Disclaimer: Not my characters, I'm just borrowing them to have some fun.

A/N: Thank you for all the love for this story. It's much appreciated. :D

Regina's Thursday morning was once again interrupted by insistent knocks on her door, but this time Henry beat her to it and pulled it open. "What are you doing here?" he asked after staring at the visitor for a moment, curiosity written all over his face.

"What are you doing here, mate? Don't you have school or something?" Hook scratched his head with his hook, clearly surprised and uncomfortable.

"School's out for summer," Henry shrugged. "Which explains my presence. What about yours?"

Regina watched silently from the door to her study, her face showing a proud smile at how easily Henry made Hook more and more uncomfortable with his questions. "I have business with Regina. Private business," the pirate muttered, looking defiant, which Regina found amusing in a grown man facing a young boy.

"You have business with my mom?" Henry put a slight emphasis on the last two words, not letting up in the slightest.

Regina watched for another moment, heart growing with love for the way Henry stood as tall as he could in the face of the pirate at their door, but then she decided to intervene. "It's all right, Henry," she said, putting one arm around his shoulders, still receiving a warm jolt of happiness when he didn't flinch or pull away. "Why don't you go upstairs so I can see what that pirate wants?"

Henry grinned up at his mom, reading the inflection in her tone perfectly. This was not going to be a fun visit for Hook but he really didn't need to be there for it, especially not if he wasn't allowed to stay downstairs and listen. "Can I go visit grandma instead? I'd like to see my uncle." His grin turned goofy at the words, still enamored with the absurdity of it all.

Regina loved that he was asking instead of just running off these days. They really were in a good place. As much as she had suffered through Neverland and the year apart, in some ways it had been very good for her relationship with her son. "Sure," she said. "Be back for lunch?"

Henry looked up at her with a shrewd expression on his face. "Why don't we meet at the diner and have lunch there, Mom?"

Regina sighed. She hadn't been back since that night, and she wasn't planning on going today. "I'm sorry, Henry," she denied his request. "I'm not sure how long this business with Hook is going to take. Another day perhaps?"

Henry nodded sadly, another one of his plans foiled. He hugged his mom tightly, wishing he could get her to rejoin the world. "One day soon you'll have to leave our house," he whispered. Then he pulled away and left.

Regina stared after him. If only he weren't growing up so fast. He was already so much more grown-up than any other kids with how much he had experienced in his young life. She also knew he was right, and was only trying to help.

Her eyes fell on Hook who was still standing on her porch, unabashedly ogling her. "What is it that you want, Pirate?"

"The letter didn't work," Hook complained. "I haven't heard from Emma. Did you even write one? Or was it simply so bad that Emma tossed it away half-read?"

Regina rolled her eyes as she let Hook inside and closed the door behind him. "What did you expect?" she asked. "That Emma reads one letter that isn't filled with horrible innuendo, and just swoons and sinks into your arms?"

"Aye," Hook shrugged. "Sounds about right."

Regina snorted. "You really have no clue about women, do you?"

"I know women just fine," Hook protested with a snarl. "It's this whole time travel business and its result that's the problem here, not any kind of failure on my part. If you hadn't stopped talking to Emma, she wouldn't have stopped talking to me."

"That's ridiculous," Regina scoffed. "What do I have to do with your failure to court Emma?"

"I'm not sure … yet," Hook replied. "But that's the only thing I can think of."

"Of course," Regina smiled darkly. "Because looking for problems you caused would be detrimental to your ego. You're such an unbelievable narcissist."

"Whatever. Besides, I'm not courting Emma, I'm just trying to remind her that she's mine and that she needs to get back to acting like that instead of ignoring me," Hook dismissed her words. "And that is why I need you to write another letter. One that gets Emma to meet me so I can remind her in person. Emma only needs to agree to one date, then I'll sweep her off her feet with my charms … and your job is done."

My job is done when Emma has sent you packing and maybe, hopefully will have agreed to let me try and court her. Regina tried not to picture Hook sweeping Emma off her feet either literally or figuratively, and actively tried to banish the images of them together from her head, but to no avail. She rubbed her sternum as discreetly as she could to make the ache go away but there wasn't much she could do. Maybe pouring her feelings into another letter for Emma might actually help at this point. "All right," she agreed, more for her own sake than Hook's. "I'll write another letter. She'll have it sometime this afternoon."

She walked to the door, clearly expecting him to follow her out but Hook settled into the armchair with a smirk. "Oh no," he said, making her stop and turn around at the door. "This time I'm staying right here until you're finished like I should have done yesterday. I want to see what you write. It's my bloody letter after all!"

"Are you saying you don't trust me, Hook?" Regina asked so silkily it could never be taken as anything but a threat.

