prompt from arianakristine.
A/N: I quit watching pre-time travel, so literally all my knowledge of Emma's canon tavern scene comes from tumblr and it's all getting tossed out the window here anyway for the Gremma. I also have an inability to write Gremma where they can't be together so… Yeah. That's why there's going to be more parts after this.
It's Hook's idea to stop at the tavern for the night. They haven't managed to get any currency, though, and the only deal they can make is if she agrees to wait tables for the night while he deals with any drunks who get too out of hand. She'd much rather do his part of the job than hers – and after all that time dealing with Leroy in Storybrooke, she thinks she's well-equipped for it – but she's not about to argue it. It's a bed for the night either way, and that's certainly better than a forest floor.
She's just leaving the kitchen, a bowl of thick stew in hand – it actually smells pretty good, but after the last time she was stuck here, and had to eat chimera, she's not planning on trying anything that she doesn't know where it came from – when he enters, and the place goes quiet. She's not the only one staring, stunned, but even as the shoelace on her wrist feels like it's turning to lead, she understands that everyone else stares for a different reason. Except for his lack of a helmet, he's dressed like Regina's black knights, the men that they've been avoiding pretty much since they arrived. She aches from the knowledge. His heart is already gone.
When his eyes sweep across the room, she thinks she must be imagining that they linger on her. They haven't even met, yet. He doesn't know her, has no reason to stare.
There is dead silence as he heads to a table, and then one of the other girls is grabbing the stew from Emma's hands and pushing her towards him with a hiss of you serve the heartless one. She doesn't quite know how she feels about that, is both excited and terrified, elated to interact with him and afraid of the heartbreak of looking into those beautiful dark blue eyes and getting only a blank look in return.
But when she reaches his table, his look isn't blank. She's not quite sure what the knowledge he's looking at her with is, but she sees it's there. She wants to beg him to share it with her, but instead-
"Can I get you anything?" She is playing a part – it pains her to play this part. To pretend- That all she knows of him is some fearsome reputation that everyone else in this crappy place apparently knows – a fearsome reputation that she doesn't know, not really. She'd taken the time to read his parts of Henry's book more carefully than some of the others, longing to know as much as she could about the man she never got the chance to love. But it- It hadn't seemed real. It hadn't seemed like him. Even seeing him, here, and how everyone else reacts- It doesn't seem real. She can't see him as some heartless killer. All that plays through her mind is a million tiny moments, those little things that made her fall for him far too hard and fast. Trading jokes and coffee just the way she liked it waiting at her desk in the morning and a hug outside the mines and so many other things. The first time she'd caught herself daydreaming of him and the time she's almost positive she caught him daydreaming about her. The way he called her Miss Swan when he was teasing and the way that Emma sounded in that lovely accent. The way he looked at her when-
"The Queen is after you and the pirate," his voice is a whisper, and she almost misses it entirely she's so wrapped up in her memories. A warning. He's warning her? But- Why would he do that? She knows what his heart being gone means, he's… He's controlled. And she knows that he saved her parents, fought the control for that much. But- She is no one to him. Sheshould be no one to Regina, too, but apparently Hook's past self is off in Wonderland supposedly killing Cora right now and someone had reported seeing this version of him and it was being taken as him ignoring the Queen's orders. Technically, it's a warning that they don't need – but that doesn't mean she's going to wonder any less at it, or be any less grateful for it.
"Why are you warning me?" She's quiet too, not wanting to alert everyone else. Especially not Hook, who appears to be bored by his lack of things to do, and has been watching her for the last twenty minutes at least. He already looks uncomfortable that she's even near Graham, probably something to do with the reason everyone else seems afraid more than anything about the timeline. No need to make it worse by alerting him that anything other than waiting tables is happening.
"Dark One wants you protected. Didn't tell me why, and I didn't ask. But between him and Regina as to who could make me suffer more if they don't get their way- I'd bet on him."
The words are a surprise. The Dark One, that's Gold, she knows, but she didn't think that he even knew they were there – and if he did, didn't think he knew their significance, the fact that they're from the future, that they're anything other than a random woman traveling with the pirate that he hates. But he must know something – otherwise, he wouldn't care at all.
(She finds, with his words about whether Regina or Gold will make him suffer more, she wants to protect him, hide him away from anyone who would hurt him. Almost more than she wants to get home. But that's impossible, which hurts more than she cares to admit. She can't disturb the timeline and he- He has to be cursed with everyone else, or they'll never meet.)
"Actually," his lips quirk into an almost-amused half-smile, "He wants youprotected. Doesn't care about the pirate."
"I'm not surprised. They don't exactly have the best history." She swallows, trying to hide the fact that she's weak in the knees from that look on his face. She needs to play her part. She can't think about how it felt to kiss him and how long it's been since she last did. "Whiskey?"
He nods his assent to the drink, as she'd guessed he would; it was his drink of choice back home. But as she goes to leave, he catches her wrist, thumb brushing across the bootlace that she keeps for him. The moment is curious, fleeting as he drops it almost as quickly, before the other patrons can catch on and stare. He- Something about this doesn't make sense, and maybe it's just that connection they'd always shared making him act strange, maybe he doesn't understand what's going on either, but- It doesn't quite feel that way. It's more like… More like he actually knows what he's doing, impossible though it sounds.
But she has to play her part, so she pretends that nothing happened and that she hasn't died a little inside to see he's gone before she can even bring him his drink.