(How to Fail At) Wooing the Charmings, by Captain Hook, an once upon a time fanfic

(How to Fail At) Wooing the Charmings, by Captain Hook
by misscam

Disclaimer: Not my characters, just my words.

Author's Note: Written for the lovely nonny who begged me so kindly to do a CS-esque fic with Hook spending the year in FTL with Snow and Charming. I hope this is to your pleasing and that you feel better now.
Set after 3x11, with Hook having returned Emma's memories to her. As with the show, Hook's feelings for Emma are acknowledged plainly, while hers for him are left slightly more ambiguous (but hopeful).

The silence in the yellow bug is not exactly tense as they drive towards Storybrooke, but not exactly comfortable either. Beneath it, a maelstrom of underlying emotions seem to churn, but Emma seems determined not to sail into them yet.

He doesn't mind her avoidance, Hook finds. He's gotten used to waiting, to being patient, to delayed gratification – 300 years of it, in fact, and to find that the gratification wasn't all that gratifying after all.

He rather hopes that won't be the case now.

Henry is sleeping in the backseat, and he throws an affectionate glance at the boy. Henry has clearly grown taller in this past year, and now reminds him even more of Bae. He failed Bae in many ways. He has no intention of failing Henry, or any part of Emma's family.

The year he's spent in the Enchanted Forest has only increased his determination in that regard.

"How are they?" Emma finally asks, her voice mostly even, but still with a hint of longing.

"Your parents?" he says, and she nods. "They missed you a great deal."

"They told you that?" she asks, finally glancing over at him.

"They didn't need to," he says, remembering. "I saw it myself."

"You spent a lot of time with David and Mary Margaret?" she says, and the disbelief in her voice is plain. "Why?"

"They're your parents," he says softly. "They were the closest I could get to you."

Her lips part slightly at his admission, and she stares at the road ahead as if it's a lifeline. Then she exhales.

"Good," she says, barely audible, and his heart leaps. Then she frowns. "You spent a lot of time with David and Mary Margaret how, exactly? You haven't exactly been... Friendly with them."

He chuckles. "You mean you doubt my obvious charm? I'm hurt, Swan."

"Always," she says, but there is a slight twinkle in her eyes. "But especially when it comes to David and Mary Margaret, yes."

"Everyone has a weak spot," he counters, and she stares straight ahead without flinching.

"What's theirs?" she asks finally.

"Love," he says. He can see the glance Emma quickly throws at the still sleeping Henry, and he knows that it is like parents, like daughter. Emma might have built walls much higher, but she is her parents' daughter. He knows that now.

"Right," she says, as if not trusting herself to say anything more. She glances over at him again. "You're telling me you you tried to woo my parents?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes."

"Why?"

"Why do you think?" he says, and in following silence, she seems to think about that.

FTL, a year ago

The sky of the Enchanted Forest is unfamiliar to him after so many centuries in Neverland and the time spent in Storybrooke, but the bright stars still offer Hook comfort. He's spent lifetimes navigating by stars, sailing underneath them and having only them for company. Stars, no matter their constellations, are stars; bright spots in the darkness.

They're all sleeping underneath the stars tonight, the group of them that has been returned to the Enchanted Forest in this particular spot. Snow White has assured them that the others have simply returned in other parts, having been told so by many birds.

Snow herself has been stoic all day, as her husband has. Hook has been watching them, partly out of curiosity and partly because of everyone here, they might be the only ones who love and miss Emma just as much as him. (Neal is another possibility, but Neal left her all those years ago, and even if Emma forgives that, Hook isn't about to.) They've always seem so much more open about their emotions than Emma, but he sees now that they too, can bury their emotions when necessary. They've spent the day organizing, being leaders, with their grief visible in their eyes, but remaining composed.

Now the pair of them have curled up together, using their capes as blankets. He can't hear what they're whispering about, but he can hear their voices every now and then. He can even hear the occasional sob, usually choked and followed by soft murmuring. When he lifts his head slightly, he can even make out the prince softly kissing Snow's face over and over while she clings to him.

In an odd way, their grief is comforting. He isn't alone. They too feel the pain like a physical wound, like an ache to the heart, like a shroud that muffles everything else. They hurt, as he does.

And so, with that and the stars for comfort, he falls asleep.

In the morning, he finds Snow White sitting by the fire, stoking the embers slowly. She looks tired and drained, her skin pale in the pale morning light. Her prince is still sleeping a few feet away, and he too looks drained.

"I can do that," Hook offers, sitting up.

