AN: Here's a follow up to the last chapter. Inspiration finally struck, so it turned out longer than I meant for it to be. Enjoy!
Hush, hush, the world is quiet
Hush, hush, we both can't fight it
It's us that made this mess
Why can't you understand?
- Animal, Neon Trees
Emma Swan knows when she's being avoided.
Hook has been dodging her since they'd returned from Neverland, always rushing out of places the moment he sees Emma entering, trying to make himself scarce,
never looking her right in the eye.
And Emma knows she has no right to miss him, but she does. She misses him so much it makes her crazy, has her spending evenings sitting alone at Granny's and sulking over her hot cocoa, hoping to glimpse Hook walking by the window.
It's on one of these nights that Neal joins her, taking a seat across from her without invitation. And Emma's sure she looks put-out, glaring across the table at him,
her refusal to yet another date already resting on her lips, but when she looks up Neal's grinning that Neal grin of his-
And, well, sue her. She smiles back.
They talk for a while about nothing in particular, the diner slowly emptying around them, and Emma's about to call it a night when Neal asks her, again, to have dinner on Friday. The blue eyes she hasn't seen in so long flicker through her mind, a devilish smirk she's no longer on the receiving end of.
She says yes.
/
Neal kisses her at the door of her parent's loft, and it's exactly how it used to be, right down to the chuckle he elicits as they pull away.
He tells her goodnight and Emma watches him go, leaning against the windowsill in the hallway and trying to understand why she feels so empty. She's about to turn and go inside when her eyes land on the docks off in the distance, spotting the vague outline of the Jolly Roger.
A wave of longing fills her, and Emma has to remind herself that she has no right to miss him. Not when she'd been the one to tell him she had no space for love in her life, and not when she'd insisted upon a one time thing. And she definitely has no right to be jealous. Not when she catches Killian giving Ruby a wink as the brunette takes his order, and not when she glimpses him and Tink whispering to each other in the back hallway.
Besides, she has Neal now.
Neal, who's still the same as she remembers, Neal who had hurt her but who's so determined to fix things, always so willing, always wanting to make the broken parts of her whole-
Emma shakes herself out of those thoughts. She's working on forgiving him. Because he's Neal, who's maybe her safest option right now, and he's Henry's father, and the kid deserves to have his parents be together, and she just knows how pleased her parents would be to see her get that kind of happy ending.
/
Emma looks across the diner as the bell over the door rings. She forces down the disappointed that grips her, sudden and fierce, when it's not the pirate who enters. She returns her focus to the mug in front of her.
Neal and Henry join her later, and Emma watches them laugh, stealing food off each other's plates, talking about the day they spent together. Neal smirks up at her as Henry's in the midst of a story, and Emma returns the grin.
Safe, she thinks, familiar. It's all she had wanted while growing up. She can learn to want it again.
/
It takes four whole weeks for Emma to decide she's done playing it safe.
Neal is upset but tells her he understands, says something about missing their shot, something about being ten years too late. (He doesn't say anything else, but Emma gets the sense that Neal knows the other reason, the reason which has dark hair and an affinity for leather.)
She walks into Granny's the next morning and finds Killian nursing a coffee, his eyes glancing up at the sound of the bell and locking onto hers. Emma sees him panic, darting his gaze away and standing, but she hurries over before he can make his escape.
Emma places a hand on his arm, feather-light, but it makes Hook jump. She opens her mouth and breaks their month-long silence, putting an end to the carefully choreographed dance they'd been doing.
Killian stares wordlessly at her as Emma rambles on, his jaw clenched. After a full minute, something shifts within him. He slides back down into the seat beside her, and when he smiles, the vacancy Emma had been feeling is filled.