Starts with Hope

CS Genre: Canon divergence (3x6)

Emma took the long way back to the camp. She needed a moment or two—or a thousand. What in every realm she'd only recently learned about had just happened? Had she really just made out passionately with Captain Freaking Hook?!

Clearly this damn place was starting to get to her.

She swatted a mosquito and tucked a stray, sweaty strand of hair behind her ear. There was going to be no living with him after this. If he was Captain Innuendo before…that…had happened, she shuddered to think about what he'd be like now.

She shuddered to think what her reaction to his flirting might be.

Because if there was one thing this damn island made a person do, it was be brutally honest; self-delusion simply wasn't even an option. And forced to confront her thoughts truthfully…she couldn't deny that a certain one handed pirate had been occupying a good portion of her thoughts and lurid dreams ever since their trip up that stupid beanstalk.

And why not? As long as she was being honest, she might as well be honest. The man might be a shameless flirt, he might have been a self-serving ass for most of their acquaintance…but he was hot. She was a normal, healthy woman, and it had been a while. She could handle a little…ahem…fun with a pretty boy pirate. Didn't mean anything. Just a physical reaction; nothing more.

Emma groaned as she finally made her way back to camp. The problem with honesty is that she had to be…well…honest. And the truth was…when it came to Hook, it wasn't just a physical thing. From the very first there'd been something more.

Maybe there'd been more to the kiss than she was willing to admit. Maybe she felt a connection, a heightened awareness when she was with him. Maybe she'd noticed the way he looked at her—like he wanted to know her, really know her. Not because she was the savior or because she had something he wanted. Just because she was Emma, and that was good enough for him. Maybe being in Hook's arms…maybe that had felt like the closest thing to home she'd felt since she'd come to this godforsaken island.

She was so screwed.

"Miss Swan, where have you been?" Regina asked irritably, hands fisted on hips. "In case you forgot, our son is out there with a psychopath. Not exactly the time for passionate trysts with your one-handed boy toy."

Emma felt her face flame. "I wasn't…it's not like…" she growled, pulling a hand through her hair. "Just cut the crap. I'm here now. What's up?"

She was going to kill Hook!

c~s~c~s~c~s~c~s~c~s~c~s~

An hour later, Emma found herself once again trudging through the woods with the rest of the Henry rescue party.

Hook had returned to the camp a good ten minutes after her, arms full of firewood and face clouded with concern. The concern had been enough to quell the initial shot of embarrassed excitement and desire that flooded her system at the sight of him.

Something was up.

"I just had a visit from Pan," he said without preamble, dumping the logs by the fire pit—a fire pit that currently sported a roaring fire provided by Emma's new-found magic.

Emma surged to her feet and went to him, vaguely aware that her parents and Regina did the same. "What? What did he say? What did he want?"

Hook shot her a quick look. "He told me where he's keeping Henry."

"WHAT?" Regina asked, invading the pirate's space. "Where?"

Hook hesitated, and Charming growled deep in his throat. "This isn't the time to play games pirate!" Her father spat the word as though it were the vilest of curse words. Apparently Hook saving his life wasn't enough to totally eradicated Charming's suspicions.

A flash of temper entered Hook's eyes as he turned to Charming. "I'm not the one on this island who plays games!" he barked. "I spent more years than I care to count on this bloody island, and if there's one thing I know, it's that Pan never does anything without an agenda."

"You think Pan might be leading us into a trap," Emma stated.

Hook shook his head. "No. I don't think it's as simple as that. I think he was being sincere—to a point. He has no desire to simply capture us. We are his prey, and the fun of stalking prey is the stalking."

"So what do you think his aim is?" Snow asked.

"I think he wants to turn us against each other—and simultaneously gather vital information about us. He pointed me in the direction of the Echo Cave."

Hook had gone on to explain just what the Echo Cave was and what it made a person do. Great! Nothing like baring your soul and telling your deepest, darkest secret before your parents and your…well, another random guy that you just happened to have kissed senseless earlier that evening.

Regina had scoffed, called the whole thing ridiculous, and insisted that Emma had been right; it had to be a trap. She flat out refused to accompanying them, insisting instead on scouring the island for Rumple, who, she stated, at least had the balls to do what needed to be done and the brains to keep from walking into traps.

And so it happened that Emma, her parents and Hook were trudging through the woods, heading for humiliation (at best) or a trap (at worst).

Emma tried to prep herself for what was about to happen, tried to think about Henry and getting him back, tried to rack her brains for a way home once they'd rescued her son.

Unfortunately her traitorous brain simply wouldn't cooperate. She kept going over and over and over that one, single moment of insanity with Hook. That kiss had been….how did she even explain it? It had started as a chance to prove a point. She'd wanted to wipe that smug grin off his face; prove to him that he was playing with fire; take him up on his blatant challenge.

It was supposed to be simple. She'd show him just how skilled she was in the art of kissing. She'd take his breath away and then leave unaffected—proving that she absolutely could take it.

