A/N: Back again, you wonderful people! Thank you so much to all the people who have favorited, alerted, and reviewed this little work of mine. I'm really thrilled to have received such a warm welcome into this new fandom! It's been a blast getting into the heads of these characters, and I'm really glad that you're all enjoying this so much.

As usual, emlovesyouu worked wonders getting this update ready for your eyes. I don't own the show, characters, plot, setting, or dialog, even though I do borrow them. Any resemblance to any real people, places, or events is entirely coincidental.

Enjoy!

Chapter 5

In every heart there is a room
A sanctuary safe and strong…

19 October 2014

With a groan, Emma rolled over and shut off the incessant high-pitched beeping coming from her cell phone. She flopped back over on her mattress and cursed her forgetfulness. Her one day off for the entire week and she'd left her alarm on to drag her back to the land of the living. Going back to sleep wasn't even an option; ever since she was a little girl, she'd never been able to go back to sleep once woken. Crowded group homes meant being first in line for breakfast if she wanted to eat at all. Food was even harder to come by when she was on the streets. There was wisdom in the whole 'early bird' saying.

But she didn't have to get up early to eat anymore. She had her own kitchen and a reasonably-stocked fridge. There was no reason to rush downstairs. Her subconscious refused to forget those old habits, ingrained over many hungry mornings. Anorexia wasn't a concern when daily caloric guidelines were a pipe dream anyway.

Emma sat up, remembering that Henry usually appreciated a hot breakfast. Just as soon, the weight of that realization drove her back against the mattress. Henry wasn't living there with her. She was on her own. Alone.

It left the same bitter aftertaste in her mouth that it always did, intensified by the recent time she'd had with people. Not just foster siblings, but actual family. Once an impossible dream, she had lived it for a few short months with her parents and Henry. Now she was out of the loft and away from hourly screaming fests and parents that were actually younger than she was.

She was also without the first person she ever considered giving the title 'best friend' since Lily's betrayal. Her own betrayal, however accidental, led directly to Regina's decision to end their friendship. As Emma stared at the cracked plaster in her bedroom ceiling, she began to understand that forgiveness from Regina would be much more complicated than allowing Henry to move back home again.

Regina had cut off all ties, Henry was gone, and her parents were treating her like a younger sibling as they raised their new baby, their new Prince. Still, there was one person who had demonstrated his desire for her over and over. It may not have been what she wanted at the time, but as Emma rolled over and reached for her phone, she started to wonder if she hadn't been wrong when she turned down Hook's desire to spend time together.

She grabbed for her phone, found the number in her contacts, and called him.

After four rings, she got his attempt at a voice mail message. When she'd helped him set it up, she'd almost snorted up a lung from laughing so hard, and even in her intensifying gloom it still brought a curl to her lips.

"Um, hello? I don't really understand this whole concept, but my lovely lass here says I'm supposed to say that I can't answer your call, so if you leave something called a message, she'll help me check it and I'll return your call when I can. Swan, are you sure this is what I'm supposed to say? I can't bloody well make heads or tails of this technical wizardry. Someone will record their own voice and I'll be able to hear it later? Are you sure this isn't dark magic?"

The message cut off to the sound of her higher-pitched giggles over his deeper-toned confusion.

He hadn't answered.

Pursing her lips, Emma fell back once more to the mattress. Hook had only gotten his phone mere weeks before, but he had never failed to answer a call from her, especially once she set up a custom ringtone that would tell him when she was trying to reach him.

She closed her eyes, trying to stave off her loneliness. When she opened them again, she was back in middle school. Sixth grade, from the look of the place. It was the slightly dingier school in Wisconsin she'd gone to before running away and ending up in a well-run, clean group home in Minnesota.

She was seated in the dimly-lit cafeteria, trying to avoid anyone's eye contact. It was a square room with its only two doors on one side, leaving three unbroken walls boxing the children in. Most of the 'cool' kids took the back corners immediately, so she was left at the front table with her back to the rest of the cafeteria. Normally it would have been the worst place for someone trying to hide from attention, but distance from the more popular cliques meant she almost always had the entire table to herself.

One day, she was reading the assignment from her next class while making the tub of cottage cheese – which was all she could afford from her meager lunch money – stretch out for the entire lunch period when she heard a cough. Looking up, Emma saw a boy she recognized from most of her classes standing directly in front of her. "Um, hi," he muttered, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other.

"Hi," Emma replied, just as uneasy at the interaction.

