Author's Note: Spoilers kinda. This is inspired by two sets of BTS photos I saw of Hook and the Emma, however I have no frame of reference or context for said photos. I think a lot of people already jumped to this conclusion, but this is my idea for the reveal. Thanks so much to everyone who has supported and reviewed my stories. I hope you enjoy this one.
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"Emma Swan, Emma Swan, Emma Swan."
"Hmmm, you've never summoned me that way before. Have you changed something?" Emma leaned into Hook's space, neck arching and body slinking closer, every bit the dark swan he'd been forced to accept. She studied his features looking for his tells. His body was tense, head high, shoulders back, stood to attention like he was at an inspection and he probably didn't even realise. Years and years spent proving himself a pirate meant he normally felt the need to disguise his previous training. So he was distracted to the point of falling back on unconscious behaviours and there was only two things that truly took over Captain Hook body and mind. Love and revenge. Emma had already abandoned the idea of the first, so vengeance it was. Interesting.
"We should do this properly." He said, his voice tight as he took a step back.
"Do what properly?" She asked, arching her eyebrow to hide the small jolt of pain she felt at his formal tone. He had never spoken to her in this closed off way before Camelot, but this is the new pattern they had fallen into. So why wasn't she used to it?
"I want to make a deal, Dark One." It was Emma's turn to take a step back. She could hear the dark image of Rumpelstiltskin giggling behind her.
"What's brought this on?" She asked. He'd promised her she didn't need to worry about him and even if he considered it a promise made to another person she knew better and she still believed in him. A tiny piece of light she was yet to extinguish. She looked at him again and realised she couldn't see her Captain. Where was the swagger and arrogance? "Deals with the Dark One, they're only for the truly desperate," she said as a warning, but Hook out of anyone already knew that.
"Aye, so here I am." His voice was so flat.
"What do you want then?" She replied mimicking his lifeless tone.
"I want memories of Camelot back." Emma rolled her eyes.
"I told you I'm not going to do that."
"So you could do it." His voice cracked just a little, the formal facade breaking, his eyes flashing with life. Ah, there he was, bleeding through despite his resolve not to show his true feelings and he was furious. She felt a small thrill.
"We've already talked about this, and I said it wasn't going to happen."
"I remember. I'm not asking for all my memories."
"Oh, so which memories are you after? Can I pick?"
"I want all the memories attached to this," he said, as he thrust his hand violently at her, his anger flaring behind his eyes again. Pinched between his fingers was a ring. Emma Swan clamped her mouth shut and stared at it. It wasn't a large ostentatious ring like his others, it was much more her style of simple lines, though it was made of the same tarnished silver with a small red jewel sparkling at her in the light.
"Where did you get that?" She hissed. How dare he steal from the Dark One.
"Henry gave it to me. He found it in your house and thought I had left it there and couldn't return for it." He scoffed cruelly, the pirate revealing himself more and more. "That's quite the thoughtful lad Regina has raised." Emma's blood boiled, so angry she felt almost paralysed, the darkness cackled in Rumpelstiltskin's voice at her rolling emotions.
"That is mine." She bit out.
"No, it's mine."
"You gave it to me." She growled and immediately staggered as if hit by her own admission. No, no, that was a secret. No one knew except her and Killian and then not even him. Killian's face went slack in front of her.
"Aye, I fancied I probably had. And you accepted did you?"
"I just told you it was mine." She said bitterly.
"You took those memories from me?" His voice had dropped to the soft dangerous tones he used right before his rage exploded. She was surprised to feel shame at his words, at the betrayal on his face.
"It wasn't specific, it all happened during the same time."
"The same time as what?"
"Ah, that's not your deal."
"So you'll return them. We have a deal?" He pulled himself back together trying to regain his strict formality as if they weren't both shattered and raw.
"Are you sure you want them, they may not be all you hope for."
"All I hope for?" His fury finally broke free and he surged forward raising his hand and nearly throwing the ring at her feet. "Can you really have no idea, no concept of true feeling anymore? The whole point is just to feel, to bloody remember and get to feel it all over again. It doesn't matter if it's what you expect, if it's painful or glorious. It's what is real. This existence of not knowing you've left me in...I refuse to accept it. I want what's mine. Whatever it is you promised me when I gave you this." He held up the ring right between her eyes, but she didn't need to focus on it, she knew every detail of it. She'd looked at it everyday until she'd tossed it away in a fit of... anger? Denial? Maybe some complex emotion that she wouldn't have acknowledged as Emma Swan and was too layered for her as the Dark One. She'd pretended that she didn't care where it had fallen, but that damn vision of darkness would skip over to it every time she entered the room, the image of Rumpelstiltskin's face twisting onto mock confusion at it's presence on the floor. When had Henry picked it up? How long ago had she forgotten it?
Emma Swan the lost girl never dreamt of a big wedding, or a wedding at all for that matter. She might technically be a princess but she certainly never identified as one, so it had somehow been no surprise when her pirate had suggested they elope. Apparently a common event in the sailing world he had said it cheekily not expecting her to accept, to jump at the chance, to embrace the freedom of it. She had worried that it wouldn't count, the groom officiating his own marriage, just the two of them in a secluded glen with magic of the Enchanted Forest humming all around them and in her veins. But as her husband had reminded her between kisses, the only people it should matter to was her and him alone.
"I want that back." She said almost begging, but not quite, the darkness wouldn't allow that. Killian looked confused and it hurt. Of course she wanted the ring back, was it that ridiculous an idea?
"Is that your price then? My memories for this ring?"
"It's my ring. You know I could just take it from you."
"Do so then, it'd be beautifully symbolic."
Then she was kissing him and his mind felt like it was being crushed but from inside itself. Never having had his memories twisted and rewritten before, he couldn't take the sudden appearance of information he somehow always knew, but then he saw an image of flowing golden hair, heard his voice reciting a pledge he'd only heard a scant few times before and smelt the heavy blossoms in the air and he felt grounded again. Opening his eyes he found himself alone, his hand cold and empty.
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Author's note: Thanks for reading, I don't know if I actually want this to happen in the show, Emma just doesn't seem the type to get married to me. Thanks again for the lovely reviews, please leave more.
