I own nothing except my delusions.

As she sat by the campfire in the jungle crafting ropes, Emma couldn't help letting her mind wander to Hook. She didn't know the man's past, but she knew it was similar to her own. He had nothing, having lost everything, resulting in him being alone. Just like her.

Whereas she would run to cope with everything, Hook drank, his rum numbing him enough so he could deal with things that would cause anyone else to break, cause them to give up on everything. Hook was a survivor.

She knew what it was like, to survive but not actually live.

Hook recognized it in her, too. He had opened up to her, letting her see parts of him she sensed he buried beneath his haughty persona, parts no one ever saw. Some how he even held sympathy for others, but often hid it. He felt for others, despite everything that had ever happened to him. Despite everything, Emma knew he was still a good man.

Her family still judged him, though. David, Mary Margaret, and even Regina only saw the pirate, not the man behind the image. David had his mother growing up, Mary Margaret grew up in a loving home until both her parents died then had the dwarves, even Regina had people who loved her as she grew up. But she knew it, even though he never told her, that Hook had no one, and those he did have he lost. Just like her.

Hook couldn't change what had happened to him, yet he was judged for it. He was held to the same standards the others had, though his life was so different from theirs. Emma knew it wasn't fair. Her and Hook's lives weren't the same as her families. They weren't all the same.

Emma knew that not everyone got a good, easy life. It just didn't work that way. But if that taught her anything, it was that the good things were supposed to be cherished. Hook had learned that lesson. Despite the bleakness, there were always light. One just had to reach it. She had found hers when the curse broke, reuniting her with the son she had to give up and giving her the parents she had never known.

Part of her hated Gold for making Hook the way he was, but Hook still didn't completely break from what was done to him.

She secretly wished he would find something, something to give him the salvation he deserved, despite what her own family thought of him. He deserved his, to find his own light to lead him out of his darkness. She hoped he was near the end of his darkness, he'd been in his for too long. She knew herself personally how much a broken heart could change a person. Hook was right when they said they understood each other. But now that he was offered to be with them, to be part of the mission to rescue Henry, she saw the shift in him. She saw what she hoped was the beginning of something happy for him.

She fought the smile she felt creeping up, the warmth in her chest that had began spreading whenever she thought of him.

Hearing a rustling in the leaves by them, Emma jumped up with Mary Margaret and Regina, all drawing their weapons.

"Stand down, it's us," David called as he and Hook walked into the clearing, returning from their trip for the sextant.

Emma breathed a sigh of relief at seeing them, ignoring the flutter of her heart when she saw Hook.

Review?