"Is it okay if I sit here, too?" he asked.

"It's not my lunchroom. Do whatever you want," she retorted, feeling only a little pang of guilt at the rudeness.

He gulped, but set his overflowing tray – which she only then saw was actually the top of two trays stacked together – on the table across from her and sat down. "Hi," he repeated after clearing his throat.

"Hi," she again responded, "You said that already."

"Sorry. I'm Landon. Landon Decker. I sit near you in our English class," he introduced.

The name clicked. She tried not to pay attention to her classmates, but his was a name she'd heard the teacher calling. "Emma Swan," she answered in a voice so quiet she honestly wasn't sure if he heard her.

"I know who you are," Landon said, smiling, "so, ah, here's the thing. I've noticed you in here sometimes, and you usually don't have a ton to eat. You're almost always here by yourself, and I've never seen you with parents at any school events. I had some extra lunch money from my mom today, so I was just wondering…would it be okay if I could buy your lunch today?"

Emma turned wide eyes up, looking at him directly for the first time. Her mouth hung open, unable to form coherent thoughts at his offer. Flushing, the boy quickly got to work unstacking his trays and dividing the food, which she noticed was actually two separate lunch portions. Dumbfounded at the boy's kindness, Emma could only nod her head and choke out a strained, "thank you," in whisper.

His ear-to-ear grin did funny things to her stomach, but with the smell of the food it was already rumbling too loud for her to look too deeply into her reactions.

It became a sort of routine for then. Landon would show up after she'd already been sitting for a few moments, tray loaded down with far too much food for one person, make a clumsy excuse that he'd just bought too much, and she'd accept his offer of sharing. They spent many lunch periods that way, learning about each other as they broke bread. She noticed him in class more frequently, too, and they were even lucky enough to be partnered up on class projects.

Then it happened. He had just gotten to her table one day when a group of boys two years older than they approached him from behind. Teasing him about eating lunch every day with his girlfriend, who was one of the 'foster rats', they riled him up, challenging him to deny their budding friendship.

Landon wasn't strong enough to resist that kind of peer pressure. She looked at him with liquid eyes and fought to control the wobble in her voice as she asked him to ignore them and sit down as usual.

Face as red as a lobster as the rest of the cafeteria took notice of the confrontation, her one and only friend in the entire school only shook his head. "Sorry, Emma. You're on your own from now on."

Too shocked to allow her tears to fall, Emma barely registered the sound of his footsteps fading away behind her as the kids from nearby tables jeered. Stomach roiling, she threw the remnants of her lunch into the trash can and bolted from the cafeteria.

She skipped out the rest of the week.

When she came back, all was as it was before. She was alone.

Emma shook her head, clearing her mind of that horrible experience and blinking away tears that welled up at the fresh opening of old scars. Without another thought, she reached for her phone and called Hook again.

Still no answer.

The day stretched out before her, a blank slate upon which she could write any experience she wished, with no one to argue.

It sucked.

She could just get up, get over herself, and get over to Hook's new ship. It would be giving in to his pestering in a way, but it would also provide some companionship and distraction from the emptiness that was her new life.

She could do what her heart had urged on and off throughout her time in Storybrooke and run. Getting in her Bug and not stopping until she ran out of gas was an option that was more or less attractive depending on whatever else was going on in her life. She'd be leaving her entire new life behind forever, though. If she ran now, there was no coming back. Her parents would probably be upset with her if they noticed the sudden lack of babysitting options. Henry would most likely never forgive her, but with his new life back in the home where he grew up and with the mother who raised him instead of the one who gave up on him, he might be better off. Happier, even. Regina set up her life extremely well in Storybrooke, and could provide so much more for a child than a small-town sheriff that it wasn't even funny. Still, Henry would miss her. That much she did know. He did go all the way to Boston to find her. That was when he was beginning to think Regina was the Evil Queen. Now that he knew her back story, and why she did a lot of what she did, he seemed to be more or less okay with who she had been before Storybrooke. It was his idea to move back to help her rebound after Robin and Marian left, after all.

Regina.

Regina would probably laugh, call it her genetic idiocy, and say good riddance. That's what she'd been wanting from the start, wasn't it?

Emma huffed as she shook her head free of those doubts. No matter if Regina had wanted her gone early on, they had formed a friendship after Neverland, strengthened by Regina's own desire to reform and Emma's desire to learn magic from her. Sharing Henry was a perfect icebreaker for that. Regina, if she ever got around to forgiving her, would probably miss her a little, too.

