She's asked him out. There had been some breathless ranting, her eyes darting to and fro, eyelashes batting like they always do, and he is quite sure he's not flattering himself by simply imagining her blush at her adorable "pillage and plunder" quip. She has asked him out, and now it's his turn to reflect on what she must have earlier—that in over a year's time, he's never really courted her.
Back in his room, he sinks to his knees and slides the phonebook out from under the bed, a thin layer of dust brushing against the tip of the comforter. He'd found it an irreplaceable resource when he'd first arrived, but without need for one in Neverland, or the Enchanted Forest for that matter, he'd needed to find another one once he was back in Storybrooke, to stay here as long as Emma would allow. Flipping through the flimsy pages, he skips the residential numbers and arrives at the yellow business section, skimming across the tops for "restaurants."
He pops his eyes, running his tongue over his teeth at how he missed the fact that the thing had bloody illustrations in it. A full page devotes itself to what looked like a promising place, a...landscape...he still doesn't know if that applies to "photographs"...of people dining taking up the top portion. The bottom relays the information, this "Tony's" being a fresh, relaxing dining experience, the number, and even a tiny square map marking its location. On the other side of town...he hides his smile into his knuckles. As soon as Swan had left, the first thing he had decided was that they would not be spending the evening at Granny's as he would wager any amount she stopped in there at least once every day, if only for a cup of coffee.
Reaching for the phone on the table, his hand hovers over it. No. No, he can be a man of this world and use his gift from Swan and Henry. Aye, that's it—he will call this new place on his own phone. Well aware the swelling confidence he's feeling is disproportionate to the task, he pushes the correct series of buttons and listens to the ringing sound.
"Tony's, a fresh, relaxing dining experience. What can I do for you today?" a less-than-perky male voice groans back at him.
"Yes, I would like to place a reservation for tonight."
"How many?"
"Two." Tone it down, he tells himself. There is no need to make up for the unseen man's lack of enthusiasm. He hopes it isn't the proprietor.
"Name?"
"Oh, er, Killian Jones."
"Time?"
He and Swan hadn't exactly discussed a time. No matter. His phone could reach her easily after he was finished here, perhaps even figure out how to send one of those scripted messages to keep as much of it a surprise as possible.
"Eight," he throws out.
"Okay, reservation made. Thank you." He hears that distinct click of the conversation ending, so he gazes back down at the picture in the advertisement and frowns. That had been absurdly easy. Raising an eyebrow at the phone's screen, he pushes the numbers again.
"Tony's, a fresh, relaxing dining experience," he hears in the same tone as before.
"Yes, I just called and made a reservation..."
"Were you canceling it?"
"No." Honestly, the amount of apathy staggers him. "I, I was merely wondering if there was anything else you or I needed to know."
"Look, dude, it's all penciled in. Jones, party of two, eight o'clock tonight. You can Google a map to find us, the phone number is...you can look that up. Wear a collared shirt and don't smoke. Pretty self-explanatory," the man grunts at him.
"Quite right, sir. Thank you for your time," he says, himself the one to end the conversation this time since nothing else is required. Well then, he inhales. That was the easy part. After a beat, he flips the pages backward to "clothing." There won't be a full-page advertisement this time, but that may be for the best. A place that feels no need to draw attention to itself either can't afford to, which means no one else will be there, or it doesn't need to, in which case it will be a madhouse and he might have to wait until the shoppers start clearing out before going in. Running his finger down the page, he stops at a shop called Modern Fashions and snorts a silent laugh. Original name indeed. One might as well name the grocery Food Store while they were at it. It doesn't bode well for their selection or quality; nevertheless, he memorizes the address and heads out his room, down the stairs, and out the door.
Need some help planning a date? :)
Squinting, he has to cock his head before he deciphers it's a smile, Swan's question meant to be taken in jest. The sun creates a glare on the screen, so he steps onto the sidewalk and under an awning, certain this will take a fair amount of time. The sign for Modern Fashions stares at him from the end of the street. He wishes the same could be said for its hours. Holding out the phone, he stretches his thumb over the buttons to reply.
No need. I will be at the apartment at seven thirty. He smirks and adds, Also no need for a smiling face as no doubt you are delighted by this news.
Sending it, he doesn't even have time to put the phone back into his pocket before he stops mid-step to read her reply.
:)
He grins.
