Red held the tube of lipstick gingerly out in front of her, swiveling it to inspect it with wide eyes.
"This is BRILLIANT!" she exclaimed enthusiastically. "Is it magic?"
"No, of course not," Emma scoffed. "It's just some kind of drug. I've been using it for years."
"So what, as soon as there's contact, they pass out?" Red prodded, fascinated.
"That's the gist of it, but sometimes it can take a few moments for the drug to get from the lips to numb the brain. Though usually at that point the blood is flowing pretty quickly, so…"
"Emma!" Snow scolded.
"How do you think I was such a successful bail bonds woman?" Emma shrugged, tossing her jacket onto her desk. "I learned pretty early that you gotta use what you got. Blame men for being sleazy enough for it to work every time."
"I don't think that's entirely fair," Neal protested. Emma rounded on him.
"Says the man who hit on me thirty seconds after I stole the already-stolen car he was sleeping in," she retorted. Neal tried to stifle a smile. He motioned towards his lip.
"You've still got a little…" he mumbled cheekily. Emma flushed deeply, her face furious and embarrassed as she turned away from him and wiped at the bottom of her lip.
"Well I had one thing right," Charming said, standing from where he had been seated behind Emma's desk, his face reddening with embarrassment and fatherly hormones as the conversation had worn on. "I did enjoy throwing his ass in jail."
The group collectively looked up to regard to the conscious pirate lying on the cot in the prison cell of the Sherriff's station.
"Tell me I get to do the questioning," he said greedily.
"Get in line, your highness," Mr. Gold sneered. "You're not the only one who has a qualm with Hook."
"I will be doing the questioning," Emma said firmly. "Anyone who has a problem with that can just sit quietly and remember how you all voted me to be the Sherriff. And I think when he does wake, it will be better if you're not here, Gold."
"Excuse you?" Gold blinked.
"You two can't be in the same room for five seconds with each other without trying to rip one another's heads off. I'm not going to get anything out of him while you're here."
"Need I remind you what he did to me?"
"Or what you did to him?" Emma countered, catching his eye. She could feel Neal's eyes narrow curiously at the cryptic conversation. The two held tense eye contact for a moment before Gold gave in.
"Fine," he said through gritted teeth. "I'll be at the hospital." He limped gruffly out of the station.
When Hook finally stirred, there was a wall of iron bars and a group of angry-faced people standing to meet him, watching him crossly with their arms folded. Hook's clouded mind scanned them until they landed on Emma, who was smirking.
"You bitch," Hook accused, standing unsteadily.
"Watch it!" Charming barked, striding forward and pointing an aggressive finger.
"Let him call me what he wants," Emma said, her smirk not faltering. "He's the one who fell for it. Twice."
"Where's my hook?" he asked, coming right up to the bars of the cell.
"You can have it back as soon as you answer a few questions," Emma said, picking it up from her desk and twirling it tauntingly. She placed it back down and walked around the desk. "Now, how did you get back to town?"
"I'm not telling you anything until you return my hook!" Hook thundered.
"I know you're a little new here," Emma said, stepping so that she was face to face with him through the bars, "so let me explain how things work in this world. I'm the Sherriff, you're the criminal, you are behind bars, and I get to ask the questions."
"Is this like a role-playing thing?" Hook cocked an eyebrow, looking her up and down. "A bit unorthodox, but hey, I'm always up for something new."
"Let me catch you up to speed on what you've missed as you've been what I can only assume is hitch-hiking back up here from that basement I locked you in in New York," Emma said, rolling her eyes and turning away from Hook, walking towards the deputy desk. "Cora's dead."
"What?" Hook whispered in vicious disbelief.
"I killed her," Snow confirmed darkly from where she stood farther back in the room, her arms crossed.
"I didn't think you had it in you, lass," Hook admitted, his eyes falling on her.
"Well, if you hadn't brought her here on your ship in the first place, I wouldn't have had to," Snow countered bitterly, her eyes narrowed in dislike.
"It's nice to hear you call it that," Hook said. "My ship. Good to get some clarification in the presence of two people who stole it from me," he gestured to Emma and Neal, "and left me in that massive concrete forest that everyone for some reason likes to compare to a large apple. Now, if you'd let me out of this sorry prison, I could exact my revenge on the crocodile and sail the Jolly Roger on my merry way, and you would never have to see me again."
"Can't do that," Emma said.
"And why the hell not?" Hook scowled.
"Because we need the Jolly Roger."
"You can't just hijack my ship!" Hook spat.
"Actually, given the circumstances," Emma said, gesturing to the bars that separated them, "yes, I can."
"What do you want a pirate ship for anyway?"
Emma frowned and took a steadying breath, turning away from Hook so she wouldn't see the vulnerability that crept into her face every time she thought about what happened.
"I need it to find my son," she breathed quickly, though no matter how quickly she said it, she could never avoid the pang she felt when she recounted the truth of the matter.
"Henry?" he asked in a breathy disbelief. The genuine concern in his voice shocked everyone in the room. Neal tilted his head curiously, surveying Hook's strange transformation into sympathy. Emma looked up at him from over her shoulder, her face showing her devastation. "What happened to him?"
Suddenly it felt like Emma and Hook were the only two people in the room, the other's just bystanders watching a movie. Emma blinked, a bit of shame flashing through her. She may not be able to trust Hook, but there was very little doubt in her mind that he did, for some strange reason, care about her. She would have found the concept completely confusing if she didn't feel something of the same way towards him.
