Hook stared at the ceiling, his fingers fiddling with the tie that hung around his neck. Ruby had knotted that for him. That morning. Back when everything was still calm, before all those explosions. Back when all he had to worry about was avoiding Granny in the hallway.

But now everything was falling to shit. Graham was back, and that was doing plenty of damage on its own. Hook didn't know Graham; didn't care about Graham; didn't remotely like Graham. But apparently, he had meant a lot to others in the town, because everyone was getting all up in arms about him being back. Like Emma, and…

Anyways, that was why Hook and Neal had both decided that they hated Graham. He was confusing everything. Exactly why Henry brought him back, Hook couldn't figure out for the life of him, but he hoped to God Henry was regretting it, because now they were not only dealing with Graham's shit, but they also had to face Regina bringing back her mother.

This is exhausting, he thought miserably. He had always been a pretty emotional guy, but this was just getting ridiculous. There were too many different things to feel at once, even he was feeling suffocated. He couldn't imagine what kind of hell Neal was going through. Neal hated emotions: he hated talking about them, thinking about them, acknowledging them, admitting he even had them.

Well, at least he had Regina now. Who was now probably scheming to kill Hook and hide the body in a remote swampland in Georgia where no one would ever find it. In hindsight, he probably shouldn't have hit on her that morning, what with all the emotions running high and arguments breaking out, but Regina provoked him when she had chosen to wear that skirt.

There was a knock at the door, startling him out of his Regina-daydream.

"Ruby?" he said hopefully (pathetically), swinging his legs off the bed and almost tripping in his haste to the door. "Oh, please be Ruby, please be Ruby, please be—ugh. Emma."

"Thanks," she said, raising her eyebrows. She nodded her head toward the inside. "Can I come in?"

Hook raised an eyebrow, giving her what he secretly referred to as his quite-the-handsome-devil-smirk. "Swan, you know what they say about a lady who invites herself into a man's room…"

"Oh, I'm 'Swan' again, am I?" she said dryly, leaning against the doorframe. "That nickname's been collecting dust for nearly two years."

"Yeah, I'spose." He'd stopped calling her "Swan" and switched to "Emma" right around the time he'd decided to settle into Storybrooke, for whatever reason. He didn't know why; it had just seemed right.

"So…?" Emma tapped her fingers against the doorframe. "You going to let me in?"

Hook grinned lazily. "That depends."

"Oh, come on, don't do that thing," she complained, making a face.

"What thing?" he frowned. "I'm not doing a thing."

"Yes, you are," she said tiredly. "And I'm really not in the mood for it."

"Oh, I think you'll find I can get you quite in the mood, love, if you know what I mean."

"Oh, God…" Emma shook her head. "Walked right into that one, didn't I?"

"You presented it to me on a silver platter." Hook stood aside to let her in, sweeping his arm. "Go ahead, love, make yourself at home."

"Thanks," she said, giving him a weak smile. Hook shut the door as Emma tossed her coat on a chair, kicked off her boots, and leaned back against the pillows on the bed. Hook looked at her staring hopelessly up at the ceiling, fiddling with the swan pendant around her neck.

"You seem to be having a rough time of it," he said, walking toward her. Emma scooted over to give him room sit down next to her, so they could stare hopelessly up at the ceiling together.

"You, too," she sighed, and turned her head to look at him. "Would you take that damn tie off already?"

"This is not how a woman usually goes about seducing me, Swan. You're losing your touch."

"What the hell do you keep calling me 'Swan' for?"

"I don't know, it's been a weird couple of days," he said wearily. "I'm all mixed up."

Emma rolled her eyes, pushing herself up to a sitting position, so she could look down at him. "Take the tie off. You've been wearing it for nearly three days now."

"Is this what's been upsetting you? Are you really that heartbroken over the fact that I've been wearing a tie?"

"I can't think with you wearing that around your neck, it's—" Emma let out a frustrated noise, clutching her head with both hands. "Can you just take that damn tie off?"

"Is that all you want me to—?"

"Shut. Up."

Hook sighed. "Oh, Emma…" he said sadly, shaking his head. "Look at us. Two heartbroken fools. Alone in my bedroom." He raised his eyebrows, smiling at her deadpan face. "Anything could happen."

"No. It couldn't."

"Then why are you here?" he grinned. "It's all right, Swan, both of us have things we'd rather not think about for a while. I'm game if you are."'

"I came here, because I wanted to talk to Neal," she said testily. "But he's not here, and I really just needed to talk to somebody, so…" She flopped her hand at him. "You."

Hook frowned, sitting up. "You've got no business talking to Neal," he said firmly. "You've made a right mess of things for him, you've confused him so much he can barely walk straight."

Emma blinked a few times. "I know, it wasn't that, it was just…" She looked down at her hands. "I don't what to do. Henry absolutely hates me right now. I thought Neal could talk to him, try to get through to him, because I just… I don't what I'm doing, anymore."

Hook blew out a breath. "Sorry, love, but this is terribly boring. Can we just skip to the part where we get drunk and make mistakes?"

"I can't help it," Emma said, as if he hadn't spoken. "I just get scared every time I start to trust someone, that they're going to break my heart again, so I just move onto the next shallow fling—"

"No, Emma, you don't understand. When I said 'this is terribly boring', that wasn't meant as an invitation to keep talking about it."

"Hook…" Emma closed her eyes exasperatedly. "Can you be a grown-up for two minutes?"

Can you be a grown-up for, like, two minutes?

Two entire minutes? You're really pushing it, love. I can give you forty seconds, that's as high as I'll go.