"I know how to make and tend fires," she replies shortly, but without hostility. So he gets up and sits down across from her, watching her expertly stoking the fire.

"So you do," he acknowledges. "I merely thought you might wish to return to your husband's arms."

She looks at him, clearly gauging his sincerity. If he passes or not, he isn't sure, but she glances lovingly over at her prince for a moment.

"I'm sorry for your loss," he goes on, and Snow White tenses. "I know you have no reason to trust my word for it, but..."

"I learned long ago to distrust just words," she says. "Words can be lies. They can be utterly empty and mean nothing."

"What do you trust then?" he asks curiously.

"Taking action," she says, and Hook thinks he might understand Snow's love for her husband better. The prince has never been one to hesitate to take action, after all. Perhaps the same is true for Emma; it certainly seems like it.

"Then I trust you will judge my words by my actions," he says honestly, and she give shim a long, thoughtful look. Then she nods, before getting up and returning to her husband's arms; he embraces her without even waking up, as if by instinct.

It is a lucky man indeed who is so used to sleeping with his love in his arms that it's become an instinct to hold her, Hook thinks and wonders how Emma would fit in his arms.

They set off for the Charmings' castle the next day, while Neal and Belle set out of the Dark One's castle. As petty as it is, he finds himself enjoying the fact that Snow and Charming are cordial, but clearly not familiar, when saying goodbye to Neal.

His own goodbye with Neal is strained, the tension over Emma coupled with the affection he had for Bae as a boy becoming a conflicted tangle of emotions. Belle just gives him a pointed look, one that he meets without resentment. She is entitled to feel that way, after all. He's never been one to begrudge anyone a just anger.

"I will send a bird if I find anything," Neal promises, and the Charmings simply nod without much hope. If they don't dare to hope or don't wish to hope, Hook isn't sure.

They spend a week traveling to the Charmings' castle, a slow trip through what feels like endless forest. Regina and Snow spend more and more time chatting together quietly, while David seems content to let Hook hunt game with him.

And every night Snow and Charming curl up together near the fire, and Hook makes his own bed nearby. They never comment on it, and every morning he makes sure to wake up early enough to stoke the fire. Every morning he can feel Snow look at him as she wakes up, giving him the faintest of smiles before nestling closer to her husband.

It might be a small action to take, but it's a start, he figures. He is determined to win Emma over, and that means winning her parents over too. He just needs to figure out how.

The castle that was home to Emma's parents before the curse is appropriately charming, Hook discovers, surrounded by forest and perched on an island in the sea. It seems a fitting home for Snow White and Prince Charming, lovely and fair, but Hook finds himself strangely drawn to it beyond that.

This would have been Emma's home. She would have been raised inside the walls, probably climbing them without permission. She would have walked across the courtyard, running and laughing across it whenever she could.

As if they're thinking the same, Snow buries her head against Charming's chest, and he presses kisses into her hair and they stand perfectly still for a long, long time.

Finally they both sigh, Snow tilting her head upwards to meet Charming's soft kiss before drawing apart. Snow heads inside and David walks over to Hook.

"Snow has sent birds to look for your ship," David says, and Hook finds himself more than a little surprised. "It may have been returned to the Enchanted Forest as we all were."

"It may," Hook agrees. "Thank you."

"You're welcome to stay here until we locate it," David goes on.

"Am I welcome to stay after as well?" Hook simply asks, going for frankness; he knows the prince appreciates that and might even prefer it.

David looks surprised. "I thought you would prefer your own ship."

"I thought I might anchor her nearby," Hook suggests lightly. "That way I wouldn't miss your charming company too much."

David just smiles at the obvious sarcasm. "I wouldn't miss the rum, but we can spare a room for you for as long as you wish, Hook."

"Killian," Hook says, and David raises an eyebrow. "It's my name. I don't go around calling you Charming, mate."

"Just as well," David says. "I'm a married man, after all."

Hook smiles at that. Not at the joke, since it's incredibly stupid, but at the fact that David actually made a light-hearted joke to him.

"I can see where Emma inherited her charm," he counters, then waits a beat. "Obviously from her mother."

Instead of acting insulted, David simply smiles. "Snow charmed me the moment we met. I very much hope Emma inherited that particular charm and you get to experience it."

Hook files that under 'deeply suspicious', but nods politely.

"How did you meet your charming prince?" Hook asks Snow the first opportunity he gets. She gives him an odd look, and he tries a winning smile. She looks quite unimpressed at that, but then just shrugs.

