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(1)

Emma pulled on the hand brake as her yellow bug came to a full stop. Their bodies jostled at the rough shift, Hook's hands elevating slightly as a means of maintaining balance. His adjustment to sitting in the metal contraption, as he called it, was a gradual one. He never complained, she noted.

"This is my stop," she announced, pocketing the car keys and extracting the ones for her apartment from her leather jacket. Hook only nodded, still processing her earlier request.

She didn't leave right away; didn't feel the need to bolt from the potentially awkward situation. When she had suggested he go with her—to find something that might help everyone—the questions that followed were pragmatic: what were they looking for, how would they find it, where would they be headed.

Still, on the occasions when her eyes abandoned the road for the briefest of seconds, Emma could see his surprise that she'd ask him; that she'd want him to partake in something so important. After all he did for her family in Neverland and since, the pirate still felt like a villain. She'd stopped seeing him as one for weeks now. Although she couldn't pinpoint exactly when, he had become someone she trusted.

Henry couldn't go, she had explained. Still too weak from the lingering effects of the new curse; still not quite himself since his time with Pan. He needed to be here, at home, in Storybrooke. She'd give anything to spend every waking minute with her son (and Hook had reassured her that her guilt over potentially leaving him again was unfounded) but love was putting the needs of others before yourself. The principle was one he was quite familiar with.

Neal would stay with him and watch over a town he was only just starting to settle into. But Emma, with her prophesied greatness and the weight of everyone's happiness resting upon her next move: she needed to take action. She needed to head to New York.

"Look, I get if you don't want to go back there," she said, trying to get a response out of the usually talkative Captain. "Your first time wasn't so... pleasant." Being knocked unconscious and locked in a broom closet was a poor first day in the Big Apple, that much she could concede.

"I've faced much worse, lass," he laughed, the leather of his coat crinkling as he shifted in his seat. "And I love a challenge."

He looked at Emma with a knowing stare, his gaze steady, the dual meaning of his words not lost on her. And they were alone, isolated in her most precious possession in the vacant streets of Storybrooke. She leaned in, her shoulders parallel with his, one hand nervously wrapped around the steering wheel.

"I'd be honored," he breathed, eyes flicking momentarily to her lips before he reclined back into the passenger seat. "When do we depart?"

"Early." She practically moaned at the prospect of waking at the crack of dawn. She pushed down the butterflies in her stomach as she moved to open the car door. "I'll pick you up at 7:00."

He mirrored her movements, stepping out of the vehicle and joining her on the side of the street. She pressed her hips against the door, arms crossed over her chest as she waited for Hook to meet her.

"We're gonna need to get you out of those clothes."

The pirate grinned. "All you need to do is ask, darling." His tongue skimmed over his teeth, voice low as he stepped closer to her. She didn't flinch, actually smiling at his remark. He'd never get used to that.

"It wouldn't hurt to take a look around," she whispered, head jerking to the side. The bug was situated right outside of a clothing shop, the curved lettering of the storefront advertising Modern Fashions. Her parking spot was deliberate. "See you tomorrow."

She left Hook standing by her car as she crossed the street. He lingered there, scanning the location she recommended he enter. From the window display alone he determined the place contained nothing that would be to his liking, then made his way back to the docks. The fun was just about to begin.

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