A/N: ~ Some Swan Rook fluff and happiness inspired by and dedicated to teamhook ~
"Hey, hey!" Emma called, coffee mug sloshing to the counter as she darted across the kitchen after the two kids barreling through the front door, snatching the two brown bags waiting on the tabletop. "Don't forget your lunches!"
"Oh – " Henry spun around first, a distracted look on his face as hopped back up the stairs, his gaze lingering on the screen of his phone as he took the bag she waved back and forth in front of him. "Thanks, mom."
"Sure thing, kid," Emma smiled, wanting to reach out and ruffle his hair as she'd done so many times before, but at fourteen, it was gesture he didn't find nearly as endearing as he used to.
Alice strolled back to the house at a more sedate pace – for being a year younger than Henry, she was always a bit more restrained, and Emma couldn't help but wonder if it was still her uncertainty in this new realm, or just all the space that she wasn't quite used to having. Both thoughts made her chest tighten. Emma offered the paper bag with a smile, relieved when Alice returned it with one of her own.
It was more reserved then the beaming, open grins that she gave her Papa, and not quite as free as the ones she shared with Killian – especially when he did something silly to make her laugh – but it was a smile all the same, and Emma counted each one as another victory against the witch who'd left her daughter to be imprisoned in a tower.
"Thanks, Emma," Alice murmured, her smile widening just enough that it finally reached her eyes before she turned and hurried after Henry, her son already holding out his phone to show her whatever was catching his attention as they shared the walk to school.
Emma tugged her cardigan more snugly around her waist and headed back into the house, her own smile lingering as she mopped coffee from the counter and thought about picking up bear claws to bring into the station – Killian's sweet tooth wasn't as bad as hers, but even he'd picked up her habit of enjoying pastries in the morning, though Hook still mostly turned up his nose at the sugary confections.
/
The house was quiet, Hook and Killian down at the docks helping Leroy get his boat into the dry dock and prepared for winter storage, and Emma could only just hear the sound of Henry's video games filtering through his closed door from upstairs. Alice was probably reading or painting in her own room, and for the first time in what had been a hectic week at the station, she found herself able to take a long breath and relax.
The chill outside was just bitter enough that it made its way into the house through the old windows, and she found herself boiling water for hot cocoa, humming something softly to herself as she found her favorite mug – most likely a tune she'd picked up from one of her boys – and got out the whipped cream and cinnamon.
"What are you doing?"
Emma jumped, grateful it was only the whipped cream that fell to the floor and not a mug of hot cocoa, a smile pulling at her cheeks as she tucked her hair behind her ears and bent to pick it up.
"Sorry," Alice muttered, shifting from the balls of her feet to her toes as she took in the whipped cream and cup. "Are you making hot cocoa?"
"Yup," Emma grinned, "it's the perfect day for it – you know what else it's the perfect day for?"
"What?" Alice took a few more steps into the kitchen, casting her gaze around the room to see if she'd missed anything else.
"Cookies!" Emma sang triumphantly, reaching back into the fridge and pulling out a canister of the ready-to-bake chocolate chip version.
She'd noticed a while ago that on days like this, the ones where the house was empty – Henry wrapped up in whatever game or book he was stuck on, the fishing season keeping Hook busy at the harbor, and Killian and Emma working separate shifts – that the quiet seemed to get to Alice a little more, to creep up the stairs to the third floor and ruin the happiness she'd found in painting or reading.
It was something Emma remembered from her time in the system as a kid – Am I alone? Is anyone coming back? Can I trust the quiet – and she'd wanted to find one way she could remind Alice that here at least, in this house, the quiet was just that, and that she was never alone – not anymore.
Cookies had seemed like a good option. Emma definitely wasn't a baker, but even she could manage a canister of prepackaged dough, and the thought of the kitchen smelling like baking cookies seemed like just the homey type of thing they could both appreciate. No one bakes cookies when they're the only one to enjoy them.
"Those are cookies?" Alice questioned as she eyed the tube suspiciously, an eyebrow cocked in such a way that Emma's heart skipped a beat, the gesture mimicking her father so closely.
"Well, this world's version of them, at least...or maybe my version." Emma rolled the canister in her hands, perusing the very simple instructions she was sure she couldn't mess up. "So, how about it, want to make some cookies with me? They'll go perfect with hot cocoa..."
"Yes!" Alice enthused, nodding her head vigorously and giving Emma one of those smiles that were coming a little easier each day. "Cookies sound great, Emma."
"Alright, kid, let's find a baking sheet and..."
The afternoon drifted away, the noise spreading from the kitchen as Emma and Alice wrangled cookie sheets and mugs to the second floor as Henry won his game with a whoop and nearly galloped down the stairs to see what they were up to.
By the time both Hook and Killian strolled in from work, everything was far less quiet than it had been that morning. They stopped in the doorway to soak up the cozy view of their family gathered around the coffee table – mugs of hot cocoa and a plate of half eaten cookies spread among the deck of cards that neither of them recognized.