He'd scrutinized the clothes longer than he had planned, stepping away from them and inspecting them with his chin in his hand, contemplating the size, the stitching, the durability, the appropriateness. It wasn't too far removed from what he usually wore, and the shop mercifully had a back room, back closet, for the purposes of determining if it fit or not. Undressed in front of a full-length mirror with foreign clothes had initiated a countless number of stalling blinks and several mental reassurances that a waistcoat, while not a doublet, was put on the same way here as it was anywhere else. The trousers did not have laces, but rather a strange metallic strip that made a zipping noise when he pulled up on it, efficient and also potentially dangerous.
The more he puts on, the more his breathing returns to normal, the more the features in the mirror loosen. Pulling his arm through the sleeve of a shorter, sleeker black jacket and rolling his shoulders around in it, he nods at himself, confident he can adorn it all again without calling Granny or Ruby, or, even worse, Swan herself to talk him through it. When the time came for the latter to be ready to watch him add and remove layers, he was going to know what he was doing.
The new clothes back on their hangers, he stops buttoning his blouse halfway down and examines himself in the mirror. And what if that time was tonight? What if, at some moment, they repeated last night's showing of affections, and, what if, like last night, his ruddy hook got the better of her?
He'll just need to be careful.
Can you, he asks himself, finishing buttoning his shirt...not as distracting as he'd hoped it would be. It doesn't even need to come down to, to that, he thinks with a great intake of air, his body suddenly feeling on fire. It could come down to something as innocent as a hug. He'd been too worried the night before last when he'd thrown his arms around her at the ice wall to consider it, but he has until seven thirty tonight to consider it now. Just one wrong flick of his wrist...
She's never cared about it before, he tells himself, adamant about treating the act of putting his trousers back on as business-like a motion as he could.
They've also never gone on a date before.
And what if, in the heat of a moment, she wanted affection? In the heady, wonderful times they'd lost track of the rest of the world, his hook had kept itself at bay, but surely at some point a situation would come in which he'd have to take off the harness completely and expose the pitiful little stump that was the end of his arm or else leave it on and take his chances. Neither prospect gives him much to look forward to.
She's never cared about that sort of thing.
Aye, but either way is on the opposite end of the perfection spectrum.
Had he the other one back, there would be no fear interrupting anything. Recalling some explicitly vivid dreams as he uses the hook for a brace as he laces his boots, he realizes more than some of what he desires to do teeters into the realm of impossibility...and he desires it with a mouth-watering intensity. To touch more than one place at a time on her would be a thousand times more intoxicating than any drink, not to mention a thousand times more addictive.
Everything stops. His coat and new clothes hanging on the hooks next to him feel miles away. The Dark One. How fitting would it be to regain his hand from the monster that severed it from him in the first place. He helped him and Elsa yesterday, proving in yet another way the dagger was in fact a fake, so why wouldn't he help again? Fair is fair, after all. If a man truly wanted to become better, and the crocodile flatly stated he did long to become better, the surest start would be righting past wrongs. They'd be helping each other in that regard.
He could also erase your memory of it at the drop of a hat, he warns himself as he gathers his things. He could steal your voice, plant some demon seed into your brain.
Ah, but he won't, he almost clucks his tongue out loud as he reaches into his pocket for some gold to give the clerk. Anything too catastrophic like that and it would disappoint dear Belle.
Quickening his pace, he hurries across the street and down to the pawn shop, for if he slows down at all he'll lose his nerve. Hook gone, the past, all of it, finally where it belongs. For everyone.
He bursts through the door and shuffles over the threshold, unleashing a silent laugh that Rumpelstiltskin isn't about as it was a less than professional entrance. No matter, he thinks, glancing over at the clock. He'll return from his respite, probably a lunch out with Belle, and find he has to gear himself up for work right away. Does the man even have regular customers? Doesn't anyone bloody care that their possessions from their previous lives are under an imp's lock and key? Pacing around, he runs his fingers over the glass rim of the display case, jewels and lockets glittering up at him. All belong to someone. The books on the shelves, the swords and scales, the dolls and bottles—none of it's his, not even the tiny crystalline unicorn mobile he taps just to see how it catches the light.
Propping himself up onto the counter, he places his wrists in his lap and runs his eyes over the paintings, refusing to feel like a thief. He isn't here to steal. He's here to take back what is rightfully his. The jittery feeling accompanying him is nerves, he tells himself, revulsion. Rolling his shoulders, he presses his tongue into the inside of his cheek and hopes this won't take long.
The bell on the door jingling is music to his ears.
