What… a… bloody… handful!

As it turns out, my eldest son (I am still grateful to Henry for actually adopting me before I legally signed him as my very own adopted son) has just experienced his first taste of heartbreak. Poor lad. He came home one day, Swan was out with our daughter getting her first medical checkup three weeks after we brought her home; I was sitting around playing with Liam. Henry let himself in with his keys and I only had to look at his face to know something was aching. In my experience, I have come to know well the difference in facial expressiveness between the pain of the heart and the pain of the body. This, I knew, pertained to the first.

But that didn't worry me half as much as the fact that the boy was actually drunk.

Now when you are in charge of a 1.9 month old babe and a teenage boy and circumstances girate in such a way that you know that YOU will be held accountable, what seems like a teenager's desperate plea for an ear and a shoulder will look to my wife as a blatant act of carelessness on my part, so I opted for making the dreaded call and informing her via cell phone that our boy was emotionally grievous… and drunk… and that I had not been the one to administer the spirits. I told her I'd handle it. She seemed content with it. Or as content as she could be expected to be, given the unfortunate circumstances.

First part of disaster, averted.

While Liam tried to sleep, Henry was lying on his bead, listening to some really horrid and loud music and trying to pretend he was alone. First time ever I heard that boy cuss and swear and it honestly broke my heart, because I know that that's not the Henry we all know.

Once Liam was sleeping, I tapped on the boy's door. As expected, I received a typical reply of an angsty, drunken teen:

"GO AWAY!"

I opened the door. "Sorry lad, I can't do that." I sat on his desk chair. "Especially since you are quite visibly inebriated and while I may not exactly be the prude you might think me as since I adopted you, I do know what the law in this realm is, with you being under the age of eighteen… not to mention your mother is the Sheriff here and she'll have both our livers for this…" I placed my hand and hook on my knees. "Now, what is the particular rationale behind this grievance of yours, lad?"

He snivelled and turned his head to me. "Did you ever get… dumped?"

"Dumped?"

He sat up erratically and I knew I'd better get a bucket soon because he would quite likely sicken any moment. "Yeah." He belched mildly before continuing. "Lil… broke up with me."

"Ah, I see…" I nodded. "Well, m'lad, I fear to tell you that it's things like those that make men out of children." I looked out the door to monitor the sleep of my other boy, who dozed blissfully in his pen, before turning back to Henry. "Any particulars?"

He began to sob and I felt instantly compeled to sit beside him and place my (hooked) arm around his shoulders. Poor lad lurched and shook and all I could do was just hold him in his wretchedness. "She said she fell for Hansel…"

"Hansel?" I enquired. "The chap with the blond sister who can't keep his candy cravings in check?"

"That…" He sniffed and raised his finger drunkenly as he nodded. "…would be the guy…" He sighed and heaved. "He's sixteen and he's a goddamned jock…"

"Oi, mind the language!" I scolded.

Yep. I was a far cry from a decent pirate now, where I banned a young man from cussing.

"Sorry…"

"So…" I nodded, still checking on Liam for good measure before turning back to the boy with the severe emotional disarray. "She thought you unfit?"

"She friendzoned me…"

"She… what?"

"She basically said…" hiccup "…that she reaaaaally, reaaaaally likes me and…" hiccup again. "…that she wants us to be friends… and then…" More sobbing. "I saw her making out with Hansel behind the track benchers!"

I winced and clucked my tounge. "Bad luck, mate… That must hurt. But trust me, I don't think you can still befriend this young lady." I shrugged. "Not after you sort of… develop feelings for her. So if I were you, m'boy, I'd make my stand, thank her for the lovely time and just… leave her be."

"Really?"

"Aye… and you'll see, boy. In time, there will be another… and maybe another after that, and each time you will swear to the heavens that she's the one and then get your heart broken accordingly… until you finally meet one girl that will indeed be the one who's meant for you." I chuckled. "Go on, Mr. Truest Believer, you know me to be speaking with the truth, here."

"All that hurt?"

I nodded. "Trust me, lad… when the right one comes, all the heartache, the waiting, the anger, the tears… will all have been a worthy wait and toil, you'll see. You just have to hang in there."

