Disclaimer: I don't own Once Upon a Time or its characters. I only borrow.
A/N: I fixed something in chapters 1 and 4 so that the healer is correctly stated as having been in Hong Kong, for some unknown reason I said Thailand and then Tibet. I'm choosing to blame the brain-melting that is finals week.
Henry slept again for most of the ride to New York. Damn cat. At least he wasn't so tired when he was actually awake anymore.
Hook took the opportunity to once again bring up a topic which Emma would rather avoid.
"So, what's the real reason that you wanted me to come along?" Life, why must you insist on possibly awkward conversations? Why do you hate me?
Emma sighed, but decided that it wasn't worth putting off any longer. "I didn't think I could do this alone."
"And yet you brought me rather than Neal."
Emma pictured banging her head against a very solid wall. Amazingly, it didn't help.
"I couldn't trust Neal," she told him.
"I doubt he would have been foolish enough to show his dislike of magic on such an important endeavor." She stared straight ahead, not particularly wanting to see Hook's expressions throughout this conversation.
"Not just with the magic. Neal's default has always been to run away. Before he set me up to be arrested, we were going to sell the watches and go to Tallahassee. But I had to talk him into even that. He was just going to leave the country… and me."
"That was a long time ago, love." Why does everyone defend Neal to me? Just because it was over a decade ago doesn't mean it doesn't matter.
"He didn't try to find me when the curse was broken, even though he knew exactly where I was. When we were trying to think of ways to escape the curse, all he wanted to do was run… There are other things, too; small things that would probably mean nothing to anyone else. All of it together amounts to me not trusting Neal. With much of anything, really. I feel bad about it, and wish that it wasn't the case, but it is."
"But you trust me? The pirate who looks out for himself above all else." Emma still refused to look at him, but his tone of voice had changed. Skepticism and incredulity mixed in with something that she had trouble identifying.
"Please, we both know you haven't been that man in a while. And yes, I trust you."
"Why?" Hook asked. Demanded, really.
"You came back with the bean, you brought us to Neverland, you helped rescue my son, you've done a lot of things that had no real benefit for you."
"I don't know that I agree with that." He was quiet, uncharacteristically so. Not that he'd been his usual confident, teasing, innuendo-laden self for this conversation, but this was different.
"Fine, you've done a lot of things that had no guaranteed benefit for you and plenty of guaranteed risk." She dared to glance at him quickly, and found him looking at her intently. "Does it really matter why I trust you?"
"No, I suppose not." The quiet voice again, only laced with contemplation and maybe a bit of new understanding. He blinked a couple of times and looked forward again. "Do you have a plan for when we get to New York?" Yes, business, thank you.
"What, my vague 'ask around' plan isn't good enough for you?" Emma asked with a grin.
"I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't prefer something a little more defined." Hook too adopted a somewhat playful demeanor.
"First up is tossing Neal's old place. Tamara hunted people with magic. I'm hoping we'll get lucky and she was sloppy enough to keep something at the apartment that could point us in the right direction. Maybe someone she had identified but hadn't been able to get to yet, or someone who was feeding her information." The look Hook was giving her very clearly said 'do you really think that'll happen?' Only in old-timey words with a delicious accent…
"Do you really believe that will be the case?" Eh, close enough.
"Long shot, I know. At the very least we'll be able to settle in there and avoid shelling out for a hotel room for however long we're in the city."
"And beyond that?"
"Go through the book and potion instructions that Regina gave us and start finding whatever ingredients we don't already have. Might as well get a jumpstart on that." Hook nodded, apparently satisfied with this still vague plan. Not like I have a list of doors to knock on. Where in the Yellow Pages would one even look for 'users of real magic'?
They rode in comfortable silence (occasionally interrupted by Emma's insistence on flipping through radio stations) for a time before she thought to ask about something which had been bothering her.
"You know that thing I have where I know when someone is lying?"
"I believe the knife to my throat made that somewhat difficult to forget," Hook told her.
"How did you lie to me in Neverland? You lied to me about looking for a sextant, and I couldn't tell." She divided her glances between him and the road.
"There is a reason I let your father do most of the talking on that one. I'll admit I was also depending on the intensity of the situation to throw you off your game for the moment." Her frequent glances at him allowed her to see the wry smile that had formed on his face.
"What?"
"When you trapped me on top of that beanstalk-"
"Are you ever going to let that go?" Seriously, you trap a guy with a giant on top of a beanstalk one time and you never hear the end of it.
"Are you never again going to mention that you killed a dragon?" Hook lifted an eyebrow at her in amusement. "You said that you couldn't risk that you were wrong about me, which led me to believe that you had been wrong before. Neverland itself might have played a role in your inability to catch me in the lie as well."
"Yeah, about Neverland… Why was it always night?"
"The first time I was there, with my brother, there was daylight. Perhaps Pan preferred the darkness and found a way to make it constant. Or perhaps the island was infected by the darkness within him. Who could say for sure?" After a beat he added, "Why do you ask me?"
"Well, you'd spent a lot of time there." Hook's face clouded a bit. Right, must remember not to bring that up. "And age supposedly begets wisdom, so I thought I'd give it a shot."
