Storybrooke, Maine wasn’t on her map a week ago. 

 

Emma Swan is not crazy. She doesn’t have postpartum depression, she hasn’t lost her mind because of the stress of raising a newborn and a twelve-year-old, and she was never crazy to begin with. She’s perfectly sane and she doesn’t have anything to worry about. 

 

Except for the fact that nothing makes sense and it feels like her life is falling apart. 

 

It started three months ago when she came home with the baby in tow. She thought maybe Henry had taken the book home from the library, but it doesn’t seem like his style. He’s never been one to go for fairytales, leaning more towards video games, so it doesn’t seem likely. No, it just showed up when she got home. And when she grabbed the book, things felt… different. 

 

She feels crazy. She read the book, and it felt far too familiar. The story was insane, convoluted fairytales all meshed together in a way that made her head spin, and yet, it made complete sense. Snow White was cursed and sent to a land that didn’t have any magic. Her baby was cast away first, destined to break the curse that threatened her parents and their people. 

 

It’s insane. And yet, she feels comforted when she reads the stories. 

 

Honestly, it’s a wonder she’s even had a chance to read them, what with a newborn taking up all of her time. But she can’t seem to get herself away from that damn book. 

 

It started to feel so real that she looked up this Land Without Magic, this Storybrooke, but it didn’t exist. It didn’t exist, so she tried to put the thoughts out of her head. But the feeling that this is real just got stronger and stronger, so she looked again. 

 

And there it was. 

 

And here she is. 

 

Henry was confused when she dragged him and the baby along on an hours-long road trip. He didn’t understand why he wasn’t allowed to miss school while his brother was being born, but he is now. Frankly, she doesn’t understand it either. All she knows is that her son was born, she found the book, and she has to go to Storybrooke. 

 

Since she found the book, things have been strange. She’s been feeling crazy, unhinged. And she started to question things. How things came to be. How she can have a lifetime of memories with Henry, despite how foggy they feel. How she can find herself pregnant and not know how. She hasn’t been attacked; she’s certain she would know if she was. But she has another son now, and no explanation for how he came to be. 

 

Storybrooke is a bizarre place. The second they cross the town line, the baby starts fussing. Henry springs into action, reaching for his toys and popping his pacifier into his mouth, and she smiles from the front seat. He isn’t easily consoled, though, until she drives down the wooded road and into town, pulling over at a place called Granny’s Diner. 

 

It’s nearly three in the afternoon when they enter, the baby sleeping soundly in his carrier as Emma hauls it through the door. The diner is nearly empty, only a few patrons littering the seats and a single older woman working behind the counter. When the door’s bell rings, she doesn’t look up, gesturing out towards the dining room and boredly instructing, “Sit wherever you like.” 

 

Things feel relatively normal, more normal than she’d expected, until the old woman sees her. She drops the pad she’s working on and her jaw drops open. “Dear Gods, girl,” she says as she hurries around the corner towards the booth they’re settling into. 

 

Emma’s eyes widen as she asks, “Sorry, have we met?” and watches the woman’s face fall. 

 

She stares, at Emma and Henry, then down to the sleeping baby in the booth at her side, studying each of them so intently that it makes the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. She starts to stand, letting her body block the view of the baby, and almost gets a defensive word out before she’s interrupted. 

 

“Sorry,” the woman bites out. “You just… you look familiar. Sorry. What’ll it be?” 

 

“This place is weird,” Henry says once they’ve ordered, his voice quiet in mindful recognition of his sleeping brother. “Why did we come here again?”

 

She’s quiet for a moment, focusing on the tiny socks covering her son’s tiny, perfect feet in favor of coming up with an answer. In fact, she doesn’t quite know. 

 

There’s activity behind the counter, she notices, the woman who took their order hurrying towards the phone and making a hushed call as she stares anxiously out across the dining room. Her voice is too quiet to make out, but she feels her eyes staring daggers into Emma and her family and a shiver runs down her spine. The woman hangs up the phone, and as the moments pass, she watches them. She doesn’t even move to put their order in with the kitchen. Emma’s about to stand, to grab the baby and Henry and flee, to give in to her fight or flight instincts and protect them with everything she has, but the door opens with a jingle and she stops short. 

 

Two people walk in, each of them looking oddly familiar. It’s like she’s seen them before, but only in dreams. They hurry inside towards the counter, their eyes darting around the diner as they speak to the old woman. 

 

“She doesn’t remember,” the woman says to them in a whisper. “Neither of them do.”

 

“Regina really did a number on them,” the man answers. She notes the sheriff’s badge on his hip, and any remaining sense of safety she may have felt before goes out the window. If the police are acting this strangely, she knows she’s in for trouble. 

 

“How do we get them to remember?”

 

“And what about the baby?”

 

She stands now, grabbing at the baby carrier and pulling him close to her in haste. “Come on, kid. We can find a McDonalds or something,” she says to him quietly. 

 

He whispers, “Nice,” sending his fist through the air as he hurries to follow her, and they're out the door before the couple who appear in her dreams can follow them. 

 

~~~~

 

He remembers everything. 

 

He remembers that night in the jungle, when she fled the campsite after Neal’s return and her parents’ questions became too much. When the inquiries about her decision, about why she’s holding back, about why she doesn’t want to go back to him, became too heavy on her soul. When the pain of not knowing if she’ll ever see her son again became entirely unbearable. He remembers how she begged him for release, how she let her tears slip from her gleaming eyes, how she clung to him in a moment of what she would have considered weakness. 

 

How she needed him. 

 

He recognizes that look in her eyes now. Her desperation and fear is palpable from across the park just like it was that night. The lad looks at the contraption he holds, seemingly unbothered by his mother’s shaking foot, but that’s not what sticks out to Killian the most. 

 

What sticks out to him is the babe she hoists from the strange seat and meets with a grin despite her obvious distress. What sticks out to him is the thick halo of dark, soft curls that splashes over his head. Killian doesn’t need to be any closer to them to notice the color of the child’s eyes and the strange point to his left ear. 

 

It’s almost funny. He remembers that night in the jungle, when he thought it was nothing more than a quick release, a way for her to reconcile her despair. He thought– he knew– she was using him then. He knew that she planned on forgetting about their dalliance. He would have fought for her, still would now, but she was going to try with Neal. She didn’t need a reminder that she had fallen into bed with the dirty pirate. 

 

And yet, the reminder lies in her arms. 

 

And he’s bloody adorable. 

 

Killian knows he shouldn’t move, shouldn’t approach her. He knows her. She may not know him, at least according to Granny, but he knows her better than perhaps anyone else. She’ll startle easily if he approaches her. But he can’t stay away. 

 

That’s his son. 

 

~~~~ 

 

“Lass?” she hears over the sound of cooing and fussing. He’s started to babble, slowly finding his voice, although he does seem to favor a wide, almost flirtatious grin. He’s cheeky, and she thinks he knows it. 

 

“Hi,” she greets before looking the man up and down. His outfit is outrageous. His coat nearly reaches the ground, heavy black leather likely baking him from the inside out, and the kohl liner under his eyes makes them appear absolutely striking. “Can I help you?”

 

He smiles, a smirk that reminds her of something she’s seen before, and she nearly flounders. “I thought perhaps I might be able to help you,” he starts, his accent clear through his speech. “You seem… lost.”

 

“Why are you dressed like that?” she asks, simply because she can’t conjure any other coherent thought. 

 

His face shifts as if she’s offended him and he starts, “Why are you–” but he clears his throat. “Ah… a costume party.” 

 

“What are you, Captain Hook?”

 

He falters, opening his mouth as if he thinks something’s changed between them, and then laughs awkwardly. “Aye, I suppose I am. Killian Jones,” he introduces. 

 

She rolls her eyes. “Emma. I’m not lost. We’re just looking for a place to stay.” 

 

“You’ll be in town long?” 

 

Henry lifts his head from his Gameboy because he’s wondering the same thing, and she simply shrugs. 

 

“Well, I do hope you were met with a warm welcome.”

 

She shrugs again. “Not really, but it’s fine. Do you know where we can get a room around here?”

 

“Aye, love,” he assures her, his sentiment making her stomach flip in strange familiarity. “I’m staying at Granny’s myself. I’m happy to escort you all there.” 

 

“Thanks.” She leans forward, careful not to crush the baby as she reaches for his bottle, but she can’t quite get it. The man removes it from the diaper bag, stepping over to her and taking the opportunity to sit beside her as he hands it to her. 

 

He’s warm. She wants to lean in close to him, rest her head against his shoulder. The way he smells is triggering memories that she can’t quite grasp onto, although she knows they’re there. He feels like home. 

 

“You’ve a beautiful son,” he tells her, and her heart flutters because, while she knows it’s true, she also knows that this stranger means it. His eyes are clear, almost glassy as if they’re filling with tears as he gazes at her baby. “Your lad, too, but I don’t suppose he enjoys being called beautiful .” 

 

“No, he doesn’t,” Henry grumbles, and the man chuckles. 

 

“Apologies, lad.” 

 

“Thanks,” Emma whispers, although she doesn’t mean to speak. She can’t exactly stop herself. 

 

“How old is he?” he asks softly, gently, his voice soothing the anxiety that has been settled over her since their arrival. 

 

“Three months.”

 

He gulps, his brows pinching as he nods. Then he breathes out softly and gives him a smile. The baby smiles back. 

 

“What’s his name?” he whispers. 

 

“Liam.”

 

His face falls, as if his world is collapsing around him, and she notices a tear falling from his eye and trailing down his cheek. This should be strange, she reminds herself. Someone she doesn’t know getting emotional over the name she gave her son is not normal. But as she stares into his eyes, all she wants is to comfort him. So she squeezes her free hand over his. 

 

“It’s a lovely name,” he chokes out, shaking his head to right himself and then giving her another stunning smile. “How did you come up with it?”

 

She shrugs. “It just… When he was born, it was just right.”

 

He clears his throat again, and she almost wonders if she should be concerned that he’s so close to her infant if he’s sick. “It does suit him,” he says, his voice complimentary. Then, in a proud, strained whisper, “You did very well.” 

 

“Thanks,” she whispers back, again not meaning to, because this should be weird. But it isn’t. 

 

“Will you allow me to walk you to Granny’s then?” he asks suddenly. There’s a shift between them, but it isn’t uncomfortable. She still feels like she knows him, like she should be safe with him, so she accepts. 

 

“Are we staying overnight?” Henry asks, and although she isn’t sure why they would need to, what else she needs to accomplish here, she nods. 

 

“We can’t drive back tonight,” she explains. “Liam needs a bath.” 

 

It’s a poor excuse. If she really wanted to leave this place, they would go now. But now that she’s met this man, this Killian, she feels like she made the right choice in coming for the first time since she found the book. 

