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Emma pulled her bug up next to the curb outside Granny’s, where Henry was waiting.
Regina was saying, “…David’s courage, and Gold…Whatever she’s planning, this isn’t going to be good for us.”
Emma sighed and ran her index finger over the stitching on the steering wheel. It was a nervous habit she had developed over the years. “No, it definitely isn’t.”
David’s truck pulled up behind her, and he and Hook climbed out. When Emma had protested David driving back into town alone after being attacked, Hook had offered to ride with him. She had to concede that his offer was only in part because the backseat of her bug was not intend for a full-grown man, especially one in a cumbersome leather coat.
She and Regina climbed out of the car and walked over to the men. Regina and David headed straight into the diner, but Emma caught Hook’s upper arm to delay him a moment.
He raised an eyebrow. “You need something, love?”
Emma let go of his arm. “How was he on the ride over? David, I mean.”
Hook looked to where David had gone into Granny’s, and Emma swore she saw concern briefly furrow his brow. “A bit shook up, but no worse for it,” he said.
Emma pressed her lips together. “I don’t like this, Hook.”
“I’d be surprised if you did,” he said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He gestured towards her. “You don’t take well to threats against the people you care about, Swan. Never have.” Something about the way he looked at her as he said it made her feel as though he was wondering what she would do if he was ever threatened and that he wasn’t certain if he counted amongst those people. The thought stung her. The two of them made a good team, and she wouldn’t hang a teammate out to dry.
Ignoring the pang of guilt, Emma changed tactics slightly. “First David, and then we find out about Gold…” Even if Emma could believe that nothing else had changed in Hook, she couldn’t deny the change in his reaction to the mention of Rumplestiltskin. A shadow of his previous hatred and anger and pain flashed through his eyes, and it was gone as quickly as it came. He didn’t even clench his hand into a fist. “Something about it simply isn’t sitting right with me,” she said. “I feel like the two events are connected.”
“How?”
Emma shook her head. “I don’t know. There’s something about David’s courage being taken, and about Gold’s spinning wheel being in the cell, that parallels with the story, but not in a way that makes sense.”
Hook ran his tongue over his lips. Emma was annoyed that she knew it meant he was thinking. “Parallels between the witch’s moves and your world’s story book version of the tale?”
Emma nodded. “How much do you know about The Wizard of Oz?” She felt ridiculous even asking. She was trying to draw parallels to a children’s story.
To his credit, the character from a children’s story standing in front of her didn’t even blink. “Not much, I’m afraid.”
“Basically, it boils down to Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, and the Tin Man against the Wicked Witch of the West. Each of them wants something: Dorothy wants to go home, Scarecrow wants a brain, Cowardly Lion wants courage, the Tin Man wants a heart, and the witch wants the Ruby Slippers. Dorothy and her companions end up killing the Wicked Witch of the West to bring her broom to the wizard so he’ll give them these things and send Dorothy back to Kansas.” This idea seemed more and more stupid the more she said.
But Hook seemed to follow her line of thinking, if not the plot of the movie, immediately. “You suspect the Prince is the lion because the witch took his courage.”
Emma frowned. “And then there’s the straw Gold was spinning. The Scarecrow was made of straw.” She shook her head. “But David isn’t a lion, and the witch, what? Stole Gold’s mind?”
Hook considered it. “Not literally, no. Such a thing would leave evidence, and we’ve found no blood, no body. But we’ve no idea what the witch has done to the Crocodile. Perhaps she’s taken his mind much the way she took your father’s courage.”
Emma knotted her fingers into the ends of her hair and tugged. “Perhaps.” After a moment of trying to connect the dots and failing, Emma said, “Thanks Hook.”
He looked over at her, somewhat surprised. “For what, lass?”
“For listening to that. It sounds like nonsense even to me, and I came up with it.”
Hook shrugged. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned about you, Swan, it’s that your hunches are usually right, one way or the other.”
Emma nodded, compartmentalizing his confidence away to deal with later. “And for keeping an eye on David.”
Here he flashed her a roguish grin. “Well, love, a car ride seemed a small bit easier than hauling him up another cliff.”
“Yeah,” she said, not able to help grinning back. “I bet it did. Actually,” she said as another thought occurred to her, “would you mind keeping an eye on Henry for a little bit so I can actually talk to David? I want to see if he’ll tell me more about what happened in the woods. Maybe it’ll help me put the pieces together.”