"I see, anything else you would like explained?" The amusement was back, along with his smile. How I enjoy that smile…
"I'm sure I'll think of something later," she told him with a grin. Not long after that she yawned.
"Getting tired? I'd offer to drive, but I'm afraid the horsepower of this car isn't the sort with which I am familiar."
"Funny. Did you spend a lot of time thinking that one up?" Hook's small smile gave nothing away. "Just a side effect of the monotony of staring at a road for hours."
"Am I not interesting enough to counteract that effect? I think I should be offended."
-.*.-.*.-.*.-
Henry woke up a half-hour before they got to Manhattan. He tore into the snacks Emma had purchased in Boston with gusto.
"We'll get some real food when we get to the city," Emma told him.
"It's cool," he shrugged. "I'm good with chips and sour straws."
"I'm not." She'd been daydreaming about a burger for the last thirty miles.
"I'm still eating the sour straws," Henry told her.
"Mind if I try one of those, mate?" Hook asked. Henry handed him a green apple sour straw, trying to hide a grin.
Emma had to hide one as well. She loved this particular brand because it took the 'sour' part ridiculously seriously. Both she and Henry burst out laughing at Hook's reaction after tasting the candy.
She grabbed the rest of the straw from Hook's hand and bit off a large piece. "More than you can handle?" She raised an eyebrow and smirked at him.
"It would seem so," he replied with a smile of his own.
-.*.-.*.-.*.-
After stopping at a restaurant and fulfilling Emma's burger need they made their way to Neal's old apartment. Hopefully his rent is on auto pay or something.
"Henry, don't forget that your name is Henry Turner now," Emma reminding him before they got out of the car.
"Got it," he replied as he jumped out of the backseat.
Emma made sure that the keys still worked before they brought in their bags. Locks haven't been changed, that's a good sign.
Hook looked around the apartment. "Are you sure Tamara lived here as well?" Emma surveyed the apartment. No women's clothes anywhere, lots of mismatched clutter.
"No, actually, I guess I just assumed." She sighed. "Great. Well, let's see if we can find something with her address on it. Another place to add to the break-and-enter list."
They turned the apartment over. Emma had to appreciate how thoroughly Tamara had protected her identity, annoying as it was. There was exactly one scrap of useful information; a letter which had been sent to Tamara's address but she had apparently given to Neal.
"Today or tomorrow? There's, what, four hours until sunset? Breaking and entering is best done in the dead of night when no one's paying attention or the middle of the day when visitors are least suspicious."
"I sometimes forget that you were a thief," Hook told her.
"From thief to bail bondsperson to sheriff. I guess I've always had a foot in the criminal world," she mused.
"Go tomorrow," Henry suggested. "That way we can get settled in first. Like getting groceries and stuff."
"And I believe you wanted to take a look through the book Regina gave you."
Emma sighed. "Tomorrow it is then."
They made space for their stuff and went for groceries. Emma picked up maps of the city and some blank notebooks. When they got back to the apartment she pulled out the phonebook (which had be repurposed to prop up a short leg of a side table, does anyone actually use these anymore?) and started making lists.
"What's this, then?" Hook sat across from her at the table.
"Occult shops, psychics, alternative medicine… anything that could be related to magic in any way." She stopped to massage a cramp out of her hand. "After Tamara's place I think we should look at the psychics. Maybe the ones connected to occult shops first. Then maybe some of the homeopathic healers? Or should we talk to all the occult shops first?"
Hook stopped her contemplation by grabbing her hand. "Let's just start with Tamara's place. If a search there yields something, the rest may be unnecessary."
"I can't just sit around and do nothing until tomorrow, Hook. There's a town either frozen or cursed, we don't know which, and we've only got four months to fix it." She felt the pressure to live up to her role as the savior, and he knew it.
"So don't do nothing, but don't wear yourself down right now. Why not talk to Henry? You were concerned he would be upset, why not talk to him about how this quest is likely to go?" Hook's voice was quiet, his eyes sincere. Emma felt like the air was heavy, and decided to lighten things up a bit.
"You just want to get rid of me so you can down some rum, don't you?" She teased him half-heartedly.
"You wound me, darling. You know that I would offer you some." He matched her playful tone.
She could tell that he knew what she was doing. Open book. That's really inconvenient sometimes… Damn it. I give up. She stood up and walked around the table, not letting go of his hand. As she sat in the chair beside him she put her left hand to his face. His smiled melted away as he looked in her eyes. She leaned towards him slowly, and he reciprocated. Just before she could kiss him, Henry called out from the bedroom, effectively halting their movement.
"Mom, can we make a pizza?"
She dropped her hand from Hook's face, and he closed his eyes and pulled away from her.
"Yeah, kid. Do you want the pepperoni or the cheese?" She squeezed his hand once before she stood to turn on the oven.
"Umm… cheese."
"Coming right up."
A/N: I've posted a companion story; A Xylophone, a Teaspoon, and a Magic Wand, about how Henry got his body back (and why Emma hates that damn cat).
Reviews are food, and constructive criticism is devil's food cake that doesn't make you sick when you eat five pieces.