 

~~~~

 

“We need a memory potion.” 

 

It was an obvious enough sentiment. Bringing back Emma’s memories will solve many of their problems. Namely, perhaps Killian can truly get to know the little lad who he firmly believes to be his son. There’s almost no doubt in his mind, in fact. Bloody hell, the boy looks just like him. He looks like his namesake. 

 

Of course, no one else seems to think so.

 

“I can’t believe she had a baby,” the queen nearly cries. “We’ve got to find Neal. He deserves to know.” 

 

Killian balks, his jaw dropping before he can snap it shut. “Something to say, pirate?” Dave asks, and he shakes his head. 

 

They don’t know about his and Emma’s moment together in the jungle that night, because why would they? She had no need to tell them. Aside from how strange it would be for her to share such information with her parents, she and everyone else was under the impression that she would be making things work with Neal. 

 

But that’s his son. 

 

Killian doesn’t care if she ended up with Neal in those few days before this curse ripped her from him. Of course, it breaks his heart to think about, but she’s a grown woman and can make any choice she wants. If Neal made her happy, then Killian is happy. He wants more than anything to believe that Emma belongs to him, but he isn’t fool enough to believe that he has any claim over her. 

 

Maybe things would be different if he had tried harder in New York. He was so hasty when he left the Enchanted Forest, knowing this to be his only chance to get back to his Swan, that he hadn’t even realized that it was a lost cause. With the curse coming, all he could do was try to outrun it, knowing that it would bring down the walls between realms. But it was a fool's errand. She wouldn’t remember him, he realized too late. 

 

He knows how curses work. He knew that if he were trapped inside, trapped in Storybrooke, he’d have no memory of her. He’d rather lose everything if it only meant keeping the memory of her. 

 

But maybe if he had tried to make her remember him, maybe if he had tried True Love’s Kiss like he almost convinced himself to, he wouldn’t be on the outside staring in at his child, unable to hold him or kiss him or raise him with the woman he loves. 

 

But that’s his son. 

 

He’ll break this bloody curse, no matter what it takes, if only so he can ensure that another boy doesn’t grow up without a father. 

 

~~~~

 

Sometimes, when she stares at her son sleeping soundly beside her, Emma gets caught up in her own thoughts of him. How he was the size of a raspberry when she found out about him, and now he’s nearly fifteen pounds, 25 inches long, finding his voice and his attitude. His hair seems to get thicker each day, the dark wisps turning into an almost full head of dark brown. His eyes glow so perfectly that it almost makes her wonder where they came from. Almost. 

 

She was drunk one night, an evening of irresponsibility as Henry slept soundly with adults she trusted. She got pregnant by a man she can hardly even place, the only memory of him the soft leather beneath her fingertips. She should have made better choices, but she didn’t, and that’s alright. Because now she has another son, just as perfect as her first and just as loved. Neither of her children have fathers, but they have their mother, and she works every moment to ensure that it’s enough for them. 

 

Killian was helpful in getting her a room at Granny’s. He spoke to the old woman for her, somehow understanding her discomfort despite not knowing its origins. Still clad in his costume, he worked to ensure that she would have a room big enough for the three of them. He helped her carry her bags up the stairs. He stared at her baby as she unlocked the door, making faces at him until he began to smile. It was sweet, really, despite him being a stranger. A part of her thinks she might not have even minded if he had asked to hold him. If the way his grin spread across his face, his eyes beaming and a soft chuckle escaping his throat, was any indication, he seems taken by little Liam. And how could he not be?

 

~~~~

 

“He couldn’t be mine. We weren’t… I would know if he’s mine.”

 

Baelfire is right, at least, Killian hopes he is. He hopes that if he and Emma were intimate, he would at least remember it. “She must’ve… found someone… right after the curse,” the Queen offers awkwardly. 

 

Or right before , he wants to add with a roll to his eyes, because he still can’t quite believe that no one has figured it out yet. No one has sorted out where the soft curl to his dark hair and his ocean blue eyes and the subtle point to his left ear came from. No one knows his name yet, and no one knows from where his name originated, so at least there’s some semblance of an excuse for their lack of logic. That night when Emma fled the sight and asked him about his brother was the only time he uttered his name. 

 

“If my father was still alive, he could probably help Regina with the memory potion.” 

 

“Of course he could,” Belle says, her hand placed upon Bae’s as she tries to comfort him through their shared loss. Killian once again tries not to roll his eyes. Sure, he’s glad that Bae is alright after being found lost in the woods, but a small and selfish part of him wishes he would stop bringing up the bloody Crocodile. 

 

Last he remembered from being with the group in the Enchanted Forest, Bae had left to try and find a way to bring Rumplestiltskin back. It only follows that he failed, and Killian only feels a slight twinge of guilt at feeling relieved, if only because perhaps he’s right. It’s entirely possible that the Dark One could help with a memory potion, but that isn’t an option now. The only option he can see is to break the curse the old fashioned way. 

 

~~~~

 

“Emma,” he says happily as he shuts his door across the hall from hers, his smile beaming and familiar. “Good morning.”

 

“Hi,” she says, struggling with the infant carrier as she reaches for the door handle. He reaches for the baby without thinking, and she doesn’t jump to grab it out of his grasp like she would with someone else. Instead, she gives him a smile and pulls her door shut. “Thanks.”

 

“Getting coffee this morning?”

 

“Trying,” she grumbles as she rolls her eyes, giving her youngest son the most irritated look she could manage. It’s not easy; he’s far too adorable to be mad at, even though he kept her up until almost four. Now that it’s morning, she’s trying her best to keep him on schedule and wake him up at the usual time, and he’s punishing her for it. 

 

“Mind if I join you?” 

 

She turns to him finally, looking up from Liam and taking in Killian’s change of wardrobe. He’s still sporting black leather and form hugging pants, but he’s gotten rid of his hook and his greatcoat. It’s impossible not to notice that, now that he’s removed his costume and gotten rid of his fake hook, he wears a stiff, gloved prosthetic instead. Suddenly, his choice of costume makes perfect sense. “Sure,” she finally says, shaking her head softly as she removes herself from her distracting thoughts of his outfit. “As long as you don’t mind a fussy baby.”

 

“Never,” he grins. His gaze drops to the carrier as he hands it back to her and his smile softens, and she swears the look on his face is one of longing. “I’m more than happy to spend some time with the little lad.”

 

“Well, he’s a real grump this morning. Barely slept a wink last night.”

 

“No?” he asks as they start down the hall, and she watches as he peels his stare off of her son so that he doesn’t crash. With a soft chuckle, he remarks, “Suppose he’s got a good head start on being a troublemaker for you, aye?” 

 

“That’s for sure,” she laughs lightly. He pushes the door open and lets her pass through it, struggling slightly with the baby, before he follows her to a table and moves to grab a high chair from beside the end of the counter. She sees him standing over there for a while after she places the carrier down, talking to the older woman she had met yesterday and taking in her wild hand gestures. 

 

“There we are,” he says once he’s returned. “Granny says we can flip this over and place the lad just beside you so he has a nice view of his mum.”

 

She can’t help but blush as he flips the high chair and places it beside her, looking to her for permission before she nods and he places Liam and his carrier safely inside. Once he’s settled, Killian stares into the carrier at the fussy baby and grins again, a smile stretching from ear to ear and making her heart race. He sits opposite her at the booth, and once Granny brings over two mugs of coffee she didn’t know he’d asked for, she notices. 

 

He’s staring at the baby longingly again, but this time, it’s as he exchanges funny faces with him. He sticks his tongue out, earning a smile from Liam, and laughs purely in response. She notices the way Liam settles easily, finally no longer crying or whining or needing to be held as Killian flashes a beaming smile at him. 

 

“You’re good with him,” she finally points out, her coffee nearly having gone cold. “He wouldn’t settle down earlier.”

 

“He’s quite something,” Killian nods. Then, clearing his throat, he asks, “Where’s your other lad? Henry?”

 

“Couldn’t get him out of bed,” she shrugs, glancing back down at the menu. She knows she held it just yesterday, but the sticky laminated booklet feels too familiar under her touch and she can’t quite place why. 

 

The man she sits across from, the one she trusts more than she thinks she should, makes faces at her son in a way that makes her heart melt. Rather than looking at the menu at all, he chooses to focus on Liam, making sounds and faces and drawing smiles from the baby like he didn’t just learn to smile socially a few weeks ago. His grin is so wide, spreading across his cheeks so that his single dimple is deeply visible, and Killian returns a matching smile and chuckles. He lifts his hand, moves to trill his fingers over Liam’s feet, and they each grin again. When he does it again, lightly tickling over tiny socked toes, he pairs it with a nonsensical sound and laughs when Liam does. She gasps.

 

“Are you alright?” he asks, stilling and staring up at her. 

 

Biting her bottom lip in an effort not to let her hormones get the best of her, she smiles at her son, who looks irritated that the play has stopped, and answers, “Yes, it’s just… that was his first laugh.”

 

The smile across Killian’s face is beaming, one that must hurt his cheeks as it spreads from one ear to another, and she can’t help but let out a breathless chuckle as she takes in the sight. Her son is taken by this man, seemingly as much as she is, and she startles herself when she realizes it doesn’t feel odd to be so comfortable with a stranger. 

 

“Is that so?” he asks, his face turned towards Liam and his grin still going strong. “I must say, I’m honored.” 

 

Emma starts to laugh again, wants to look back down at her menu, to finally choose something for breakfast, but the jingle above the diner’s door startles her for some reason, breaking her from her bubble of contentment with this stranger and forcing her gaze up. The sheriff walks in, the same woman on his arm, and she feels a chill ripple down her back. 

 

“You alright?” he asks her again, seemingly able to read each thought that passes through her head. 

 

She looks up at him and nods, shrugging, and says, “Yeah, I just… those two people who just walked in were really weird to me the other day.” 

 

He turns and sighs when he sees them, his back going straight and his posture seeming rigid. “They’re harmless,” he says when he turns back around, a disarming smile spread gently across his lips. “Would you like me to introduce you?” 

 

It’s hard to read his expression. It seems like one of irritation and confusion, but why would he claim that these people are harmless if he seems not to like them? 

 

“I guess,” she finally shrugs, still unsure. “If they really are harmless.” 

 

“Aye, promise,” he smiles. He clears his throat and stands, gesturing towards the two of them, and they seem to gasp in surprise when they’re asked to make their way to the table they share. 

 

“Sheriff Nolan,” Killian starts, “this is Emma. She’s visiting for a few days and wanted to say hello.” 