But it hadn't worked out that way. He was intoxicating. The moment her lips had crashed into his, everything in the world fell away. There was only her and him and this wildfire between them, carefully tended and stoked with lips and teeth and tongues, hands in hair, hearts pounding nearly out of chests. How she'd managed to break the kiss she's still not sure. How she found the will-power to keep from going in for round two was even more of a mystery. She'd remained close to him, foreheads pressed together, hands gripping his lapels for dear life, because she was physically unable to move away.

She was so screwed, and she had no idea how to deal with it. She had to talk to someone about this or it would drive her nuts!

Emma glanced surreptitiously behind her and saw the men lagging several steps behind, seemingly in deep conversation. Heart pounding, she took hold of her mother's arm, and leaned toward her conspiratorially.

"I kissed him."

Snow shot her a startled look. "Who?"

Who do you think? There are only two men in our group…and one of them is my father!

"Hook," Emma said in an insistent whisper. "I kissed Hook."

Snow looked at her carefully. "Oh…why?"

Emma looked aside and shrugged, feeling the blush creep up her neck. "I was feeling good. It's been a while. I don't know!"

"Did it…mean anything?" Snow asked, trying (and failing) to look nonchalant.

"It was just a kiss! It was nothing!" Emma hissed. That was all it could be! That's all she'd let it be. To suggest it was anything more was…no! Not a chance.

For long moments Snow remained silent, and finally she shook her head deliberately from side to side. "No Emma. 'Nothing' is always 'something' with you. If it was really nothing you wouldn't have brought it up."

The panic was swift and merciless, like thousands of bees in her stomach jockeying for a chance to sting her. "Come on, Mary Margaret!" she insisted. "He's Captain Freaking Hook. You know who he is! You know what he's capable of. Having any kind of…feelings for him…you know how ridiculous that would be!"

Snow looked behind them speculatively and then turned back toward Emma. "Maybe," she conceded. "But the heart doesn't take into account what's logical and what's not. When it finds another heart that calls out to it, it answers, whether the brain is convinced or not."

This conversation was not going the way she'd planned. Not at all. Her mom was supposed to talk some sense into her, help her find her equilibrium again, not…encourage the insanity!

"His heart does not call out to mine!" Emma whisper-shouted. "That's…that's ridiculous! And crap, and…ridiculous!"

"Is it?" Snow asked, flashing an amused, tolerant smile. "Emma, I saw the way you acted when you got back to camp. I saw the look you gave him the moment he came back as well. You, honey, are dangerously close to falling in love."

Emma moaned. "I can't fall in love! Definitely not with Hook!"

Snow stopped, and impulsively took Emma into her arms. "It's okay, Emma," she murmured. "Maybe this isn't the moment to figure all of this out. We have to find Henry and then get home. Maybe that's what you need to focus on for now. But when we do get home with Henry, just promise me you'll think about it. Love is so worth it, and when you've found the person whose heart knits perfectly to yours…well, the results are nothing short of heaven. You need to hold on to hope."

"Why?"

"Because you deserve your happy ending, and happy endings always begin with hope."

Impulsively Emma hugged her mother back. She was nowhere near ready to concede the point, nowhere near ready to even put the "l" word and Hook in the same library, let alone in the same sentence, but maybe, just maybe, there was hope for….something….in the future. Right now she needed to find and save her son, but when they were all home and safe…well, maybe she'd give the matter a little more thought.

Notes:

-Not sure if this is technically fluffy….but it's not angst, so it counts, right?

-That conversation between Emma and Mary Margaret in the actual show really frustrated me. The way Emma was acting…the fact she brought up the kiss at all…well, it was abundantly clear that, whatever she might have said, that kiss with Hook wasn't Nothing. I felt like Emma's friend and roommate Mary Margaret would have picked up on what Emma was really trying (not) to say, but her mother, Snow White, just didn't see it. Upon further reflection…I guess I can understand to an extent. I mean, MM didn't know Emma's whole history with Neal and how badly he hurt her. As far as she knew, Emma was deeply in love with Neal and still mourning his death terribly. Given her experience with true love, I could see MM thinking guilt over kissing another guy when her true love had just died was the source of Emma's agitation.

-Even if I can understand where MM was coming from….the conversation still makes me want to bang my head against a brick wall. Repeatedly. Given the fact that that course of action would be more or less guaranteed to result in nothing but a headache, I decided to take matters into my own hands and re-write the scene. :)

-I didn't think this whole canon divergence thing through in much detail beyond the scene I wrote, but in my version of events, I figure they all really did go to the Echo Cave, everyone confessed what they really confessed (although I haven't worked out what Emma would confess given the fact that Neal's not there, and as far as she knows he is dead, so there's no point in saying she wished he was dead.) Instead of Neal in a cage, Pan left them….something that led them to the same knowledge they gleaned from Neal—namely that the shadow is their ride home, that they can capture it with the coconut, and it can be found in Dark Hollow. Everything else pretty much continues as in canon—minus the whole Hook-and-Neal-fighting-over-Emma-like-idiots thing.

-Up next: Deleted scene. We saw a portion of Emma and Killian's first date, but not all of it! I plan on filling in the blanks a bit about the romantic moments Killian planned for after the restaurant (as well as explaining how Emma came to be wearing Killian's jacket when they returned to the Charming's flat).