Disclaimer: I do not own the show or the characters of Once Upon A Time. There's no profit except writing practice being made here.

Emma huffed.

He'd made a quip not long ago about fancying her when she wasn't yelling, and another even more recently about something far deeper. Emma hadn't addressed that yet - couldn't - not even to herself.

She couldn't help but wonder what he would think of her now.

She could feel it pouring out of her pores, flames exhaling from her nose, her jaw tight with tension as she bit down the words she knew she'd regret in a heartbeat if she ever said them.

Emma stomped through the jungle, careful to avoid the thorns of Dreamshade and even more cautious about the distance she kept from every single member of their party.

So long as no one approached her, no one made her feel like she wasn't enough - again - then no one would feel the result of her wrath.

Funny, of all the people travelling with them - Regina with her "you should practice your magic more" and Gold with his "when have you ever taken a real leap of faith?" - there was only one of them who didn't make her feel totally useless.

It wasn't one of her parents.

It was the man who had lived in Neverland when he asked her where the map said they should go. It was the captain who turned to her for leadership. They were small gestures but they bolstered her with confidence and conviction and something else that made Emma Swan feel as though she were floating above the dark canopy, safe from danger.

She'd noticed back in the hospital that he drew attention to his hand when he wanted to be pitied for manipulation purposes, or to be overlooked by a foe, underestimated like he had in the Enchanted Forest. But in Neverland he did the opposite, using his missing appendage to show his vulnerability - flaunt it even - and ask her for help: "I can't exactly pick fruit and cart it back. A little help, Swan. Don't look at me like that, Your Highness, I only mean to show the lass which fruits we can consume," and "What do you say, Saviour, lend us a hand?"

Little quips, puns that should not have made her frown loosen, about a disability, no less, and they were spouted in order to make her feel useful, necessary in their merry band of natives and seasoned adventurers.

"Emma," called Mary Margaret. "You're falling behind." No matter David was behind her, having dropped behind her, using the excuse that he, an experienced warrior, should be pulling up the rear.

She must have spent too many nights listening to the crying of children, sick with worry over Henry, too hot in the humid jungle, desperate for one breath of privacy because Mary Margaret's comment should not have chaffed her the way it did. Emma felt her shoulders hunch, her nose crinkle in distaste.

Her anger flared and it wasn't at the villain in their midst.

It was funny, the only thing Emma wasn't thinking about, was her grief. Her mother was constantly looking over her shoulder, hushing Regina and pressing a tender hand to Emma's shoulder as though it was a comfort, as though she needed soothing. She didn't, she didn't want the pitying looks. She wasn't sad. She was angry. She thought she'd told them that.

That was the problem with having Snow White and Prince Charming for parents - they turned everything into some soppy romance. Not everything was about jealousy or denied feelings or missing someone so much it hurt and terrified you'd lose them. That had never been Emma's experience with love. She'd felt it once - maybe the whispers of it a second time if that first time was actually love. Emma, unlike her friend and roommate and mother, knew what it felt like when love went off and soured and became hate. Especially when she looked at herself and how bitter she was, how closed off and afraid of falling ever again that she never even took the risk.

It was the things that were left unsaid that she lamented. The anger she never got to announce and the fear of being hurt again. She'd never really understood the difference between being in love and loving but Emma suspected she was learning. Ever since Neal returned to her life, Emma hadn't been sure. She thought that she was reverting into love - everyone else assumed as much despite her rolling eyes and yelled responses, maybe they were right. But that wasn't the case, she'd discovered. It had taken finding out he wasn't dead to discover what exactly she was feeling. She loved him, she always would. He showed her love, he gave her a glimpse of hope and a future and a home. Neal gave her Henry.

But she wasn't in love with him. He gave her a reason to doubt herself into giving up Henry. He made her afraid of trusting people, of trusting herself. Now that he was alive again, she didn't feel guilty about examining exactly what she was feeling.

There was a certain bitterweet nature to being around Neal, to talking about him. His death coloured the way she spoke about him, made her afraid of speaking her mind. She hated him for leaving her. She hated that he believed August, that he chose to hide rather than seek her out when he knew the curse was broken. Emma despised, now that she thought about it, not that Neal had worked his way out of the gutters but that he had found love in Tamara, real or not real, enough to want to marry her and all that came with it. In hindsight, it made her wonder how serious he was when he claimed to have regretted abandoning her everyday and being too cowardly to see her when August said he could, made her question his declaration of love to her - to Tamara as well, but that was a whole different problem. How could she trust a man so flippant in his conviction and Emma hated that she was thinking of a dead man in such a way. She hated who she became, waiting in Tallahassee for a man who didn't love her enough to find her. But how could she say that to the son that just met him? The mother who insisted she be sad that she lost love? The pirate who said he'd known him as Bae but then crumpled inward at the sight of the cave the boy had slept in?