 

Each of them stare at her deeply, and she isn’t sure if she’s making up the way the man’s eyes begin to shine, a watery smile spreading across his face. “It’s great to meet you, Emma,” he chokes out. The woman seems unable to speak, biting her lip and possibly biting back tears. “Is this your son?” 

 

“Yes,” Emma answers shortly, still unable to see why these people are behaving so strangely. It’s as if they’re feeling sentimental about someone they’ve never met. “This is Liam.” 

 

“Liam,” the woman says softly before she smiles at the sheriff. “What a lovely name.” 

 

She watches as a thought seems to bombard the man standing before her, his head cocking to the side before he turns his stare towards Killian. “Liam?” he says, although she isn’t sure if he’s even asking her . 

 

Killian stares back at the sheriff, his face tense and his jaw seeming to clench under forceful pressure. She watches as he gives the man the smallest of nods, his eyes intense and dark as his friend’s face seems to pale. “Yes,” Emma says again, wanting nothing more than to roll her eyes, grab her baby, and flee to her room. 

 

“He’s adorable. Who does he resemble more?” the man asks, still refusing to break eye contact from Killian. “Mom or dad?” 

 

“What?” she asks through a confused laugh. “What kind of question is that?” 

 

“Aye, mate; bit of an odd question to ask a stranger , don’t you think?” 

 

The man clears his throat, shakes his head, and finally looks away from the only person in this town who doesn’t completely freak her out. “Sorry, H— Killian’s right. My wife and I are expecting, ourselves. Guess I just got too excited by the parent-talk.” 

 

Emma nods, giving the woman a soft and awkward smile. “It’s alright,” she says. “I’m not sure who he looks like more. I think he’ll have my chin.” 

 

Each of the strangers smile at her, and before either of them can say anything, the man’s wife asks, “Killian, are you planning on coming to the town meeting tonight? We’ll be discussing that issue we talked about the other day.” 

 

Killian clears his throat and scratches behind his ear awkwardly, reaching for his mug of coffee and giving Emma a soft smile. “Aye, I’ll be there.” 

 

~~~~

 

“Tell me you’re not the father,” David insists the second Killian walks through the door. “Tell me you didn’t… with my daughter. ” 

 

“Ah… I’m not sure I know what you mean, mate.” 

 

“His name, Hook! How else would she get that name?!”

 

“She’s cursed! How should I know?!

 

“Don’t play dumb,” he curses, practically spitting at Killian as he speaks. His wife is gone, still out at the town hall with Regina seeking answers before they meet. Killian coming early wasn’t a mistake, per se, but it certainly gave Emma’s father an opportunity to berate him for everything he’s worth. 

 

He must’ve told David of his brother that evening on Neverland, or perhaps it was daytime, who could tell. Either way, Dave knew of Killian’s brother Liam long before anyone else did. Certainly, he must’ve known of him before Killian uttered a word of him to Emma. Her naming her son– their son– after the man he lost all those centuries ago is a blessing and a gift, although at this very moment, it feels something like a curse. 

 

He regrets nothing of their time together, he could never regret the angelic child they created together, but he thinks it would have been easier to introduce her father to their idea of them being together slowly rather than all at once. And perhaps it would’ve been easier had he been prepared for David’s ability to figure it out, but somehow it slipped his mind that he’d uttered Liam’s name.

 

“Right,” Killian says, rubbing at his neck right where Dave’s fist dug in as he grabbed for his shirt. He tries to dress more modernly if only so that he can ensure that he doesn't startle Emma again, but he finds this world’s outfits to be impractical. “Well…”

 

“Well? Is that all you have to say?” 

 

Killian shrugs, and for the first time in his life, he finds himself speechless. He’s never had to deal with the father of a woman he’s been with, especially not one his own age. Not one younger than he is. “Sorry.” 

 

David breathes deeply, rolling his eyes into the back of his head, squeezing his hands into a fist. “I’m in complete disbelief,” he admits. “You… slept with … my daughter?” 

 

“You’re acting like it wasn’t consensual.” 

 

“I don’t want to know anything about that!” 

 

Killian shrugs once more. He doesn’t dare mention how his daughter practically begged him to take her out of her thoughts of self-hatred and pressure and fear. He doesn't dare mention how their son shares many of his features because of the night he shared with his daughter. It wouldn’t do any good, although he’s certain David already knows. 

 

“He’s mine,” he finally says after too much silence. “At least, I pray that he is. I mean, just look at him.” 

 

There's quiet between them, the apartment deathly still as the two men stare at each other, desperately hoping for one or another to speak so that the other does have to. Finally, David opens his mouth and utters, “You pray ?” 

 

“I would die for that child,” Killian says without a thought, without a breath. “He’s… he’s mine. I know he is. I would die for him; I would kill for him. He’s… bloody hell. ” He takes in a deep breath now, his chest painful and his throat swollen as he thinks of the child he must have created inadvertently. “He’s my son; I’m sure of it. I love him. And I love her for creating him.” 

 

David is stunned into silence, his jaw dropped and his brows pinched together, his fists clenched likely in a desire to punch Killian in the nose again, not that he can really blame him. While he thinks that his admission has likely softened Emma’s father’s resolve, he isn’t surprised by his insistence to remain angry. “He does have your eyes,” he finally says, his voice angry but soft as his fury fades. 

 

“Aye,” Killian blushes, a small smile ticking at his lips. “He’s perfect. And I’d really like to break this bloody curse so that I can get to know him.” 

 

“Are you… I mean, will you and Emma…” 

 

Tightening his jaw, Killian feels a tinge of irritation scratching at the back of his neck at the implication that Killian is the one to make the decision of whether they’ll be together, or at least parent their child together. “Whatever happens between us is up to her as much as it is me. I just want to break her out of this and then we can talk about it.”

 

David purses his lips and nods, seeming surprised by Killian’s answer, which pleases him. At the very least, if he can win over her family, perhaps he’ll be one step closer to breaking down the walls she’s put up around herself and her children. 

 

~~~~

 

Emma has no idea what she’s still doing here, and the longer they spend in Storybrooke, the more irritated Henry becomes. He misses his friends in New York, going to school regularly, the energy of the city, and staying behind makes Emma insecure in the way that she’s raising her son. But each time she thinks of going home, something stops her. It’s as if there’s some kind of force pulling her to stay in town, a rock landing in her stomach as she considers driving her car across the town line and back to New York and anchoring her here. 

 

They’ve been here a week, and at least she can thank her lucky stars that Henry brought his GameBoy with him, or else he likely would have gone mad by now. She’s also pleased with his ability to sleep in so that she can spend time with the baby each morning, bringing him down to the diner and holding his morning bottle while she tries to eat her French toast. 

 

Of course, while it’s nice to spend one-on-one time with Liam each morning, she supposes that seeing the mysterious and handsome man who seems to live across the hall from her is an added bonus. 

 

“Morning, love,” he says as he sits across from her, not bothering to ask this time around before he makes himself comfortable. “How are we this morning,” he asks the baby, pinching his socked foot and grinning as Liam gurgles back. 

 

“He finally slept,” Emma reports, making herself wonder why the hell she’s opening up about her infant’s development with this almost-stranger, but it feels natural. “Only woke up once, and his mom is very pleased.” 

 

“Good lad,” he praises with a smile, and her heart begins to race in her chest when she glances up through her lashes and sees him making faces at a giggling Liam. Killian practically coos at her son, laughing each time he does, tickling his belly, and holding his bottle up for him when he tries to throw it to the floor. She’s impressed with how easily he seems to be able to adjust to the needs of her son, how naturally he was able to reach and catch the half-full bottle before it hit the floor, how he didn’t miss a beat before pretending it was an airplane and popping it back into Liam’s mouth. 

 

“Do you have any kids?” she asks, taken by his natural ability to care for her baby. 

 

He’s silent for a moment, a small, sad smile toying at his lips as his eyes remain locked on Liam’s, and he clears his throat. “I haven’t gotten the privilege of having a child of my own, no.” 

 

His sadness strikes her, giving her the worry that perhaps she’s offended him, triggering some kind of depressing memory that she wasn’t aware of. “You’re really good with him,” she says in hopes that it will ease his anguish. 

 

“Thank you,” he smiles. “He’s a lovely lad. I’m glad to have the opportunity to…” 

 

She smiles, Killian seeming to find it hard to go on for whatever reason, and it makes her wonder. Does he want children? Has he ever had the opportunity to have them? She almost considers asking, wondering how to phrase such a question, and his face his open and truthful as she looks into his eyes, but she’s interrupted by the ring of the bell above the door as a patron enters, Killian’s eyes growing almost imperceptibly wider as he glances up at the door behind her. 

 

He schools his face, but either way, she turns, pinching her brows in curiosity as she wonders who could have elicited such surprise from him. When she sees who’s entered the diner, she feels herself going stark white, her palms going clammy, her blood running cold. 

 

Neal.

