Beta/Edited by PeaceHeather

Chapter 4

Emma unlocks the door, slides back the wooden bolt August had installed, and sets her poker face.

"Gold. Little late for a social visit, don't you think?"

"Miss Swan. Please, forgive me for calling at such an hour, but I saw you at your window a moment ago."

Emma normally finds accents charming, if not downright sexy. Hook's, for instance, has the nasty habit of making her toes curl in her boots sometimes. Gold's accent, however, oozes. It slimes its way over her doorstep and into her apartment, and she wishes she could just shut the door in his face.

He's Henry's grandfather, she reminds herself.

"Yeah," she says, and makes a face that she hopes says thanks-for-your-concern and get-the-hell-off-my-doorstep in equal measure. "Couldn't sleep."

Gold studies her, beady little eyes taking in her messy hair, pajamas, probably the circles under her eyes. His gaze lingers on the bottle of rum still dangling from her fist. "Drinking alone, Miss Swan?"

"Nightcap," she says. "Something I learned in Florida; they call it a Cuban Screw. Spiced rum and OJ. Knocks me right out."

His eyes flick past her to the kitchen where she knows there is a single glass and a jug of orange juice sitting out on the counter. "Indeed."

"Did you want something? Or is there another reason you were lurking outside my apartment at three in the morning and watching me through my window?"

Gold gives her a smile that is not a smile. Whatever it is, it's too sharp and cold and nasty to go anywhere near pleasant.

"The pirate," he says.

Emma blinks at him. "Hook? What's he done this time?"

Gold regards her for a long moment, and Emma fights the instinct to squirm like a bug under glass. The fact that he's trying to make her squirm infuriates her. She raises an eyebrow, sets her face in stone, and waits.

"He's been snooping round my shop again. I caught him skulking on the rooftops a couple of hours ago, spyglass in hand."

Emma studies Gold the same way he studied her. There's not a scratch on him. His hair is in place, there's not even bruising around his knuckles where they lay quietly over the head of his cane. Still, she's aware that appearances with him are particularly deceiving. "So, where should I send the ambulance?"

His smile widens, and she can't help but think of Hook's name for him. He does, in fact, bear an uncanny resemblance to a crocodile. "I assure you, he was alive when I last saw him, and in mostly one piece. I merely gave him a warning. I will no longer tolerate his presence, and turnabout is fair play."

"If you want to file a restraining order, you can stop by the station in the morning," Emma says.

"Oh, that won't be necessary, dearie. You'll see to it that he steers clear of me and mine."

"You seem pretty certain of that."

Gold's smile morphs into a cheshire grin. "Oh, I am. He's dangerous, deranged, and he'll harm anyone who he thinks I might care for. You saw what he did to Belle. You think he wouldn't go after my own blood, if he thought it might hurt me? My son? My grandson?"

It's on the tip of Emma's tongue to refute that statement, because she knows, instantly and with the sort of assurance that tells her that the sun will rise in the morning, that he's lying. For some reason, Gold knows that Hook won't harm Neal or Henry. She doesn't say this, however; doesn't even let it show on her face. Instead she lets concern flicker across her features. "If I see him, I'll make sure to pass along the message."

"You do that," Gold says. He turns to leave, then spins back on one heel with far more grace than a man with a perpetual limp should possess. "Oh, and Miss Swan? You might want to take my warning to heart as well. Hook may be handsome, but he's no prince. He's only after one thing—his precious revenge. He's nothing more than a raging beast; it would be doing him a kindness to put him out of his misery."

"Takes one to know one, huh?" Emma smirks. Gold's grin slips a notch or two and his eyes narrow. "Look, it's late. I'm tired—finally. I'm gonna go have my drink and then I'm going to bed. If you want to file a restraining order, stop by the station during work hours. In the meantime, if you'll excuse me?"

"Of course. Good evening, Miss Swan." He sketches a perfunctory bow.

Emma gives in to impulse and shuts the door in his face. Then she locks it. Loudly.

Once she hears his footsteps limp down the stairs, Emma returns to the kitchen. She grabs a second glass, splashes a liberal amount of rum in both, tops them off with orange juice, and goes back upstairs.

Hook is sitting up in bed, his hand clasped to the bandages, hook snapped back in place. He's twisted slightly toward the door. Obviously, he had heard Gold downstairs.

"You moved," Emma says, then shrugs. "More rum for me. Yay."

"Apologies, darling," Hook says. His eyes dart over her quickly, as if trying to see if she is carrying Rumpelstiltskin hidden in a pocket. Not that she has any pockets in her pj's, and even if she did, Gold would be the last person she'd ever let in them.

"Did he harm you?" Hook demands in a quiet voice, full of deadly intent.

His tone brings her up short; Emma stops and stares at him. "Noooo," she says slowly. "All in one piece."

He scans her one more time, and now she thinks that maybe that's what he was checking for the first time. Somehow, that thought makes her even more nervous. She takes a sip of her drink to steady her nerves, then crosses to the bed to hand him the other glass.

