3.13 "Witch Hunt" : Hook and Emma share a drink their first night back in Storybrooke

Hook watched as Emma stopped at the door to her room. The last twenty four hours had been hard on her. The memory potion, the beast of an (almost) fiancé, the return to Storybrooke, it had all built up on her shoulders and now she was staring down at the key in her hand like opening the door was the last thing she ever wanted to do. It made him wonder what sort of sleep she'd been graced with the night before.

He fiddled with the key to his own lodgings, waiting to see if she was intending to stand in the hall the entire night, before breaking the silence. "Something on your mind, love?"

Emma blinked a few times before looking over her shoulder at him. "Is there anything not on my mind?" It was intended to be sarcastic, but the accompanying eye roll lacked enthusiasm.

He winced and his grip on the key tightened. "Fancy a nightcap, then?"

She blinked again and opened her mouth to say something but apparently thought better of it. A moment later she was next to him, hands shoved in her pockets and eyebrows raised. He smiled and quirked a brow in reply, sliding the key in the lock and holding the door open so she could enter ahead of him. Emma flicked on the lights and took a seat in a chair by the window. Grabbing a pair of glasses from the low table in front of her, he popped open his flask to pour. Their fingers brushed as she took the drink from him and Hook held his breath in a vain attempt to ease the tightness in his chest. Her eyes slid from his to outside and she didn't so much as bring the glass to her lips—just sat and swirled the amber liquid absently.

His legs were still tight and cramped from their voyage so he leaned against the wooden set of drawers rather than take the chair opposite her. The rum sent a familiar burn down his throat that he chased after for comfort as he waited for her to speak. He was about to believe that she'd truly just come for the drink when she gestured out the window.

"Granny usually charges extra for the town view."

"She must like me." He winked and put as much cheerfulness as he could muster into the statement but it fell flat in the heavy air between them. It felt the same as the night prior, when they had sat across the table from one another in her New York apartment and he wondered how long it would take to clear. She finally lifted the rum to her lips, but her eyes stayed fixed on the street and Hook took a fortifying breath. If flirting and innuendo wouldn't crack her thoughts there was only one thing left that might. He never had been good at leaving something well enough alone—despite the fact that the thought was enough to cause pain to them both (though, he supposed, for different reasons).

"He will turn up, Swan."

"It's not that." Emma winced and her lips twisted into a wry sort of grimace. "I mean, it is," she corrected quickly, "I am worried about Neal. But right now I'm just relieved that I don't have to deal with it yet. It's one thing to tell Henry that Mary Margaret and David are old friends, but his father is another matter. Neal won't like it if I ask him to back off, but Henry doesn't know he's ever even had a relationship with him."

"What does the lad know of his father?" he asked, curiosity finally getting the better of him.

"The same thing I knew until yesterday." He raised an eyebrow and brought his glass to his lips, indicating for her to go on. Emma sighed and finally met his eyes. "He knows that his father was a con and a thief, and that he left me and let me go to jail for helping him get away with something he did. I can't exactly explain that there's more to the story. Not when the rest of it is that he was afraid of seeing Rumplestiltskin again and Pinocchio told him he was interfering with my destiny as the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming."

"Sounds like bollocks to me, and I have my memories." Hook knew enough about this realm—and about Emma—that he could reason her imprisonment was what had caused her to give Henry up for adoption in the first place. He couldn't guess at what false circumstances Regina had concocted that had allowed her to keep him in the false life and he wasn't cruel enough to ask. "You're not worried about her majesty?"

Emma shook her head and he caught the hint of a sad smile before she turned her face back to the window. "You don't know what she gave us. Maybe I should be, but I've known Regina for over a year now and I'd like to think—after everything—that we've come to an understanding as far as Henry is concerned. Neal and I… we're not there yet." She took another drink before quietly adding, "He doesn't like listening to me about things like this."

Hook pretended not to hear that last bit—though whether for her sake or his own he wasn't certain. "It will all work out, love."

"For who?" she asked, looking up at him. He didn't have an answer. When they'd been returned to the Enchanted Forest, Baelfire had been desperate to get back to Emma and Henry. Hook knew from experience that desperate souls were capable of dark things, and that particular brand of desperation ran in the blood. It made him wonder if Bae's unknown status in Storybrooke was connected to the curse the crocodile had created.

He rubbed idly at the base of the glass with his ring. Fear gnawed at him but he pushed it aside. There was little point in saying anything until he knew more and it would gain him nothing to risk slandering the father of Emma's child.

Finally tired of the silence that had settled between them, Emma downed the rest of her rum and sat forward to put the glass back on the table. "Thanks for the drink," she said, standing up and giving him a smile that hit nowhere near her eyes.

"Anytime, Swan." Setting his own glass down on the dresser, he followed her to the door and stepped ahead to open it for her.

She stopped on the threshold and took a deep breath before turning back to him. "And… thank you, for bringing me back."

A corner of his mouth twitched but Emma didn't stick around for a response. Fishing the key out of her pocket, she crossed the short distance to the room she shared with her son and glanced back over her shoulder only briefly before slipping inside. Closing his own door, Hook downed the rest of his rum and sat in the chair where she had been moments before. The drink and conversation swirled in his head and he turned to look out the window before eventually shutting his eyes.


It occurred to me after 3.16 that Hook didn't seem surprised when Emma mentioned the whole going-to-jail thing. And while he's got a good read on her, it's not THAT good, which meant she had probably told him at some point. The end of that episode also made me really want to see them talking at the end of the day on a regular basis, like it's a normal thing for them - especially in cases where they're not actually working together during the day. So I took the first night back in Storybrooke as an opportunity for them to have a not-doorway conversation about Neal and the jail, and for Emma to thank Hook for returning her memories (which she mentioned she'd already done in 3.13).