 

~~~~

 

He sees her guard go up immediately, and regrets his own reaction in an instant. He knows that she saw it, of course, saw the way he stiffened when Neal walked in because she’s as perceptive as he is. She’s always been hypervigilant, always paying attention to any little shift in whatever interaction she’s a part of, so of course she noticed the change on his face when Bae walked in. 

 

Perhaps it’s foolish of him to play dumb, but he does anyway, turning to her and asking, “You alright, love?” 

 

She had spun quickly away from Bae the second she saw him, turning and focusing on the lad sat at the end of the table, and though her back was turned, her walls were a mile high. 

 

“I have to go,” she says, reaching for her wallet and throwing a bill on the table. “Thanks for sitting with us; I’ll see you around.”

 

“Emma,” he starts, standing with her and shaking the table as he does, obviously drawing Bae’s attention based on the way he turns sharply towards them. Much to Killian’s surprise, he stays put, taking a seat at the counter. “Let me help you,” he says as he notices the way she struggles to get the baby’s carrier out of the high chair. 

 

She sniffles, obviously overwhelmed, and nods, letting him pick up the lad and hurrying ahead of him, turning back frequently as she makes her way through the hall and towards the stairs leading to her room. 

 

“Emma,” he tries again. The lad begins to fuss in his carrier, the soft whimper in confusion at his sudden movements making Emma stop short and turn towards him, sniffling and running a hand under her eye before she rights herself. “Lass, what’s wrong?” 

 

He’s a fool for asking. He knows that she likely doesn’t want to see Bae. She probably thinks she hasn’t seen him in over a decade, unaware of the fact that in reality it’s been just over a year. He doesn’t know much about their past, but he heard what she said in the Echo Caves all that time ago, and he knows that whatever separated them before Henry’s birth must not have been pleasant. 

 

“That’s… Do you know that guy?” 

 

He can’t lie, not when she’s asking him directly for the truth, and not when he knows that she’ll know if he’s lying anyway. “The man who walked in?” he asks to clarify, as if he needs to, and she nods. Stretching the truth, he answers, “I knew him many years ago.” 

 

“How many?” 

 

“How many?” 

 

“How long ago did you know him?” she presses, her shoulders tensing as she reaches for the carrier and takes it from his grip. 

 

“I knew him when he was a boy, love. Are you alright?” 

 

It’s not a lie. It’s not the entire truth, but it’s not a lie. 

 

“No,” she says immediately, turning around again and stalking towards her room. “ Fuck. Henry’s…” 

 

“You're more than welcome in my room, Emma.” 

 

Her eyes are wide and frightened when she meets his, a vulnerability in her that he isn’t expecting and hasn’t seen since that fateful night in Neverland. Since she left the camp in a rush, rounding on him when she realized he had followed, but quickly breaking down in his arms in desperate need. He hasn’t seen her this scared since that night. 

 

She doesn’t say anything, just gives him a look that he can read immediately and practically shoves her way past him and through his open door. 

 

He recognizes the way she distracts herself, lifting the babe from his seat and cooing at him happily, pretending that she isn’t as distressed as she clearly is. Liam grins happily, a small laugh ringing through the room, and he finally catches a genuine smile on her lips, drawing one from him as well. Choosing to make himself comfortable, hoping that she will as well, he sits on the end of the mattress and watches the way she holds the babe to her chest, shutting her eyes and resting her cheek against the top of his head, his surprisingly thick black hair tickling her skin. 

 

“Love,” he starts hopefully. “Would you like to sit down?” 

 

She only hesitates for a moment before she sits beside him, closer to him than he could have expected, and places the lad on her lap in a seated position. Liam gurgles and coos in her arms, his chubby hands reaching outwards and away from her until he realizes that the lad is leaning towards Killian. He laughs, poking his palm and letting him grip his finger then tug it towards his mouth and chomp down forcefully without ceremony. 

 

“You cheeky lad,” he laughs as he gnaws. 

 

“I think he’s teething early,” she says softly, her smile soft and shy as she gazes down at her son. “Do you… do you want to hold him? He wants you, I think.”

 

“Can I?” he asks immediately, not even thinking before letting his guard down, not remembering the importance of ensuring that she doesn’t assume his role in the lad’s life, too excited at the prospect of finally holding the child he knows to be his son. 

 

“Sure,” she says, passing him towards him and not hesitating to place her son in his arms despite his missing hand. “He really likes you.” 

 

“I like him,” he says, his voice too longing as he stares into his child’s eyes, taken by his perfection and the immediate connection he feels with him. He clears his throat, hoping to bring himself back down to earth. 

 

“That’s Henry’s father,” she whispers suddenly, smiling down at Liam although he knows how much it hurts her to even admit this to him. At least he can likely tell himself that a part of her must trust him; he could never see Emma Swan letting her walls down this easily to a perfect stranger on any other occasion. 

 

“Henry’s father?” he asks, though he already knew. 

 

“I haven’t seen him in thirteen years.”

 

It occurs to him now, that while he knows their separation to be a sad one, one that neither of them seemed to want, he doesn’t know exactly what happened to make it so that Baelfire only found out about the existence of his son two years ago. So, in a selfish hope of getting answers, he asks, “What happened?” 

 

“He left,” she answers simply, and her answer makes sense. Although Bae has always said that he refuses to lose his family again, Killian always rolled his eyes. Whatever his excuse for losing her could have been, it surely can’t be a good one. “He screwed me over. I spent almost a year in jail because of him.”

 

“You what? ” 

 

He knows what jail is, now that he’s been helping out David with his sheriff duties, and he’s horrified. 

 

“Pinned his crime on me and ran,” she says. “I didn’t know I was pregnant. But once I got out, I got custody of Henry back and vowed to only ever trust myself after that. We’ve been doing great ever since, but when I saw him…”

 

“Quite the shock?”

 

“Yeah, exactly.”

 

It’s a shock to him as well, almost too much of one. He’d known Bae as a boy, a lad betrayed by his father and lost in a world that didn’t care for him, and to hear that he had done something so similar to Emma makes his blood boil. After what he had been through, how could Bae abandon the woman he claimed to love in the same way? Killian knew that he didn’t know about Henry, and he can only hope that if he had, Emma would have been in a very different position and with a very different life. 

 

Everyone who has ever cared for her has abandoned her, whether they had a good reason to do so or not. Not only does it fuel Killian’s desire to ensure that he’s in his own son’s life, it strengthens his resolve to be there for her, as well. 

 

“I’m sorry, Emma,” he says softly, and if he wasn’t holding the babe in his only hand, he would take her’s. “Gods, you didn’t deserve that.” 

 

“You didn’t know me then,” she argues. 

 

“I don’t have to. You must’ve been young when you had Henry, aye?” 

 

“I was seventeen.” 

 

“Bloody hell,” he sputters, careful to hold Liam securely in his arms. “ Seventeen? You were a child, love.”

 

And Baelfire wasn’t. Killian knew Baelfire two-hundred years ago. 

 

“He didn’t know about Henry,” she says softly, as if trying to convince herself that it’s a good excuse. “I’ve had thirteen years to dwell over it, you know? I’m okay, I just needed a minute.” 

 

“It’s alright to need a minute, love,” he says, giving her a soft smile, then laughing as Liam decides he’s through with him, reaching for his mother. 

 

“Come here,” she practically whispers, pulling him into her arms and kissing his cheeks, and Killian watches the lad’s grin grow, a quiet giggle making his heart swell in his chest. “Should we leave our poor friend alone now?” 

 

Too quickly, he says, “You know you’re not bothering me.” 

 

Emma says nothing at first, looking up at him through her lashes and smiling coyly. “Thanks, Killian,” she says quietly, and his heart stops this time. He’s so used to her calling him Hook, and he would have done anything to hear her say it over the last year. Now, hearing her call him by his name, he isn’t sure he could ever hear Hook again. 

 

~~~~

 

“Hook!”

 

He almost stops, but at the sound of his name called from down the street, his anger swells at the memory of what Emma had told him. 

 

“Bae,” he says, turning back around and practically stomping towards Dave and the Queen’s apartment. They planned to meet earlier, but Killian is late, finding it more important to give comfort to the woman who needed him. Of course, maybe it’s bold of him to assume that she needed him , but she certainly needed someone, and he was there. 

 

“It’s Neal,” he says once he gets closer, apparently intending to follow Killian to the loft as if he’s been invited. 

 

“Apologies. In that case, I think you’ll find that it’s Killian.”  

 

His scoff is almost inaudible over the sounds of the street as Killian rounds the corner towards the entrance to the loft. “What, suddenly you aren’t nauseatingly proud of the legacy you gave yourself?” 

 

“I’m not the one who gave myself the bloody hook, mate,” he seethes through clenched teeth, ripping the door open and wishing it would slam in Bae’s face. It’s childish to be so angry with him, but he doesn’t care. “Did you know?”

 

“Know what?” 

 

“Did you know that Emma was pregnant with your child when you threw her away to pay for your crime?” 

 

Bae– Neal– stills on his way up the stairs, stiffening and glaring up at Killian. “She told you that?” 

 

“Yes, she bloody told me that,” he spits, his voice too loud. “Why do you think she went white as a sail the moment she saw you? She thinks she hasn’t seen you in over a decade and the last memory she has of you is your betrayal.” 

 

He should have kept his voice down, because the door to the Nolan’s apartment swings open, a quizzical David standing in the frame looking down at Killian and Neal. “What’s this?” he asks with a brow raised, his hand casually resting over the handle of his gun. 

 

“Nothing,” Killian grumbles, practically shoving past David to make his way into the loft. He isn’t sure when he began to feel comfortable enough to do something like this, the space belonging to Emma’s parents somehow feeling something like home before his very eyes. 

 

“Doesn’t seem like nothing,” he argues as Bae enters and shuts the door. “Did you two ever get along?” 

 

“Not really,” Bae grumbles, staring daggers at Killian as he stands by the sink, a half full glass of water clenched tightly and angrily in his fist. He knows Bae won’t tell David a thing, and it isn’t exactly his place, so he stays quiet. 

 

“Well, either way, we’ve got to come up with a plan. Mary Margaret and Regina are on their way.”

 

“No progress on a memory potion, then?” he asks, dumping the remaining water down the drain, still in awe of modern plumbing as he considers his years on the Jolly . 

 

“None. And True Love’s Kiss is obviously out of the question.” 

 

“Why?”

 

David looks to Bae in surprise. His tone conveys a sense of confusion, like he’s no idea why a kiss would not break this curse. “Because she doesn’t believe,” Killian offers. “Right?”

 

“Yes,” David nods. “She can’t break a magical curse if she doesn’t believe in magic. And the last time, it took defeating a dragon to get her there.” 

 

Bae sighs heavily, dropping himself onto the couch as the front door opens. “Well, we have to do something,” he says. He understands that the man who once loved Emma thinks he has much to lose, his son just as cursed as she is. But Killian’s infant is at the tips of his fingers, reaching out for him without knowing why, and if he has to put young Liam through that for much longer, he’s certain he’ll go mad. 

 

“And it’s getting worse,” Snow White says as she shuts the door behind Regina, a somber look on her face. “Something has been attacking people at the town line.” 

 

“ Something ?” 

 

“It came in and… I don’t know. Robin Hood says it swooped down and picked up one of his Merry Men.”

 

“Bloody hell,” he mumbles, shaking his head. “We need to do something.” 

 

“Show Miss Swan whatever is snatching up Merry Men,” Regina sarcastically offers. 

 

Killian rolls his eyes, as he often finds himself doing these days. It’s been difficult, sitting around and pretending like this isn’t killing him slowly and forcefully. Pretending like Emma’s baby isn’t his as well. Pretending like all is well and hiding the pain he feels each second he thinks about his son being raised without a father, just like he was. If there’s one thing he’s certain of, it’s that this curse has to be broken, because he would never allow his son to know what it is to be brought up without him. He’s been there, and the thought of putting his own child through what he experienced is out of the question. 

 

Eventually, they figure it out, although Killian finds himself distracted as he thinks with sadness in his heart of his child’s bright blue eyes and his chubby cheeks and his hair that resembles the uncle he’ll never know. Everyone knows the stories, everyone but Killian, and it’s decided that the green smoke that David saw earlier and the flying creatures can only point to one conclusion: another witch. He doesn’t care much, though. All he cares about is getting rid of her so that they can finally break this bloody curse and he can be for his son what no one had ever been for him. 

