A/N: So yeah, I'm trying to write my first ship-centered story. Please don't hate me. I tried doing research, but everyone's story is different. If you have constructive criticism or something positive to say, I welcome it. Anything else, keep it to yourself please.

Unfortunately, I do not own OUAT...

True Love, Take Two

Chapter 1

"Emma? Honey, are you okay?" Mary-Margaret asked as Emma stared up at the ceiling of her cabin on the Jolly Roger.

"What do you think?" Emma mumbled to the ceiling, and Mary-Margaret's face fell. "My son was kidnapped by two people who should be deemed mentally insane, I'm going to Neverland – where you can supposedly never leave – on a ship headed by a guy, who less than twenty four hours ago was willing to kill us. I feel sea sick, I can't do anything, and I'm up half the night every night worrying about Henry. I'm just peachy." Emma replied, her voice barely heard.

To be honest, Emma hated life on the Jolly Roger, but not for most of the reasons she'd mentioned. For the first time in her recent life, Emma wasn't of any use to anybody. Give her a gun and a criminal to chase, and she was good as gold. But here, in the middle of the ocean on a boat where there was nowhere to run to, she was useless. She couldn't hoist a sail, she couldn't even stand up, and her son was in the hands of someone even Gold was scared of.

"Do you think that I'm not worried about Henry, too?" Mary-Margaret asked. "But I know that worrying about your child isn't going to make them come back to you any faster. How do you think I felt when you went through the wardrobe?"

"You didn't have much time to dwell on it." Emma muttered, louder than she thought. Mary-Margaret heard it. Even though she knew what Emma was going through, she also knew that no amount of comforting words would stop it, or even put it at bay. When a mother's child is missing, the worst case scenario flashes through the mother's head pretty quickly.

"Can I just be alone, Mom?" Emma asked. Mary-Margaret nodded and silently left the cabin, the door swinging shut behind her.

Emma sat there in the silence for a minute, just listening. Then she heard her mother's voice again, this time somewhat muffled by distance.

"David, there's nothing we can do." Mary-Margaret said.

"There has to be something. She can't stay in there forever!" David exclaimed.

"No, she can't. But she has to come out on her own. We can't exactly pull her out of bed, now can we? Emma isn't a little girl. We missed out on that." Mary-Margaret countered. Emma breathed a sigh of relief. Sometimes her mother could be too emotional for Emma's liking, but other times she could be a lifesaver.

Emma just rolled over and another knock came on her cabin door. Couldn't everyone just leave her alone?

Whoever knocked on her door already made themselves at home, so Emma turned to look at them. It was Captain Hook. Great. Just what she needed now; smartass remarks and that stupid smirk.

"What?" Emma groaned.

"Morning to you, too,sunshine." Hook said. "I thought you might want to know that Neverland's on the horizon."

"Until I can see Henry on Neverland, I don't really want to see it." Emma said.

"You've got to stop sulking, love." Hook said, and picked up a strand of Emma's hair and played with it for a second before dropping it. "It's not a good color on you."

"My name's Emma. Say it with me. Em-ma." Emma sighed. "I'm not your love."

"That could change quickly, lass." Hook smirked. A flame of anger rose in Emma, and she took a deep breath and counted to ten before responding to prevent saying something stupid enough to make her walk the plank.

"Not any day soon." Emma responded.

"Well, we are in Neverland." Hook pointed out. "I have a lot of time to wait."

"Why did you really come here, Hook?" Emma demanded. Her little lie detector was lighting up.

"Swan, you can't sulk in here forever. You know that, right?" Hook said. Emma rolled her eyes.

"I get sea sick." Emma attempted weakly. "I can't walk on the deck."

"Because you haven't tried to walk on the deck." Hook said, and held out his hand. "Come on, hold my hand. If the boat hits a big wave and you fall over, I'll catch you." That smirk again. Emma wanted to smack it off his face. But she did suddenly have the urge to see Neverland.

Let's see Henry's prison. Emma thought as she pushed herself up off the bed. She pushed Hook's hand away and stood up, and the boat decided to tilt at that exact second. Gravity did its stupid gravity thing and Emma fell backwards, right into – you guessed it – Hook.

"Well, Swan, this is unexpected." Hook laughed and locked his arms around Emma's body. Meanwhile, she was shooting him a death glare, but Hook didn't really notice. It was the first time that Emma noticed how warm Hook was.