So, running was out.

Damn it all.

With Hook not answering and no one else around she could spend time with, Emma thought again of the school memory she'd just relived. It was just the latest in a line of many such memories that had been flashing across her mind recently. One or two were by no means unusual, but for her to remember so many truly awful experiences in such a short time frame was out of the ordinary.

Maybe her mind had given up on the magic thing and was trying to torture her.

She snorted at the thought.

"Okay, I have got to get the hell out of this apartment," she said aloud, voice still raspy from sleep.

To the docks it was, then. After all, Hook had been pursuing her since the Enchanted Forest, and seemed to rededicate himself after Neverland.

He chose her, right?

Emma's last thought as she headed out her door after showering and dressing in a form-fitting tee shirt and tight black jeans was that this may be the first time she was ever anyone's first choice.

Emma strode down the docks with a purposeful swing in her stride. Normally the salty breeze cleared her mind, but the attempt was in vain this time. Too many whispers swirled in her head, fed by too much silence that didn't let her drown it out.

Avoiding Hook for as long as she had was juvenile. She'd been so intent on figuring things out with Regina and then figuratively running herself into the ground that Hook, and by extension whatever their nascent relationship could be called, fell by the wayside. It was time to fix that. Three failed attempts to reach him by phone that morning led her to try and approach him at the docks. He was probably still having trouble working his smart phone, she reasoned.

Her boots clumped along the wooden docks in time with her beating heart. Emma knew she wasn't the best at confronting her feelings, but the four years she'd been in Storybrooke were also the longest she'd ever spent in a single place. She started listing her reasons for going to Hook aloud, complete with hand gestures for emphasis, to convince herself it was the right time to recommit to her relationship with the pirate as she paced the dock.

"Everything changes, right? You can do this, Emma. Nothing to be afraid of here. He's your sort-of-kind-of-maybe boyfriend. Just go apologize, ask for forgiveness, and promise to make him more of a priority. He's the only person who actually wants to spend time with you. He chose you. Let him know he made the right choice."

"Emma? Is everything all right?"

She stopped cold at the gentle voice calling out from behind her. She felt a surge of humiliation washing around her like the waves below the boards, making her neck run warm with embarrassment at having a witness to her ramblings.

"Hi, Archie," she tried not to groan. Of all the people to see her talking to herself, it had to be the town shrink. "Yeah, I'm okay. Just trying to work something out in my head."

"Anything I can help the Savior with?" A kind, understanding smile broke across his face as he shifted Pongo's leash from his right hand to his left and approached her.

She returned his smile with a sheepish expression. "Oh, no thanks Archie. It's nothing serious."

The psychologist approached, restraining Pongo from jumping up on her. "You looked upset a minute ago. Are you sure there isn't anything you want to get off your chest?"

With a glance at her feet to buy herself time to get her thoughts in order, Emma met his gaze. There was no way she would be willing to bare her soul to a shrink, even one as nice as Archie. Years of mandatory sessions with apathetic counselors telling her exactly what they thought was wrong with her during her foster care stays left her critical of the entire profession. "Yeah, I am. Right now I think I need to work this out on my own."

"Well, if you ever decide that you want a shoulder to lean on, you know where to find me. My door is always open to Storybrooke's hero," he reminded her.

"I appreciate it," Emma acknowledged.

With a nod and a wave, he and Pongo ambled off, leaving Emma to her thoughts once more.

"Great! Now he probably thinks I'm crazy," she groaned to herself when she was out of earshot. "Whatever. I'll deal with that later."

Wasting no more time for another of Storybrooke's citizens to see her talking to herself, Emma turned on her heel and marched toward Hook's new ship.

Free of doubts and prying eyes, Emma had Hook's new ship in her sights. Tied up at Storybrooke's surprisingly adequate deep water pier – she spared a brief thought at how much consideration Regina really had put into this town to include a fantastic harbor – Hook's new ship bobbed with the low chop rolling in from the sea. She hadn't seen the vessel yet, and she took the chance to look her over as she approached. She was no Jolly Roger, for sure. About thirty feet long, the ship was painted a deep green with white trim. A small bridge area sat towards her bow, protected from the elements with a structure and windows, but there looked to be ample room for Hook's quarters below. There was some kind of structure or rigging just aft of the bridge. That was the extent of Emma's seafaring knowledge, gleaned from both a bail jumper that had a boat and from what she remembered Hook teaching her on their way to Neverland.