How could she communicate that yes, she would always love the man who introduced her to love, however, twisted their meeting and departing may have been, despite - or maybe because of - how young she had been, but she had been so thoroughly lied to by him, solidified by every sweet memento she found in his Neverland home, that she could never let him in to her heart again?

Emma imagined this is what divorce felt like, hatred and nostalgic love and shared memories that were mostly nice, but the only commonality left being the child between them. They could barely even communicate properly. She wondered if they ever had.

"You thought you had a thing with lies, I never believed it" read totally differently with this onslaught of new information.

Even if she set aside her nostalgia and her anger and her fear of what the damned island of Neverland was doing to Henry, now that Neal was alive again, Emma felt as though her words, her feelings weren't good enough for him. She supposed he thought he was being romantic - Emma couldn't imagine how. She'd asked for space, she'd told him she needed to move on from him completely, she said explicitly that him not being around - in the most clear, horrible way she could say it - made her life easier because she didn't have to worry about being hurt anymore, betrayed, abandoned. It was easier to pretend to be strong when the person who broke her wasn't around.

And what had he said in response not two seconds after he'd told her he understood?

"I'll never stop fighting for you."

That wasn't reassuring. He'd stopped fighting for her before. It wasn't romantic, she'd specifically asked him to stop because it hurt too much. Hell, he'd only just found out his fiancee, someone he'd loved enough to want to marry, even if she'd been lying in the end, was dead. It wasn't a positive sign that he could abandon that supposed affection so easily.

Maybe she should have been clearer.

Just like her words not being enough for Neal, Emma herself wasn't enough for her parents

That wasn't fair, Emma knew. They had given her up for her best chance in life, just as she had with Neal, and they wanted a chance to do it right, to raise a baby, to be there for first steps and first words and first kisses. Honestly, if Emma ever - that was a big if - felt comfortable enough with a person, trusted them and herself, she might want to do it all too, experience what she failed to do with Henry. She couldn't fault that desire in her parents.

But she could fault the timing of it. She'd just made Mary Margaret cry with the admission that Emma had felt unloved and unwanted for twenty-eight years of her life. Sure, it was Pan's twisted little game that made her mother admit she wanted to be a real mother, but that didn't make it sting any less.

And why should she be making these allowances for these people? Didn't she deserve to feel what she felt without feeling guilty for feeling it? When did she get to stop walking on eggshells with the people around her? The curse of the saviour, Emma realised, was saving everyone else and biting her tongue to save their feelings was included in that because Emma Swan, Saviour of Storybrooke, didn't get to be safe or saved.

Hook had warned them of the dangers of Neverland; the poison and the venom, the pollen and the three rows of teeth on a beast twice the size of his ship. He'd said nothing of reverting or regressing into the girl she used to be.

Pan reminded her of how hopeless she was as a lost girl, fitting her right back into that mould. Mary Margaret coddled her endlessly, hoping for a moment to finally be a mother that was tiring for the both of them.

"A hero, a villain, a pirate. I'm a mother and your leader." But she wasn't even that. Not anymore.

She was a grumpy woman trudging through the woods, hoping no one stepped too close and that way she didn't have to break their hearts by snapping at them.

"Emma," Mary Margaret called over her shoulder, "

"She still not talking to you?" Emma asked David.

The man - her father. Boy that was so much easier to swallow that the woman she had trusted to be her friend turning out to be her mother. Probably because he didn't try to be anything but the overly protective father he was.

David scowled, shaking his head. The good thing about Mary Margaret and David fighting and Emma trying to steer clear of the woman and Neal and the man that smelt like warm alcohol and an insatiable night, was that Emma and David got to talk. So far, that meant David talking. About anything and everything to while away the trekking. His shepherding days. His mother. His father as a cautionary tale of how drinking excessively could kill you, although Emma couldn't tell if that was a deterrent against Hook or against her enjoyment of a glass or two for dessert.

The story that Emma had been dying to hear, and David had been equal parts eager to get off his chest and desperate to cling to for some reason, was the one of Hook. He'd called upon David three times to tell Emma and Mary Margaret that he wouldn't live long. Then told him some sob story about a brother to manipulate him up a cliff-face and then woke him up so he could chose to drink or not to.

