A/N: Here, have an update! Everyone survive the premiere all right? :D


Deleted Scene #3: The First Fight

"I'm getting a beer," Emma told her mesmerized boyfriend as he stared at the television screen, his eyes tracking the basketball players as they moved down the court, vying for possession of the ball. "You want one?" Killian grunted in response, an Emma rolled her eyes. Typical male, she thought to herself as she stood up, leaving the very warm and comfortable shelter of Killian's arm. They were all the same, no matter what realm they came from.

She entered the kitchen, making a beeline for the fridge, her stomach rumbling. Hmm, she thought, maybe I'll grab a bite to eat, too. She shifted course, heading toward the snack cupboard instead, and pried the door open. Her eyes scanned the goodies within, considering them, and settled on the bag of potato chips.

She reached into the cabinet and removed the clip from the top of the bag, unrolling it. "Dammit, Killian!" she cursed as a whistle tweeted shrilly from the living room. Grumbling, she stomped out to her boyfriend and thrust the bag at him.

He looked up in surprise. "What's this?"

"What does it look like?" she rolled her eyes.

He glanced down at the bag again, as if it were a trick question. "Chips?"

"No," she disagreed, not chips. Look inside."

Killian peered into the bag. His eyes widened with understanding. "Oh."

"Oh? That's all you have to say?"

"I thought you might want some?" he tried in a small voice, his expression guilty.

"No!" she exploded. "I do not want to eat a small handful of tiny crumbs!" She threw her hands up in the air. "Killian, we've been over this multiple times! Either finish what's left, or throw the bag away! Stop putting bits of food back in the cupboard to fool me!"

"Emma, don't you think you're overreacting a bit?"

"I am not overreacting!" she shouted. "Do you know how irritating it is to see something in the snack cupboard, get a craving for it, and when you open up the bag, there's nothing much left to eat?!"

"Ah, noooo," he admitted, his expression becoming even guiltier.

"Of course not!" she charged on, "because Henry and I are considerate enough to only put stuff back in the cabinet if there's something left worth eating!"

"Love," he soothed, "it's just a bag of chips. Irritating, certainly," he admitted, "but nothing to get so worked up about." His expression changed suddenly, his eyes narrowing, "Love, are you-"

"Don't say it!" she barked, holding up a hand. "No, for the love of God, I am not pregnant or PMSing. What the hell is it with you men and your double fucking standards? Women are never allowed to be angry unless they're hormonal, is that it?"

"No," he said quickly, "I just thought it might be worth consideration."

"Well, it's not!"

His expression darkened. "In that case, love, I'd like to point out that you're behaving very childishly. It's not as if I blow up at you over all your irritating habits."

"What irritating habits?" she shot back. "You've never mentioned them to me!"

"On the contrary, love," he argued calmly. "You just weren't listening."

"Give me an example," she challenged, putting her hands on her hips.

"You never put the cap back on the toothpaste. It oozes out all over the counter, making a bloody mess, and it just sits there unless I clean it up."

"I'll get to it when I clean the bathroom!" she protested.

"Emma, I'm not waiting a whole bloody week for you to clean it up when it shouldn't even be there in the first place," he replied, his voice rising just a little. "If you would just put the cap back on, there wouldn't be a mess on the counter."

"Seriously? Captain-freaking-Hook cares about a little toothpaste on the counter?"

"And that's another thing," he said more forcefully, "stop calling me 'Hook' every time you're mad at me or want to push me away!"

"I don't do that!"

"Yes," he argued through clenched teeth, "you do. Stop it."

"Hook-" Emma clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide. "Oh my God," she breathed, her voice muffled and distorted by her fingers, "I do."

"See?" His expression managed to be both smug and annoyed at the same time. The bastard.

She lowered her hand. "Oh, shut up, Mr. I-drink-loud-enough-to-wake-the-fucking-dead!"

"I'm thirsty!"

"That doesn't mean you have to gulp everything down like you've never had a drink before in your whole fucking life!"

"You never complained before, back in Neverland!"

"It was one sip during a handful of drinks! How the hell was I supposed to notice?! Besides, it's not like we were busy trying to find my son or hide from Pan or anything!"

"You know," he began with a shake of his head, "you've got a lot of bloody nerve complaining about how loud I drink when you have all the table manners of a ravenous wild beast!"

Her mouth fell open. "What did you just say to me?!"

"You bloody well heard me!"

Emma stalked over to the hall closet and yanked open the door. She ripped her red leather coat off the hangar, snapping the plastic in two. It fell to the floor with a clatter.

"Where the bloody hell do you think you're going?"

"Out for some air." Emma grabbed her purse and slung it over one shoulder.

"Oh, come on, love, over a little fight?"

Her head snapped up and she glared at him. "So now I'm overreacting again, is that it?"

"A bit, yes."

"Wrong answer, Hook," she sneered, stomping toward the front door. "Wrong damn answer." Emma threw open the door and stepped onto the front porch, slamming the door shut behind her. She yanked her car keys out of her pocket and started toward her yellow bug before she thought better of it. Stowing the keys in her pocket again, Emma set off across Storybrooke toward the town's bar. A good stiff drink sounded like a good idea right about now. Maybe a few stiff drinks.

As long as it wasn't rum. Anything but rum.


"I thought I might find you here."

Emma looked up from the drink she'd been nursing-for how long, she didn't know. At first, in the fresh heat of her anger, she'd finished them off quickly. But as the evening wore on and reality set in, Emma had spent a hell of a lot more time replaying the fight with Killian in her head than drinking.

"What do you want David?" she slurred unhappily. "Did Hook send you to find me?"

