Hello, my lovelies! I just wanted to add a quick reminder before this chapter that this story did not follow the last 5 episode's plots and thus Archie was never captured by Hook/Cora = he does not know who Hook is. Just in case you forgot...

"Emma? Is that you?" Archie asked as he inched towards the couple in the cave whose limbs were so intertwined they looked like a ball of string. Said cop's eyes popped open at the voice to greet Hook's equally surprised ones. She flinched automatically, not used to having someone to wake besides, much less staring into their eyes immediately after she's awakened, and Hook chuckled lightly to himself. After a brief minute of awkward detangling of their respective body parts, which Hook took his sweet time doing, Emma stood up and greeted Archie with an embarrassed and curt, "Hi."

He gave her a skeptical look and glanced at Hook behind her, who saluted the therapist sarcastically, sitting up from his relaxed sleeping position on the cave floor. Archie responded to Emma's tense greeting with one of his own. "Good morning, Emma..." Then, his curiosity getting the better of him, Archie asked, "Who's this?"

Emma looked behind herself towards Hook who gave her a cheesy, mocking smile, then turned back to Archie. "This is...Captain Hook." she said slowly, not wanting the situation to be any more embarrassing than it already was. Judging by the amused and shocked look on Archie's face, however, things were going to take a turn for the worst.

"Captain Hook?" he said conversationally, smiling over Emma's shoulder towards the man who's name he'd just uttered. Hook still didn't say anything, only watched the exchange with interest and shot arrogant smiles towards whichever of the two Storybrookians were looking at him. "And why, might I ask, were you sleeping with him in the forest?" Archie asked Emma, who laughed nervously. She dug her heel into the ground and, to avoid Archie's inquiring and entertained gaze, looked down to the floor in mock interest of a beetle crawling around her boot. She was still looking down ashamedly when she responded, "We couldn't find our way home."

Archie nodded at her words, sensing her embarrassment and decided to pause his line of questioning for the moment. Both of them looked like they could use some breakfast and a shower...

"Why don't you tell me about it over pancakes at Granny's?" he asked pleasantly. Emma's head shot up, then, her eyes wide and truly interested for the first time during their exchange. Apparently, she she was starving and her captain friend didn't seem ready to decline the offer, either. "To Granny's!" Emma announced proudly, walking excitedly past Archie in a random direction. The two men exchanged glances with each other, Hook still sitting comfortably on the ground, when they heard Emma, who had already managed to escape from their eyesight, calling out to them. "I just realized...I don't know how to get back to Storybrooke!"

They both smiled.

Emma was gulping down her third cup of coffee, in a rather unladylike fashion, while Hook and Archie sat watching her with slightly sickened expressions on their faces. When she finally slammed the empty mug on the table and made a move to call Ruby over to their table again, Archie reached his hand out and pulled her arm down, simply shaking his head. Emma at least had enough dignity to look sheepish. Hook couldn't help but smile inwardly at her chastised expression.

After both Emma and Hook finished two stacks of pancakes and breakfast was officially declared finished, as legitimized by the summoning of the check, Archie decided that he would resume his rather aggressive line of inquiry as to what in the hell he had seen in the forest. By the uneasy look on Emma's face, she knew that it had been coming.

"So...why exactly were you two in the forest in the first place?" Archie asked curiously, intent on keeping his tone of voice light, as though he didn't care. Emma sighed dramatically and replied, "Rumpelstiltskin threw Hook like a Frisbee across Storybrooke and I had to go get him." The pirate, who was sitting across from Emma and Archie, narrowed his eyes slightly at her comparing him to a child's toy but said nothing on it; he assumed that she had done it solely to illicit a reaction from him.

"We were trying to find a way out of the forest, but dark fell too soon and because mister directionally challenged over here thought he knew the way" there was another narrowing of the eyes sent towards Emma, but she pointedly ignored it, "...we wound up having to sleep in some random cave until day."