To hear him tell it, David was in awe of the lengths the pirate had gone to for him.

Emma had to admit, she was quite a little bit impressed too. Especially the part about Hook wanting David to tell the truth. She couldn't shake the feeling that it had less to do with saving her parents' marriage and more to do with making sure Emma knew she hadn't been abandoned again. Or perhaps it had something to do with the lying part. Hook had always at least believed her about her ability to spot a fabrication.

Hearing that he insisted she be notified her father was dying and she'd be left alone, especially with the added knowledge that now David couldn't leave the isle and because of that, Emma was going to lose her mother too - because they loved her but loved each other more, or because she had gone and grown up without their consent and it hurt to look at her and remember their biggest mistake, or that she was cold and aloof and had pushed so emphatically on the 'i don't need you, I have equal wisdom' rant that Mary Margaret and David listened and agreed with her - and Hook probably knew that if he offered David the cure, Mary Margaret would grab it with both hands. For all she knew, and the man read people like open books and strategically and silently sidestepped their plans, having earned his intelligence against the biggest bads for three hundred years so Emma figured it was pretty likely, Hook had predicted all that would happen and wanted Emma to be forewarned before shit hit the fan.

What had he said? Pan uses the Echo Caves to tear us apart because he's watching and knows the secrets we're keeping to, and amongst, ourselves.

He'd been spot on about that. She was making herself sick with keeping her distance from Neal and her mother, felt mildly guilty about wishing Neal wasn't around and grousing about the fact he hadn't listened to her. David and Mary Margaret, True Love Personified, weren't speaking to each other. Mary Margaret was being maternal to Hook - for the loss of his crew or his brother or his saving of David, or God forbid because he said he had genuine feelings for Emma, which Emma wouldn't put past her. She was also coddling Neal, so happy to have him in their ranks; infinite knowledge (that he'd never divulged) and surviving a gun shot wound (been there, done that) and probably because Mary Margaret firmly believed that Emma gave two shits about the guy that just lost his fiance outside of preparing herself for the heartbreak of facing him and sharing Henry with him and Regina (and Neal was the only one that hadn't lied to Henry, and Emma was never going to reveal the truth to her son, so thanks to him, she would be on the outs of that too).

David, amazingly, hadn't shifted. And Emma basked in that dependability. He was still frowning at Hook all the time, more so than before maybe, but less venomously. He was begging Mary Margaret for attention, and Emma. He'd adopted Neal into the fold too, believing in the one and done type of love her mother did too, but not so vehemently as she did. He wasn't calling him son just yet, and Emma appreciated that. Moreover, David was giving Neal just as hard a time as he gave Hook. Maybe more because he hadn't proved himself yet. At least she wasn't the only one who was unsure of Neal's role in the group, subsequently where she fit in the dynamics now that Neal had taken the reins.

Hook; he was an enigma. Didn't distance himself even when he was working with Cora, always in the corner of Emma's vision and eager to chat. Hospital-bound but giddy at her presence even as he explained that he was all in on her side until she sold him back to Cora. His breath warm against her cheek when the crying masses kicked in at night, never explaining why he heard them too but not hiding the fact he was awake. He flirted with her like he was egotistical and smug about saving her father, but he blushed when he caught her looking when he lost his walls, just for a flash. He didn't shy away from romantic declarations, or genuine truths, or swathes of encouragement. He fancied her from time to time, except when you're yelling at me.

Apparently, that meant that the one time she'd whipped around and reprimanded him (for Neal grabbing the lighter and flinging it backwards, she wasn't blind, she'd seen who had grabbed who, but it was easier to blame them both than take sides) - she did quite like the fact that he'd corrected her, made sure she knew it wasn't a lighter they were fighting over. She appreciated the honesty, the added encouragement as he promised she was desirable in that one flippant remark - yelled at him, really, because she expected the twenty-three year old thief she'd met to be as immature as she had been when they met, but she'd somehow expected better of the pirate with the archaic diction and the old soul.

Or maybe he'd stopped talking because he thought she'd chosen Neal, like her mother did and had. Or to make room for Neal to have a powerful role, same way he did so that she could feel like a leader - yes, she wasn't so egotistical to think that she was leading this group when she had no knowledge of the island - atoning for whatever sins he'd committed against the boy he'd once known and the woman they'd once fought over. Because really, that must have been what their rift was about, why else would a grown man fight with a child (and Neal must have been a boy when Hook knew him, because the pirate made no indication he'd known Neal at all in that half-moment in New York)? Emma hadn't put together that Hook's Milah must have been Neal's mother until that moment in Neal's Neverland home, but that must have been a point of contention between them. That, or their own father-son dynamic.