"I robbed him and knocked him out with a rock," she says frankly, then smiles. "He caught me in a net afterwards. I was a bandit living in the forest at the time."

"Ah," Hook says. David's comment now makes a lot of sense. "Conventional romance isn't really a Charming family thing, is it?"

"No," Snow agrees.

He smiles happily. "Good."

He gets a room in one of the towers, giving him a nice view of the water. If it is intentional or not, he isn't sure, but he still appreciates it. The room itself is richly furnished as if he was an honored guest, with only the walls empty.

He sets out to fill them with drawings as the weeks pass, and is busy with the finishing touches on one when Snow walks in on him.

She pauses in the middle of the room, her face suddenly naked with grief as she takes in the drawings of Emma that he has put up. They are mostly of Emma in Neverland, the memories of her there still very clear in his mind.

He feels quite awkward as he watches Snow look at his work, feeling a strange need for her approval.

"I didn't know you could draw like this," she says after a while.

"There is a lot you don't know about me, my lady," he says, and she nods slowly at that. He knows the same is true about her, that he has still a lot to learn about Emma's mother and father.

"Could you..." Snow closes her eyes, the grief again flashing across her face. "Could you draw one of Emma and Henry for me?"

He bows to her, as he hasn't to any royalty since Liam's death. "It would be an honor."

He spends hours and hours on the drawing, starting anew a couple of times when he struggles with Emma's smile. It's such a rare, fleeting sight that it's hard for him to picture it accurately. He remembers well enough that it makes her light up, that it makes his breath catch, but he struggles to draw it accurately.

Then by chance he catches Snow and the prince walking hand in hand across the courtyard one day, and as the sun catches them, David smiles at her and she smiles back. Genuine, happy smiles, just for a moment.

There, Hook thinks. There, in the loving smiles of her parents, is Emma's smile too. He draws her smile like that, a combination of them; Emma smiling at Henry with all the love in the world, as she would.

He draws another one too, of Emma just smiling as if smiling at him, and hides it inside his shirt near to his heart.

When he gives her the drawing, Snow gives him the first genuine smile he can recall since she learned his true name, and hugs him impulsively. He freezes, unsure and surprised, but she doesn't seem to take offense at that.

"Thank you, Killian," she says, and Hook makes a note to remember that anything told David, is as good as telling Snow too, including names.

"You're welcome," he says, and means it.

Snow frames the drawing and puts it in the royal bed chamber, and Hook feels a strange amount of pride whenever he catches a glimpse of it.

Somehow, that she put it there rather than in the great hall, that matters in a way he can't quite put to words.

There is no sign of the Jolly Roger yet, but there are signs of ogres, and David rides out to check on several villages. He comes back bloodied and bruised but alive, and Snow pales at the sight of him, then flings herself at him.

Hook watches, not quite averting his eyes like the dwarfs do, as Snow kisses her husband passionately and a touch desperately. Hook's seen it before, in Neverland, and he imagines Emma would be just as awkward watching this as she was then.

And yet he knows she kisses with just as much passion as he can see her mother does, not doing anything by half. When Emma Swan kisses, she kisses, just as her mother does. When Snow White loves, she loves, so when Emma Swan loves...

That sort of love is worth fighting for, Hook is getting more and more sure of.

Given his decision to stay near the Charmings, and given that the Charmings are a true love couple, it probably was rather inevitable that he would walk in on them.

It still catches him completely by surprise, and he finds himself gaping at the sight before him: Snow, with her hair running freely down her back, perched on the council table with the prince standing between her legs and kissing her while his hands roam her body. Their eyes are closed, and they're too lost in each other to notice him, so Hook quietly tip-toes out.

So that's what 'having private deliberations' mean, he thinks and decides to heed the guard's advice not to disturb next time.

Still, he finds himself strangely glad that he did see, allowing himself the fantasy of Emma perched like that, hair running freely and him between her legs and that exact look of love and lust on both their faces.

He wants with Emma what Emma's parents have with each other; not just true love, but a relationship to go with it.

He dreams of Emma still, of her driving away in her yellow vessel that seemed like it would break down any moment, yet continued on. It always seemed like such an unfitting vessel for Emma Swan that it actually fitted her after all, as she always was one to defy expectations. He underestimated her several times, and he finds a strange joy in that. He's a pirate, after all. He enjoys rough seas and challenges just as much as silent waters under a starry sky. Emma, he imagines, would be both. He might win her heart and her love, but he would never be the master of her.