“A little father-daughter heart-to-heart, eh Swan?” Hook looked like he wanted to nudge her in the ribs with his elbow.
She scowled. “Well?” she said, avoiding the question.
Hook laughed warmly. “So long as the lad doesn’t take to insulting my wardrobe again, I’m not averse to keeping him company while you talk to your father.”
Emma smiled, if somewhat predatorily. She stepped forward, invading his space as he had invaded hers earlier, and ran the leather of his collar between her fingers. “I’d say you wouldn’t have that problem if you’d just agree to change into clothes from this world, but I’m actually rather fond of the leather.” Emma looked up from his collar to his eyes and saw them widen first and then darken. She smiled a bit wider, turned around, and walked into Granny’s. It took him several moments to follow.
She wasn’t sure what had possessed her, but she was pleased with herself nevertheless. After that afternoon, with what he’d said in the woods, it was equilibrating to push back.
***
Emma had to press David to stay and talk to her. She promised to buy him dinner at Granny’s, which got his attention, but eventually she had to use Hook’s line about a father-daughter heart-to-heart, within Hook’s hearing, to get David to stay. Hook had smirked at her with a look that said ‘You’re welcome, love’ before sauntering over to the booth Henry was sitting in and ushering him up to the rooms upstairs. Regina looked a bit like she was trying not to curse Hook to the Void for taking Henry away, but got up from the booth and left Granny’s as gracefully as she could manage while fuming.
Emma ordered them two cheese burgers and two chocolate shakes: Perfect heart-to-heart food. “So you want to tell me what happened in the woods?” Emma said.
“Emma, she attacked me with my worst fears, and I had to confront them to defeat myself.” David was frowning, reluctance written all over his face.
Emma hated having to push him when he was clearly uncomfortable, but… “There’s something you’re not telling me.” She needed to know what that was, because it might help her figure all this out. It might not, but then again, it might.
The look David gave her was an expression she assumed only a father could wear: fondness mixed with pure exasperation. “I’m not the only one, Emma.”
“Fine, I’ll make you a deal. The witch used my worst fear against me as well. If you tell me about this afternoon, I’ll tell you about New York.” Emma knew anything she said would end up going straight back to Mary Margaret, but she reasoned that this was better than having to tell the story directly to Mary Margaret; at least David didn’t try to meddle. Well, didn’t try as often… “Deal?”
David searched her face for a way to stave off this conversation, but finally caved. “Deal.”
After he didn’t say anything for several moments, Emma smiled gently at him. “You first.”
“I…” he tried. “I mean my…my worst fear is that I’ll fail this new baby the same way I failed you, Emma.” David looks down at his hands resting on the counter.
‘Oh,’ she thought. ‘I guess I was wrong.’ His fear didn’t have anything to do with the case.
“David,” she said. When he didn’t look up at her, she laid her hand over his. “David.” This time he looked up.
He pulled one of his hands out from under hers and tucked a rogue lock of hair back behind her ear. “I’m so sorry, Emma. For not being there for you, for letting you go. Twice.” Tears swam in his eyes, although they didn’t fall. Emma was grateful. She was actively trying to ignore the aching in her own heart, and seeing David, no, her father, cry wasn’t going to help that.
“You didn’t have a choice, David, I know that.”
David blinked back the tears. “Does that actually make a difference, Emma? You grew up alone. Nothing I do now can change the fact that you grew up as an orphan. You said as much yourself in Neverland.”
Emma squeezed his hand. “You’re right. You can’t change the fact that I grew up alone. But David, knowing why I grew up alone makes all the difference in the world. I gave Henry up to give him his best chance. I still think that was the right choice, despite the life I thought we lived under Regina’s curse. I don’t know if Henry would agree with me, but in this life he has 3 parents, and grandparents, and a whole town who loves him, and in Regina’s life, he only had me. So knowing that my parents gave me up to save me, and to save our chance at being a family in the future, that matters, David. It matters a lot.”
“But Emma, it can’t undo the damage that’s already been done.”
“No,” she said. “It can’t. But it can start to heal it.”
David embraced her, pulling her in tight with his hand cradling the back of her head. He held on to her as if holding her would convince him of what hearing her hadn’t. “You’re going to be a great father, David,” Emma whispered. “You already are.”