"Uno!" screeched Alice, slapping her card down on the table hard enough to make the mugs skitter, her knees bouncing with excitement against the floors.
"How did you get all the wilds?" Henry moped, eyeing the piles of cards as if he was going to spot some form of trickery. "Is this deck stacked?"
"It's just Uno, kid," Emma consoled, her hand darting out to muss his hair as he leaned dramatically away, swatting her off. "I'm pretty sure you can't stack the deck."
"Oh, I don't know, darling," Hook mused as he shed his boots and both he and Killian joined everyone in the family room, leaning down to press a kiss to her lips as she smiled up at him, "a pirate always finds a way."
/
Emma waited nervously outside the school, Henry barely pausing to give her a lopsided hug before taking off with his friend Jake for a weekend of video games, junk food, and boy jokes that Emma was perfectly happy to miss out on for once.
She kicked the light blanket of snow aimlessly beneath her boots, watching as the kids filtered out, joining other waiting parents or heading down the streets toward home by themselves. It didn't take long before she spied a familiar head of long blonde hair, her blue beanie pulled low over her ears, hands tucked inside the grey pea jacket she'd picked out herself.
"Alice!" Emma called, waving her over, her stomach only churning a little as Alice paused in confusion before jogging to her side – Emma wincing as she nearly slipped and fell on an icy patch before finally arriving in one piece.
This was the first time she was walking Alice back to the house instead of Hook, but he hadn't been feeling well, and Emma had insisted he stay home in bed while she went, reminding him that the break from the station would be nice. Alice was probably old enough to find her own way back, but neither Hook nor Alice seemed ready for that, and after everything they'd gone through, Emma wasn't about to judge him for still needing the assurance that his daughter was safe and sound – and though Alice was almost a teenager, she'd spent enough of her life alone.
"Emma!" Alice trilled, her words a puff of smoke in the cold air, "I didn't know you'd be walking me home today."
"Your Papa isn't feeling so hot, so I told him to stay home while I came to get you. I hope that was okay," she explained, biting back the sinking disappointment that maybe for Alice it wasn't, instead focusing on staying in step with her...step-daughter, she supposed...as they headed back toward home.
"I'm actually really glad you came today," Alice confided, looking up at her shyly before turning her gaze back to the sidewalk stretching out before them. "I wanted to ask...well, is it okay if I ask you something?"
"Of course," Emma stammered, brow furrowing as she wondered what Alice could possibly want to know – hoping it was something she could answer without needing to run it by Hook first. "Shoot, kid."
"Shoot?"
"Sorry, that just means go ahead, ask away – you can talk to me about anything, Alice. I hope you know that..."
It was more of an offering than she would normally give someone, but Alice wasn't just someone. She was family – and Emma had stopped bringing up her walls for family a long time ago. If there was anything she wanted Alice to understand, it was that she wasn't just a part of Hook's family, and by extension, herself and Henry and Killian's, but that they were all in this together – all five of them.
She wanted her to know she was cared for, that she was loved.
"Yeah, I know that," Alice murmured, her cheeks reddened by the cold beneath her hat, "and, well, I really don't want to ask Papa about this...what if you like someone, Emma. How do you get them to like you back?"
"Oh, well that's..." Emma faltered, suddenly less cheerful about the fact that Alice was opening up to her. She'd never had these kind of conversations with Henry – other than the one time in Camelot – but it hadn't been like this, not really. This was...this was something else entirely, and Emma didn't even have any memories of someone else having them with her to fall back on. "That's kind of a complicated one, but what's most important is understanding that someone should like you for who you already are. Does that make sense?"
"Kind of," Alice hedged, her lips drawing into a thin line as her jaw clenched, another reminder of her father and Killian, "but what if, what if they wouldn't normally like someone like you?"
"Alice, Emma spoke, her voice soft but serious as she stopped and waited for the young girl next to her to look up. "You are brave, and smart, and fierce – and I've never met someone who's been through so much and still has the kindest, most trusting heart. Don't think you ever need to change, or pretend to be someone else just to get a boy to like you. Because if they don't see how great you are, they're crazy."
Unwanted memories of Neal flickered through her head, memories of being scared and terrified and so desperate to not be alone that she overlooked every red flag that had popped up in that relationship.
"It's not..." Alice whispered, nibbling on the edge of her lip as she looked up at Emma with a furrowed brow. "What if it's not a boy? What if I like a girl, and I wished she liked me back?"
"Oh, well, the same rules apply," Emma shrugged, "you just remember to always be yourself, and one day someone will come along who loves you for exactly who you are – boy, girl, it doesn't matter."
"Did you ever like someone who didn't like you back?"
"Oh, for sure. Devon Sawa, for starters – I had it bad for him."
"And he didn't like you back?"
