shared, not lost (let's be selfish together)
"What do you mean I can't help?" Emma asks, feeling as if the rug has been pulled from under her. Ever since she's arrived in Storybrooke, the only thing she has done has been help –first with Henry, next as Graham's deputy, then the sheriff herself and now the Savior. It is a foreign concept to be here and think that her help isn't something that is required.
"Well like I said, Miss Swan, without your parents' true love woven into the curse, not even you can break it." Gold looks to Regina, who nods wearily. The guilt of allowing Pan access to the curse is weighing heavy on her shoulders.
"But I have magic – "
"Not enough for this," Regina says sadly. She and Gold start the walk back to town, followed by Belle and Henry in Pan's body, who walks beside Regina. The others – Neal, Tinkerbelle, Hook – linger with her and her parents by the Mills crypt.
Emma hates this place because it reminds her of Graham – yet another wasted moment. Her whole life is full of wasted moments (if she's not counting the moments that are absent all together, like an entire childhood growing up with parents who love her) and she shivers.
"What should I do now?" she asks Mary-Margaret and David, looking for an answer because she's that lost girl again and she needs someone else to tell her what to do.
"It seems to me like you've got time to not be the Savior," Mary-Margaret says with a smile. "Maybe you can take some time off after all."
Emma shakes her head. "But the curse – "
"We can't do anything about that," David points out. "Regina and Gold will have to take care of it."
Emma sighs. "What should I do?" she repeats.
"Have a moment to yourself," Mary-Margaret tells her. "Or with someone else. But this is for you. Take it, Emma, because you never know when you'll have it again. Be selfish."
She nods, resisting the urge to look up. She knows that Neal is probably staring at her, listening to her mother's words and hoping they apply to him.
Emma might be the Savior, but she's not brave enough to tell him that she doesn't want to have coffee with him for no other reason than she just doesn't want to. She wants him in Henry's life, she wants him to be happy, but she doesn't think she's ready to tackle ten years of repressed anger and frustration as her moment. She'll always love him, she knows, but it's the love of the young girl she was, and she has shifted so greatly from that person that the Emma he remembers must seem like a complete stranger.
She glances up at her parents and nods. "I'll see you guys later," she tells them, taking a step back as they smile and turn around.
There is movement in her periphery – Hook, rubbing his eyes with his hand.
"You look like shit," she calls out, and he glances up at her and raises one eyebrow.
"It's been a long day, lass," he tells her. She takes a step closer, and can smell the rum coming off of him in waves.
"Yeah, if you've been on a bender." He looks so tired, standing outside Regina's family crypt, and she realizes that this is the first time they've spoken since they returned to Neverland. It's strange and surprising, considering the constant contact they were in for the entire journey, to be so distant now that they've returned. But she's been so caught up in Henry and avoiding her problems that she never thought to ask how he's been doing now that they're back in Storybrooke.
The answer, obviously, is not well if he's drowning his sorrows in more rum than usual.
"Let's get you back to your boat," Emma tells him, putting a hand on his shoulder and gently guiding him towards the road. It's a bit of a walk back to town but the fresh air should sober him up.
"Aye," he says.
It is all he says for some time.
Emma wonders how tired he really is. She doesn't recall him sleeping on the journey back – whenever she awoke from her light doses she remembers him still at the helm, guiding them home. And the tired look, the smell of rum – he's sobering up now but...
"When's the last time you slept?" she asks him, and Hook laughs.
"Why, Swan, you offering to help me get to sleep?" he responds in a low tone, and she can't help if the words make her shiver just a bit.
"You wish," she tells him.
"Aye, I do," he says, and she wonders if it's the rum or the truth.
"In your dreams," she shoots back.
"Been there," he responds.
Her face grows warm.
"So what was that, with Tinkerbelle earlier?" Emma asks. Hook shrugs, trying to look nonchalant.
"No idea what you're talking about, love, and besides..." she turns to face him and he licks his lips. "You jealous?"
Emma huffs but does not respond because maybe a tiny part of her – the part that makes her face feel warm and her heart beat a little faster in his presence – maybe that part is jealous.
They're in town by now, the streets near-empty because the residents have no idea how close they are to being sucked back into a curse. It makes Emma sad, because most of these people have very little to do with the tension between her parents and Regina – they are just victims of having Mary-Margaret and David as their rulers. And that sucks, to be ripped out of your life and uprooted in the other by all because your prince and princess are sparing with the Evil Queen.
The rest of the walk to his boat is silent, and Emma is surprised that it is also very much the opposite of awkward – in fact, it's surprisingly nice.
It's a nice moment, actually.
As they walk up the gangplank to his ship, Emma wonders if this is the moment she should seize – if this is the moment that she needs before they all go to hell in a handbasket.
"You sober?" she asks.
"Close enough," Hook tells her, and she nods.
She steps forward.
And she kisses him.
