part iii - i've waited here forever for you (i carry it in my heart)
She stirs her hot chocolate until all the whipped cream is nothing more than a misshapen swirl in her cup. She does not want to admit to the metaphor that is staring her in the face but then Ruby comes by, eyes flicking to the empty space across from Emma, and asks, not unkindly, "Not coming again today?"
Emma just shakes her head as Ruby clears the extra set of unused utensils and plates. He's busy, of course. He has a daughter to look after, adoption papers to fill, school meetings, and no one else to help, unlike Emma who has an entire town to look after Henry.
She's thinking so hard about his absence that she is startled when he slides in across from her. He has a shit-eating grin stretching across his face.
"What did you do?" she demands to cover up the rush of feelings that trembles through her.
"Nothing," he says in a way that means 'everything'.
She tells him so, with narrowed eyes, but he just chuckles. She realizes she hasn't seen him so light hearted in a long time (and perhaps never in such a genuine way) so she forgets the pretense and simply allows herself to enjoy the sight of it.
"Regina has been downright stubborn about meeting our mutual friend, Robin of Locksley. I can't rightly say I understand her hesitancy - Tink says there's history there, before last year - but Robin knows naught of it, only knows of Regina as the Evil Queen and has no interest in crossing paths with her." Hook sighs dramatically. "Neither of them could be convinced this is for the greater good."
"So why are you so happy?" Emma leans forward, pulled in by his mischievousness.
"Because I'm a pirate." He also leans in and drops his voice, like he's going to tell her a schoolyard secret. "And I know how to get things done. These two wayward hearts will not be parted for much longer."
"Wayward hearts? Wait, are you matchmaking?" Emma has to sit back to process what Hook has been doing away from her.
"I wouldn't call it something as banal as that," he scoffs. "You make me sound like a meddling old hag with nothing better to do."
His smiles winsomely and his tone changes.
"What you really mean is I've been aligning the stars, changing the cosmos, bringing True Love together," he says in a playful sing-song voice.
"It's matchmaking," she counters but she's fighting a grin.
"It does have a higher purpose, Swan. We need to reconnect those who have been separated by the Curse. Whoever did this understands the strength of familial and non-familial bonds. By dividing us up, they mean to weaken us. We will not be defeated," he says as he reaches up to grasp onto the locket he still wears, his reminder of what he is fighting for, what he is protecting.
Before Emma can respond to Hook's impassioned speech, Robin ambles into Granny's diner, looking around until he finds the pirate who waves him over with his namesake.
Emma rolls her eyes. She can tell what's about to happen from a mile away. "He's not suspicious at all?" Emma asks, arching her brow.
"For a thief, he's quite trusting," Hook smiles.
Robin is almost at their table when the bell over the diner door chimes again and Wendy is pulling Regina in, loudly thanking her for walking her to Granny's. Robin turns, Regina looks up, and they remember.
Hook smiles smugly as Wendy slides into the booth next to him. She clasps his hand which still holds the locket before pulling back so they can share a firm handshake and exchange formal nods for a job well done.
"You're going to make a pirate out of her," Emma muses as she takes in the nearly identical grins on Hook's and Wendy's faces.
"I am a pirate," Wendy declares proudly as she looks steadily at Emma. Emma can't help but think she is being studied.
Later, when Hooks heads over to the counter to pay for their meal, Wendy says without any preamble, "If you break his heart, you will have to deal with me."
Emma decides she needs to ask if Wendy has always had this much sass or if she picked it up from Hook, but she thinks she already knows the answer.
It is a slow process piecing everything together but as it turns out Hook's matchmaking has served a higher purpose (as he likes to remind her with a waggle of his eyebrows). Regina and Robin remember teaming together against Regina's half-sister, one of dwarves apparently had quite the love affair with an apothecarist forced to supply Zelena with powerful herbs and a number of people now recall personal encounters with flying monkeys.
"But what could she possibly want?" Emma sighs as she slides into the booth at Granny's.
Hook and Wendy sit across from her. It has become so habitual Emma could almost imagine this happening every day - on normal, non-green witch hunting days - as though mealtimes are reserved for their get-togethers, the way families do it. But they are not a family. Hook and Wendy are family. And Henry is not with them because he does not remember. They have no talisman to bring him back, no known triggers for his memory. And part of her thinks maybe Henry shouldn't remember, shouldn't be here.
Wendy eyes her for a moment as though she can read Emma's thoughts. Emma taps down her desire to run. Not just from Wendy's stare but from the whole damn town. Because that's not what Henry would have wanted her to do. That's why she came back in the first place. Nothing at all to do with a blue-eyed pirate of course. Who also doesn't know how to give up, who wouldn't run but fights every day of his centuries-long life. And when has she started looking at him as her own personal hero anyway?
"How come you're not exhausted too?" Emma says as she slouches in her seat. She's tired of denying herself, tired of not finding answers; she just wants to kick some ass and call it a day, but Zelena isn't coming out to play.
Hook merely blinks at her. "How can I be exhausted when there is so much here to protect?"
