"Before anyone gets out of the car," Emma said as she slid into what was probably the only free parking spot on the entire eastern half of Boston. (Nice to see she hadn't lost her touch.) "What are the rules?"
Four huffs answered her.
"Really Emma," Mary Margaret said from shotgun, "we've been shopping before."
"I haven't." Hook raised his prosthetic and caught Emma smiling at him in the rearview mirror.
"None of you have been in a city like this before. Except Henry. So that makes us the adults."
"Sweet!" Henry said. He would have cheered, but for the lack of room. He sat in the back, squished between grandfather and pirate. He was having a great time.
"But I'm still in charge," Emma said, catching Henry's wild smile in the mirror and struggling not to reciprocate. "Now, rules."
Henry sighed. "No touching stuff."
"No wandering off," David said.
"No gawking," Mary Margaret said.
Emma looked at Hook in the mirror. His smile was all teeth and eyebrows.
"No indecent remarks."
"Yeah, especially you, buddy. Don't think I'm taking my eyes off you for a second."
Hook stared back at her, eyebrows doing something dangerous. He didn't have to say it because they were both thinking it.
"I would despair if you did."
Dang it, even in her head his voice had a lilt.
Whatever.
Having sufficiently leveled her threats, Emma unlocked the doors. Henry's enthusiasm was contagious; they practically tripped on each other getting out. Mary Margaret and David led the way out of the parking garage with Henry running in circles behind them.
Hook lingered beside the car. He held his fake hand in his good one but studied the hook lying on the seat. Bloody thing.
Emma came up behind him. "I thought you had decided."
"Changed my mind." He attached his fake hand with the enthusiasm he felt back in the days when he ate spoiled stew at the taverns just to get a free meal. He looked over his shoulder at the retreating forms of her parents. His eyes lingered on their hands. "I wish to fit in."
Why he wished it, he hadn't the foggiest. Three hundred years of roaming free never bothered him. His home was the ship he sailed on. His was the horizon and the sky and creatures of the depths. At times, he had a crew, and at others, he sailed alone. So be it. Liam died, and he took with him the only thing Hook had worth caring for. Milah was a resurgence, a taste of hope that things could matter again, but she was taken away before they'd fully begun.
So here he stood, lifetimes later, in a strange city of metal carriages and blinking lights, feeling that dangerous tug inside his chest to care again. Last week Emma had given him a resting place for Liam and Milah. He'd been drunk on her smiles before, and he was just drunk on her afterwards. But the moments ended and in the evenings, it was still a pirate looking back in him from the mirror.
He'd been a pirate longer than he'd been anything else. But what if he had to give that up to make the moments last? He had nothing left to be.
What else have I?
Hook shut the car door, loathing the wooden hand clipped to the end of his brace. He would do this. He would walk out into that crowd of chattering, nattering people and let Swan change him, and maybe, just maybe, he would recognize the man when she was done. Maybe it was for the best. Maybe it was time for Captain Hook to die, as well.
To Hook's surprise, Emma hadn't moved. He couldn't pass her in the narrow space between the two metal carriages. She studied him with her Thinking Frown—that's what he called it, privately—and Hook couldn't help resenting the feeling of being reduced to one of her projects. He was a responsibility to her, right now. Someone who needed saved.
Hook fidgeted in place. "Shall we go?"
Emma opened the door. When she picked up his hook and held it out to him, in broad daylight for all the bloody world to see, Hook pushed her arm back down.
"Swan, don't," he warned her. He glanced around their surroundings. For all the metal carriages in the metal-carriage-castle, there was no one around.
"Look at me."
Emma's eyes caught his and wouldn't let them go.
"You will fit in here."
"Yes, I'm certain you'll be thorough." Hook tried to push past her.
"The real you."
Hook snickered. "Yes. The real me. Are you going to define that for me, as well? I hope you wrote it down, love, because it shall take some practice to remember my lines straight, but I promise, I'll do my best. Perhaps you'll be good enough to show me where I should sit when told, and what I ought to think, and how I should speak. I don't want to disappoint you, Swan, so just tell me how to be a good little project and I'll oblige my savior."
He regretted it once it left his mouth, but confound it all, he was just so tired.
Emma swallowed. She shut the metal door without making a sound. She looked down at her shoes for a long time. Hook thought she was crying, so when she looked up with eyes burning like coals, he almost jumped.
"If you think," she whispered in a voice that could cut a man apart, "I am focused on anything less than your best interests, you've been living in your self-pity so long it's blinded you."
Hook opened his mouth, but Emma went on.
"Everything I've done has been about healing you." Her eyes were still flashing, but now he did see the tears behind them. "I'm not asking you to shut away your pain and pretend to be something you're not. I'm asking you to give me your pain, because somebody around here deserves a happy ending, and so help me, that somebody is going to be you."
Hook's mouth went so dry he almost couldn't part his lips. "Emma—"
"I'm not finished," she hissed. "And if you think that doesn't hurt," Emma swallowed again and shook her head, "you're wrong. We're the same, you and I. An echo. I feel your losses and suddenly mine are back, and I'm twelve years old all over again. But I can take it—I will take it—if that's what it takes to save you."
Hook felt about two inches tall.
"So no, I don't care what you wear, you stupid pirate." Emma held out his hook. "It's your turn to feel again, and don't you dare do it as anything less than who you really are."
When Hook let out the breath he didn't realize he was holding, it sounded like an old man's death rattle. His world had just come apart. He settled his fingers over hers, the metal of his hook cool beneath both their hands. "Perhaps," he whispered, "we might save each other."
Emma's jaw tightened. "I don't need saved."
"That's not fair." His tone was gentle but firm. "We can't be there for you?"
"That's not how it works. They need me to be strong enough."
"I'm not them."
Emma reached for his hand. She twisted the fake block off and clicked the hook into place. Hook watched her fingers work his brace. Suddenly it felt intimate—far too intimate—and Emma pulled her hands away. She shoved them in her jean pockets.
"No one has ever braved a storm to come in after me."
Emma looked up at him. She seemed relieved he finally got it. She smiled—professional, strong. "I'll handle it. It's going to be okay."
Hook shook his head. "No. I don't want to play the game anymore, Swan. It's time to come clean."
Emma looked scared.
"You save them, not me, understand? All I need to be safe is you. All of you. The brave part, the scared part, the hurting part. If you want to save me, that's what it's going to take."
Emma looked down at her shoes. "That's harder."
"I know." Hook ducked to catch her eyes. "But we can do this. We can let each other in. I'm tired of being alone. Aren't you?"
Emma's breath hitched. She just looked down at her shoes and nodded.
Hook took her in his arms. For the second time in as many weeks, they clung to each other. This time, though, it was with the promise of more to come.
"I've got you," Emma whispered.
"And I've got you."
When they'd had their fill, Hook rested his forehead against hers. He closed his eyes and wanted to remember always what this felt like. "Tell me something."
"You first."
He played with the ends of her scarf. "I've been a pirate a long time," he said, "It's comfortable. I want to be Killian Jones again, but I'm scared."
Emma worked her bottom lip. "I've been the person people count on for a long time," she said. "All things considered, it's easy now. I want to let somebody else do the caring, but I'm sacred."
Hook kissed her forehead.
Emma pointed the little black wand at the metal carriage. "Let's go, Killian Jones. Time to change the pirate clothes."
He held out his hand. She looked at it, and then she took it. Hook smiled.