"Didn't even know I existed," Emma deadpanned, remembering flipping through the pages of a teen magazine at the bodega before the owner had yelled at her and run her out, "but you'll probably meet a lot of people that you like, kid, and sometimes, there will be people who like you, but you don't feel the same way about them."
"That sounds complicated."
"When it's right, you'll know it, because you'll look at each other and just know that there's something special there, something different – something worth fighting for."
"You think?" Alice whispered, her lips pulling into a grin that Emma was slowly getting used to seeing more of.
"I sure do," Emma nodded, ruffling Alice's beanie before offering her a gloved hand. "Come on, this section of the sidewalk is solid ice up ahead – let's try to get home in one piece."
"No one cleaned it? You'll have to give them a ticket," Alice advised, the rest of their conversation veering into territories Emma felt she had a better grip on – homework, and the day's lessons, and what was happening for dinner – it was lasagna, Granny's doing.
And as Alice chattered on about plans to invent a recipe that had at least one thing everyone in the family liked in it, it hit Emma that there was a time topics like homework and what was for dinner had felt pretty daunting too, and she thought that just maybe she was better suited to this parenting thing than she'd ever thought possible.
/
"Henry! Alice! Come on, guys!" Emma yelled, doubling back into the kitchen and snatching the brown paper bags from the table before hollering up the stairs at Killian and Hook to hurry up – everyone seemed distracted by something this morning.
The door slammed behind her as she jogged down the stairs and whistled sharply, Henry's head whipping around before he realized what they'd forgotten and headed back, tugging on Alice's sleeve to get her attention.
Alice pulled the headphones from her ears and looked back towards the house, watching as Emma strode toward them with the two bag lunches swinging in her hand.
"Thanks, mom," Henry smiled, putting some extra twinkle into it since he knew everyone in the house was already running late for their day – and Emma had already mentioned more than once she had new office staff in to train that morning.
"Yeah, yeah," Emma huffed, unable to keep her frown up as Henry flashed her a grin and one of the bags disappeared from her hand, Alice's fingers reaching and tugging the second free.
"Yup, thanks, mum!" Alice echoed, already moving to plug her headphones back into her ears before her hand paused in midair, an uncertain set to her lips as she turned and met Emma's eyes. "Is that...is it okay if I call you..."
"Hey," Emma reassured, reaching her arms around the young girl and giving her a tight squeeze, her own eyes tearing up as she pressed a firm kiss to the top of her head. "I would love if you called me mom."
"I've never had a mum," she whispered, eyebrows lifting as she tried to stifle the wide smile that was threatening to break over her face, "but I've always wanted one."
"Well, you've got me now, kid. You know, I didn't have a mom either – or a family at all when I was your age – but then I found them."
"Henry and Killian."
"And your Papa, and you, Alice."
"I like that a lot," she nodded, "that we'll always be together – all of us."
Emma nodded in agreement, stepping back as Alice tucked the headphones back into her ears, waving a shy goodbye as she hurried to catch up with Henry, who over the past year and half had become more and more of a brother to her.
"Is everything alright, love?" Killian asked, his hand settling onto the small of her back as she watched the kids round the corner ahead.
"Yeah," she rasped, the word falling a little harshly from her lips as she cleared her throat and swallowed heavily, her eyes burning. "Everything's great."
She turned at the sound of familiar footsteps, Hook stopping to join them. Both men were sharing identical looks of concern as they took in the glistening at the corner of her eyes, the way her smile was a little less steady than normal.
"What is it?" Hook worried, his gaze flickering to Killian to confirm that he was just as in the dark. "Is everything well with Alice and Henry?"
"Alice just asked if she could call me mom," Emma beamed, swiping halfheartedly at the tears threatening to spill onto her cheeks. "I just thought – "
Her breath flew from her in a rush as Hook swooped her into his arms, nearly crushing her against his chest as Killian leaned against them to press a kiss to her cheek.
"I had a feeling she'd get there soon," he murmured into her hair as Hook wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. "I've seen the way she adores you, looks up to you."
"It's just been so long since you became Dad to both of them," she stammered, turning in Hook's arms so she could rest against his chest, her fingers wrapping with Killian's as he beamed at the memory. "I just kind of figured she was more comfortable having me just be...Emma."
"Oh, love," Hook murmured against her, his lips pressing soft kisses into her skin, "You've never been just anything. She only needed to get there in her own time – to realize it wasn't biology that makes a mother, but being there for all of the small moments."
"Aye," Killian agreed, sweeping Emma into his arms the moment Hook let her go, the three of them overjoyed at the family moment that felt like such a huge step. "She's lucky to have a mother like you, Emma, as is Henry."
Emma couldn't help the happy tears that started every now and then throughout the day, those memories that belonged to a little girl sitting alone on a bed – alone in a house that didn't want her – washed away by how full and meaningful her life had become.