"Regina abducted him," Snow explained.
"Where is he?" Hook asked, but again the question was entirely meant for Emma.
"If I knew that, do you think I'd be standing here talking to a pirate instead of out getting him back?!" she bit fiercely.
"Well if you don't know where, then why do you need my ship?" Hook pestered, trying to get some of his pirate anger back, but somehow he wasn't quite anger to muster up the rage he usually could. "You don't even have anyone to captain it."
"Yes we do," Emma said simply. Hook raised his eyebrows, caught of guard.
"Who?"
"Me," Neal offered, raising a hand slightly in a condescending wave. Hook looked at Neal, then back at Emma, eyebrows raised.
"Him?"
"How do you think we got it here from New York?" Emma asked him.
"You still don't recognize me, do you?" Neal said, standing, a large smile plastered on his face. Hook regarded him fully for a long moment, first looking him up and down and then peering more deeply at his face. Recognition dawned as he took a disbelieving step back.
"Pan?!" he said darkly. Neal's smile widened.
"Hello, Hook," he taunted. "It's been a while."
"You're Peter Pan?!" Red asked, also shocked.
"I'm a lot of people," Neal explained vaguely.
"Why is he even involved?" Hook asked, turning to Emma. "Why does he have anything to do with this?"
"I'm the kid's father," Neal said. Hook's jaw dropped. He stared at Neal for a brief moment before turning to Emma.
"Oh you've got to be kidding me," Hook said, a whole new shade of surprise and disgust flooding his face. "You and Peter?"
"It was a long time ago," Emma said defensively, blushing.
"You told me that this is the guy, that he is the reason you can't trust people," Hook accused, still speaking directly to Emma. "And now you are trusting him with my ship?"
"Hey, look I care about that kid," Neal started threateningly.
"Just like you cared enough about our dear Emma here to let her go to jail for a crime you committed?" Hook snarled.
"What?!" Charming thundered, shooting from his chair.
"There was a lot more to it than that!" Neal retorted, bearing down on Hook through the bars. Emma came forward and pried him back.
"So you did or did not skip town and land her pregnant in prison?" Hook challenged.
Neal tried to advance on Hook, despite the iron bars between them. In the background, Charming was lunging for Neal, but Snow, with the combined help of Red, was able to hold him back. Simultaneously, Emma slid herself between a grappling Hook and Neal and pried them apart.
"Can we be done reminiscing on my love life?" she seethed in a loud voice, and both of the men stared harshly at each other but deigned to remain silent. "Control him, please?" Emma bid Snow, nodding to a still-furious and red-faced Charming who seemed threads away from tackling Neal.
"Not so sure I should," Snow said darkly, narrowing her eyes in Neal's direction as well. Emma rolled her eyes, her patience thinning further.
"Look, this is not a gathering to discuss the horrible decisions Emma made in her past…" she said, referring to herself in the third person.
"Hey!" Neal exclaimed, but Emma rounded on him.
"Don't push it," she barked at him. He cast her an ashamed face. "This is about Henry." she turned back to speak pointedly through the bars to Hook. "But if he's Neal's son, then you know whose grandson he is?" Hook's scowl faltered as he put the pieces of this bizarre family tree together, the answer dawning on him. Emma watched the realization flush into his face. "This is personal," she said with meaning. "This is family. Now, you're either in, or you're out."
"Wait, what?" Charming and Neal said at the same time, turning sharply to look at Emma.
"Emma," Snow started, surprise etched into her face.
"You can't seriously trust him," Neal said to her.
"I don't trust anyone," she reminded him. "But while all five of us are familiar with the Enchanted Forest, so far only one of us has ever been to Neverland. I don't like those odds. We can use all the help we can get."
"And what makes you think I'll help you?"
"You want your ship back," Emma shrugged simply. She sidled over to the deputy's desk and picked up his hook. "You want this back." Hook's rage was apparent on his face and in his heaving breath she caught his eye through the bars of the cell. "Helping us is the price you'll pay. You can go with Neal and David to Neverland to help them look for Henry, and when I say help I mean help, not betray them or run off, or I can leave you in that cell until we get back and I have time to decide what to do with you."
Everyone in the room shifted uncomfortably at the two options. Neal shot Charming a questioning look, but the glare he received back told him that Emma's father was not about to forget what he had heard about what he'd done to his daughter in a hurry.
"So think it over," Emma told Hook. "In the meantime, I have to go see a man about some beans." She made to exit the room, but when she got the doorway, Charming had caught up with her and gently grabbed her arm.
"Do you really think this is a good idea?" he asked skeptically.
"I may not trust anyone, but I do trust this," Emma explained, stopping where she stood in the open doorway. She felt the room dissolve into a whole new kind of silence, intrigued for her response. She looked first at Charming, then Neal, then Hook as she spoke. "All of you care enough about Henry and dislike each other enough to keep one another in check."
She had to smile at the open-mouthed reactions she got.
"Have fun," she smirked, turning and closing the door behind her into a stunned, resistant silence.
This turned out to be kind of a weird chapter. Oh well, hope you enjoy weird.
A chapter of almost pure fluff to follow! Snow/Emma, Snow/Charming and Emma/Neal. The night before they leave, everyone has some anxiety to vent.