"Not sure I can."

"Oh believe me, you can." I smiled and gave him a gente pull. "You're Emma and Balefire's boy. You have it in your blood, lad."

He adressed a drunken look at me. "And yours too… don't… take yourself for granted… dad." He spoke slurredly.

I sighed and grinned, holding him. "Thank you, Henry…"

Won't lie. I swallowed tears. Still trying to keep Blackbeard out of my head. Never thought I'd have my bladder so close behind my eyes.

"Now, let's adress the issue of… your current state." I licked my lips. "Just… what particular draught have you imbibed, m'boy, and how exactly did you come by it?"

"You'll kill me…"

"No. But your mother will, if you don't tell me first."

Henry tilted slightly and I steadied him as he spoke. "I kind of… shoplifted it."

Now that shocked me. Amazing thing, this parenting business; turns you into the complete opposite of yourself. Here I am, a consumated sea pirate captain, an expert thief and rapscallion, shocked that my teenage son had shoplifted some spirits.

"You didn't…" I sneered and winced. "Bad form, Henry!"

The boy looked not only drunken and miserable, but now also contrite. I hated this.

"I'm sorry…" he wept.

I sighed. "And just what did you knick from the shops then, boy?"

He tilted his head towards his rucksack (a heavy, bulky type of satchel the young ones seem to love) and I immediately went down to collect the spirits. It was a small flask that was halfway empty already. It read Tequila (I still can't pronounce it). I smelled it and even I, a hard-drinking rum guzzler, gagged from the smell alone. One sip… and I actually coughed.

Once again, Blackbeard's laughing face came into my mind. 'They were right about you, Hook! You have gone soft!'

"Bloody hell, lad! This is bloody lamp petrol!" I exclaimed.

"That… would explain why I feel so… sick…"

I knew of this. I ran like a bat out of hell itself, grabbed a bucket from the broom closet, ran back and held it under his nose just in time. As the poor boy retched miserably, I used the same dastardly libation to rub it on the back of his head. "There, lad… just get it all out."

It was right around that time that Swan and our wee lass arrived back from her medical. Emma stormed into the room and I could tell she was about to holler bloody murder at the boy, but one look at his miserable state and she held back. She gave me a look, one of those looks that read 'Will he be ok?' all over them. I winked a serious and (much unlike my usual self) non-romantic wink at her and she nodded. She reached out with one hand (our babe was in the other) and caressed the boy's head. "You'll be ok, sweetie…" She grinned. "We're here for you."

Bless her soul for understanding. I still can't believe I'm actually in wedlock with her.

Later that night, with Liam in his pen, Liz in her bassonette and Henry already sleeping off the draught, Emma lay by my side in an awfully quiet state while I read a book. Then the sound of her voice drew me completely out of my enjoyable literature.

"I'm a bad mother…"

I turned my head to her. "Come again, Swan?"

She looked so sad, I immediately felt helpless.

"Henry… he's out getting drunk and shoplifting booze and…" she started to weep. "And I'm a bad mother…"

I placed the book on my nightsand and turned completely to her side. "What nonesense, love!"

"Nonesense?" she looked at me. "What kind of person am I where my teenage son prefers to talk to a guy who's not even his real father to me?"

For all our time together, Emma still somehow knew how to punch me below the belt, even when uncalled for. I must have looked profoundly stung (which I was), because she instanlty took both hands to her mouth. "Oh god… Killian… I'm sorry…" she cried some more. "You see? I'm a horrible person!"

I swallowed my injured pride. Much as her words had hurt, seeing her ache like this hurt even more, so I sighed and held her as she repeatedly apologized to me. "Come now, you silly girl…" I caressed her hair, a habit I had developed and had no intent to relent on. "Look, the boy is fifteen, he's been hurt… If I told you the things I was doing at his age you'd probably ask me for a courtly divorce. He's a good lad, teenage boys do this sort of thing. Don't worry too much. Let's just… take his x-box and iPad away for one month and be done with this business."

