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Emma sunk into the couch in the living room of the small suite she and Henry were sharing at Granny’s and stared unfocused at the hideous picnic checkered drapes. It was just after 11: Henry’d just gone to bed, and she knew she should too. It’d been a long day and tomorrow would certainly be even longer, but she was still feeling a bit off kilter from their little hall pow-wow outside David and Mary Margaret’s. The Wicked Witch of the West. Emma shook her head. She honestly didn’t know why anything surprised her anymore. Perhaps she simply didn’t have an imagination that was quite up to the task of supposing every fairy tale and story book character and creature was real. She certainly had nothing on Henry’s imagination. Or at least the imagination he had before Regina’s spell. Maybe his current lack of imagination was just because he was a teenager now.
Emma was trying to convince herself that a glass of wine was definitely worth getting up off of the couch for when there was a soft knock at the door. She sighed. At least she could get the wine on the way back to the couch. Maybe she wouldn’t bother with a glass, though. That’d take an extra couple of paces.
Hook was leaning against the doorjamb when Emma swung the door open. “Hook,” she said.
He raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t it rather late for you to be up, Swan?”
She shrugged. “You knocked on my door.”
“Didn’t figure you’d answer.”
Emma walked back toward the side table where several bottles of wine stood. She grabbed one with a screw top. “You coming in, or what?”
Hook strode into the suite, closing the door behind him, and followed her to the couch. Emma twisted off the top and tipped the bottle back. She had, in fact, forgone a glass and it was oddly satisfying. After a long swig, she held the bottle out to Hook, who took it with a chuckle.
“Are we getting drunk, now?”
She didn’t fight the tug of a smile at her lips. “No,” she said. “Just washing down a particularly long day and fortifying ourselves against the next.” Which was what she’d been planning to do alone. She didn’t see a reason to change those plans now that Hook was here. It actually seemed like a better plan with him: Hook was always a good drinking partner.
He inclined the bottle in her direction. “A worthy pursuit,” he said and kicked the bottle back. He did eye the bottle with a little distaste, however, as he handed back to Emma.
“Wishing it was rum?”
Hook chuckled again. “Aye, love, you know my preference well.”
Emma felt no particular need to keep up the banter about drinking, so instead she sighed deeply, propped her feet up on the coffee table, and leaned her head against the back of the couch. It wasn’t so long ago that her poor imagination would’ve also spluttered at the thought of amiably sharing a drink with Captain Hook. How much difference a few years made. Really, how much difference a couple days and a little potion made. She let her eyes shut while she took another sip.
“Did you need something?” she asked.
Emma heard the rustle of Hook shaking his head. “Perhaps just a drink.”
“Well then lucky for you drinking was my plan already.”
“Indeed.”
Perhaps it was the exhaustion, but Emma wasn’t terribly worried that Hook had knocked on her door, on the off-chance she’d be awake, just to share a drink.
“I suppose flying monkeys are just par for the course for you, huh?” Emma said. At his apparent confusion at the expression, Emma tried again. “Run of the mill.” That at least seemed to make more sense to him, but he still said nothing. “Common,” she said finally.
Understanding crossed his features. “Even for me, lass, they are quite extraordinary. I assure you I’ve seen nothing of their like before.”
“At least there’s that, then.” It was oddly reassuring that Hook was as out of his depth as she was.
“At least there’s what?”
Too late Emma realized that the answer to his question would expose a weakness of hers that she’d not intended to expose. She sighed. Too late now. “It’s no surprise that I’ve never encounter flying monkeys before: Aside from a brief stint in the Enchanted Forest and in Neverland, I’ve spent my whole life here. We have a definite lack of magical creatures of any kind here. You,” Emma gestured towards Hook, “have sailed to a lot of places and seen plenty of strange, magical creatures. It’s much more surprising that you’ve never seen one.” She paused for a moment and he waited for her to continue. “I guess it’s just a relief is all.”
Both of Hook’s brows raised. “You are relieved, Swan, not to be alone in your ignorance?”
She winced. ‘Ignorance’ about summed it up.
“I assure you, if the Prince’s reaction this afternoon is any indication, you’ve better company than I.”