 

~~~~

 

“Did you think I would forget?” 

 

He pinches his brows tightly together, slowly looking up from the menu he doesn’t need to meet Baelfire’s angry eyes. 

 

He clears his throat. “Forget what?”

 

“I was just talking with Emma’s mom,” he says as he sits across from Killian. He holds up his hand, content to stop him, knowing that Emma would be on her way down with the baby soon and that the last thing she needs to see is him sitting across from the man she believes she hates. “She let the baby’s name slip.” 

 

“What about it?” he asks nonchalantly. 

 

But Bae is hardly nonchalant as he drops his angry fist heavily against the surface of the table. “Why would she name her kid Liam?” he demands. “What did you do to her? Why else would she do that if she wasn’t being manipulated into it–” 

 

“Mind your tongue,” Killian hisses, leaning close and tensing his jaw, forcing himself not to grab him by the collar of his shirt. “She is cursed. She was cursed when she had him. And whatever she chose to name her son, I'm sure she had nothing to influence her because she was forced to give birth to him alone. ”

 

Bae– no, Neal; Baelfire wasn’t like this– narrows his eyes and glares darkly ahead. “Is that your kid?” he asks with fire roaring through his voice. 

 

Killian’s quiet for a moment, staring into the man’s eyes and searching for anything remotely resembling the boy he used to know, but he comes up blank. “If he is,” he starts slowly, his voice low and rumbling in his throat, “you’d best tread lightly, Bae. Because I will not allow anything to come between me and my son.” 

 

“What is that supposed to mean?” he asks with just as much darkness in his voice, but Killian’s sure he already knows his meaning as his eyes begin to change and sadness begins to show itself in them, thoughts of Henry likely flooding the forefront of his mind. 

 

But he doesn’t have a chance to answer, to express his anger with the man who left his son and the woman he was supposed to love with nothing. Because, just as he had feared, Emma arrives with the young Liam Jones, her eyes wide and frightened as she takes in the scene before her. 

 

Killian and Bae are not doing well to carry on their farce that they hardly know one another. They had all agreed that, if Emma trusts Killian, they should do nothing to risk that trust. Now, though, he can see clearly that her trust in him is very quickly waning as she takes in the sight of their conversation. He backs up in the booth, pushing away from the man she hates and fears, but he knows it’s too late.

 

“Emma,” he says, standing too slowly and stupidly allowing her to hurry past him, heaving the heavy baby carrier through the diner and out the door. “Emma!” 

 

Neal stands, too, but Killian all but shoves him down. “Let me–” 

 

“No!” he practically shouts. “The last thing she needs to see right now is you.” 

 

He hurries out the door behind her, noting the way she struggles slightly to haul the baby in his heavy carrier but refuses to let that slow her down, stubborn as she is. He calls after her, but she’s a runner. Her walls are up. And as they rise around her, he sees his chance to become the man he wants to be closing before him.

 

“This is insane!” she calls back at him, turning to hurry down the streets towards the harbor. He knows he shouldn’t be chasing her like he is, likely to startle her more than she already is, but with the bloody monkeys flying around, he can’t imagine leaving her alone without any knowledge of the truth or means to defend herself. 

 

“Swan, please,” he begs as he tries to catch up with her. Even with the heavy baby carrier, she’s quick on her feet, and he swells with pride despite being entirely irritated at Bae ruining everything. 

 

He didn’t have to go to Granny’s when he knew Emma was staying there. And he certainly didn’t have to sit there and act like they know each other when they’re trying not to make Emma feel even more in danger than she already does. Killian himself should have been more careful, because this version of her believes that Baelfire left her behind, called the police and sent her to prison while she was pregnant with Henry. This version of her believes that Neal had no reason to do this other than fear and a lack of attachment to her. She believes Neal abandoned her, and she still hates him for it all these years later. 

 

And now, despite her starting to trust him, she lumps Killian in with Neal. Now, she’s running from him, too. 

 

Of course it’s his own fault. He shouldn’t have gotten worked up like he did, his protective capacity over a child who barely knows him growing too strong for his own good. And now, despite his best efforts, he’s endangered his chances of being there for his son.

 

She stops just outside of a boathouse and spins quickly, facing him with angry determination. He can tell that she doesn’t have a plan; she wanted to run away from him, but now that they’re here by the harbor, she has nowhere to go and he has her cornered. No wonder she feels unsafe again, and this time it’s entirely his fault. 

 

“What the hell did you just call me?” 

 

Bloody hell. She’s right to distrust him now, because he realizes that this version of her never told him her full name. He has no reason to know that she is his Swan. There’s nothing he can say in response. 

 

The baby— their son— fusses as her agitation heightens, and it isn’t long before he’s crying from his seat and elevating her even more. 

 

“Emma…”

 

“No!” she calls, taking a step backwards and shaking her head. She’s angry, but he can see her fear overpowering that feeling as tears begin to fill her eyes. “Get away from me! Why do you know… what’s going on?!”

 

“Emma, please, just… please give me a moment–”

 

“What, so you can lie to me some more? So you can trick me into thinking you’re a good person? Is everyone in this town out to get me?”

 

“No, love, I promise you, we just want to help you–”

 

He can’t finish his thought, because in the not-so-distant horizon, he sees a threat swooping in towards them. One of the Witch’s stooges flies quickly, screaming through the air and dive bombing the two of them, making Emma shout and duck over the baby they share. Killian thinks as quickly as he can, shouting at her to get away, leave this place, and taking out his pistol. He aims hastily, ensures that Emma and Liam are behind him, and shoots, watching as the beasts turn to dust before them. 

 

When he turns back around to face them, each of them are in clear distress, the baby screaming and Emma shakily wiping terrified tears from her cheeks. “What the hell is going on?” she cries, reaching for the straps that hold the baby tight and undoing them. 

 

“Love,” he starts, putting away his pistol and holding up a hand in surrender. “Emma…” 

 

He watches it unfold, slowly and quickly all at once, Emma lifting her son from his seat and pulling him into her arms, her breathing erratic as she hushes him and presses a soft and comforting kiss to the screaming lad’s cheek. “It’s alri–” 

 

She’s cut off, and despite his angst and his fear that he’s lost her, he feels relief as confusion washes over her face just as a beam of rainbow light washes over each of them. She’s broken the curse, he tells himself, the true love she shares with her son– their son– enough to shatter the strongest of curses. She stares into Liam’s eyes, his crying finally settling as if he knows the hardest part of all of this is over, too, and he sees tears breaking over her lashes. 

 

When she looks up at him, he’s unable to read her expression for the first time since he met and fell in love with her. Her face conveys anger and fear and confusion, but also something softer, something like longing. 

 

“Hook,” she says finally, blinking her tears away and gently bouncing the babe in her arms. 

 

“Miss me?” he asks with a smile, one that deflects from the pain he feels at now having her know the truth and still being separated from his child. He isn’t angry with her, he could never be, but the circumstances that separated them continue to hurt each of them, and he wants nothing more than to take her and her children away from this place and start a life that he isn’t sure she wants. 

 

She’s panting, looking around erratically, tears still streaming, although he can see the shift in her. Her shoulders, relaxed for just a second when her life came flooding back to her, stiffen along with her jaw. She holds Liam close to herself, straightening, hardening, walls up. 

 

His Swan is back. 

 

~~~~

 

She doesn’t put her baby down. 

 

She doesn’t believe that she ever will again. She can’t. She knows it’s not good for him, that he needs to learn to self soothe and to sleep without his mother’s heart beating rapidly in his ear, but she can’t see any logic beyond her agonizing fear. 

 

It isn’t clear to her why she’s still so fearful. The curse is broken, her memories returned, and as she sits in the foyer at Granny’s Bed and Breakfast, the same place she’s been staying for the last week or so, she knows that she’s surrounded by people who love and care about her. She watches her ex reconnect with Henry, looks at the way her father grins at her sleeping, infant son, takes in the ever-growing bump that her mother carries, and she knows that she’s alright. As she watches Hook standing by the window, off to the side, watching on with longful eyes, she knows everything is okay and her small family unit is safe. 

 

But she still can’t shake that feeling like something is horribly wrong. There’s too much at stake now, too many things that can go wrong in this unassuming little town. The Witch is at large, her flying monkeys a constant and confusing threat, and there’s no way she can let her guard down. 

 

Hook doesn’t say anything for the entire evening. He stands off to the side, out of the way, watching everyone reconnect. She feels his eyes on her often, feels them moving over to her baby, senses them checking in on Henry, and she isn’t sure what to make of it. He was nothing but supportive and kind to her since she arrived, and she wonders if it’s coincidental that he was the only person since she got here who she felt she could truly trust. It’s too much to think about as she tries to take everything in. 

 

What truly eats at her is Henry. She spent the last year thinking that she changed her mind the moment he was born and was able to do right by him, to raise him from birth and give him the life he deserved and avoid allowing him to be raised by someone who gaslighted him for years. Now, though, she knows the truth, and while her life is back to what it should be, a part of her wishes she was still in New York, clueless to the facts. 

 

After they’ve exhausted every idea of where to find the Wicked Witch, and when Neal starts complaining of a headache, they decide to retire for the night. She’s exhausted, and she knows Henry is, too, so she stands and gestures for him, pulling him into her side for a half hug as she holds Liam in her other arm and pressing her lips to the top of his head. It’s strange; it feels like she’s known him for all his life and like she just met him all at once. 

 

She watches as Neal leaves the room almost hastily and David tells her that he’s been staying at Gold’s old house, and they bid her parents goodnight. Each of them give Liam a smile and a tiny tickle to his feet now that he’s awake, and while she’s missed them, part of her insists that she leave this place at once and hurry to her own room. 

 

“Swan,” she hears as she stands in the doorway, Henry having already walked through and collapsed onto his cot. “May I…” She can read his question so easily, and yet she acts like she can’t. “Just a moment of your time,” he practically begs. 

 

“I can’t right now,” she argues softly, careful not to let Henry hear her. “I need to get them to bed– I need to get to bed. This whole thing has been…” 

 

“I know, love,” he answers in earnest, because of course he does. He’s always been able to read her and understand her, and maybe that’s why she sought him out a little over a year ago. “I’m sure you're exhausted. I just… Emma…” 

 

It’s too much, she figures out suddenly. All of it is too much. The sudden and almost nauseating, water-poured-over-her-head realization that what she thought was her life was coming to an end is taking too big a toll. She thought her son’s father was a random stranger she met at a party. She thought she raised her other son from birth. She thought she made a life for herself and her children in Boston and then in New York. She thought she was doing this alone, that the fathers of her kids weren’t around, and yet here he is, begging to be in his son’s life. It’s too much. It hurts. She thought her life was perfect and easy, but it was all a lie. 

 

She turns to him and pulls Liam closer, her eyes meeting his for a second, as long as she can stand it. In a whisper, weakly, and not because of Henry this time, she says again, “I can’t right now. I can’t.”  