I had no idea how those dastardly contraptions operated; I just knew that they were second to sacred for the lad and that history had proven that, whether it be a wooden carved toy or an iPad, punishment was still in vogue and quite functional to amend unruly behavior.

"How can I punish him when he's hurting like that?"

"We won't be doing so for his heartbreak, Swan, he's not to blame for that… but shoplifting? THAT, we have to take into account and give the lad an idea that all actions have consecuences." I shruged. "I wish I had had someone telling me that…"

She grinned at me. "Damn you, Pirate… When did you get so wise?"

I grinned back and cleaned the tears from her face. "When I met you…" I smiled and kissed her forehead. "Come now, love, we both did our share of dereliction in our youth, and compared to us, our boy really is quite a saint! Tell me of any teen child who isn't angry for whatever reason. He's a fine boy, just turning into a man, he's bound to have bouts of insubordination… That does not mean you're a bad mother, Swan, what sort of nonsensical talk is that, love?"

She looked at me and sniffed. "You think so?"

"Aye… I do."

She smiled. "I don't deserve you…"

I rolled my eyes. "No… you deserve even better, but alas, you're stuck with me." She giggled (did I ever say I adore her giggle?) and I kissed her nose. "Now, enough with this foolishness, my love, you'll waken the babes…"

She grinned, nodded, told me she loved me and settled for sleep.

Blisfully lucky man….

One week later.

Liam is now able to walk and talk and can actually ask for specific things. I find it rather amusing to hear him say 'Izzy'. That's what he calls his little sister. Henry he calls 'Enny' and is quite articulate with 'daddy' and 'mamma'. Then there's 'hup!' when he wants to be held, 'nown' when he wants to be placed back on the ground, 'kew' for thank you, 'beez' for please, and has some rather interesting and odd words of his own to describe the things he likes, for instance, there's his favorite plush toy (a bloody crocodile, a gift from Mr. Gold, cheeky old bastard), which he calls 'booby' (he must really be his father's son, to have picked that word!). When he feels hungry, he says something like 'kimbo'. It took Emma and I quite a while to gather that kimbo means food. Or he also says something like 'nana!' when he definitely does not want something. So we've all become quite adept at understanding Liamish. We could be faced with a rather complex sentence, such as 'mamma booby beez' (Mother, can I have my plush crocodile, please?), or 'Izzy hup nana!' (Don't hold Elizabeth! That's how we could tell he was a tad jealous of his sister).

I honestly don't know where he gets it all from, I swear. But he is quite articulate and once we got the overall abstarction of his lingo, it was rather easy to establish a primitive line of communication with the little lad.

Then there's his magic. He still has no bloody clue that he has it and we have had to deal with having our food knocked over our laps, the picture screen switching signals, cups and plates flying around… it's almost like living in a bloody haunted house. But still, we know he means no harm. The babe has no clue it is he who is doing these misdeeds. Once he actually pulled the rug from under my feet and I went crashing back, hit my head on the mantelpiece and had to get three stitches as a result. Still, I have infinite patience with the wee boy who trully has no idea he injured his oblivious father, whom he really looks like by the way. Bloody handsome little bugger! Ha!

As for my princess, well, she must have ingerited her grandsmother's mellow temperament. She's but a month old. She loves being held, hardly ever cries (whimpers, rather), eats and sleeps like a gift from the gods and looks like an angel; her countenance is rather like Snow's and Emma's. She has Swan's Golden locks and (even now I can tell) her cheeks and nose, but the eyes rather look like Mary Margaret's and so does her incredily red little mouth, not to mention her unbelievable whiteness, which is quite her grandmother's main trait. And she is every bit the royal (not counting her Jones bloodline which, alas, I still have to confess is as royal as a packet of gravel). She does have a proclivity for being held by me. She would. Every little lass will always adore her father and that, I must say, makes my heart palpitate with tenderness.

What a trip this life of mine has been.

No one shall ever read this bloody book or the whole town will know Captain Hook is a soft man with a warm spot for babes. But truly, my family, my wife and every friend I've conjured in this town is worth every drop of blood, sweat and every tear shed in my past. I'd give up the Jolly Roger a thousand times over, if it meant I'd be where I stand today.