"Where is he?!"
It shocked Snow and Charming from the embrace that they had caught themselves in. It jarred them to hear the quality of their daughter's voice- frantic, desperate, and almost hopeful (but that was hidden underneath the stress of every other emotion that was evident).
"Where is Hook?"
They all spun towards the Kitchen (over-riding the awkwardness of Emma once again catching her parents doing something romantic and overly public display of affection). Charming was quick to point out his finger expecting to see the heroic man, once pirate, either laying on the floor or leaning against the counter with a knowing smirk and an innuendo on the tip of the tongue.
"He was there!" It was sure but as there was no visible pirate at the end of his point, Snow could hear his voice get softer, unsure. Something that Snow hoped her daughter didn't catch onto. Charming continued almost awkwardly "Right before we got dragged away" as he is eyes darted across the room, frantic to find Hook, to pinpoint his whereabouts to assuage the ever-growing fear that was now taking ahold of his heart.
He was the one who stabbed him in the back, and now with his half of a heart returned to him the ever swelling tide of guilt and horror at his actions was rising.
Emma was cautious as she took five steps forward, eyes also glancing across the room. "Everyone reappeared right where they were before this whole mess started." As she passed by, Snow could see the immediate tenseness that had overtaken Emma's shoulder and the way her head was singularly focused ahead, if she could see Emma's eyes Snow knew they would be zeroed in on the spot where Henry's backpacks contents littered the floor, a crime scene that was missing its most key piece.
Snow truly became worried about what was to become of the splintered trust and love that they had just renewed with their daughters as she saw Emma begin the process of hyperventilating, as David turned to look at her with downcast eyes, tears filling them as his chin sagged and he began to cave into her.
She was presented with two very hard choices with her as the evidence in front of her piled up. She and David had sought the life of Henry and Emma and saw the life of the pirate helping them as collateral damage. So she had walked around the pirate in this alternative universe so her cohort could stab him in the heart (her cohort being her true love in this reality and that pirate being one of the only friends that David had formed on his own, a friendship that meant a lot to her other half), and in the past she had taken joy at the screeching heartbreaking noise from the mad hags mouth, the sob of "No!" that had lit her heart with happiness. All those memories at the forefront of her mind where now juxtaposed by two of the most important people in her life, breaking right in front of her.
Her first choice was to open up her arms for David to cave into, the regret and anger turning him into a silent mess in her arms, she could stroke his hair and talk to him of how he wasn't himself, it wasn't his fault. That this was a horrible tragedy and that Hook would forgive his mate for killing him, that Emma would come around, that the pain would heal. But, snow knew that would be a lie, she was pretty sure that this death would destroy the relationship of a father and daughter, that the hope for repairing it would be cut off because the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, the absolute bond of Emma as a Daddy's girl, would never be able to come back once Emma rebuilt her walls. Turning them into such walls that there would never be anyone who could ever get through them again.
Snow could begin the long process of healing her True Love.
Or she could reach out and take her daughter's hand and stand by her side, kneel beside, hold and carry her daughter as she began to deal with the unending and turbulent emotional mess of losing the one person who had given up everything for Emma's happiness.
It was a horrifying crack on her heart to hear her daughter whisper "No" into the stillness of the Loft. That sound that single syllable was a confirmation to Snows heart that there was no coming back from this hurt, that this was the final moment to break the Savior.
Emma would not only cry but she would sob, she would let everything crash down around her. She would let herself crash, and then once she had expelled those feelings, those first instances of pure unadulterated grief out of her system, possibly letting it all go on her parents for a short amount of time, then the walls would slam up into place and Emma would shut her emotions off. She would refuse to let herself fall apart any further over this and then she would refuse to allow herself to heal or to ever have a happy ending again, because a big portion of her happy ending was gone.
Snow wasn't an idiot, she had tried denying what Hook was to her daughter for a long time, a fling, a rebound to get over the death of Neal with, a stepping stone on the way to meeting her True Love in August or some random prince that was to come along and sweep her off her feet. Hook was not staying, not ever going to stay, or ever going to win her daughter heart.
But he had, and as he had he had opened cracks in her walls for everyone else around Emma as well, he had brought Mary Margret closer to Emma, he brought David in, he even helped Regina and Robin and Granny and Ruby and even the Dark One's wife Belle into greater regard with Emma. She laughed more; she told more stories and relaxed around others when he was with her. He made Emma shine.
Snow recalled a night during that 9 weeks of utter peace and quiet where Hook had taken Henry out for a sailing trip and had even brought David along with a tease that it was time that Henry show his grandfather how to be a true pirate. It was perfect that with the boys gone it allowed her and Emma to have a good old fashioned girls night and open that bottle of wine Emma had been threating to drink if Snow kept bringing up more and more questions about Hook. Questions that had finally gotten answered with a little bit of liquid lubrication to loosen Emma's lips!