“Oh? I didn’t know you believed anyone to be better company than yourself, pirate,” Emma said. A wry, daring grin spread on her lips. It must’ve been the half bottle of wine she’d already downed, because she’d beat Hook to initiating their obligatory taunting.
Hook laughed rather too loudly, to which Emma shushed him. “Henry’s sleeping,” she said around her own laughter. Emma found herself momentarily mystified by this camaraderie between them. It was as if, in the course of the past few days, Hook had settled in as a natural part of her life. Something Emma was inclined to attribute to his part in bringing her memories back and not to examine any more closely than that.
Still laughing, although quieter, Emma said, “Do you have any idea how much it’s killing me not to tell Henry about all of this? Forget that she may be trying to kill us all, he’d have a fit if he knew who we’re up against. Henry loves that movie. We must’ve watched it a thousand times when he was…” Emma broke off mid-sentence. Little, she was going to say, when he was little. Her fingers tightened around the neck of the wine bottle.
The mirth vanished from Hook’s face, replaced with a genuine concern that Emma couldn’t stand to see. “Swan…” he began.
“Don’t.” Her voice was soft but it was clear that the matter wasn’t up for debate. She wasn’t sure if he was going to offer her pity or comfort, or what, but she couldn’t accept either of them. Instead she looked back to the curtains and determinedly examined the crosshatching.
After at least a minute of sitting in heavy silence, Hook tried again. This time his voice was not laced with unacceptable concern; instead it bit at her, though the sharpness of his words were directed at himself alone. “You wish your memories of this life never returned?” Without waiting for her answer, Hook pried the wine bottle from her grip and drank deeply.
Emma looked back and met his eyes. “I’ve asked myself that same question a thousand times.” It wasn’t a reassuring answer, but it was the truth. She shook her head and, in a voice more for herself than for Hook, said, “I know the memories aren’t real, but sometimes, when I’m not thinking about it, I forget that I know. I forget that they’re not real.”
“How often?”
“Often enough. But that’s probably for the best, considering I still have to pretend that was our life together.” The bitterness was a thick slur in her voice.
Hook paused for a long moment. “You’ll find a way to get your boy’s memories back soon enough, Swan.”
“You’re so certain,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
“This is you we’re talking about. You’ll prevail,” he said, holding her gaze. “You always do.”
Emma wasn’t sure what to do with his confidence in her but to accept it. It reassured her, and unsettled her, but mostly made her feel incredibly guilty for how ungrateful she’d been to Hook for all he’d risked and all he’d done to save her. She still hadn’t asked just how much. “I know I haven’t thanked you yet for coming back for me,” Emma said.
Hook leaned back and swung his legs up next to hers on the coffee table. “You don’t have to thank me, Swan.” To Emma, it sounded more like ‘I don’t want your obligation, you don’t owe me.”
She frowned, more at herself than at him. Emma intentionally kept Hook at arm’s length, and that had been fine when his loyalty was questionable. But she wasn’t questioning it anymore. So why was she still treating him as suspect? Why didn’t he expect better from her? “I do,” she said, “and I will.”
Hook let out a sound in between a hum and a sigh. “But you’re not now.”
“No,” she agreed. “I’m not.” Hook looked away. He would’ve let her stop there, with no further explanation, but the hurt that flashed in his eyes made her continue. “You deserve my thanks, Hook.” And because ‘deserve’ sounded too much like ‘obligation,’ Emma said, “I want to thank you.” She wanted to, but… “But sorting through 13 years of conflicting memories is taking some time.” Which was true, if not the whole of it. “So I’m not going to offer my thanks until I can offer it honestly.”
For a moment, Hook looked at her the way Emma imagined he must’ve looked at Little John when he sprouted wings and a tail, but then his expression smoothed into a more trained casualness and all he replied was, “As you wish.”
Emma studied the curtains again. That phrase always made her feel like ants were crawling beneath her skin when he said it. She fought the urge to scratch at the itching prickle just under the skin on her arm.