She grabs his coat's collar just like she did before and pulls him to her, thumbs resting against his neck so she can feel rather than hear the groan he makes as she angles her head, opening her mouth. His tongue slips in and he rests his hook hand on the small of her back, bringing her closer, and the other hand comes to her hair (she likes that), moving her head to deepen the kiss, nipping at her lips.
He pulls back, lips kiss-stained, breathing irratic. "Emma," he says, arms falling limply at his sides. He takes a step back, then another. The loss of contact is almost overwhelming and she whimpers (what the hell, Emma?).
"Emma," he says her name again, "I told him I was backing off, I told him that I'd give his family a fair shot – "
"Who? Who did you tell?" She is still breathing heavy from the kiss.
"Neal." Hook looks down and away. "We've been acting like foolish boys about you and I thought that –"
"If you removed yourself from the equation, things might be better?"
Hook shakes his head. "I'm not going anywhere. I just wanted you to see that I could be an honorable man. That I would wait for you to decide what you want."
Emma swallows, her throat tight. "I know you're an honorable man," she tells him.
"Aye," he says with a nod of his head, "but I don't feel that honorable at the moment."
"But you are," she responds, taking a step forward. "You're letting me decide what I want in this moment."
When Hook looks at her again, his eyes are so wide and so blue that her breath catches in her throat. He looks at her with such thankfulness and awe that she closes her eyes for a moment to get a hold on her emotions. When she opens them again, she's made her decision.
Because she wants him. Has wanted him since that kiss in Neverland. She wants the pirate with full-on swagger and the man who trusts her and sees the best of her. She wants Hook and Killian Jones and whoever is standing in front of her, battered and broken.
"Mary-Margaret says I'm entitled to a moment of selfishness. And I think that, if I'm going to be selfish, I think you should be selfish too."
Hook opens his mouth to speak and Emma closes the distance between them with a soft kiss. When she steps back, she says, "so I hear guests of honor on the Jolly Roger get to stay in the captain's quarters."
"Who said you were a guest of honor?" Hook responds, looking at her with a smug grin on his face. He steps to the side and gestures towards the ladder which will take them down to his quarters. "As you wish, my lady."
Emma does wish it – very much.
She's been in his quarters before, when Henry was recuperating, but that doesn't mean that she fails to take them in with open eyes – the sheets and blankets acquired over the years of travel, the books piled on top of each other, the maps open on the table. This is Hook's innermost part which she's never seen before – a private space that she feels privileged to be in.
She hears a clatter on the table and turns to see that he's removed his hook and is slowly removing his jacket. She takes off her hat and lays it beside the hook, then shrugs out of her own jacket (it is surprisingly warm in his quarters). She turns off her cellphone too – she doesn't give a shit if anyone needs her right now.
She needs this. She needs him. She's needed him since they arrived in Neverland and the only moment she's stolen in years has been with him, in the wilds of that horrible place, and it's the only moment that she comes back to again and again.
"I – " she starts, but he shakes his head.
"Emma," he says. "You don't need to say anything." He smiles, shakily. "You and I, we understand each other."
"Do we?" she asks softly. He nods.
With that, he steps forward and kisses her.
This kiss starts soft but ends hungry, with the two of them removing each other's clothes in a blur of buckles and buttons. She kicks off her boots as he shrugs off his shirt and slides her jeans over her hips. They maneuver themselves back to the bed, falling onto it in a tangle of limbs and open-mouthed kisses. He struggles with her bra until he realizes the straps can be pushed down, and she has never actually unlaced a man's pants before so there's a bit of a learning curve there but soon there is skin on skin and she sighs.
It's more than just the feeling of being with someone – it's the feeling of being with him, the one person who has not stopped believing in her and who she thinks may never stop believing in her. He understands her in ways that she's not sure the others do – maybe because he's been lost too, maybe because she believes in him as well.
It's enough to make this moment more intense, as he kisses a path down her chest, spends a ridiculous amount of time paying attention to her breasts, fingers dancing up her thigh in the process. She moans when he slips one into her, and he kisses her more intently, with more passion, as she comes undone for him.
And then he is in her, rocking his hips gently against her, and she threads her fingers in his hair and lets him set the pace, bringing her hips up to meet his, arching her back for a better angle. He kisses her throughout, kisses her like kissing her is the only thing he wants to do, with such intensity that she shatters again, bringing him with her.
And when it is over, and they are both panting into each other's mouths and a feeling of bliss permeates her bones and makes her feel better than she has in ages – that's when she turns to him, brushes his hair off of his forehead, and places a gentle kiss there.
"Whatever happens with this new curse," Emma says, and he opens his eyes, "whatever happens, I want you to know that I won't forget you."
"I should think not, love," he tells her, with a wink, and she groans. He captures her with his arms and brings her against him, chest pressed together. She feels safe on his arms, safe and secure, and it is a good feeling that she doesn't want to give up, curse or no curse.