 

His own eyes are clearer windows into his soul than any she’s ever seen as her words hit him, the sadness and desperation too painful to look at, so she turns away, walks into her room, and tries desperately not to look at him as she shuts her door. 

 

She doesn’t hear him walk away for several moments, and when she finally does, although she thought it was what she wanted, she feels the tears coming back. 

 

She named her son after his brother. 

 

~~~~

 

She’s torn. The thought of leaving her three-month-old at all is completely out of the question, and the thought of leaving him with her mother is something she should probably be comfortable with, but Mary Margaret has barely met Liam. She doesn’t know his schedule, his likes and dislikes, his cute little quirks… leaving him alone with her makes her nauseous. 

 

But at least Henry will stay with Liam, because she doesn’t have much of a choice. There’s a threat to the town that apparently she can do something about, because apparently she has magic again. 

 

And apparently she’s the Savior again, too. God dammit. 

 

She tries really, really hard to hide her tears as she pulls up to the spot David asked her to meet him, leaving her car only once she’s cleared her throat and brushed at the skin beneath her eyes and slapped her cheeks. Neal’s here, and Hook, too, much to her chagrin. The last thing she needs is for either of them to see her upset. 

 

“It’s over here,” he says, gesturing towards the broken twigs and branches that seem to form some kind of unnatural path through the forest. She follows closely behind her father, and notes the way that Neal and Hook seem to silently argue over who gets to go directly after her. It makes her roll her eyes. 

 

Whatever the beef is between them, it’s perfectly palpable. And frankly, she doesn’t care to know what it’s about. 

 

They follow the path for a while, until it forks off in two directions, forcing them to split up. 

 

“I’ll go with David.” 

 

“No, I think Hook should go with David,” Neal says, the suggestion– or demand, she isn’t quite sure– making her cock her head and drop her jaw. 

 

“ Why? ” 

 

“Because he has to have his way or he’ll have a tantrum,” Hook mumbles under his breath, and she didn’t think she’d be able to unhinge her jaw any further, her brows shooting up into her hairline. He seems to realize what he’s said and she notes the way his ears turn pink, his eyes flitting around the woods and refusing to settle on anything. 

 

“Oh, sure, I’m the immature one, right, Hook?” 

 

“Actually, yes. And if you really want to hash this out right here, right now, I’d be happy–” 

 

“Okay,” David interrupts, just as Hook’s hand lands firmly on the hilt of his cutlass. “Hook, with me. Sword away.” 

 

“But I–”

 

“Let’s go,” he scolds. 

 

But Emma doesn’t particularly like the idea of being stuck with Neal. And if they want to talk about immature, then she’s going to complain about just how totally unfair this is. 

 

The small talk is painful, although not as painful as she had expected. She always had good banter with Neal; it’s why they got along so well when they were younger. But banter alone is not a good enough foundation for a relationship of any kind, whether that be romantic, which she knows is what he wants, or strictly co-parenting, which he doesn’t seem to understand is all she wants. There needs to be trust, and healthy communication, and honestly. 

 

“So, New York, huh?” he starts as they trudge up a hill that perhaps her three-month postpartum self shouldn’t be subjected to climbing. 

 

“I liked the pizza,” she answers quickly, casually, not giving him an in. 

 

“Did Henry like it?” 

 

“He loves pizza.” 

 

He laughs, the sound one she recognizes, one that makes her feel nostalgic and protective all at once. “I meant living there, in the city.” 

 

“Oh,” she answers as if she didn’t know what he meant. “Yeah. I did, too. Finally a time to do all the things we normally couldn’t.” 

 

What are you doing, Emma? she asks herself, biting her bottom lip uncomfortably when he asks, “Like what?” 

 

She sighs, shrugging and finally giving him some truth. “Go to the park, see a movie, go to the zoo, just… do nothing. Not a lot of time for that now, but… Life was good. Really good.”

 

Maybe she shouldn’t have mentioned that last part. She should keep any information about her baby to herself. But he carries on. “It didn’t get lonely? Just the two of you?”

 

She sighs, glancing around awkwardly, refusing to acknowledge that it wasn’t always just the two of them. “Henry had tons of friends at school. And I have–” 

 

The baby. He keeps her occupied, that’s for sure. 

 

And he keeps her company. And she wouldn’t trade him for the world. 

 

“Hey,” he shrugs casually. “Of course you did, it’s okay. I mean, it’s not like we were… Or you even remembered…” 

 

Her brows pinch together, her gaze finding him with suspicion in her eyes at his implication. Does he think she feels bad about this? About her son and the fact that he isn’t the father? Does he think that now that she’s back, everything is fine and dandy and they’ll just go back to how life was when she was seventeen? 

 

“I just want you to be happy,” he says after a beat, apparently not recognizing the angst in her gaze. “I want you to find Tallahassee.” 

 

It’s another implication, one she doesn’t like, one that tells her that he really does think that, maybe by some miracle, they can get back together. Yes, they were seeing each other when she was younger, but she was seventeen. And he was twenty-three. And he knocked her up and got her thrown in jail for something she didn’t do, which then forced her to give up her son. 

 

Finally, after what feels like years of arguing her point only to be unheard, she’s had enough. “Look, Neal, whatever you think is going on here… it’s not.” 

 

“What do you mean?” 

 

“I’m not… looking for anything like that… with you. I’m– I have enough on my plate right now.”

 

“Hey, I know. If it’s about… uh, the baby,” he says, almost as if putting the words in his mouth is physically painful to him, “I mean, I'll wait until you’re ready to be serious, Ems. I know that’s a major commitment; I'm okay with waiting until you can commit something to us, too.” 

 

“You’re not listening,” she says under her breath. “I will never be able to commit to anything the way that I'll commit to my kids. And whatever you think we had back then… It’s over. I’m not saying you can’t be in Henry’s life– he deserves to have a father. But nothing is gonna happen between us. That ship has sailed, Neal.” 

 

“Interesting choice of words,” he mumbles, picking up his pace, leaving her postpartum self panting and struggling to keep up. This so isn’t her; she’s normally athletic and okay with strenuous hikes like this, but her kid really did a number on her. 

 

For a second, she lets herself think of Killian. She finds herself almost playfully blaming him for the size of his son’s head. And then she forces those thoughts away. And she groans instead. 

 

“It’s not like that,” she insists. 

 

“Then what is it like?” 

 

She laughs– maybe she shouldn’t. But what does he expect? “I mean… we have a lot of bad history between us, Neal. Did you ever think that it’s not some outside force keeping us apart? Did you stop to think that maybe I’m not comfortable pursuing a relationship with you after what’s happened between us?” 

 

He stops in his tracks, turning around to face her again, and she sees the sadness in his eyes. She can see something that she thinks might resemble regret, although it’s overpowered by confusion. “I thought you loved me. Back before Neverland, and in the Echo Caves, you said…” 

 

She gives him a sad smile, one that she can only hope will convey the pain that this brings her. It’s not like she wants to do this to him, she isn’t reveling in making him suffer, but at some point, the truth needs to come out. “I did. I told you a part of me would always love you. But that’s because you gave me Henry. You and I had a good time when we were young, but you hurt me too much, Neal. I love you for what you’ve given me in Henry, but I have to put myself first, here. I can’t go through something like that again. It hurt too much; I can't do that to myself again.” 

 

He sighs, he nods, he kicks a rock down the hill they just climbed. Then he says, “Okay.”

 

“Okay?”

 

“Yeah, I'm sorry. I didn’t mean to–” He sighs. “I just wanted you to have a chance to follow through with your fate, or whatever. I never meant to hurt you, and I’m sorry if I did.” 

 

You did, she thinks to herself. But she doesn’t say anything, because this is the most apology she’s ever gotten from him and is likely to ever get again. “Okay,” she repeats softly. It wasn’t his intention to hurt her, and she knows that, but it doesn’t change the fact that he did. Knowing that also doesn’t change the fact that this happened, though. She got her heart broken, lived a shitty life filled with regret and heartbreak, and now things are different. They’re better. It’s not okay, but it happened, and she can’t change that. 

 

All she can really do now is allow herself to move on. Out of this heartbreak, she gained a son, and she wouldn’t change that for the world. It’s been over a decade at this point, and holding it over his head isn’t helping anyone. What will help someone is having a good relationship with Neal for the sake of Henry, and she resolves herself to do just that, finding herself in a place of acceptance of the fact that she can’t change the past. Instead of holding it over his head, holding it over her head, she just keeps walking, careful to be on the lookout for a flying monkey and content to move on for the sake of Henry.

 

~~~~

 

“She shouldn’t even be out here.” 

 

His voice is angry, furious, and it’s only conveying half the rage that’s swimming through his blood. 

 

“She’s out of practice, sure, but–”

 

“Not because of her magic,” he spits back at David, who seems more clueless now than he ever has. “Of course her magic still works. She shouldn’t be out here climbing around and risking a fall when she just had a baby.” 

 

“What, now you think she should be at home, never to work again? Now that she’s had your kid–”

 

“It’s not about me!” He doesn’t mean to shout, but he finds that he can barely contain himself at this point. No one seems to give a damn about what he thinks about his own son because no one seems to have put two and two together aside from Dave. But even with the knowledge that Killian’s the father to Emma’s child, he’s still just as clueless. “Do you even have an inkling of the trauma a woman’s body is put through during pregnancy and labor? She only had him three months ago; she’s likely still healing. And if she’s breastfeeding, which I believe she is, she’s likely exhausted–” 

 

“Enough,” David interrupts, apparently unable to hear any more about how Emma chooses to nourish her son. “I know you’re not happy about how I sent her off with Neal, but with the way you’ve been acting, I can't say I'm comfortable having you alone with either of them right now.” 

 

“And that’s your decision how?” 

 

“How? Because that’s my daughter–”

 

“And she just gave birth to my son. Or did you forget? I’m sure you’d feel the same way that I do right now even if you and Snow White weren’t married, aye?”

 

“Hook–”

 

“She’s the mother of my child. There won’t be a day that I'm alive that I won’t be protective over her for that reason alone. Whatever else comes between us is up to her as much as me, but for now, she’s the mother of my child and nothing will change that.” 

 

David glares at him for a moment, seeming to perhaps understand his point, at least partly. “Even if she decides to pursue a relationship with Neal?”

 

“She’s free to do as she pleases,” he sighs. He takes a beat, considering the possibility of Emma choosing Bae over him. It’s always been something that’s loomed over his head, the fact that they’ve already been in a partnership obvious enough and likely to sway her decisions. But at the end of the day, his feelings about his son won’t change, whether they’re in a relationship or not. “I won’t lie and say that wouldn’t sting, but if she does move on with Bae, Liam will still be my son, and she’ll still be the person to whom I owe thanks for bringing him into the world.”

