Chapter Ten: What Are You Still Doing Here?

"Mom?" Henry called again as he put his hand lightly on Emmas shoulder.

"Henry." she smiled with surprise, whipping her face of the fallen tears and pulling him into a hug as she stood from her spot on the ground.

"Your hand." he said, his voice shaking at the site of his mother so unlike herself.

"Oh, damn. I didn't even feel it." she said, walking with him over to the kitchen, leading him away from the broken glass to sit at the table. Hook stood unnoticed in the doorway, watching her every move. He watched her kiss her sons head before hopping over piles of swept up glass to get to the bathroom. He locked eyes with Henry, both wearing looks of confusion at her personality shift, as they heard the water run in the other room.

"There, it wasn't deep just needed to rinse it clean." she explained as she came back into the room.

"Hook." she stopped in her tracks when she saw him leaning against the entrance doorframe. "I thought you weren't coming back." she muttered, looking away from him as she masked her face of emotions, starting her steps again to stand behind Henry at the table.

"You were leaving?" Henry exclaimed, pushing back his chair and walking over to the taller man. He looked up at him with anger in his bright eyes before smacking him childishly against the chest. Hook mocked pain as he crossed his arms over his chest and took a step away from him, retreating further into the living room. Henry followed his steps.

"No wonder her story changed." Henry mumbled, speeding in front of the pirate so he couldn't walk any further.

"Henry, enough." Emma interrupted, moving back into the living room a few paces from where they stood. She leaned over to continue her cleaning, taking the larger shards of glass from the broken coffee table into her palm and tossing them into the garbage can that she placed in the center of the room.

"Bloody hell, Swan. Don't grab broken glass with your bare hands. Use your head." he shouted, rolling his eyes as he watched her. His face immediately softened as he witnessed her silent reaction to his sharp words. He saw her stop mid step before she could bend over to pick up more reminisce of her broken home and watched as her eyes darted to her own feet, blocking herself off from his stare. He watched as she pulled her bottom lip into her mouth to sink her teeth into it as she nodded in agreement with him.

What the hell is happening? She's not even putting up a fight. She never would let me talk to her so callously. Hook didn't know what to think as he looked over at Henry, tears framing the young boys eyes. If it's one thing Hook couldn't stand it was the site of a child crying. It ate through any wall he ever built around his heart.

"Snap out of it, lass." Hook urged, walking over to her, putting his hands on her shoulders. "You can't let your boy see you like this." he whispered for only her to hear.

Hook was surprised when her head snapped up, her eyes locking with his as she shoved him away. "Please." she spoke carefully and almost silently. "Don't touch me anymore." she begged, shaking her head as she took plenty of steps away from him, watching the hurt of her words sink into his features.

"Emma." he whispered, sadness in his voice. "Come on, love. I did nothing to you that should make you so crass."

"This is the last I am going to say to you so try to keep up." she narrowed, her eyes burning into his as she kept her distance from him. "Don't ever put your hands on me again. And don't call me any of your little pet names anymore."

Even as her words hit his heart in all the wrong places, he took comfort in the fact that every harsh word she spoke was making her seem more like herself and less like the sad maiden in the storybook.

"And you're right, Hook." she continued, her voice like a knife into his very being even as his eyes hid his reaction to her. "You didn't do anything wrong. I did. I'm the one who let myself think you wouldn't leave again. That you might actually stick around. That's my fault, not yours. I'm not mad at you. I just don't want to see your face again." she explained, keeping her voice as even as she could even as a single tear escaped her green eyes to fall down her pale cheek. She brushed her hand lovingly over her sons hair before turning on her heels and retreating into her room.

"Well, it seems I should be off." Hook said after a heavy silence pasted between him and the younger man.

"You know, I've read your story, Captain. And while that lets me feel a lot of sympathy for you, it doesn't change how angry I feel towards you right now." Henry whispered, crashing down onto the couch, looking around at the tornado that appeared to have torn through his home. Hook watched with shielded eyes, pity for the boy as he saw him taking in his shattered abode.

"I'm sorry if I've angered you, lad. It was not my intention." Hook said sincerely, turning and walking back towards the door.

"Yes it was." Henry said with a sigh, crossing his legs underneath him on the sofa, setting his large book beside him. "Your story gave you a happy ending but you don't think you deserve one so you are doing everything you can to turn the good in your life into a villains ending. And I know I am not suppose to be telling you this." he continued with a defeated sigh. "But you are a big part of Emmas story. So while you destroy your own path for fear you haven't earned it, you are also burning up her chapters completely." he said, opening up the book to the center again and tilting it up for Hook to see.

Killian narrowed his eyes in confusion as he crossed the room to where Henry sat. He looked down at the pages that were now charred and turning to ash before their eyes. The page looked to be showing the simple blonde illustration in the arms of a faceless man but it was hard to see any of the details as the page darkened around the edges before burning completely into the center leaving ashes in its place.

"What the hell is this book, kid?" he finally asked, accepting that it was clearly much more then a simple childish bedtime story.

"I'm the truest believer, Captain." he explained calmly, closing the book as not to show any more glimpses into the future. "I've been the keeper of this book since I turned ten last year and I am suposse to guard it until every story has been told. And I am suppose to make sure the right people get the right endings. And right now, I'm not doing a great job of it." he said sadly, looking over at his mothers closed bedroom door.

"I shouldn't have showed you that. It's not your fault and you shouldn't feel bad about leaving. We'll be fine without you in our story." he said, his voice less convincing then anything Hook had ever heard. "I should help Emma clean up whatever it is that happened here." he said with a half smile, pushing up from his spot on the couch and walking into the kitchen to pick up the array of scattered papers that littered the floor.

"I didn't think I would affect her path at all, lad." Hook admitted, a distraught groan escaping his lips. He crossed the room into the kitchen, picking up a fallen chair and placing it upright at the table. "I didn't think I was even in her story."

And then Henry laughed, surprising Hook with the genuine sound of it. "How could you not be in her story?" he asked, laughing at the insanity of what he had heard. "You're stories might as well be the same. Sure, they didn't start the same but when the chapters start in Neverland, it all becomes one story and yours separate ones don't even go on. It's a whole new story and it plays out intertwined. I thought you'd figure that out on your own what with your own emotions and human stuff like that." Henry mocked, still smiling at the absurdness.

"What if I don't want her in my story?" Hook asked, looking to the eleven year old for wisdom, both clueless to the listening blonde a few feet away with her bedroom door now completely ajar.

Emma's shoulders fell at his words, her eyes closing as she kicked herself for her blind faith in Neverland and every day that followed.

"Why wouldn't you?" Henry asked, his eyes no longer amused as he set the papers neatly on the counter. "Emma's great."

She smiled at her sons kind words.

"Because everyone in my life is ripped from me and then destroyed. Why would I want her in it? I want her to have everything. And my story." he stopped himself for a moment. "No, my life." he corrected. "It isn't good enough for her to be apart of. She would be ripped from me." he reiterated.

"That's why after Neverland, your chapters stopped, and so did hers." Henry explained, frustrated that he had to keep everything that he knew, most of all the endings, to himself for the rest of his life. "Because after Neverland, neither of your lives were able to keep on track with your old story lines. So the book changed you from a villain and made a new story with Emma. The book gave you a heroes ending because after Neverland, you met my mom. And it changed your plot. She stopped you from becoming a villain and set you on a path to a better ending." he rushed the words out as quick as he could, wanting the older man to understand.

"And I said I was leaving her." Hook whispered to himself, leaning over the small kitchen chair in defeat.

"You sure did." Emma said, making herself known as she walked into the kitchen and leaned against the counter beside the sink.

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