"Didn't I tell you to just hold my hand?" Hook whispered in Emma's ear. She pushed out of his embrace and briskly paced out onto deck. There, on the horizon, she could see the rise of an island. Emma assumed it was Neverland. She was looking at when suddenly the boat pitched again, and the water-stained wood of the deck rose up to meet her. She regained her balance, stood up and glanced at Hook behind her as a horrifying revelation hit her.

"If you're here, who's steering the ship?" Emma inquired.

"The prince. Turns out the sea isn't in his blood." Hook chuckled. Emma turned around to stare at her dad, who actually looked ecstatic to be at the helm. Emma rolled her eyes.

"Are you trying to kill us all?" Emma joked, and smiled for the first time in days. Emma didn't know what about Hook did this to her. Sometimes he could be incredibly annoying and stupid, but sometimes he could make the world a little brighter from Emma's eyes, at least.

A few hours later, Emma leaned her elbows upon the side railings of the Jolly Roger. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. The simultaneous scents of the ocean and cool, fresh air tickled her nostrils, soothing her and making it almost seem like home. Even though she didn't expect relaxation from this, she continued to inhale and exhale as though it was her first time breathing, continuing to relieve herself of the day's events and lessen the worry about her son in this new, strange land. The stars seemed so much brighter than they were in Emma's world, and they were much more beautiful. If she hadn't been coming here to find and rescue her son – quite a stressful situation - , she might've actually been enjoying herself. Emma knew that she couldn't change anything, so she became completely dedicated to her purpose: to find Henry and bring him home.

She twisted her head slightly to the left and surveyed the captain of the ship. Hook was perched on the quarterdeck, hook on the wheel, hand on a map, and eye peeping through a telescope. It surprised Emma to see how calm he looked, how pleasant his disposition had become as he had begun to sail his ship. Most of what she had seen of him from the past was darkness and deception and get his revenge on Rumplestiltskin, to see his life's purpose, his one goal, fulfilled. And yet, who would have known that he still possessed such a boyish side to him - a side that Emma found herself longing to see more of?

"Are you going to stare at me all night, Swan, or are you going to get some rest like others?" Hook placed the telescope on the ledge in front of him, then regarded the peering woman below him for a response. He stopped steering the ship. There weren't any real waves that could get them anywhere on the Neverland see at night, and the wind was dead as a doornail. Emma blinked a few times, as though being awoken from a dream, and quickly shook her head. "No. Can't sleep."

"Something we have in common, love." Hook said, gazing out over the sea to the distant shape of the island.

"I doubt we have that much in common, and I'm not your love." Emma said, half-asleep. Hook wasn't very surprised. She'd said the last part of that statement so often recently that she probably could say it in a coma.

"We have more in common than you might think, Swan." Hook said, glancing down at Emma for half a second.

"Like what?" Emma inquired. As much as she hated it, she wanted to see what that handsome bastard could come up at this hour. Oh, crap. Did she just call him handsome?

"Let's see… We both didn't have parents, we both know how to survive forever on our own, both of us can put up a pretty hard fight, need I go on?" Hook rambled, and Emma shoved him. He staggered about half a step to the side. It's a good thing the sea in Neverland was still at night.

"Hook, you don't know anything about me." Emma said.

"Sadly, lass, we sing the same tragic song. Alone all our lives, every day. We get one person to have, what you call a true love. I had my Milah, and you had your… Neal. I know more about you than you'd like to admit." Hook replied. Hook wouldn't admit it, but he knew in his heart that he was starting to doubt that theory.

"He wasn't my Neal. He was Neal, and he's gone now." Emma snapped. She just felt like all the strings inside of her were fraying, and Neal falling through that portal… it cut through the last string like a knife. Telling Henry was one thing, but she had to stay strong for him. There was something different about saying it this time. That Neal was dead. She wasn't admitting to Hook as much as she was admitting it to herself. Before Emma knew it, she was crying silently. Not the big, childish sobs that one associates with grieving, but the single tears.

Emma was like a rock, and every so often that rock sprung a leak.

"God, I'm just so stupid. I could've held the both of us and he didn't have to go through that portal." Emma said to no one between tears. She hadn't even meant to say it out loud, just to think it.