He squeezed her even more tightly then. “So are you, you know. You’re a great mother.”
When he let her go, she had to stare into the fluorescent lights overhead. She’d heard somewhere that it helped you to not cry. She had marginal success at best.
Their food came then, and they ate in silence for several minutes before David prompted her. “I believe it’s your turn now, Emma.”
She sighed and set down her burger. She told him the whole story: meeting Walsh in his furniture shop, falling in love with him, his proposal, his betrayal. She told him about her and Henry’s life together. She told him about Hook finding her, although leaving out more detail there than in the other pieces. She didn’t tell him about how Walsh’s betrayal reminded her of an older one, or about how it brought the past flooding up again. But he didn’t need that context. He was willing to think that her experiences in the foster system were the only things that kept her so closed off, and Emma was willing to let him.
David was quiet throughout most of Emma’s story, only asking questions when it was necessary. When she finished though, he clenched his teeth together. “Eight months, Emma. And a proposal? That’s unforgivable.” The dark look in his eyes made her wonder if he was envisioning her being manipulated like that, or if it was Mary Margaret he’d transposed into the situation. Perhaps it was both. “She’ll pay for her crimes, Emma. I promise you.”
Emma only nodded tiredly. Retelling the story had been painful enough. She didn’t want to feel the outrage or the anguish again right now. Right now, she didn’t want to feel broken.
If it can be broken…
Emma pushed the thought away.
David caught her eye. “Emma, there are people in this world who’d love you if you’d let them,” David said. He was trying to be reassuring, and he wasn’t doing the worst job of it.
Emma reached over and squeezed his forearm. “I know you and Mary Margaret love me,” she said.
“I didn’t mean your mother and myself,” he said. The look he gave her said ‘And you know it.’
Emma sighed heavily. She expected this from Mary Margaret, but not from David. He usually only meddled at her mother’s request. “Don’t say Neal.” It was as much a command as a plea.
“I wasn’t going to.”
Emma frowned. He was telling the truth, but that didn’t stop her from second-guessing him. “You weren’t? Because Mary Margaret...”
“Mary Margaret is a terminal optimist,” David said, cutting her off.
Emma couldn’t help the quick, sharp laugh that escaped her lips. “Terminal?”
David smiled back at her. “You know your mother. She’s determined to see the best in everyone. Sometimes so much so that she’s blind to the truth.” David sighed. “Her optimism is what made her trust Cora as a child, which ultimately cost Regina the man she loved and her freedom.” He paused for a moment. “I love Snow for her faith in goodness and love. But sometimes she needs to be reminded that not everything can have a happy ending simply because she wants it too.”
Emma did her best not to gape at David. She wasn’t sure she’d ever heard him speak a less than favorable word about Mary Margaret, especially not since the first curse had been broken.
David smiled guiltily at her. “I try to keep her from pushing Neal on you too hard.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “But she’s a bit single minded when it comes to making sure you’re happy, Emma.”
“I know she means well.” But neither of you know what he did... “But I don’t think I’ll ever have that with Neal.”
David nodded. “I see that. And I think Mary Margaret is starting to as well.”
Again, David was telling the truth, but the truth made no sense. Emma pressed him for more. “It wasn’t that long ago that you were pushing me to meet Neal here, to give him a chance.”
“It’s been over a year…” David said.
“A year you don’t even remember.”
“True.” David sighed. “I’m not sure I can explain it, Emma. I just know that whenever anyone mentions Neal, your face fills with fear. And it isn’t only fear for him. It’s fear of him.” David paused. “I see your face, and I’m right back in the Echo Cave hearing you confess that you hoped Neal was dead.”
Emma’s hand curled into a tight fist. David wasn’t the only one back in the cave every time someone mentioned Neal. Emma focused on the aching joints in her hand instead, until suddenly David’s hands were cradling hers, uncurling her fingers, pressing them flat, holding them tight. Eventually Emma let go of the tension in her hand and arm.
“There’s my girl,” he said softly.
Emma breathed deeply and they were silent for several moments, until something occurred to her. She narrowed her eyes. “If not the two of you, or Neal, then who did you mean?”
David chuckled. “I’d think that was obvious.”
To her credit, Emma didn’t flinch, or squirm, or look away. She met David’s gaze levelly and, after a few moments, she said, “And now you approve, do you?”
David considered her question for a moment, then nodded. “Surprisingly, I do approve.”