David isn't the master of Snow, after all, as Hook sees plainly. He sees a lot now, when they're no longer his opponents that he simply viewed as the good guys that were in his way. They are still annoyingly noble at times, kind and compassionate to a fault, but he finds himself growing used to it. Their banter with each other and sometimes even with him (revealing where Emma gets it from) is downright enjoyable, and the sparring sessions with David prove strangely fun.

Above all, they're Emma parents and he's beginning to see now just how much of them Emma has in her. It makes it impossible not to like them, as he likes Emma very, very much.

How Emma and her parents feel about him, that he is less sure about.

With the Charmings, the frank approach is usually the best approach, he's long since realized, so Hook takes the opportunity after another sparring session with David to simply ask.

"How would you feel about me courting Emma?"

David goes still, but doesn't go for the sword again, as Hook was half expecting.

"You're not what I would have wanted for her," he says frankly, and Hook can only nod. He knows. "You were a pirate that spent centuries on revenge, not caring who else got hurt. You left my wife and my daughter in a trap. You shot Belle. You took the bean and left us all."

"I came back," Hook says, lifting his head to meet David's gaze right on without flinching. David seems to appreciate that, as he nods.

"You did," David agrees. "You saved my life and you helped us save Henry. I haven't forgotten that."

Hook waits, feeling oddly nervous. He hadn't realized until now just how much David's opinion of him has come to matter.

David looks as if he's debating with himself. "Snow and I have talked about it, and... We may never see Emma again. She may be lost to us."

He looks pained at that, and Hook can only share that. The thought of never seeing Emma again is a pain he refuses to fully acknowledge, but does haunt him.

"But if we were reunited with her... We just want her to be happy," David finally says. "If she decided it was with you... Nothing else would matter."

"Thank you," Hook says, and means it. "I will do my best to prove myself worthy of her to you and your wife."

He will, after all. Not just for Emma. He would like to be the sort of man David would consider a good man, because that would be the sort of man Liam would also considered a good man.

"I don't know how my daughter feels about you," David says with brutal honesty, and Hook finds himself appreciating the frankness. He sees it echoed in Emma too, and he loves her. "She might not love you or choose you."

"I know," Hook manages to say. For all his confidence and bluster, he is well aware of the possibility.

"But..." David says slowly, leaning against the wall. "There was a time I believed Snow didn't love me and I decided to fight for her anyway, to spend my life loving her even if she might never love me back."

"But she loves you," Hook says. That is plain to see and hear for anyone, that Snow White loves her Prince just as much as he loves her.

"Yes," David says, and smiles. "She was forced to lie to save my life. The point is, even when I didn't know that, I still left my kingdom for her."

David glances over at him, and there is no sign of animosity. There might even be something akin to friendliness.

"So if you truly love my daughter," David continues. "I know you will always love her regardless of how she feels."

"I will," Hook promises.

"Good," David says quietly. "My daughter deserves to be loved like that."

There is no trick to wooing over the Charmings, Hook realizes as he nods at the prince. There won't be with Emma either, just as there isn't with her parents. Snow and Charming love so very much, both each other and their daughter. Love enough that if their daughter were to choose a pirate, they would love him too for her sake.

He doesn't need to woo them. He needs to get to know them. They're part of the package deal that comes with Emma, just like Henry will be.

Love, frankness, and a strange definition of charm that involves knocking each other out, that seems to be the Charmings' way to love and relationships.

Good, he thinks and smiles.

(Emma has already knocked him out, after all. That just leaves the rest.)

Storybrooke, now

They're pulling up by Mary Margaret and David's Storybrooke loft by the time Emma finally turns to him again.

"Did you spend a year winning my parents' approval to win me?" she asks, her face a mask that doesn't betray what kind of answer she would like.

"No," he says honestly. "Yes, I intend to win your heart, Emma Swan, but this wasn't a tactic to do so. I spent a year with your parents because you love them, and anyone you love matter to me too. They're not half bad, actually."

"Not half bad?" she echoes. "Are you telling me that Captain Hook learned to like Snow White and Prince Charming? That you set out to woo them and they won you over?"

"Yes," he says honestly, and before he can add a cheeky joke about it, she presses a hard, quick kiss to his lips that knocks the breath right out of him.

Right, he thinks faintly. Love, frankness, and a strange definition of charm that involves knocking each other out, wasn't that how it went with the Charmings?

"Good," she says against his lips, then pulls away.

"Good," he agrees breathlessly. He might have failed at wooing her parents, but he discovered something far more important about them, and thus Emma too, along the way.

How they love; and how Emma might love him.

FIN
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