continued to build inside of him and before he realized what was happening, his remaining hand was bloodied, pain shooting through it wildly, splotches of red staining the wood before him from where his fist had struck it repeatedly.
"Hook!" Mary Margaret's eyes widened with concern when she saw his mangled hand that he cradled across his opposite forearm, not sure what to do since any bandages – not to mention the rum - were in his cabin. "What happened?"
"I'm fine," he murmured, not wishing to explain, but the look of understanding on her face cut him to the quick. "You needn't worry about me, Highness."
"Snow. You can just call me Snow, you know," she told him with a small smile, and gently reached over to examine his hand, ignoring his grunts of pain as she moved each digit carefully. "It looks like you might have broken a few fingers…"
"I've had worse," he jested weakly, his eyes moving to the hook attached to his left wrist.
Mary Margaret didn't seem to find the joke funny and only shook her head, taking a handkerchief out of her pocket and blotting at the blood. "You know, there are better ways to deal with your emotions."
He grimaced when she brushed one of his broken fingers again, but otherwise remained still. "It wasn't anything important."
She raised an eyebrow, staring him straight in the eyes for a moment, searching him, before lowering them back to his injured hand. "She's hurting right now, Hook. She doesn't know what she wants, except for Henry back."
"If you think this is about your daughter-"
"You don't have to talk to me about it, but at least don't lie to me about it," she rebuked him gently, tying the bit of cloth around his knuckles. "This needs to be cleaned and bandaged, but this will keep it from bleeding. I'll go get some bandages."
"You don't need to do that-"
She cast him a pointed look, as if to remind him that he only had one hand and like it or not, he did need her help. "I'll be right back."
Later that night, Emma had regarded his bandaged hand with some worry, but he had shrugged off her questions. He had noticed the brief flash of hurt in her expression when he pulled his arm back as if he'd been burned by her touch and observed with a combination of relief and melancholy the way that she too avoided Bae's attempts to move close to her after he had walked back to the helm.
She was ever his broken, untrusting Swan.
They went for the next couple of days as usual, their search unfruitful, only succeeding in further darkening his mood.
"You need help with that?"
He was startled out of his thoughts by her voice. Seven hells, even after what he'd heard that earlier that week, her voice still made his pulse quicken.
"I'm doing fine on my own, Swan."
"You have a bandaged hand and a hook. Let me give you a hand."
His whole body tensed when she took the wheel from him and he wanted to say something cold about him giving the orders, but knew that it would be unwise. After all, he had gone on this whole journey to be a part of something more than himself, hadn't he? To make things right after reliving the mistakes of his past that had left him without a family so many years ago. He had no right to protest now that he was receiving the chance that he had hoped for.
Besides, he selfishly didn't want her to leave.
"I…don't know how to do this," she admitted with a nervous laugh after a few seconds of mimicking what she had watched him do a thousand times.
His lips curved into a smile and he felt himself relax. "It's easy as pie, love," he replied ever-so-softly, his tone carrying a hint of gloom with the irony of the familiar words. "Just keep a steady hand on her, we're headed in the direction we need to be."
"…This is nice."
"What is?"
"This spot. On the ship. I see why you like it."
"It is a marvel," he sighed. By this time, the deck had been cleared, even Baelfire, who had cast a wary look at them before leaving had retreated below as the Neverland air began to cool and the vague sounds of children's cries could begin to be heard. "…How have you been, love?"
"You ask that like I've been somewhere else," she commented, scrunching up her nose in confusion.
"Your mind has been elsewhere."
"My mind is with Henry. It's always been with Henry."
"And what of his father?"
Emma glanced back at him, her hands still fixed to the helm. "Neal? I-" she began to protest and then stopped herself, remembering that it was pointless to argue when the captain could read her like a book. "It's weird having him back… it's weird having someone you thought was dead suddenly – alive."
"I imagine it is. I've considered it myself many times."
His thoughts flitted to Milah and all the feverish nights he spent after losing his hand convincing himself that her death wasn't real – that it was the fever talking, only to be thrown into fits of grief and rage for allowing himself the luxury of hope. There were nights that he would still wake up from a painfully vivid dream, greeted by the emptiness of his cot, momentarily overcome by a sense of confusion and loss.
