Episodes 2x06-2x08

"Consequences"

Ten hours.

Ten. Bloody. Hours.

That was how long Hook remained manacled to the wall, stewing in his thoughts with nothing to distract him. The chain allowed enough movement for him to stand, sit, or lie down, but none of those positions was particularly comfortable on the stone floor.

Thankfully, he did not go hungry. The giant put some oversized food and a dish of water within his reach. Apparently, Emma had been thoughtful enough, caring enough, to request this. He managed to carve out pieces of fruit and bread with his hook, but he had to bend over to drink the water. It was awkward and humiliating, like an animal eating scraps and drinking from a trough. As if being handcuffed and left behind was not humiliating enough.

No matter how he tried, Hook could not wrap his mind around Emma's decisions. How had she been able to rationalize trusting the giant, who was supposed to be their enemy and was clearly a—well—bigger threat, yet not place her trust in Hook? He may not have had the cleanest record, but he had a code, a sense of honor, and from the time they formed their alliance he had only ever helped and protected her.

They had only been with each other for a matter of hours, but Hook had thought that they were actually connecting. The two of them had talked, strategized, tested their physical endurance, helped each other bind up wounds and avoid traps.

Although Hook still considered himself a captain, he had been without a crew for some time now. (Cora did not count as anything of the sort; they were allies solely because they had overlapping goals and might be useful to each other.) This trip was the first time in a long time—one year in his perception, but nearly thirty years in actuality—that Hook felt as though he had a mate.

If a stranger or another captain had betrayed Hook the way Emma Swan had, he would have cut them down where they stood. If it were a crewmate, he would have beaten them with his own fist and hook. If it were a subordinate, he would have keelhauled them or made them walk the plank. Whatever the consequence, it would have served as an example to others of what happened to those who crossed Captain Hook.

Clearly, Emma Swan did not know enough about his reputation.

She would have made an outstanding pirate. She was brilliant, quick-thinking and courageous. Hook could almost picture her in clothes from this land—perhaps a long coat like that of a naval officer—wielding a sword in one hand and a pistol in the other. But perhaps she would be the type to play the damsel in need of rescue, luring in unsuspecting ships or making deals in bad faith, and then turn on them at the last moment.

He could think of a dozen derogatory words for such a duplicitous woman, but none of them quite seemed to fit Emma Swan. She was something else, beyond the reach of even his considerable vocabulary. She was … like a puzzle he wanted to solve, or—he smirked at the potential euphemism—a box he would have liked to unlock, if he only had the chance.

She was not entirely unlike Milah, when he reflected on it. They both had a strange blend of strength and … not weakness, but a kind of fragility, like they were partially damaged and might break if not handled kindly. But where Milah had relished the thrill of adventure, Emma wanted to get through it all as quickly as possible.

When she had asked about his tattoo, there had been no jealousy or mockery in her tone; she had spoken with curiosity, perhaps wondering whether he still had a singular woman in his life, or getting back at him for his early questioning of her love life. She had pieced together his tragic past and present motives with impressive intuition.

Perhaps he was as much an open book to her as she was to him. He was not sure whether he liked or disliked that idea. It had been uncomfortable, like she was seeing through his dashing veneer—not that she had fallen for it at any rate.

Ultimately, though, it seemed that she did not know him, or at least, did not want to know him. Perhaps she had been afraid, not only of being seen, but of seeing him for who he truly was. It might have been easier for her to think of him as an enemy than to consider him as an ally, a friend, or anything more.

That left Hook in a precarious position on the chessboard. Working for Cora had not put him in a favorable light in the younger women's eyes, and Cora would not be pleased to learn of his alliance with them, however tentative or temporary it had been. It seemed that helping either side was a risk, and neither would be likely to take him back into their company, regardless of what he wanted.

Perhaps he had gotten over his head, involved with affairs out of his depth. There was history between Cora, Regina, Snow White, and Emma Swan, as messy as Hook's own history with Rumplestiltskin and his family.

Regina and Cora were the type of women who were obviously dangerous. They ruled through fear. They had power and would not hesitate to use it. Their dark beauty and ostentatious style enhanced how formidable they were. Trust with them was tenuous, at best.

Snow White's reputation was entirely different. She was beloved by her people, hailed as a liberator and benevolent leader. She had spent enough time living on the run to know how the common people lived.

Emma Swan did not inspire such fear or respect. She did not carry the same kind of confidence, just a dogged kind of determination. She was compassionate when she found Hook, thinking he was a survivor of Cora's massacre. He had been genuinely surprised when she held a knife to his throat, and again when she tied him to a tree and threatened him with the approach of ogres. But it was clear that she, and her companions, were only using such threats because they themselves felt threatened.

What had made her so afraid of betrayal that she felt she must betray first? Hook almost felt sorry for her, and angry at whoever had wounded her so deeply in the past that she could hardly trust anyone now.

Mostly, though, he just felt anger toward her. And it was difficult for him to separate the feeling of anger from a desire for vengeance. If he crossed paths with her again …

That line of thought gave him pause. What then?

He knew at his core that he did not want to kill her, and would not enjoy hurting her outright. But he would have liked to teach her a lesson, to make her regret what she did to him, one way or another.

He could pay her back in kind, trapping her somewhere and keeping her from reaching her goal, just as she had tried to prevent him from reaching his. That would be quite fair.

He would like to rub it in a little, though, to underscore the significance of her choice. She had not only lost his favor, after all. She had lost an entire possible future, one that could have been mutually beneficial, or even beautiful.

Someday, somehow, he would make it clear to her how much she had lost.