Archie listened patiently to the story, nodding his head all the while, until Emma was done. The subtle exchanges between the two, like the 'angry eyes' Hook shot Emma every two seconds and the snarky smirks she sent back, did not go unnoticed by the man who's job was to analyze human interactions.

"I get you guys having to sleep in the cave until daybreak, but what I don't get," Archie started, thinking about whether or not the question would be too embarrassing for the couple but deciding he didn't care, "is why you guys wound up all on top of each other."

A faint pink color blossomed in Emma' cheeks and her mouth opened to say something, but she was able to say no words before her admittedly handsome male companion interjected. "There's a very simple explanation for that." he started, staring at Emma all the while. Her expression was one of horror and anger, while Hook's was one of arrogance and 'that's-what-you-get'-ness. Whatever was about to come out of his mouth could not be good.

"See, Emma and I had met before, when she was in my world," Hook started, with a serious look on his face. "We climbed a beanstalk together to get a compass that would lead us here to Storybrooke. And our beloved Emma here had to be saved by yours truly on numerous occasions during that journey. There was a growing attraction in her towards me, although her feelings were unreciprocated," Hook made a pouty face then and Emma buried her face in her hands, feeling the red head intensify in her cheeks. "So, when we met up in the forest, Emma's feelings towards me came out again, and when we settled down in the cave, well...let's just say Emma couldn't keep her hands to herself." Hook winked then to Archie whose eyebrows quirked up disbelievingly. "Being the gentleman I am, I submitted to her begging and fulfilled her needs. After, though, we had to put our clothes back on else there would have been nothing left but a puddle of water." He finished and Archie gave him a confused look, not understanding the 'puddle of water' part. Hook rolled his eyes dramatically and replied to Archie's nonverbal question with a curt, "Because we'd have been ice."

Archie nodded, as though it all made perfect, believable sense, and turned to Emma, who was too stunned and too embarrassed to say anything. Hook smiled at her expression, though was careful to conceal it from Archie's watchful eye; he wanted the ruse to go on for however long he could.

When finally Emma mustered up enough pride and dignity for words, she said through clenched teeth, face still held in cupped hands, "That. Did. Not. Happen." When both Archie and Hook audibly laughed at her (yes, laughed), she slammed her palms down on the table and glared at Hook until he fell silent. Even after, she glared and glared and glared and he began to shift uncomfortably under her intense gaze, all traces of amusement vanished. The moment she looked away, however, his arrogant smile was popped back on his face, like it was a spring that had been held down and released, and Emma rolled her eyes. There really was nothing she could do to make him stop.

"You can believe whoever you want to believe, Archie." Emma said exasperatedly turning towards her friend. By the expression on his face, Archie was leaning towards believing her instead of Hook's see-through story and Emma relaxed a little. If Archie didn't believe they had slept together, then no one else Hook blabbed to would. But she didn't intend to let Hook blab to anyone else.

"Thanks for the breakfast, Archie, we both needed it badly. But I think now I've gotta give Hook a ride home." Emma said as she sat up, pulled her jacket on and motioned for Hook to do the same. Archie nodded, gave them both a good bye and payed the bill.

Emma left the diner with Hook hot on her trail and took a right while the pirate took a left. She called after him, asking him to come with her and he shot her a skeptical glance. "I'm going home to my ship." he told her matter of factly, pointing towards the docks. Emma shook her head 'no' and pulled him in her direction, insisting that he come to her apartment. Immediately, Hook accompanied the offer (or rather, the demand) with an intensely suggestive comment that Emma pointedly ignored.

It was only after they came upon a one-story brick building that read 'Storybrooke Sheriff's Station' that Hook understood that he had been bested. However, it was too late. Emma shoved him in the cell with all her might and slammed the door shut, locking it by key.

Next up for jail? Rumplestiltskin.

Emma delighted in imagining what terrible torture methods the two would cook up for each other while sharing a cell.