Yes. He knew what that felt like.
"I didn't." The matter-of-fact, no-nonsense way that she spoke surprised him, though he wasn't sure why. She wasn't the type to dwell on false hope either. "I didn't imagine it, he was just … dead. Now, I don't know how to feel."
"It seems like you know exactly how to feel, Emma," he replied, his tone a bit too dry and scoff-like to be played off as meaningless.
She turned to meet his eyes once again, traces of guilt and sympathy hidden in her own, knowing the reason for his bitterness. "He's all I have left of Henry. He's all I might ever ha-" her voice cracked and she stopped herself before the tears threatening to spill over bested her.
"Emma…you don't have to-"
Her back remained to him and she took a shuddering breath. "No. He hurt me. He hurt me so badly and he apologized and for once, I thought that I could move on, but that was right before he- and then he was gone and now he's back and whenever I look at him, all I see is my kid, all I see is who I fell in love with when I was a fucking kid and.. I don't know what I want anymore." Once she began, the heated words tumbled out at an increasingly frantic pace, pent up thoughts that no one had been privy to before this moment taking over. Suddenly, she turned around sharply, leaning her back against the wheel and meeting his steady gaze. "Sometimes I feel something and sometimes I think I'm just wanting Henry back and on top of that we're in fucking Neverland, and there's fucking man-eating plants and shadows that fly around by themselves and natives that may or may not want to kill us based on their mood and we could die at any goddamn time and I don't know what I want before that happens!" Her voice broke again on the final word.
There was a long moment of silence as he let her catch her breath and gather herself, placing a firm hook on the wheel when she leaned on it just enough to tip it to the right.
"You'll get him back, love. I told you I'd help you find him and I meant it."
"Yeah? Well, sometimes promises aren't enough."
"It's been barely two months, Lass. This is a whole world that we're searching."
"But he's out there alone. I almost got killed by a tree the other day, ok?" she let out a humorless laugh.
"Greg and Tamara may be caught up in a foolhardy scheme, but they're not entirely ignorant. They wouldn't bring him here just to let him die. They need him and they'll be with others. He'll be safe until we can get to him."
"Need him for something," she scoffed, rolling her tear-filled eyes. "That makes me feel a whole lot better."
"It should."
"…Jesus, I'm sorry," she apologized, letting out a cold chuckle at herself and blinking away her unshed tears. "I don't even know why I'm talking to you about this, I should just-"
"Don't… Don't ever be sorry for talking to me, Emma." Another deafening silence filled the night air. "You should get to bed, love, it's getting late, and soon the noise will get worse," he reminded her quietly, knowing by now how the echoed sobs affected her.
"What about you? Are you just going to steer us all night?"
"It wouldn't be the first time."
All too many nights she had left him at the helm, looking tired and worn, blindly assuming that he had gone to bed shortly after she had.
Noticing the worry in her eyes, he spoke again. "As long as the seas stay calm, we'll lay anchor and I'll sleep some then. I always do, if I can help it."
She turned to face him, leaning her back against the wheel giving him the tiniest hint of the sly smile he remembered. "No, you won't. I'll get up in the morning and find you here almost dead against the helm, steering us to Wonderland or something."
"Don't be silly, we can't sail to Wonderland," he rolled his eyes, as if it were obvious. "We'd probably just crash into the island. Now are you going to bed or will I have to carry you there?"
"With a hook and a bum hand?"
Much to Emma's dismay, instead of laughing or shooting off an innuendo about still being able to satisfy her needs, he groaned, almost frustrated. "Must you continue to emasculate me, Swan?" He paused and shook his head. "Go on, love, I'm sure he's missing your warmth."
"What?"
"Ba- your Neal. No need to leave your love lonely for the likes of me."
"He's not my love."
"Emma."
"I told him that I couldn't be with him again. If you haven't noticed, things have been a little… weird between us in the past week."
Hook averted his eyes, setting his jaw. "Don't lie to me, love."
"I'm not lying. I… considered it, but then things got – it was too much. I was just using what he felt for me to get through not having Henry, and… I just can't do that to myself again and I don't want to do that to him either."
