Disclaimer: I don't own Once Upon a Time or its characters; I only borrow.
"Why don't you just ask them if they're fake and see if they lie to you?" Henry asked as they got back to Neal's apartment.
They had seen four other psychics after Miss Belinda and each had, unsurprisingly, been fake. Though none were nearly as incompetent as that first one.
"That would make things go a mite quicker, love." Hook spread out on the couch. He hadn't even bothered going in with her to see the last two.
"I can't be sure that whatever was throwing me off in Neverland isn't still around. If it was just the stress of the situation… Well, I think this qualifies as a stressful situation," she explained, plopping down next to Hook.
"So we'll test it. I'll tell you stuff, and you tell me what's a lie."
"That's sweet, Kid," Emma sighed. "Unfortunately, I pretty much know what your lies would be already."
"When you and Killian were at the second place I snuck outside and got a hotdog," he said casually.
"You did what? Henry, we don't know if Pan could be following us, you can't just go off on your own like that!"
"That was a lie."
Hook chuckled. Jackass. "Perhaps it is the stress then."
Emma huffed. "It doesn't really matter what it is; the point is that my lie detector is on the fritz and I can't count on it." Henry was busy digging in the freezer. "What are you looking for, Henry?"
"Pizza," he answered, pulling one out of the freezer and turning on the oven.
"We had pizza last night."
"I know."
"How about if I make chicken or something instead? Maybe some vegetables, something with nutritional value?"
"Mom, I've been sitting in rooms full of bad-smelling smoke all day. I'm having pizza." He cut through the plastic wrap and ate a frozen pepperoni from the top. "Besides, tomato sauce is a vegetable, everyone knows that."
Hook looked amused at the exchange but didn't say anything about dinner one way or another. "Will we see more charlatans tomorrow, or would you like to try some of the others?"
"More of the charlatans, I think. We should probably start gathering ingredients for the potions, too. I think I want to start on some of the faith healers next week; there aren't nearly as many as there are supposed psychics, so we should be able to knock them out in just two or three days." Emma stood and stretched (she didn't miss the way Hook's eyes traveled over her as she did so) before moving to put the pizza in the oven when it was preheated.
"Mom, I can make a pizza," Henry told her, disgruntled.
"Yeah, I know. If you're not going to let me be all motherly and make something nutritional, then I'm going to be all motherly and pretend to have a hand in something delicious but worthless." Speaking of which… She pulled out a jar of frosting she'd had the foresight to buy and cracked it open. "Want some?" She offered a spoon to both Henry (who declined and went to read on the bed, still annoyed) and Hook (who accepted but then wondered how she could eat such a thing without getting sick). "It's whipped!"
Poor choice of words. Hook had that smirk that usually accompanied some sort of innuendo. "It's not as heavy as regular frosting… And it's vanilla, not chocolate."
"And that makes it better?"
"No, but I can pretend." She sat at the table with her jar of frosting and looked over the maps and lists. She circled a half-dozen names on one of the lists and pulled one map apart from the rest. "Do you want to come with me to inspect all the charlatans tomorrow?"
"Of course, love." When did he get to be sitting next to me? He brushed her hair behind her shoulders. "How else will I find out when we can expect our windfall?"
Emma laughed. The third psychic had determined that they were worried about money, but they would have a change in fortune soon. Then Emma paid with a crisp hundred dollar bill and the psychic stopped talking.
"Let's see, what did we learn today? Apparently we're married, Henry is a girl, we're broke, you're deathly ill-" at the fourth place Hook hadn't been able to stop coughing and sneezing, the incense smoke was so thick "-but will miraculously pull through, and we should invest in a company that is researching vehicles run on alternative fuels."
"What did that last one tell you?" Hook had still been recovering from the choking from the place before.
"Hmm... More of the same, mostly: money, love, family, yadda yadda. I think they all need new handbooks." That last one had actually been very perceptive. The psychic (Lady Inandra, how do they pick their names?) had noticed Emma's quick, corner-of-the-eye glance at Hook and Henry before the door to the 'reading room' closed. She had then proceeded to tell Emma that she shouldn't worry about her love and her son getting along… And that Hook would certainly leave his leather fetish behind eventually (that one had come about when Emma feigned concern over his chosen attire).
"Do people of this land actually go to these 'psychics' for advice? It's easy to see that they are fraudulent."
Emma took another bite of her frosting and waved the spoon around. "They want something to believe in, I guess. Or maybe they want to have someone else make decisions for them? At the very least they'll have someone to blame when things go wrong after they take the obviously bad advice." She put on an angry-face and spoke with a fake voice. "You told me if I sold everything and moved to Hollywood I'd be a famous movie star! You lied to me!"
"Very dramatic, love. I think you missed your calling," Hook told her with a smile.
"Nah, I never wanted to be an actress. Doesn't do for a thief to have her face on a whole bunch of screens." She grinned at him and took another bite of her frosting.
"What would you have been, if not a bail bondsperson?"
"I don't really know. I never thought much about it. I just found something legitimate to do with the skills I already had… Maybe work for an insurance company as a retrieval specialist?" The buzzer on the oven went off and she stood to take the pizza out.
"What's that?"
"A thief who steals stuff back for the owner. That might have been a harder job to get with a criminal record, though." She looked over the counter and in several drawers before calling out to Henry. "Henry, where did you put the pizza cutter?"
"I don't know, you're the one who washed it." Yep, still cranky.
Hook opened the cupboard with spices. How does he manage to get so close without me noticing? He pulled the pizza cutter from behind the salt.
"What was it doing in there?" She accepted the slicer, clearly puzzled.
"I wondered the same thing when you put it there last night."
"And you didn't say anything?"
"For all I knew there was a logical reason for the placement." Hook had that teasing tone of voice again.
"I guess I was preoccupied." That was an understatement; she'd still been thinking about almost their almost kiss. She cleared her throat and pulled out some plates. "Henry, pizza's ready!"
-.*.-.*.-.*.-
The rest of the evening was spent quietly. Emma made appointments for the next day with some of the psychics; the others didn't require them. Henry got over his annoyance at being denied the great honor of putting a pizza in the oven enough to look through Regina's Spelling for Dummies (the book didn't actually have a title, but that's how Emma was thinking of it) with Emma. It was actually kind of interesting, though she didn't think it would be of much help if they couldn't find someone who wielded magic. Hook compiled a list of the ingredients they needed to find. Emma also did some searches on her laptop for worldwide incidences that could be attributed to magic; a few miraculous recoveries and a couple of disasters narrowly averted made the list, but she wasn't optimistic.
Despite not having found someone to help (she had been certain that they wouldn't so quickly), Emma still felt as though they had accomplished something by the time they went to bed.
A/N: Reviews are pizza and constructive criticism is Pizza Hut Thin Crust with pepperoni, black olives, and pineapple!