Emma rolls her eyes even as her heart clenches a bit. Stupid pirate and his stupid grand declarations.
He lifts his coffee mug. "And this magical beverage."
"Aye, aye," she says and taps his mug with hers.
The corners of his mouth lift up and she can't help but stare a little too long.
"I'm not tired either," Wendy adds unhelpfully.
Emma takes a long drink of her coffee before sighing, "It just feels like we've been running in circles."
"We're not. No one builds an army in one night, love. As each person remembers, we gain an ally and just as important, we gain information. Someone knows what she is after."
"How do you even know what to look for?" Emma asks curiously. Hook's been doing most of the matchmaking really. She's just been along for the ride. They'd be walking along the docks, Wendy's hand around her father's namesake, Emma trying not to stare too much, when Hook will suddenly beeline to an unsuspecting Storybrooke citizen and declare them found. It's like magic.
But apparently not for Hook whose hand goes to the ever present locket. It's hard to imagine him without it now. "I just look for people who look like they are missing something. I have quite the eye for this sort of thing."
"You do. You find the lost," she says. And of course, she is thinking of herself.
It's the day after. The day after it is all over, after everyone's memories have been returned and Zelena is finally gone. Ding dong and all. She should feel elated, relieved - and she is - but there's a part of her that is anxious too, because now the fight is over, what else is too?
It's dark when she looks in on Henry, finds him snug in his bed at the loft, storybook open, close to him. She kisses his head - she is so lucky to have such a great kid - puts on her coat and heads out.
Dawn is just breaking the horizon when she reaches the docks and for a moment, she thinks she should turn back around. This is the first time she has come looking for Hook. She takes a half step back - she can wait at Granny's - but no, she can't. It is too many hours before their usual lunchtime meeting. She can't bear him not showing up.
Like the sailor that he is, he's awake, and pouring oats into a bowl.
"That's too healthy," she remarks.
"Aye, that's Wendy's fault," he says, nodding to the girl who has just wandered into the galley barefooted.
Wendy looks at her curiously - it's the least challenging look she's given Emma so far. Emma doesn't actually mind Wendy's hard looks so much anymore - at first, she was mildly offended, maybe even a little scared of the challenge issuing from her brown eyes, but now she's come to appreciate that someone else takes Hook's interest to heart.
"To what do I owe the pleasure, Swan?"
The silence stretches - it is both too long and not long enough. Hook pulls out a chair for her, the scraping of the chair against the ship's planks somehow leading her to blurt out, "I didn't know if you were coming to lunch today."
"We always come."
She wants to point out there was three days - three days - when he did not come. But it seems pretty petty to point that out when it was just after he was reunited with Wendy.
"But things are different now."
"Aye, we're not fighting a crazed villain this time. Most people enjoy that, Swan. I'll even venture to say that lunch meetings are better that way."
She nods. He nods back. Wendy starts eating her oatmeal.
"Henry will be there."
"Good," he says. "We'll be complete."
Is he real? she faintly wonders. She finds herself dropping in the seat he has pulled out for her, her knees knocking against his under the table, but she does not move.
"How did you know to come for me when you came back to Storybrooke?" she ends up bursting out...without preamble.
"What else would I do? You deserved to be with the ones you loved."
"So you just knew?"
"Knew I had to come save you? Yes. The Curse didn't make me forget you."
"Good," she breathes out. "If it had, you wouldn't have been able to come for me."
"Well I don't know about that." Hook holds the locket against his heart.
"You have something to remember me by?" she asks, surprised. She hasn't given him anything, certainly nothing like the locket Wendy had given him, has barely even given him hope. She had been so fearful of the unknown, of the meaning of the locket, of the year lost, that she lost sight of what was right in front of her this entire time.
She can't help herself when she asks, "And what do you have to remember me?" She catches Wendy looking up from her cereal.
Hook grins the way he did before she kissed him in Neverland - boyish, cocky, challenging. Her heart skips a beat.
"I did not have an object to remember you by but I wanted to be sure I would never forget you. I couldn't remember getting it when I first sought you out, but I knew," he says to her. He uses his hook to move the vee of his shirt aside and she sees, tattooed on his chest, right above his heart, coordinates written in a simple elegant script. "I knew these were for you."
"How? What are the coordinates for?"
"The Swan constellation."
"You were always the sentimental kind," she says in awe as she reaches out with a finger to trace the tattoo. "So I'll always be there," she says as she lays her palm flat against his chest, over the coordinates.
"So you'll always be there," Hook agrees. "So I'll always know where my heart is, so I'll always carry you in my heart."
Because he always has to add something to outdo her. But she knows how to best him. She winks at Wendy who is rolling her eyes behind her father's back before she pulls Hook in by his shirt for a kiss.
"Aren't you going to give me something to remember you by?" she teases him.
Hook gives her a grin that is all pirate. "Oh, I plan on it."
"Good. Because I want to carry it always."
As much as she loves the engagement ring he gives her, she cherishes her wedding band even more because it matches the one he wears on his locket.
-Fin-