She wasn't exactly a pirate's ship, but a new start, perhaps.

A new start for them both.

Not alone. I won't be alone.

As she got closer, Emma noticed the elaborate letters painted across her stern identifying the boat as the Swan's Song.

He named his new ship after her. Warmth shot through her and settled in her stomach. Of course he was most likely unaware of the real meaning of that phrase in this world, but the thought behind the gesture meant more than the phrase.

Emboldened, Emma increased her pace, noting with the low waves the way the ship bumped against the pier and making sure to step carefully when she boarded. Once aboard, she slipped her boots off, intending her presence to be a surprise. The boat was not overly large, so it was easy to see from one end to the other. Not spying her pirate anywhere above deck, she decided to go below.

Making her way down a small ladder, she noted the knocking getting louder, with a sinking feeling starting in her stomach. Telling herself that it was just that she was closer to the boat bumping into the pier, Emma shrugged it off and made her way to what had to be the captain's quarters.

The door was locked, and in the quiet of the rest of the ship she heard noises from within. High pitched squeaks and lower groans assaulted her ears, daring her mind to picture what – or who – the pirate was currently doing. With a wince, she felt her stomach clench as the sense of dread intensified. This can't be what it looks like. No, not Hook. Not him too. He wouldn't do this to me, would he? Who in this town would do this to me with him? Do they really hate me that much?

Calling her magic forward, Emma forced her mind to quiet, remembering the lessons Regina had taught her. She envisioned the bolts in the lock sliding into place and the mechanism releasing. The audible click told her it worked, but it was probably the least satisfied she had ever felt after a successful magic exercise.

Upon entering the room her face twisted into a pained grimace at the full profile view. Tinker Bell's dirty blonde locks bounced in time with the rest of her body as she rode Hook, whose one good hand was currently busy with one of Tink's bells.

Her reaction surprised even her. Instead of the red-hot rage that should have engulfed her, she barked out a humorless laugh. "Nice," she shot, "So this is why you couldn't be bothered to answer your phone this morning?"

In the abstract, the image of the two of them, freezing mid-thrust with jaws identically agape, was probably one of the funniest things she'd ever seen. "Oh, don't bother getting up. I know you're not the only one to blame here, Killian. I wasn't exactly giving this relationship my all, either. For a long time it's felt like just something I was supposed to do, not something I wanted to do for myself."

Tink hadn't made any effort to cover herself, and just sat where she was. Hook's mouth was opening and closing like a goldfish by this point. "Swan," he croaked in a weak protest.

"Don't," Emma interrupted, cutting him off with a raised hand, "My heart hasn't really been in this…"

"Let me explain," Hook tried, struggling to shift his weight out from underneath Tinkerbelle, who was determined not to move.

"No, no, stay where you are. In a way, this is the best thing that could have happened. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm still incredibly pissed, feeling really betrayed, and if you approach me in the street I can't promise Little Hook will escape the encounter undamaged, but really, this is a good thing. Don't worry about me anymore."

Hook succeeded in pushing the fairy off him this time, and fumbled to his feet, trying to find his clothes at the same time. "This is all a big misunderstanding," he sputtered.

Emma didn't even try to choke back her laugh. "In what way is this a misunderstanding? I was distant, you cheated. It's not exactly unheard of."

He closed his mouth and nodded, regret and relief warring for dominance in his expression. "I am sorry, Swan. Nothing I can do to change your mind?"

"No, there isn't, and I'm sorry too," she nodded, "Oh, and Tink? He really likes it when you swirl your tongue around his…"

"Get out!" the fairy shouted, trying to decide between embarrassment and laughter.

Emma gave another wry chuckle and turned to leave. The whispers in her mind grew louder with each step she took, not quite slamming the door behind her. Ignoring the creaking and bouncing sounds resume behind her, Emma almost ran up the rickety stairs, carrying her boots with her the whole way. She didn't stop to put them on until she was on solid ground.

Not good enough. Never enough for anyone. Always second choice.

Finally done with the two, Emma strode back to her bug.

All her previous restraint fled at this latest betrayal. With no obligations or responsibilities weighing her down, there was only one place to go.

A/N: I've never been Hook's biggest fan. I could easily have seen this happening. Poor Emma.

I should say I do like Emma as a character, this story was more about getting into her head, seeing what she thought of things that were going on around her, and then pushing her a little bit farther than the show did to see what she'd do.

Thoughts?