"I know you are dying to ask me some things" Emma had singsonged over the popcorn as they sat in front of the Television drinking their wine and watching reruns of Friends.
"Oh! Thank God! I have been dying to ask you-"
"Hold up! I'm adding a rule, ten questions, that's it for tonight"
"So you will tell me more on another girl's night?
"If we are lucky to keep things quiet enough to get another one… then yes."
"Okay… first I guess, are you happy?"
Emma had the nerve to roll her eyes as she sipped her glass, "No, obviously if I was Happy I wouldn't be interested in Hook, I would just High Ho my way over to the mines with Leroy."
"Be serious!"
"Fine, yes, I am happy."
"Why?"
"Why am I happy or why does he make me happy?"
"Both?"
"I guess you could say that the two aren't mutually exclusive from each other. He believes in me Mom, he believes that I can conquer anything and that I will never fail when I put myself to a task. That faith that he has in me, its liberating- I don't feel scared when he is backing me up. And he makes me laugh and he is just such an idiot sometimes that he makes me forgot if I had anything that was worrying me, and God the way that he looks at me- you would think he has never seen anything more beautiful in his infinite life span. He just gets me, he knows when to push me, when to tell me I'm wrong, when I need to be alone and when I just need him to hold me close. I guess he just puts my wellbeing first and he does whatever he can to make sure that I am happy. So, I am happy with my life and I am happy with him, and he makes me happy with whatever situation we have to face… does that make sense?"
"Oh, perfectly to me, because that is how I would describe your father and I."
"Don't tell Dad you compared Killian and I to you and him, he would flip his switch over being compared to Killian in any regards."
"You are right about that!"
"So you have six left"
"How is Henry doing about all of this, you and Hook?"
"That really worried me, but he has been so supportive of this whole situation, you remember how he pushed me to ask Killian out on a date? I almost feel that was more for him then me! Henry makes sure that he and Killian get to go out sailing at least once a week, and he helps Henry with his Homework. Henry has even tried to get Killian to teach him Poker, but I am holding out against that one as long as I can, kid already knows to much about cheating at dice. I really think that Henry likes the time that he spends with Killian, and he told me the other day how cool it was to have his main father figure being the 'bloody Captain Hook'. I may be letting them spend a little too much time together since henry has even started using some of Hook's language! But to answer your question Regina and I were talking about all of this and how he is doing with Hook as an influence, and to the Queens dismay, Henry has been flourishing under the attention, his grades are better, he is more confident, did I tell you that he walked Grace home from school the other day? He has been growing up, and its amazing, and I love that he has taken such a, a bond with Killian."
"He has been a little different lately, good different, just a little more grown up. And so tall!"
"I swear he grows an inch everyday! His new goal is to eventually be as tall as Hook and to beat him in a duel."
"Doesn't he know that Hook is like a century older than him?
"Oh he knows but he is till convinced under the wing of Prince Charming and Captain Hook he will become the greatest fighter in the realms, his words not mine."
"Since Henry already brought it up with you, Hook as a father figure, do you think you and he will ever get married? I mean he actually be Henry's step father?"
Snow was nervous about that question, and apparently with good reason, there was a lt of silence in Emma's corner of the couch and she was chugging down the rest of her wine rather quickly.
"Emma?"
With a heavy sigh, as Emma traced the rim of glass, she replied in a whisper- "Maybe"
"Really?!"
"Don't act so surprised, I know you and Dad don't look on him as a "proper suitor" with that comment she chuckled and poured more into her glass, "but honestly, yeah I could see us going there, someday, NOT someday soon, but yeah in the future, if no catastrophes separate us across the realms and somehow we survive the villains that keep showing up in this town, then yeah, we would probably get married, get a cottage by the sea and maybe I would have another kid and he would have the most gorgeous blue eyes and his little sister would have these beautiful black curly hair that would always get those knots in it and dirt because she would always be out playing in the woods and at the beach." It was hard for Mary Margaret to do anything but stare and have her jaw drop as she listened to Emma ramble on and on about a future, with Hook. Something that she had never suspected her daughter had been brave enough to even think about, as it would cause her to run away. But apparently just like her father, deep in that heart of Emma's there was the heart of a dreamer.
"Emma, have you told Killian any of this?"
"You called him Killian… you never call him Killian."
"Well I figured that I probably should start refereeing to him by his proper name if he is potentially going to be the key to getting more grandchildren!"
They both laughed over that and it was good to see the tension leave her daughters shoulders, but she wouldn't be diverted from her question. "Emma have you told him these things"
Sigh. Sip. "No."