"Making yourself at home, are we?" the crocodile growls at him, his rage palpable as he lets the door slam.
Home. What an ass.
"I'm here to make another deal," he says, being sure to smile.
"Not interested."
"Oh, you will be, unless you want Belle to learn the truth about your precious dagger."
"Tread carefully," he warns with a snarl, and it's just more confirmation. A part of him wishes the whole thing had been an error, that Belle had gotten it into her head to command him to do something, anything, and there would be unquestionable proof he'd put some effort into changing, do right by this woman he had bloody proposed to. He leaps off the counter and meets the crocodile head-on as he marches toward him. "I might just take your other hand."
"It's funny you say that, because my hand is exactly what I'm here about." There's a stillness on Rumpelstiltskin's face that stuns him. A cutting remark, recoiling at the memory of anything that happened on that day, perhaps even a display of violence—all those things he would have been prepared for, but to go completely still... He'd hounded him century after century and yet never actually saw him often enough to be able to read his face.
Wordlessly, the crocodile holds up a pointed finger and it directs him over to one of the lower shelves. There, among dusty mechanical things part of this realm and not the Enchanted Forest, he picks up a bulky glass jar and sets it on the counter.
Killian waits until he's strolled around the edge and is back on the other side of the counter in his proper place before stooping down to examine it. He wouldn't know it anymore, but it does match the one still attached to him. Pale and naked, it gives him an overall grotesque sensation, the illusion of it being enlarged by the shape of the glass not lost on him.
"You kept it all these years?" he murmurs, unable to say anything else. Kept among the rabble.
"Only to remind myself I should have finished the job when I had the chance," he snaps back, voice growing colder word by word.
"Can you reattach it?" he asks, eyeing the crocodile's fingers drumming the countertop.
"Indeed." A bemused smile lines across his face. "But the question is why?"
Because it's his. Because that should be enough. Because if the scheming pitiful coward truly had the decency to keep his promises to his simpering little wife, he'd have returned all these things to their rightful owners and gone into refuge on some hilltop. But he sets his jaw and closes his eyes. That's not the way to do this, he tells himself. Lie or make demands and you will most certainly come out of this empty-handed. Literally.
"I've got a date with Emma. Should things go well and she wants me to hold her," he settles on. "I want to use both hands." Now begins the ridicule.
"Oh I see blackmail brings out the romantic in you," the crocodile snarks, unable to decide if he considers the whole endeavor hilarious, pathetic, or a combination of both. "But this hand may bring out the worst."
There it is. The imp tone. The stupid hand transitions. All his silly parlor tricks to deceive his victims into believing he knows best.
"What the devil does that mean?" he scoffs.
"This hand belonged to the man you used to be, cunning, selfish pirate. If I reunite this with your body, there's no telling what influence it could have on you."
Well isn't that nice, a word of caution... He can feel his eyes starting to roll, but instead he finds himself staring at his hand, terror seizing him for a fraction of a second. If the Dark One tells you not to do a thing, it's only because he can't ensnare you afterward. And to think he almost fell for it...
"Sorry, Dark One," he laughs. "I'm not going to fall for your tricks today. Nothing can change me back." To prove his point, he starts twisting the hook off, feeling the familiar lightness that comes with removing it from the harness. "Now give me my hand, or Belle finds out exactly who she's married to, because unlike me, you haven't changed one bit. Crocodile." Never in a million years would he keep something like that from Emma, especially if she promised herself to him, but especially since he, somewhere along the line, promised himself to her without one regret since. And he won't be intimidated by the cold reptilian glare across from him.
"Very well," the Dark One whispers, waving his hand over the jar. A whooshing sound is all that registers with him, and then, suddenly, something tingles. Five tingles below his wrist elicit a shiver. He looks down at the same time he brings his hand up to him, still wet from the fluids in the jar, but it's attached. He can feel it. He can move it. True enough, it's not his sword hand or his writing hand, but already he feels more. Captain Hook doesn't feel like a lie lived a long time ago; rather it feels like foreign words flung at him from across a canyon, so garbled and nonsensical they can be ignored completely. Even the Dark One's "don't say I didn't warn you" can totally stifle his grin.
A/N: While I'm immensely grateful to Springfield Springfield's transcripts (and I do mean "immensely"), I can't help but laugh because whenever someone does something magical, the transcript says "Whoosh," even when it's at the risk of sucking the drama out of a scene, so I did reference the whooshing sound in this chapter to honor that. Coming up? Pasta, wine, and astronomy.