They were both silent as they polished off the rest of the bottle between the two of them. The silence weighed on Emma. It was out of sync with the alternately amiable and antagonistic banter they’d established between them in Neverland and then back in Storybrooke a year ago. It wasn’t that they were never silent then, but this wasn’t the comfortable silence of having nothing to say; it was the thick silence of a year going unexplained and unspoken. Emma couldn’t ask Hook for details about what had happened to him during the last year, because she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answers, but she couldn’t say nothing, either.
Emma rolled her head over to look at him. “You alright there, Hook?”
A small grin tugged at his lips to hear his own words parroted back at him. “Indeed. Why d’ya ask, love?”
Emma raised an eyebrow. “Because normally you would’ve taken that opportunity to make some sort of crude innuendo.”
“Crude?” Hook melodramatically laid his hand over his heart. “Swan you wound me.”
Emma snorted. “I seem to remember a line about gratitude being in order.”
“Nothing crude about that love,” he said, his familiar, roguishly suggestive smile playing across his lips.
‘Ah,’ Emma thought, ‘there it is.’ “Maybe not on its own, no, but combined with that look you are giving me right now and your fingers pressed to your lips…” She let her voice trail off and shrugged her shoulders.
Hook chuckled warmly, though more careful of his volume this time. “Careful Swan. One might almost think you missed them.”
“The innuendos or your lips?” She was goading him on, enjoying the interplay.
His eyes widened, then swept her up and down appraisingly. “Both.” He clearly approved of her surprisingly bold retort.
She fought the tug of her lips. “Definitely not.” But she couldn’t fight it. The wide grin stretched past her limits of self-control. Hook had been far too reserved since he woke her. It wasn’t like him. This bawdy wit was far more like the pirate she knew, and she was surprised to realize how relieved she felt to have it back.
At her obviously false denial, Hook’s laughter deepened. “Of course. Wouldn’t dream of believing otherwise.”
“Good,” she said smugly.
Silence settled in again, but this time it was a lighter quiet. Perhaps because he was always so pointedly honest with her, perhaps more so than she strictly deserved, she spoke before she could think better of it. “I did, you know.”
His eyebrows tugged together in confusion. “Did what?”
“Miss this.”
Emma heard him draw in a long, deep breath. “Did you now?”
She flashed him a grin. “Well, New York does have a rather distinct lack of dashing rapscallions, you know,” she said.
Hook smiled. It wasn’t his usual mischievous one, however. In fact, Emma might’ve described it as fond. “Aye, lass,” he said. “That it does.”
Emma nodded, for lack of a better response, until she came to a quick conclusion. “You were right to bring my memories back, Hook. Even if I’m not enjoying the aftermath, I know waking me up was the right thing.”
Hook declined his head towards her in a strange offering of deference. “I’m glad.”
“So am I.” And she was. Her cursed life had been charmed, however counter intuitive the idea was. But if she was honest, Emma wasn’t sure that charmed agreed with her. Although she loved the years of false memories with Henry like a wonderful dream, she wouldn’t give up their real memories in trade. Their true story was more painful, yes, but it was also more beautiful; in reality, Henry was the true hero, not Emma. So though the memories Regina crafted hurt her now, Emma suspected that soon enough they’d be precious to her: another life she had gotten to lead, however briefly, alongside her own.
And then there was David and Mary Margaret, and Regina, and meeting Neal again, and…
Her eyes swept the room lazily, away from Hook, and fell on the clock. It was after 2 a.m. Emma groaned. “It’s way too late,” she said.
Hook looked over at the clock and exhaled sharply. “We should sleep if we wish to be in any shape to ward off the simian hoard come dawn.”
Emma raised an eyebrow at his bemusing choice of words but said nothing.
Hook stood and her eyes followed his. He reached out and lay his hand on her shoulder, squeezing it gently in wordless reassurance. “Good night, Swan.”
She offered him a warm smile for the gesture. “Good night.”
Later, as she lay in bed waiting for sleep to claim her, she felt phantom lips against hers, a hand pressed to the back of her head, leather curled beneath her fingers. She wouldn’t, couldn’t, go there, and yet, in the empty darkness of her room, she couldn’t help acknowledging how much she wanted to.