Still, whatever the reason, Hook had stopped casual communication and Emma couldn't decide whether it was because she had asked him to back off, or if it was because Neal was around and there was something bigger he was atoning for with his silence.

He, more than she or David, lost his role of island native, guide (from the side. She couldn't help thinking he really would make a great teacher if he went for conventional and, of course, if he stayed in Storybrooke when they got back) and punching bag. But Hook didn't seem lost.

He was resigned.

No, that wasn't it. He was deflated.

Emma hadn't realised it was happening, he was closed off and hid it well, but now that it had, it was plain as day.

Hook spouted off facts about Pan and the island and he knew where fresh water was, and where the enchanted springs were. But so did Neal, and Mary Margaret seemed far more eager to turn to the devil she didn't know. Hook, according to Neal, wasn't an asset when it came to the Lost Boys, who would be terrified of him (although there had been zero evidence of that when they were in Pan's camp). He was good with knots (so was Neal) and traps (so were Mary Margaret and David) but maybe his most useful role was that he could throw his hook out and not fear a sting or a bite or a thorn, unlike the rest of them. He could also use that hook around a wrist to pull someone out of danger, which he'd done for her twice, waggling his brows playfully at her when she said thank you to the point where Emma forgot she was more uncomfortable - in place and with people - than she had ever been in he's life. He'd stepped aside on the beach to let her lead, but now he was hardly even doing that.

Thing is, nothing terrible had truly been revealed about him in the caves - what did he care about David staying, or Mary Margaret wanting another baby to replace her, or Emma admitting, finally, to Neal that he had hurt her beyond repair but she'd accept him for the sake of Henry. So Emma wasn't sure why that was.

Or why it bothered her.

On top of it all, Hook's confession toiled with Emma, gently turning over in the back of her mind beneath the hurricane of her father and the tornado of her mother and the tsunami of Neal. It was a shock that he was so sincere, made worse by the bridge of truth that accompanied his confession. It was a shock that he has feelings, for her, beyond lust and impulse, and that he spoke of feelings from not just this island but from being swept up by them long before their kiss in the trees.

Letting go of my first love, my Milah.

Centuries and he had been fuelled by love, by rage and vengeance and a little bit od suicide, but mostly love for a long dead woman. Emma had never known love to last more than six months in her own life, so the idea itself perplexed her. But this man, he knew his heart intimately. Did he truly think he still loved that old, long lost image? Did he really think his feelings for Emma was so strong that they'd unravelled that part of his soul? Or was he realising that his love had soured to revenge and had been lost to him a century ago? Was the idea of his plight being misguided, a lie he fed himself, what was subduing the pirate?

Emma hadn't had the chance to ask. Or to affirm that she felt the shift in her soul too - not so angry at Neal anymore, not convinced he had been her only chance and she still hadn't been good enough. Not so closed off to love.

And she couldn't now that the only people in their group that were talking was her mother and Neal. She'd stick out like a pirate in a small town if she did.

David inhaled beside Emma, finally catching up to the slow pace she kept. He wasn't sweating or panting like he had been a few short days ago - was it days, or had a year passed in the real world? How did time work here? - he was choosing to walk last. "You understand why I didn't tell you, don't you?"

Emma smiled at her father. "You wanted us to focus on Henry."

He shook his head. "Your mother has a protective streak as wide as her kingdom. You got that from her, not me," he smiled softly, lowering his voice to a whisper. "Don't tell her I said this, but she also has blinders worse than a saddled mule. I love that about her, but she wouldn't have seen anything other than her resignation to grief, or her hope for a cure. I didn't want her to have to choose and live with the guilt."

Yeah, well, she's still become quite loud and proud about deciding to stick with you in a treehouse in the jungle and not come back to Storybrooke. Doesn't seem guilty about that.

Emma bit her tongue. That wasn't fair on Mary Margaret. Just because Emma had never been in the kind of deep love where you would do anything for the other person and they reciprocated that (thought she had been, had been smacked in the face with the fact that she wasn't and then again ten years later when Neal pinned the whole thing on August to avoid apologising properly), just because she didn't have a history of been proven correct when she trusted someone to pull through for her, didn't make Mary Margaret an awful person just because she did have evidence and a background that ensured she could trust that deeply and it wasn't fair of Emma to punish her for it.

No. I have equal amounts of wisdom.