"Not exactly. Your mother did. She became worried when Killian called looking for you a few hours ago. Said you weren't picking up your phone when he called. He's worried, too."

Emma sneered, staring down at the remnants of her drink. "If he cares so much about me, why didn't he come looking for me himself? Why send you?" She picked up her glass and downed the last dregs of the alcohol.

David swung himself up onto the bar stool next to her with a sigh. "Henry came over. I guess he was looking for some spelling homework he left at your house the other day, and it took them so long to find it, Regina just let him stay overnight."

Emma blinked, trying to process his words and make sense of what her father had said. He'd helped Henry find his homework? Stayed with her son to watch over him instead of returning him to Regina so he could chase Emma down? Oh, God, Emma groaned to herself, I've really fucked up.

David patted her on the shoulder. "It's nothing that can't be fixed."

She stared at him in confusion, before it dawned on her that she'd spoken her last thought out loud. "We were screaming at each other," she confessed. "Over such stupid things. It's like-like we never really knew each other at all. I thought things were going so well, that we were really meant to be, but it just fell apart. We're incompatible, we can't live together for shit-"

"Emma," her father said, "slow down. Take a deep breath." He watched her, clear blue eyes burning with compassion as she finally took a shuddering breath. "You had a fight. Fights are normal. Every relationship has them. And if you're with someone long enough, especially someone you live with, eventually you are bound to get on each other's nerves and irritate each other."

"Really?" She looked at him, blinking back tears, the stirrings of hope re-forming in her.

"Yes, really. After Snow and I married and we experienced our first lull in our war against Regina, we had an enormous fight over how she hangs my shirts with only one button fastened. I like them all buttoned." He grinned. "You would have thought I'd just tried to poison her with one of Regina's apples, the way she reacted when I brought it up. And by the end of it, we were slinging all kinds of crazy accusations at each other, like how she's always bringing home every sick or injured or stray animal she finds, turning our house into a smelly, noisy menagerie, or how I always track mud across the clean floors." He smiled. "What you're experiencing with Killian is normal, sweetheart. And despite what it feels like right now, it's actually a sign that your relationship is growing."

"That doesn't make any sense at all," she scoffed.

"No? You're learning to be honest with each other, aren't you? Growing comfortable enough with each other to show your flaws? The question now is whether you can learn to accept each other with those flaws."

"Yeah," she slumped on her stool with a defeated sigh. "You're right. I just...I don't understand why he keeps doing these things over and over again. It's like he's not listening. He just doesn't learn."

"Sometimes people need to hear things several times before they sink in. People don't change overnight, Emma. And we have to learn to compromise. Meet in the middle. It can't just be us expecting the other person to change without putting forth the effort to change ourselves."

"Did you and mom learn to compromise about your shirts or her animals?"

He laughed softly. "Sort of. I decided to hang my own shirts, and Snow set up her own little outdoor clinic for the animals." He shrugged. "Of course, now that we're in Storybrooke, she takes them to the vet clinic and volunteers there a few hours a week. But the point is, neither of us had to stop being who we were. We just learned to be ourselves in a new way that allowed your mother and I to be a better 'us.' A 'we" instead of two "I's" trying to live out separate lives and cling to old ways. The truth is, you just can't continue operate in quite the same way as a couple as you did when you were single. It won't work; not if you want the relationship to survive. There's a whole other person to consider, with their own thoughts and feelings about everything."

"God," she groaned. "I didn't just fuck up. I fucked up royally."

He chuckled. "Well, you are a princess, sweetheart. And we Charmings never do anything by half measures."


A single lamp was burning in the living room when Emma finally returned home, but Killian was nowhere in sight. She locked the front door, set the deadbolt, and put the chain in place before padding out to the kitchen to toss her empty coffee cup in the trash. Her father had insisted on sobering her up a bit before seeing her home, and as a result Emma was now incredibly wired, almost jittery. Sleep wasn't going to happen any time soon, that was for certain.

Kicking off her shoes by the door, Emma walked down the hallway and quietly opened Henry's door to peep in on him. The familiar snore-snort of her slumbering son filled her ears and she smiled, pulling the door closed with a soft click. Emma turned away and pushed the door open to the bedroom she shared with Killian. The pirate was curled on his side, his hand clutching one end of the pillow that he was lying on, mouth hanging slightly open as he slept. She smiled, pulling her jacket off, and laid it aside.

Emma climbed into the bed behind him and slipped her arms around him, inhaling the familiar and comforting scent of him: rum, leather, and salt. The movement caused him to stir, and Killian twisted around in her arms. "Swan?" he croaked hoarsely, his voice still thick with sleep. He scrubbed at his eyes as if he couldn't believe that she was there.

"Yeah, it's me," she told him, tracing his jaw line with one hand. "I'm really sorry. I lost my temper and screwed everything up."

"It takes two to fight," he said, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "I'm sorry, too." He twirled a lock of her hair in his hand. A familiar and very welcome glint entered his eyes. He shifted in the bed, pressing her down against the mattress. "Let me show you how sorry," he breathed, leaning over her. Killian pressed a trail of kisses down her neck, his hand caressing her breast through the fabric of her shirt.

Emma grinned. Make up sex. She'd heard of it, but never experienced it.

"I'd like nothing better, pirate." She rolled them over and straddled his waist. "I've got a few things to show you, too."

They made up with abandon, several times throughout the night. And if, in the morning, she carefully screwed the cap back on the toothpaste and wiped the counters, and two bags of potato chips mysteriously appeared on the kitchen table with bows sticking to them, well, that might just be coincidence.

Or maybe not.