"Emma have you told him that you love him?"
Emma's head jutted down into her chest, and whispered into herself so Mary Margaret could hear her. "How can I? When I have recently just realized how much I do, and how much I can't imagine a future without him. I can't lost him Mom."
Snow had prayed ever since that day that Emma would never have to go through that pain and that sorrow, but as she watched her daughter fall to her knees in the middle of their apartment, she knew she saw more however than her daughters tears falling to the floor, she saw her daughters heart breaking, and she saw all of her dreams crushed into dust and floating away.
It was really Henry who she would recall as saving the day, as he burst into the apartment and took away any chance of Snow having to decide who to comfort first. As Henry burst in he saw his mother on his knees and an absence of Hook with a worried Snow and a silent stony Charming. Henry ran into the apartment, behind the counter and into every corner of the room frantically searching for his friend and role model, the man who had risked everything he had ever owned and ever was to bring happiness into his mothers life.
It was only as he ran up stairs and shouted aloud that he woke the three adults up from the beginnings of their self-imposed depression.
"Hook! Hook wake up!"
Snow had always figured herself to be a pretty physically fit person, even with the recent pregnancy and the regaining of her physicality, but she swore that she had never seen anyone get up stairs any faster than she saw her daughter and husband make it upstairs into her daughters room, and she was at least a good 7 seconds behind them in making it up there.
As she entered she was witness to Hook, lying silently and un moving on her daughters bedspread (she never thought she would ever be happy to find anyone lying on her daughters bed, at any point in her life) and holding his hand was her daughter with her other hand frantically pushing at his chest searching for the pulse of his heart, a beat she had frequently sought out for since its safe return. At the foot of the bed was the ever hopeful look on her husbands face but of most import to her was the boy kneeling on the bed with Hooks head cradled in his hands, quietly yelling at him to wake up.
"We didn't just go save my mom from a tower and go through all of this to not have you around to celebrate, don't you know we need you here! You promised me that now that the Jolly Roger was back you were going to teach me on her and that I was going to be your first mate, and we would go on adventures until someday I got that promotion to Captain. You promised to make a fine pirate out of me, who else is supposed to teach me good form! You… you can't leave me, not just after I finally had what I have always wanted, a Dad to take care me. A dad who wouldn't be taken from me, I mean I have two mothers, can't I at least have another dad. I want you to be my Dad. Come back to me Dad. Please Daddy… please?"
The tears from Henry's face were falling into Hook's face, streaming as Henry couldn't wake him up with all the shaking and anger he could put on this dear, dear man, that Snow know realized had become an instrumental part of her family.
Snow walked over and wrapped her arms around Henry as Emma interlocked her hand from hooks chest into Henrys and they held Hooks face together.
Henry looked up at his Mom and it broke Snows heart to see that same depression and brokenness that was echoed in her daughters eyes.
"Mom, save him, I know you can save him."
"Henry…"
"Mom he loves you, you are his true love, I know that, just save him Mom! I know you can save him!"
"He's right Emma." Snow finally made her decision, if she was going to do anything she was going to believe in the power of true love and convince her daughter to Save this man that had been brought through hundreds of years of trials and storms and struggles to land underneath a pile of bodies and enter her daughters heart and to become a part of her family. "You can save him"
It wasn't often that Emma believed in Hope and the power of love but Snow was never more grateful for her daughters stubbornness as she looked at Hook with a steely look and leaned down over him.
"I love you, you stupid self sacrificing man." It was a whisper across his lips as she leaned into him, still holding Henry's hand as they held Killian's face together and Emma's lips slowly grazed those of her loves.
"Come back to me."
There was no fireworks or earthquakes as Snow had hoped, but the light breeze that filled the room, and the ultimate contentment that entered into Snows heart were more than necessary in convincing her that Emma was the Savior, so filled with pure light and goodness that she bettered everything that she touched, when she believed that she could.
But as that breeze fell away and the eyes of the man on the bed opened slowly to look into the watery green eyes of the woman above him, there was one thing that Snow was certain of- this man, this pirate, this villain was meant to save her family, to save her daughter and her grandson, he was so important to the safety and happiness of her family that he had walked a darkened path that few ever returned from, walked that road of loneliness and pain just so he could look into the eyes of her daughter, and fix every crack and whole and heartache that she ever possessed.
As he dragged Emma and Henry into his chest and peppered both of their faces and heads with kids and sounds of adoration (things that at a latter date the angsty teen would deny ever smiling at or allowing) Snow finally admitted to herself the truth
Killian Jones was going to be an amazing son-in law and father, and as she stared at this blended family in front of her, she had one little thought in the back of her mind that would not quiet itself.
I wonder how long I'll have to wait for that girl with curly black hair…I can't wait to meet here.