 

David stays quiet, continuing on the laborious trek that reminds him once more of the fact that it’s foolish to have Emma out here. It’s not like he’d ever consider her incapable, but she shouldn’t have to put her body through this when she’s still trying to recover from childbirth. 

 

Neither of them can go on, though; David can’t respond to his rant and he can’t continue to air his concerns. They see a bloody monkey swooping among the trees, and they note the direction in which it’s very quickly headed– right towards Emma and Bae. 

 

~~~~

 

She’s screaming. 

 

She’s crying. 

 

Sobbing . 

 

He’s never seen her cry before, not like this. She was tearful in Neverland, a couple of times, including the time he found her and distracted her. But he’s never seen her like this. 

 

She’s shaking him, Bae’s body limp as it lies across her lap, his eyes dull and lifeless and hollow. Her voice isn’t even intelligible, the words coming from her lips ones that he can’t even begin to comprehend. She screams at a man he never thought he would see again, the Crocodile standing before her and his son, stunned to silence, eyes wide and glassy, more vulnerable than he’s ever been and is likely to ever be again. 

 

He hears her shout Help him! but he isn’t sure to whom. And then the Crocodile shakes his head, still stunned silent, and lets his mouth drop open. 

 

“I–” he starts, stopping himself and shaking his head once more. 

 

But he can’t continue even if he wants to. Any words that he could have said are cut off almost violently. The monkey screams through the sky suddenly, likely the same one that alerted Killian and David of the danger afoot and sent them racing towards Emma and Bae. It grips Rumplestiltskin by the shoulders, clinging to him harshly and lifting him from the ground before it races through the sky, heading north until it’s out of view. 

 

They’re all stunned, David standing silently and staring up at the sky, eyes darting in every direction in hopes of figuring out what the bloody hell just happened, but Killian can’t help but to look down. 

 

Bae. 

 

That boy he used to know, the one he loved, the one he wronged, lies lifeless on the forest floor in the arms of a woman who used to love him, too. 

 

Then he meets her eyes, and she’s staring up at him so desperately and so painfully that he lowers himself onto his knees, finding a spot as close to her as he thinks he can get away with, his eyes wide and frightened just like hers as his hand lands on the one covering Bae’s still heart. 

 

She cracks, releasing a sound that’s so pained that he doesn’t think he could ever recreate it, and then she shatters. She releases Bae from her tight grasp and she falls, her face colliding with his chest and her sobs racking her body, and all he can do is hold her. 

 

~~~~

 

Promise me you’ll both be happy.  

 

She doesn’t know why she takes that to heart. Her relationship with Neal is so complex, layered and faceted and surrounded by the trauma that she’s been through, and now, with him lying dead in her arms, his eyes lifeless as they stare up at her, all she can think of is his words. Promise me you’ll both be happy.  

 

How can she promise such a thing, when she had literally just decided to put Henry first and ensure that her relationship with his father is a good one? How can Henry be happy when his father, the one he was just reunited with, just died in her arms? She doesn’t even know what would make her happy. 

 

But then Hook is there, staring down at her while her father looks through the sky ready to take action. Hook looks only to her, focused only on her and on the body in her lap. She can see it in his eyes that his only concern is her, and she’s suddenly back in Neverland again, on the floor of the jungle with his arms around her and his cock inside her and she realizes that was the last time she let herself feel truly comfortable and truly safe. 

 

So when he kneels beside her and his hand squeezes hers, she falls, seeking out that same sense of safety that she didn’t realize she’s been missing for the last year. She hadn’t realized that she’s been missing the smell of his skin and the way it mixes with the smell of leather. She doesn’t think before she lets go of Neal, letting him slide off of her legs as she finds impossible solace in Hook’s arms and lap, her sobs hurting her chest and her tears dampening his skin. He doesn’t care about that, though. All he does is hold her, pulling her into his arms and gripping her firmly, his hold grounding her, his arms strong around her middle, his hand solid on her back as it presses against her shattered heart. 

 

Her father may as well not be here anymore. They may as well not be here, either. Everything else fades from view, her surroundings blurring as she squeezes him back, content to use him to bring herself back down from the panic racing through her veins. She catches the things he whispers into her hair, just barely. The soft utterances against the shell of her ear distract from the sound of silence surrounding her, taking her away from the fact that she can’t hear Neal anymore. David says something and then he’s gone, rushing through the woods, and she pulls away for a second to follow him with her eyes before Hook pulls her back. He hushes her, he tells her not to worry, he promises her that she’s safe and that he’s here and that it’ll all be alright. 

 

And in this moment, she believes him more than she’s ever believed anyone. 

 

Maybe it’s because he's crying, too. Maybe it’s because she knows that a part of him loved Neal, too. He holds her so close because he needs her, too. The thought of that makes her cry again, and she holds him tighter. 

 

“I have to tell Henry,” she sobs eventually, a few moments after David leaves, presumably in search of the monkey that took Gold. She should tell them all what happened, too, about how Gold was brought back to life in the Enchanted Forest by Neal and the fact that he was here at all was a miracle in itself. He wouldn’t have survived if his father hadn’t done what he had, thrusting his own life force into Neal in hopes of keeping his heart beating. But it couldn’t hold for long, something she found out the hard way when the spell wore off and she watched the one man become two. 

 

She leans up quickly, regretting it instantly as the cool air brushes against her wet cheek, and she meets Hook’s eyes, seeing her baby’s in them. “Zelena,” she says, her voice rough before she clears her throat. “She’s the Witch. We have to go; my mom–” 

 

He nods, taking her hand and helping her to her feet quickly, looking her up and down with an expression of worry on his face. He looks past her, then, shouting and making her turn around to see David hurrying back in their direction. He tells her father what’s happened, why they need to move, and sends her away with him. For a second, she wonders why he isn’t coming, too, fighting off the feeling that she can’t be without him right now. But as they hurry away, she turns back and notes the way he kneels down again, fingers gently shutting Neal’s eyes before he lifts him from the ground with more tender respect than she’s ever seen. 