"If I may put in my two cents." Hook said from next to Emma. He put his finger on her chin, tilting it up to look at him. "Swan you're anything but stupid. No other lass I've met has ever fought me, let alone won while swinging a sword like a club. Anyone who tells you that you're stupid has never seen you climb a beanstalk, outwit a giant, and cheat death in almost every way imaginable. You were never stupid, love, and you never will be."

And then Emma just stared into Hook's eyes, wiping away her own tears. Staring into his almost-too-perfectly-blue eyes, Emma felt something stirring within her. It was like a warmth, that started at the pit of her stomach and worked its way all around her body, ending with her cheeks.

Thank God it's dark out. Emma thought. I don't even want to know how red I am right now.

"Thanks." Emma managed to whisper. Then they just stared at each other for a second, and it felt like he was looking at her with the intensity of a hundred white-hot suns. Surprisingly, Emma didn't care. She didn't shrink back, she didn't put her guard up. For half a second, Hook penetrated the walls that had so carefully kept her safe all these years. Would he be the one to bring them down?

And then it happened. Hook kissed her.

His lips were pressed on her lips, but not too much pressure. There was a spark, an undeniable, bright spark. He put his hand on Emma's back, pulling her closer. It only took a moment until she realized that she wasn't pulling away as she had done so many times before. Because she didn't want to. She wasn't the Emma Swan that she was in Storybrooke, Maine. Neverland had made her feel younger, more full of hope.

After that second, Hook pulled away and that was it. Kissing underneath the moonlight, on a boat out at sea. It didn't get much more romantic than that. Until Emma heard someone clear their throat. Except that it wasn't Hook or her. She turned in the direction of the sound to see her father standing in the doorway to his cabin, watching them.

Oh, God. No. Emma thought in despair as she wished for nothing more than to just disappear into thin air. To become invisible. Yeah, that's what she wanted to do.

"I-I'm gonna go to bed." Emma stammered as she quickly tried to retreat to her cabin, but David grabbed her arm as she went past.

"Not quite." David said as he gave his daughter that steely glare that sent a shiver down Emma's spine. It's just that look when you know you're in trouble without anyone having to tell you. As much as she loved having parents, she missed not getting that look, especially now. "Care to explain?"

"Can't you tell?" Hook called from further away on the deck. "She was just begging for me."

"Stop. Helping!" Emma called over her shoulder, and then turned back to her dad. "Look, I'm not really sure what happened. We were just talking."

David gave a look that clearly said: Uh-huh. Sure. Go on.

"Do you really think I know what's going on?" Emma tried to explain. "I don't know. Something about this place… it makes me feel – almost – younger. Like I didn't grow up. Like I'm still seventeen – or something."

"That's part of the magic of Neverland, love. Makes you feel younger, so you stay younger. Have younger impulses." Hook cocked an eyebrow and smirked.

"I really think you should shut up, because there aren't many targets here at sea, and my trigger finger is dangerously close to firing on sight." David threatened. Hook just shrugged. Hook knew for a fact that David didn't have a gun. Mary-Margaret took it away from him and Emma, and when they weren't looking she threw them overboard.

"As for you," David said. "you can go to your cabin, young lady. And stay there."

God. Emma thought in disbelief. I'm 28 and grounded.

Emma sulked off to her cabin, and sat on her bed. But she didn't go to sleep. How could she sleep after that? She kept replaying the kiss in her mind, the way Hook looked at her. Even Neal didn't look at her that way when they were together, and it was nice. To look into someone's eyes and know that they knew exactly what you felt like at any given second. She went back to Granny's diner, where they were fighting over the bean.

"You and I, we understand each other." She had said. Maybe it was in desperation to get the bean and save the town, but Emma had no idea how true the statement was at the time. Words just flew out of her mouth, like they had wings or something. As Emma sat on her bed, reflecting on those words, she smiled. Maybe all that Hook needed was someone who understood him.

Emma laid down on her bed, and instead of the rocking of the boat turning her stomach like it had before, she felt as if she was in a cradle, being rocked back and forth gently, being lulled to sleep. Just as she slipped out of consciousness, she remembered something.

His name isn't Hook. She reminded herself. It's Killian.

A/N: Yeah, that's it. Did you guys like it? Leave a review so I know that people are actually reading this and I'm not posting this for nobody. I crave reviews. It helps me write, and it makes me feel happy. Please. Otherwise I won't keep writing! So, if a few of you would be so kind...(and actually make it thoughtful, please. Not just two words) Thanks!