"Not even a little bit," Hook replied evenly.

"You seem to misunderstand the situation, Pirate." Regina slowly stalked towards him, every bit the alpha predator in the room. "You came to me for help with your pathetic inability to write a simple letter. I chose to help you for reasons I still can't quite fathom." Hook shrank a little deeper into the armchair as Regina came closer. "So if you want me to write another letter, you'll remove your sorry hide from my house and let me work on that in peace."

Regina took a few steps back and leaned casually against her desk. "Or you can leave and hand Emma one of your own pathetic, miserable, innuendo-laden, barely legible attempts at writing. Either way, you're leaving my house right now." She shrugged for effect. "Your choice."

Hook's face was contorted in rage when he jumped up from the chair and took three steps until he was right in Regina's face. "You bloody w—"

Regina remained unimpressed and her cocked eyebrow spoke volumes of her disdain for the man in front of her. "What did you say your choice was?"

Hook's hand curled into a fist but one look at the fireball that had appeared almost casually in Regina's hand made him change his mind. "All right, I'm leaving," he growled. "Make sure the letter gets me a date or I'll be back."

Regina watched him storm off, out of the house and down the path. "Oh, I'm so scared," she muttered with an almost evil grin. She was having way too much fun riling him up.

She went to the kitchen to grab another coffee to clear her mind before sitting down at her desk, choosing some fine, but not too fine, stationary. Running through the motions centered her, and she was calm and focused on Emma by the time she picked up her fountain pen and started another letter.

o-o-o

"Hey, Grandma," Henry called out as he entered his grandparents' loft. "It's me."

"Sshhh," Snow shushed him as she came to greet him. "I just got Neal to sleep."

"Oh, sorry." Henry went straight for the fridge and took out the orange juice that was always in there.

"What are you doing here?" Snow asked as she wordlessly handed him a glass. "I thought you'd be spending all the time you can with Regina during the week you're with her."

Henry shrugged. "Hook showed up at the house this morning and I felt weird about that."

"Hook came to see Regina?" Snow asked. Now isn't that interesting …

"Yeah, and he looked really uncomfortable about seeing me there," Henry replied. "I think whatever he wanted from my mom was supposed to be a secret." He turned to Snow. "Do you think they're planning something bad?"

"No," Snow shook her head immediately. "Your mother doesn't even like Hook, so I'm sure that's not it." Her mind, however, was working overtime. First Hook's letter to Emma — a letter that hadn't even remotely looked like it could have been written by the pirate — and a day later Hook suddenly had business with Regina? The timing was just too suspicious to be coincidence.

Henry considered Snow's words. "Yeah, mom didn't seem exactly happy to see him. What do you think he wants with my mom? Do you think maybe …"

Snow was barely listening as Henry continued to let his imagination run free. Her thoughts went back to the letter and the vibe she had gotten from it. Now that she knew Hook was talking to Regina, she was even more convinced that Regina had written it.

But had it been Hook's words that Regina had just written down like Emma wanted to believe? Or had it been Regina's words and feelings? She wished she had the letter so she could read it again … but since she didn't, she tried to remember the words, the sentiments, and try as she might, she couldn't see Hook in any of them. Snow shook her head. No, the letter was all Regina. And if that was the case, then Regina was using her own voice to help Hook woo Emma.

Or was she? Snow didn't know what to think. It wasn't like she had even tried to make the letter look like it could have come from Hook, making it easy for her to figure it out. Did Regina want Emma to figure it out too?

I wish I could just ask Regina, Snow thought with a rueful sigh.

"You're not really listening to me, are you?" Henry grumbled next to her. "Man, why is everybody acting weird today?"

"Huh? What?" Snow asked, needing a minute to switch gears. "What are you talking about, Henry?"

"Nothing," Henry grinned. "I think I'll go see Ma. Maybe she's going to be normal."

He left, carefully closing the door behind himself with an almost silent snick. Snow smiled and shook her head. "I wouldn't count on it," she muttered under her breath. "There's something in the air …"

o-o-o

After a few hours spent running around outside Henry walked into the Sheriff's station in the middle of the afternoon, hoping to find his birth mother playing darts or waste paper basketball. Instead he found her sitting at her desk, a piece of paper in her hands, a small smile on her lips.

He watched Emma from the doorway, slightly miffed that she hadn't noticed him yet, and saw how her smile grew bigger and warmer. Henry tried to track her eyes as they moved over the words, trying to figure out when she'd be finished reading so she would finally look up and see him, but just when he thought she was done, she simply seemed to go back to the beginning to start again.

Adults were weird.

Another few minutes later, Henry sighed heavily — unnoticed by his mother — and left to go home. At least his mom would make him a nice snack and he was really hungry now.