***
The rest of the meal went more smoothly with David, in easier territory for them both. Still, though, when David left and Emma trudged up the stairs to hers and Henry’s room, she couldn’t deny that she felt a little bruised all over.
When she walked into the room, Henry was sitting on the couch with Hook. Henry was playing a video game, enthusiastically explaining the rules, while Hook looked very much like a drowning man in need of air.
“Hey, kid, how’s it going?” she said. Henry barely glanced at her before mumbling ‘good’ and focusing back on his battle. Hook, however, locked eyes with her. Apparently she was the air.
“Your boy is attempting to teach me how this contraption works,” Hook said.
Henry laughed. “You’re really bad at it.”
Hook furrowed his brow and squared his shoulders. “I don’t imagine you’re much good at steering a ship.”
Henry laughed again. “Probably not.”
Emma walked over to the couch and rubbed Henry’s shoulders. “Alright, alright. I think it’s time we call it a night anyway.” In the midst of ‘awe Mom’ Emma said, “Why don’t you finish up this fight and get ready for bed?”
“You’re coming to bed too, Mom?”
Emma smiled down at him, which of course he didn’t see because he was so focused on the game. “Yeah, I’ll be to bed in a little while. I just need to talk to Killian first.” Hook’s name still felt strange in her mouth, like when she was a child and had been caught cursing.
Once the fight was over, (Henry winning), he got up and went back to the bedroom/bathroom area of their suite and closed the door behind him. Hook stood up and eyed her curiously.
“Have a good heart-to-heart with Daddy Charming?” Hook said.
Emma gave him a brittle smile and let the teasing roll off of her. She didn’t feel quite up to their verbal sparring. “Yeah. Wasn’t as helpful as I’d hoped though.” She shrugged, walked over to the window, and leaned back against the wall.
After a moment of looking at her, the smirk faded from Hook’s face. “You alright there, Swan?”
She briefly considered the truth: The conversation with her father had left her feeling broken open and drained. But instead she went with a different truth. “Can I ask you something?”
Emma wasn’t exactly sure how to describe the change in Hook’s face, she couldn’t pinpoint what changed, only that a general softness overtook it. “Ask away, love.”
Emma chided herself internally. ‘He’s not even pushing you into it this time.’ But she asked him anyways. “Is it wrong to be glad that I have my family back, and that I’m not sorry an entire town had to be cursed to do it?”
Surprised lit his eyes briefly. “Perhaps I’m not the best person to ask, Emma, because would that I could have mine back, I’m not certain a curse would seem much of an obstacle.” He hung his head slightly, and Emma wondered if she was reading the emotion correctly. He looked as though he felt ashamed of the admission.
“So you’re saying yes? It is wrong?”
“I don’t know, lass. I think perhaps it’s human.” Hook paused and began to turn his hook in the lamp light, watching the way the light skipped and glinted off of it, seemingly caught up in memories. “The difference is you wouldn’t’ve cursed an entire town yourself to do it.” Meaning that Hook would have. Which was true when she met him, whether or not it was true now.
Guilt welled up in her gut for allowing him, demanding him, to be so honest with her and yet never giving him the same. Emma leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. “If I hadn’t been cursed to forget, I’m not so sure.” The words were a whisper of air, so soft that she wasn’t sure if Hook even heard her.
But when she opened her eyes, he was looking straight at her. The look reminded her of the one he had worn in the woods that afternoon, all intensity, and she simultaneously wanted to pull him closer and to shrink back into the wall itself.
But all he said was, “Well then, I suppose we’ll just have to keep one another from cursing towns, won’t we?” The words were soft, without his usual sarcasm or wit, but he said them with a slight smile on his lips.
Emma surprised herself by returning it. “I suppose we will,” she said. She pushed away from the wall. “Get some rest, Hook. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Hook nodded and moved toward the door, opening it. He paused when he was halfway out of the room and turn to grin mischievously at her. “Have sweet, sweet dreams of me, love,” he said. And then closed the door on Emma’s scowl before she had a chance to respond.
Alone, she couldn’t help but laugh. The idiot pirate and his lewd remarks. She laughed until tears swam in her eyes. Somehow, his words had been just what she’d needed to hear to shake off the day. Still chuckling, she wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes and marveled at how momentarily light her heart felt.
This time she didn’t try to push the thought away.
…it means it still works.