"Last week I went to my cabin to get some things, when Neal was still bunking in my quarters…" He let his words trail off, implications thick in the air.
She swallowed hard, her body stiffening and cheeks flushing. "I…Killian…you weren't supposed to-" It was the first time that she had let the name slip past her lips.
His eyes grew dark. "Please don't call me that, Emma. Especially if it's to tell me another lie."
"I'm not lying to you," she repeated earnestly. "It was a mistake. I was stupid and upset … I'm having a hard time dealing with all this, ok? I'm human." she muttered, turning back towards him again and putting both of her hands firmly on the wheel, straightening her back and keeping her eyes straight ahead of them, watching the waves slowly rise and fall. "I told you, I don't know what I want. One minute I'm with him, the next I want…"
"You want what?" His voice came out in barely a breath, the tightness in his chest loosening at her unspoken word.
"Nothing."
"Emma," the word came out in a pleading growl as he took a step closer, placing his hook next to her hand to get her attention. "Lass, just-"
"I'm sorry I kissed you." Her words were slow, thought out, and pronounced. "…That day on the beach."
His heart sank. She was running. She'd already run from any feelings that she had ever had for Baelfire when she said that he wasn't her love, when she told him that they couldn't be together, and now she was covering her bases with him.
"Emma, don't."
"Don't you get it, Hook? This is about Henry. I have to focus on my son and I fucked up. I let feelings get in the way, for you, for Neal… I can't make any decisions right now. It has to be about him."
"…And once we've found him? What will you do then, love? Keep running? Take the child from Storybrooke and hide away from your feelings forever?" His voice raised a notch in volume as his emotions overtook him again, his bandaged hand moving to turn her around, his chest nearly flush with hers.
A man not willing to fight for what he wants, deserves what he gets.
His lifelong motto hit him like a blow to the chest.
He'd been struggling against the urge to fight for too long, and now that she was standing so close, admitting that her feelings for him were blinding her, he couldn't fight against it any longer. Refusing to give himself another chance to hesitate or rethink what he so desperately wanted to do, he wrapped his hooked arm around her, pulling her close and meeting her lips in a forceful kiss. The act was almost rough, lips crashing together in a desperate move, but the feelings behind it were pure and tender. She gasped softly into his mouth and then grasped his coat gently, coaxing him closer, kissing him just a little bit more deeply, pouring so much pain and longing into that kiss before breaking their contact, looking down at her feet as she exhaled slowly.
"Hook... No matter what I feel, this has to be about Henry right now." She still refused to look at him.
He began to move his injured hand to cup her face, but stopped when he realized that it was still bandaged, feeling oddly pained that he couldn't touch her. "Don't run from me, Emma."
After a moment of quiet, she reluctantly pulled away from his warm touch and finally met his eyes, her own speaking volumes that her actions seemed to deny. "I'm not running, Hook. I'm just standing still."
Hook sighed, chewing the inside of his lip, still able to taste her on his tongue. Finally, he nodded. "I can wait, love. We're in Neverland. We've got all the time in the world." His tone was solemn and melancholy, but there was the slightest flicker of hope in his eyes as he smiled at her reassuringly.
He gingerly pushed her away from the wheel and into the direction of the cabins below deck and tipped his chin upward, noticing how the wind had begun to pick up and silently dreading another sleepless night – not that he would have been able to sleep anyway after what had just occurred between them.
"Off to bed, Lass. I'll be fine until morning."
"But-"
"Get some rest, I'm not going anywhere…"
He watched her hesitantly turn to leave, taking a few, slow steps before her gait gained more confidence and she disappeared below deck. He sighed to himself once she was no longer in sight.
He could wait. He could feel that she wanted him in that kiss, he could feel her confusion and pain, so he could wait. It was one of the few things that he was truly good at.
"…I'll be waiting, love."
The End
A/n: Damn, that hurt to write. I hope you all don't hate me too much. This is only a possible triangle scenario, and it's not entirely hopeless! I just feel like this is something that could POSSIBLY happen, at least in some parts, Emma pushing Hook away emotionally because she feels like she needs to focus on Henry. *cries* PLEASE, writers, let it be happier than that!
Review?