Emma said nothing to her father. It was safer that way - not telling him about her fears for Henry and of sharing Henry, her history with Neal, the feeling in the pit of her stomach that felt a little bit like she'd been poisoned when Mary Margaret had spoken her truth in the caves.

"So, Neal says we're following that track of purple brambles," Emma heard her mother call out, watching her silhouette gesture to her left. "They should lead us to a thicket of food the Lost Boys use."

Hook, in his sashaying black coat that swished around his ankles in one constant sheet until he stopped, swivelled, and the fabric parted with the inertia and seemed to want to straddle his hips, gifting her with a flash of thick, powerful thighs painted in leather.

"Milady," hook around wrist, Emma saw. Not the fingertips touching bicep like he had when he pulled Emma out of the way of a snare two mornings ago, or the fingers on wrist like when he'd pulled Regina away from the crevasse that had split the jungle floor. "The deepening purple shade of these flowers is due to high levels of blood in the soil the blooms are rooted in. Similar to the hydrangea of our land. We should turn back."

"Blood?" Mary Margaret's surprise was audible. Fear was not.

The two were paused on the path, giving David and Emma time to join them as Neal marched on ahead. Emma saw him turn back with interest.

"Yes, Hook," Neal shouted back before trudging toward them. "We're on our way around the deepest part of the forest where the Neverbeast cavern is. But the flowers aren't that dark yet - still lavender. We'll be fine so long as they aren't burgundy."

"And what possible reason do we have to be so near to the lair of that beast?"

Neal signed. "To the north of the cave is Pan's watering hole. We can cut off Lost Boys there, or at least follow their secret path to their camp."

"Or we could follow one of the three paths-" that he'd suggested when they began their trek this morning.

"Neal knows what he's doing," Snow interrupted Hook. "It will be a good spot to scout the camp and strategise our taking of it."

Snow spun on her heel and yanked her arm out of Hook's grip. David, eager to catch up to his wife, charged past Emma and left her and Hook in his dust as he called for his wife to wait.

Beside her - when had Emma stepped forward? Since when have their shoulders been touching? It's so goddamn hot, how was he wearing that jacket when the only thing stopping her from taking off her tank top was the fact that Neal would see, her father was around, and Hook's reaction was so unpredictable for her that she didn't want to risk it - Hook huffed.

Perhaps she wasn't the only one feeling the sting of sudden uselessness in Neverland, after all.

Emma couldn't help herself. She pursed her lips together tightly, she had to, to stop herself from laughing.

"You lied to her about David," Emma explained to Hook's baffled expression. "You're as low as dirt to her now."

He shrugged as though he was unbothered but an uneasiness settled across his shoulders, as obvious to Emma as the coat he wore. "I can't say I was much more than that before."

I know what you're doing. You're trying to bond with me.

He hadn't. She'd been deflecting, scared by his nearness and the tingle at the base of her spine that the intensity of his eyes ignited in her. She'd been terrified of how similar they were, how well he was reading her, of how he'd let his walls fall and let her look for herself instead of insisting he was worth something.

And instead of acknowledge how brave that was, or bothering to look to see what exactly he was trying to offer her, Emma had told him he wasn't.

She wasn't going to make that mistake this time.

"You might have saved him," she explained, "But she's mad at him for lying, even if she likes the outcome. And you were a part of that."

He swayed, throat exposed and head thrown back. His Adams Apple bobbed beneath his stubble. Then his bright blue eyes slid her way. "So until she makes up with her prince, I'm in the doghouse with him?"

Emma shrugged. She liked that he didn't complain that that wasn't fair, or his fault, or whine in anyway.

"Might want to start playing matchmaker, if I were you," she suggested. That was her plan. Perhaps Hook could talk to David while she worked on Mary Margaret. Regina could probably lay it all out logically for Mary Margaret, too. Her mother listened to her step-mother, their relationship as strained and strange as the mother-daughter dynamics of Emma and Snow, but very much the same.

Hook shook his head. "That's Tink's job."

And just like that, Emma's magnanimous attitude, her smile, the ease in her muscles, all dropped away. There was something so . . . not right about the way Hook spoke of Lady Bell. It wasn't as though Emma had any standing, or had made a decision or even wanted a relationship. And it wasn't as though Hook went around giving the fairy coconuts or declaring his feelings, or draping his coat over her in the middle of the night when no one was looking and taking it back before anyone who would judge found out, and he never asked her to return any of his gestures. All he did was call the green fairy a few nicknames and Emma found herself . . . irked.