Hook twirled the tie around his finger. "How about that drink, then?"

"We're not drinking, and we're certainly not…." Emma grimaced. Hook raised his eyebrows, smiling.

"It's all right, Swan, you can say it. You're not going to offend my virtue."

"Okay, seriously, what is this?" she said, frowning down at his tie. "Is this about Ruby, or do you have some bizarre sort of fetish no one knows about?"

"Yeah, that's it. I'm really into ties, Emma. Can't control myself around them." He rolled his eyes for good measure, in case she missed the sarcasm.

Emma squinted her eyes at the tie, as if it had personally offended her. "Just get rid of the damn tie, okay?"

"Why are you fixating on the tie?"

"I'm trying to have a serious conversation with you, and that tie is a distraction! So just—" she reached her hand out, which Hook immediately slapped away.

"Miss Swan!" he gasped mockingly. "Control yourself, woman! You can't just snap your fingers and expect to have your wanton way with me!" He slapped her hand away again. "I want to be wooed."

"The longer you wear that tie, the longer it's going to take to get over Ruby," she said through gritted teeth, still trying to fight past his hand to get to the tie. "I'm doing you a favor!"

"Doing me would be a favor," he said immediately, ducking as she shot her hand out again.

"Just—stop!" Emma lunged forward, making him lean back—and topple off the bed. He scrambled backwards as Emma jumped off the bed, stretching out her hand.

"No!" He curled over and covered his head with his arms, trying to guard himself from Emma's attempts to grab the tie.

"This is ridiculous!" Emma said furiously, trying to pry his arms away.

"Why is this so important to you?" he choked.

"Because, Hook!" she cried, dropping her arms. "I hate seeing you like this! You've got to move on, this isn't healthy!"

"Oh, you're one to talk!" he shot back. "You come in here, ready to bloody violate me to forget about Neal! Or Graham, or whichever new boyfriend you've found in the last hour! Damn it, Emma, that hurt!" he yelped as she dug her fingers underneath the loop from the back of his neck. "What are you doing?"

"I'm—helping you!" she said, gritting her teeth from the effort of trying to tear the tie apart.

"This isn't helping me, you're bloody choking me!" he gasped.

There was a horrible rip!ping sound, and a suddenly release of pressure; the little slip of fabric pooled onto the floor, sliding off his neck easily. Hook looked down in horror at the Ruby-tie, covering his mouth with his hand.

"What have you done?" he whispered, his hand falling away. "You've ruined it."

Emma snatched it up and stalked over to the other side of the room to throw it in the trash can. Hook winced when he heard the lid slam shut.

Emma walked back, a sympathetic look slowly replacing the angry one on her face. She bent down next to him, rubbing his shoulder. "You okay?"

"No."

She smiled faintly. "Magical hug?"

"I'm out of magical hugs."

Emma looked at him sadly, still rubbing his shoulder. "I know. Me, too."

"Your hugs aren't magical, Emma. Don't try to understand my pain."

He allowed her to wrap him in a hug, anyway. It wasn't magical, but he had always been a hugger, so he didn't complain. They sat on the ground for few minutes, his head leaning into her while she tried to be comforting and stroke his hair (her ring kept getting caught and tugging at the roots, so it was a bit painful at times).

"Did you love Ruby more than me?" she asked curiously. Hook rolled his eyes.

"And jealousy rears its ugly head."

"That's not what I meant," she scoffed, flicking his head. "I meant, did you love her like me, or was it… different?"

"Are you researching for a young adult novel? Because I strongly encourage you to pursue another dream, you'll never be successful."

"I'm trying to be sensitive, okay? Jesus."

"You're bad at it." Hook tugged away from her irritably. "And no, I don't want to try to be sensitive to your problems, either. Why do we have to talk about it? We're already going to be miserable! Do we have to be bored, too?"

"Do you want me to leave?" Emma asked, standing up as he strode back to the bed, and threw himself against the pillows.

"No, you don't have to leave. I just don't want to talk about the fact that Ruby's gone and crushed my heart to dust, all over that stupid, pathetic, pretty-boy, Graham—who simultaneously provided you with the opportunity to do the same thing to my best friend." Hook folded his arms, glaring at the ceiling. "And then that's gone and made you miserable, so there's a third reason to hate Graham, even though I really didn't need a third reason."

Emma listlessly swung her fists as she walked around the bed, settling back down on the bed beside him. She didn't say anything as she tilted her head back, leaning back against the pillows.

"Neal says he's Shoelace Guy, is that true?"

Emma responded by lifting her left wrist to show him the shoelace she always had wrapped around it. Hook scoffed, shaking his head.

"Awful lot of trouble for a shoelace," he remarked.

"He was the first person in this town, besides Henry, I really felt a connection to," she said softly. "I feel like I owe it to him to be open to…us."

"Funny," Hook said, smiling bitterly. "Ruby feels the same way."

Emma was silent, but she looked over at him, waiting for him to say something else.

He glanced at her, shaking his head slightly. "What?"

"You think you guys are going to be able to work with him?" she asked, raising her eyebrows. "He's coming back to the station tomorrow."

"Keep a close eye on him, Swan," he advised darkly. "Or I might channel Regina and destroy his cells or…I don't remember everything she said this morning, all right? Just keep an eye on him."

"You called me 'Swan' again."

"And you destroyed my tie. We're even."

SO...SHOULD I TRY FOR SOME EXPERIMENTAL GREMMA, OR RED WOLF? WHICH OF OUR JEALOUS BOYS DO YOU WANT TO SEE MORE?

AND REVIEW, LOVELIES! REVIEW!