She realizes, halfway there, that he'd thrown one leg out from beneath the sheets when he'd sat up. The bedclothes are bunched over his lap, but she has an unbroken view of him from his head all the way down to where the toes of his right foot are splayed slightly against the wood floor. It's almost impossible not to look when there's so much of him on display, and it takes nearly a superhuman effort to wrench her gaze back to his smirking face.

"Aren't you a little pale, for a pirate?" Emma asks. His fingers brush against hers as he takes the glass, and she can't decide which of them is actually trembling.

He winks at her. "I was a gentleman long before I was a pirate. Old habits and all that."

"Right," Emma says. If it was his hand that was shaking a moment ago, it's steady now as he takes a swig. He makes a face at the taste of the orange juice, then downs the rest of the glass in three long swallows. He holds the glass out again, as if he's ordering another round. Emma swears if the word wench pops out of his mouth, she's going to deck him. Instead she just raises an eyebrow. "Sorry, buddy. That was last call."

"Cruel," he says, and deposits the glass on the bedside table. Emma sips from hers more slowly, though she's tempted to down it much like he did. It's been a hell of a night.

"You didn't tell him I was here," Hook says.

Emma snorts. "Yeah... I just stitched you back together. Next to being forced to make a hat at gunpoint, it's the best damn sewing job of my life. Like I'm gonna let Gold come up here and ruin it."

"Hat?" Hook's face is utterly priceless. She saves that mental image to enjoy later.

"Later. Maybe. You should lay down."

"What? No bedtime story? I want to hear more about the man who pointed a gun at you. Tell me, darling, is he still alive?" Hook's tone is light, joking, but there's a razor edge of steel under it that Emma is determined to ignore.

"Bed." She sits her glass down on the nightstand and takes him by the shoulders, pushing him gently back against the pillows. He complies, swearing softly under his breath until he's comfortable once more. Without looking (much) she lifts the sheet so he can get his leg back under it, pulls the blankets back up over him and, perching on the edge of the bed, tucks him in as if he were Henry.

He detaches his hook and hands it to her. Silently, solemnly, Emma takes it. The metal is cool and smooth against her palm, the curves of it familiar. Emma lays it on the bedside table, next to her revolver.

"Thank you," Hook says, quietly. She can feel the weight of his gaze on her and it makes her uncomfortable. Gratitude, genuine actual gratitude from him, is both unexpected and somehow embarrassing.

"You're welcome." Emma, who can face a dragon or stare down Rumpelstiltskin with equanimity, suddenly finds herself unable to meet Hook's eyes. Instead she looks around for something, anything to distract her from the weight of this moment.

In his rush to grab his hook earlier, Hook had knocked over the sewing kit. Emma rights it and picks up the scattered items that had fallen out: several spools of thread, a sandwich bag full of ribbon bits, a plastic container full of pins, and a thimble. She puts everything back but the thimble; she fiddles with it, switching it restlessly from one finger to another.

Hook touches her arm, his fingers sliding slowly down the inside of her wrist, lingering slightly on the flower tattooed over her racing pulse, then across the sensitive surface of her palm. He plucks the thimble from her finger and examines it with an expression bordering on bemusement.

"I've not seen one of these in a very long time," he says.

"It's just a thimble. They stick them in sewing kits all the time, but I don't know anyone who even uses one."

"Mmmm," he murmurs, and Emma can tell he's close to sleep now, his voice a drowsy mumble. "As you say, lass."

Hook slips it onto the tip of his ring finger, where it looks incongruous compared to the heavy rings he'd retrieved when she wasn't looking. She wonders how he got them back on one-handed. He curls his hand into a fist, tucking the thimble into his palm, then settles deeper into the pillow. Emma looks around the room, trying to decide if she should go downstairs to sleep or pull up the chair.

"I appear to have stolen your bed," Hook says. His eyes are mostly shut, only the faintest hint of blue peeking from under his thick lashes.

"Yeah, I caught that," Emma says. She looks at the open window and thinks about Gold watching her through it. She thinks about Hook laying here, vulnerable, wounded. She thinks about him letting her stitch him back up, handing her his hook, and the tiny thimble tucked into his palm.

Then she notices that her drink has magically disappeared, leaving only an empty glass behind.

He smiles at her, sleepy and smug as a cat.

With a sigh, Emma gets up and closes the window, latching it tight against any intruders. She turns off the bedside table lamp, then goes around to the other side of the bed and crawls under the blanket beside him. Her bed is decently sized and there's space enough between them so that they're not touching, but she lays on top of the sheet anyway, for modesty's sake.

"What are you doing, Swan?" he asks, startled back to wakefulness.

"Trying something new," she says, curling her hands under her pillow and yawning. "Go to sleep, Jones. We'll figure the morning out in the morning."

And even though she can feel his eyes on her and the warmth of his body only a few inches away, Emma drifts easily off to sleep.