Jealous. There, she said it.

But not like that.

Everyone around her had this rich, interpersonal history and, as always, Emma was on the outside. And the backfoot.

Regina and Hook had been friends, or at least known each other, for years. Regina seemed to want more sometimes; a haughty look, a flirtatious smile, but Hook either didn't notice or knew it was best to ignore the vicious woman. And underneath that tumult of where the pair stood, Emma sensed a sort of sibling partnership bonding them. Hook knew Neal, and Pan, and Cora, and Greg and Tamara and Gold. Neal knew all about the island and Pan and David and Snow knew Hook - by reputation only, but knowing all the same.

Suddenly, Emma was not only lost, but a girl; inexperienced, naive, unconnected. A liability.

"No," Emma shook her head. "I'll do it."

At least, if she could get her parents talking - and wasn't that the most normal role she could gravitate to? - then Emma would have a role in their little band.

"I'll talk to her."

"Thanks, Swan."

"Not for you," Emma glared but Hook's beam was contagious.

So long as he didn't catch her copying the action, Emma was safe.

He liked a strong woman, Emma's gleaned that much - double entendre galore and yet he always put himself in the submissive role whenever he made a quip. Emma couldn't remember the last man she met who would be so willing to put a woman above him. Not just in bed, the pirate captain, ruthless, he claimed himself - vile, according to Rumple and David and evil according to Snow although Regina stayed surprisingly tightlipped about the man who was friends with her mother - seemed adamant to raise Emma up whenever she stumbled.

"Hey, beautiful." And even when she hadn't.

Did he think less of her here, where Emma didn't have a role? A say?

Emma, walking away from Hook though she may have been, heard every word Hook had to say. To be fair, she didn't expect the man to be hiding his words. He certainly hadn't hidden them from her before.

Except when you chewed him out before he could say anything.

"Course not," he chuckled behind her, "I'd wager it's for the greater good that they speak again."

Emma snorted, lowering her voice as she turned to face Hook. "It's a bit more selfish than that. So I'll take that bet. What's on offer?"

A smirk.

Shit.

Emma was so used to meaningless, powerful flirting as a means to her own ends with men like him who had their own salacious agendas that it was easy to forget that there was a real risk with this man. A heart to be broken. Two.

"You get them talking, love," the scent of salty brine and the spice of rum invaded Emma's senses, her eyes trained on that soft lip she remembered tasted like temptation and potential. Hot breath fanned over her lips. "And I'll show you the best spot on this cursed island. Trickling falls in the black lagoon," his voice lowered - deepened - and the air grew thicker between them, shrinking as he swayed closer. "The pink teardrop petals of the weeping willows, the luminescent porpoises and the glass roses of this isle."

Sounded dangerous.

"Why would I want that?" Her voice was breathier than normal.

Hook levelled her with his piercing blue gaze. "Might as well get back to your Storybrooke with a few good memories tucked away."

Emma smirked, careful to make her face sardonic and disbelieving. "And you think that will be a good moment?"

Emma felt Hook's breath hitch against her cheek as he chuckled, moving closer still. "One of."

But Emma heard: Perhaps it's you who couldn't handle it.

"You're right," Emma beamed, recognising there were only two ways to get out of this tight situation with the pirate. She picked the safer option, the one with the known outcome. "Meeting Tinkerbell was a good moment."

As expected, Hook flinched backwards with a sigh. But then his eyes flickered with mirth. "Now, if you were so eager to meet the green fairy, pray tell, how keen were you to meet me?"

Emma snorted and Hook beamed. Did he want an answer or was he trying to ease the rising tension? Emma could never tell with him.

Emma turned on her heel. "I'll show you when we get back."

Shit shit shit.

"The DVD. I'll show you the movie." Did he know what those words meant? His eyebrows furrowed deeply, and Emma guessed; no. But she'd shown him herself flustered and he was probably reading all sorts of things into that. "If we get back."

Now she was the one deflecting.

"We will."

Emma almost asked him how he could be so confident in a hopeless future. She didn't believe him, absolutely not, but she also quite liked how easily he articulated that of course, she would succeed whatever she put her mind to. No one had ever said those things to her. And never with such surety.

Hook must have read her question, or expected it. But he didn't say anything. All he did was look at her in that knowing way, angling his nose toward her, his chin away, shoulders and hips open like he was careful not to threaten her personal space but he wanted her to feel his presence.

And in that moment, Emma read him.

She was fierce. She was strong. She was lost but she'd found herself.

She was going to succeed.