 

~~~~

 

Being a mother is hard enough. Being a mother while dealing with a painful tragedy is another beast altogether. But being a mother of a child who forgot that he loved his father, then remembered, then learned that his father died a day later, all while also caring for an infant… she doesn’t think anyone’s ever had to go through something like this before. 

 

She wouldn’t wish this on anyone.

 

Henry’s angry, and he’s hurt. He’s sad– heartbroken. The funeral was hard, and she almost broke as she watched her son pour a shovelful of soil onto his father’s casket. She followed suit, passing Liam to her mother despite wanting to hold him close. Then she watched silently as Hook did the same, and she thought for a second that she caught him brushing his finger beneath his eye as he stepped away. 

 

Now, she’s back in their room, Henry trying to sleep and failing because Liam can’t seem to settle down. It’s probably because she can’t settle down, either, her heart beating out of her chest and her throat closing as she fights off more tears. And the two of them work off of each other, each of them getting more worked up as the other does. All she can do is step into the hall, hoping that a change of scenery will help, hoping that a deep breath of air– not fresh, just different– will settle her heart. But Liam keeps letting out these sad little cries that break her heart and it makes it harder because she knows he isn’t just crying for the sake of it. There’s something genuinely bothering him, and at three-months-old, he shouldn’t have anything to worry about. 

 

“Please,” she whispers, holding him so that she can look into his big, teary eyes. “Please, baby, please settle down. You need to sleep.” 

 

She’s begging him, and as she does, more tears fall from her eyes and she chastises herself for what a hypocrite she is because she can’t do what she’s asking him to. 

 

Her fingers brush through his curls, the ones that are dark enough for her to be certain that they aren’t from her, although the mixture of Hook’s black hair and her blonde left Liam with a shade that’s slightly darker than dirty blond. She can’t help but think what she always does– you're so perfect . She’s so lucky to have him, even though the way he came about was unexpected and perhaps inconvenient. She wouldn’t change anything about him. She’d been made so much better just by being his mother. 

 

The door adjacent to hers opens unexpectedly and she startles, the movement stirring the baby in her arms and making him cry again, making her tense as she tries to comfort him with a soft bounce of her arms.

 

“Sorry,” he says softly, staring down at his son. “I didn’t mean to– I heard him and I couldn’t–” 

 

He couldn’t stay away. He heard his son crying and he couldn’t stop himself from trying to help, to comfort him. 

 

Liam whimpers, looking up at her with those eyes that remind her of the sea, the ones she never realized remind her of something else, too. He has his father’s eyes, and as she stares down at him, she cries some more as she reminds herself that she couldn’t let Hook see his son because she was selfish. Now her other son lost his own father, and she’s still resisting Hook even though he’s desperate to be in his son’s life. Even though she admitted to herself just a few days ago how good it felt to be near him, how comforting he was to her.

 

And now he’s standing in front of her, his hand clenched in a fist, his shoulders tense, his jaw tight, his eyes rimmed red, and she knows it's not just because Liam’s crying. He lost Bae, she reminds herself. And with that loss, she’s had her kids to keep her above water. Hook has had nothing. 

 

She meets his eyes for a moment, then looks back down at their son as he whines and squirms before she smiles and passes him over to his father, for the first time with the knowledge of who Hook is to him. To her. 

 

The way his heart breaks and heals at the same time is visible as he looks up at her in shock, quickly righting himself and taking Liam in his arms, tucking his tiny head into the crook of his left elbow, his eyes casting down to his son’s and his fingers tracing along the rosy, tear-tracked cheeks. 

 

“Hush, now, lad,” he breathes, his voice almost unintelligible even in the silent hallway, and she doesn’t miss the way Liam’s cries stop almost immediately as he’s placed in his father’s arms. Hook shakes his head briefly, blinking quickly and clearing his throat. “There we are,” he soothes gently. “That’s a good lad.” 

 

He starts to sway from foot to foot, back and forth slowly as if he isn’t even thinking about the way he rocks his child. It’s clear that the motion soothes Liam, his breathing finally evening out and his fussing virtually stopping as he meets Hook’s gaze. Hook smiles down at him, a real, genuine smile that isn’t laced with innuendo or immorality. His eyes are clear, glowing as they meet Liam’s matching ones, his face more relaxed than she’s ever seen it and his fingers gentle as they smooth over the wispy curls along his forehead. 

 

“You’re good with him,” she whispers into the dim hallway. She’s said that to him before, but this time, it’s different. This time, it’s a mother saying it to her child’s father. Her claim is made stronger as Liam’s eyes begin to grow heavy, falling shut as his tiny breaths indicate that he’s finally, finally fallen asleep. “Thank you.” 

 

“Thank you ,” he practically croaks. He doesn’t meet her eyes, focused on Liam's tiny face, but she can see the way that his grow glassy and wet as the glow in the lamplight coming from behind her. “I– thank you, Swan.”

 

He’s been a victim of this tragedy, too, she tells herself again. He knew Neal when he was still Baelfire. He loved his mother enough to seek revenge for her death for centuries. This is a loss for him, too, and just as she’s been able to comfort herself with the presence of her children, he seems to do the same. 

 

“Henry’s asleep, too,” she tells him, the words ones she wasn’t expecting to fall from her lips. “Let me put him down and then…” 

 

Then they’ll what? Talk? 

 

“Okay,” he whispers, still gazing down at the baby and seeming to need to force himself to step towards her and offer the bundle in his arms over to her. He smiles at Liam once more, sad and small, and then looks down at his feet. 

 

Once Liam’s sound asleep in his Pack N Play, she presses a kiss to his forehead and his two chubby cheeks and then grabs the baby monitor. She takes a look at Henry, whose chest rises and falls evenly and whose eyes are cast shut, and then she takes a deep breath and steps back outside. 

 

And he’s waiting for her. He’s standing outside of his own door, staring at his feet, waiting for her. 

 

The interior of his room is comparable to hers, only much tidier. She forgets, sometimes, that he’s not just a reckless pirate. He’s a captain, and he was in the Navy before he became a pirate. His space is almost always neat and orderly, despite his reputation of being gruesome and dirty. 

 

Neal used to call him that; a dirty pirate. But as she looks at Hook now, she knows that there's more to him than just the fact that he’s a pirate. 

 

He’s loved before. Milah was someone he truly cared for. Back in Neverland, he mentioned her, and Emma could always tell by the look in his eyes that she was someone he deeply loved. He also cared for Neal, back when he was still Baelfire, taking him in and treating him like a son despite the fact that his father murdered the woman he loved. He treated Bae with kindness and care because that’s what he’s capable of, despite how difficult it is to remind herself of that. 

 

And then there’s Henry. He cares for Henry, she tells herself as he sits down in the wooden chair he pulled from the small desk. He risked his own life, his ship, his reputation, to bring them all to Neverland a year ago to rescue Henry from a man of whom he seemed genuinely frightened. He risked his comfort and his safety to return to the place that stole his brother from him, and he did it for Henry and for her. 

 

He’s not just a dirty pirate, she tells herself. Seeing him holding and caring for his son just now is a good reminder of that. There’s so much more to him than just his piracy. And now… 

 

Now he’s a father on top of everything else. 

 

“Are you alright?” he asks after a beat of silence, dragging her from her thoughts. “I mean… physically? You just had a baby recently, you shouldn’t have had to be…” 

 

Sometimes she forgets, honestly, that she just recently pushed a baby out of her. The recovery was more difficult than it was with Henry, the tearing alone making her almost never want to do that again. But still, it’s been three months and she loves her baby so much that sometimes she forgets that she should be taking it easy. 

 

Apparently, he hasn’t forgotten, though. 

 

“I’m fine,” she murmurs, only half meaning it. His clarification that he was concerned about her physically was a good one, because if he had simply asked if she was okay, the answer might have been different. 

 

“I’m sorry, Swan,” he says after another few moments of quiet, his voice just barely audible over the sound of the loud, whining heater.

 

“Huh?” 

 

“I said I’m sorry. For your loss.” 

 

“Oh,” she practically whispers, nodding. It is her loss, she reminds herself. But more than that, it’s her son’s loss, the loss of his father after having barely had a chance to get to know him. Part of that is her fault; she shouldn’t have lied to Henry back when she first got here. But then there was the curse and Neverland and he barely got the chance to get to know his dad. “Thanks.” 

 

Then she realizes it’s Hook’s loss, too. He cared for Baelfire all those years ago on his ship. He loved Baelfire’s mother before she was stolen from him. 

 

So she says, “I’m sorry, too.” And her heart breaks as she watches his do the same. 

 

He sighs, shaking his head and casting it downward towards his hand. “I just… find it difficult not to be regretful, I suppose.”

 

“How come?” 

 

Without thinking too much about it, she finds herself making herself at home, moving through his room and planting herself solidly on his bed, curling her legs into a pretzel once she’s kicked her shoes off.

 

“Bae and I weren’t on the best of terms. I had hoped to repair things with him, but…” 

 

He never got the chance . It makes sense, given the obvious contention between them before they all went off into the woods. Their small fight just before Neal died is now weighing on Hook, and she finds her heart clenching in her chest again. 

 

“About what?” she finds herself asking. Maybe she should leave it alone and mind her own business, but she finds that she’s curious about perhaps the one person in this town who can relate to her feelings about Neal. Maybe knowing what they were arguing over will help her, and maybe him, grapple with the fact that he died while she was holding something over him. 

 

“He was angry,” he says softly. She notes that he must find it difficult to look up, and when she looks closer, she figures out why. His eyes are glassy, although he won’t allow any tears to fall over the red edges of his eyelids covered with his long lashes. “I… before the curse, I had told him that I was backing off. Once he found out about… Well, I suppose he struggled to see how conceiving a child with you could be considered backing off.” 

 

“You told him that?” she asks, almost angry as she tries to process all that he’s just told her. Why would he tell him that? Why would he even need to? 

 

“Aye, I told him– I figured he deserved–” 

 

“Killian,” she interrupts, moving slowly to scoot herself off the bed and to a standing position. “That wasn’t your decision to make.” 

 

She shouldn’t be angry, because it’s pointless. He’s gone; it doesn’t matter anymore. 

 

“I know,” he whispers. “I suppose I wanted to give you the chance to make your own decision, I just went about it the wrong way. I’m sorry,” he says again. 

 

“It’s okay,” she murmurs, taken by the look of sadness in his eyes when he finally looks up at her. She plants herself back on the mattress. “So he… after the curse just broke, he found out– I haven’t really told anyone you’re the father.” 

 

She’s barely even told him he’s the father. 

 

“He figured it out when he heard the lad’s name,” he tells her. “I shouldn’t have become so defensive, but all of a sudden it was like someone was threatening– no. It was worse than having my own life threatened, Swan. I’ve had my life threatened and it’s never made me feel remotely close to how it felt when Bae got upset about the boy. I shouldn’t have gotten so defensive with him, but I had already learned what had happened to you, with Henry, and then that morning–”

 

“In the diner,” she says, everything suddenly falling into place. That’s what they were talking about when she walked in and saw them fighting, back when she thought they barely knew one another. That was what tipped her off that something was wrong and that she was wrong about who she could trust. They were talking about the baby. Neal was upset about the baby. Their baby. 

 

“Aye,” he answers quietly. “That was handled very poorly, Swan. I’m sorry.” 

 

“Stop saying that,” she says just as softly, her thoughts running rampant. “You… So you knew he was yours?” 

 

His eyes meet hers, one of his brows lower than the other, his mouth cast in a sad frown. “I’ve known since the moment I laid eyes on him, love. From the first moment I saw him I knew… I’m not sure how to explain how but… that’s my son.” 

 

She shouldn’t be comparing him to Neal, but her mind instantly goes to the first time he met Henry, when he had to confirm with his age and then ask whether they were related. It’s not fair to compare that to Hook’s easy and immediate knowledge that Liam is his, because he’s named after his uncle, and Henry was eleven. But still, something in her heart tells her that this is further proof of the kind of man he truly is. It tells her that he’s a father, a dad , beyond simply having helped her conceive her baby. He’s Liam’s father, through and through, and he has been from the moment he set eyes on him. 

 

“He is,” she whispers, her eyes filling with tears she didn’t know she could still shed. “I know I haven’t actually said it. But you’re right; he’s your son.” 

 

He stands and he keeps his eyes locked on hers and he walks towards her. “I know,” he whispers as he sits beside her. “I don’t know how to describe the feeling, I just know. It’s almost as if he truly carries a part of me within him. I can feel it, Swan.” 

 

“I know what you mean,” she says, sniffling, the action earning her a soft, tender smile from him as he lifts his hand and gently brushes his knuckles along her cheek, wiping away a rogue tear. “That’s kind of what parenthood is.” 

 

He laughs lightly as he shakes his head. “It’s awful,” he jokes, drawing a laugh from her as well. “And it’s incredible.”

 

Her heart races in her chest at his words, because in a way, he shouldn’t even really know that. He’s barely spent any time with his son, only holding him occasionally and gazing at him from afar. And yet here he is, claiming to love fatherhood despite barely having a chance to even find out for himself. He loves his son even though he only just got confirmation that he’s his son. 

 

Aside from the fact that she was cursed, nothing’s really changed. He was amazing with Liam before she knew who he was, and he seems to be now, as well. Her thoughts circle back to his admission that he was going to back off and she feels a sense of pressure hanging upon her shoulders, but it starts to fade pretty quickly. It seems clear enough to her now; it seems like he would take the opportunity to be with her if he could, but what seems more important to him is fatherhood. 

 

“You’re good with him,” she whispers, just like she’s told him in the past. “You deserve…” 

 

She thinks of herself, and of the way she was raised. She thinks of Hook, of the young boy he used to be, of the fact that all she really knows of his childhood is the fact that his brother mostly raised him. He didn’t have a father, not really, and neither did she. And neither did henry. 

 

She can break the cycle for her baby right now. He can be raised with a father. He can be raised by a man who loves him, a man who will put him first. He can be raised the way that she and Hook and Henry deserved to be. 

 

“He deserves you,” she says softly. It doesn’t matter what happens between the two of them, and she knows that he knows that. “Whatever happens… he deserves to have his father in his life.” 

 

“Emma,” he whispers, a tear finally falling from behind his lashes and dropping onto the scar on his cheek. “Thank you.” 

 

It’s worth it, that much is clear. Even if she knows nothing else, she knows that Hook will be there for his son. He’ll never let Liam down, and her kid deserves to have someone like that in his life. So as she takes in the way that he lets another tear fall, she lets one go, as well, and she falls against him and hugs him close to herself, a breath released from her lungs as his arms wrap around her. 

 

They aren’t perfect, but they’ll be perfect for their son, and that’s enough for her. 

 

~~~~

 

They never really did get a chance to discuss the fact that he promised to back off. Perhaps he should have pressed a bit more, maybe insisted that they discuss the possibility of them eventually being together in more than just a parenting capacity. Emma calls it co-parenting , and based on his brief research on the talking phone that David got for him, that doesn’t mean much in terms of their relationship to one another aside from the fact that there isn’t one. 

 

He’s alright with that, though. His priorities shifted from the love that he has for Emma to the almost carnal need to be there for his son the moment he saw him. 

 

He met Emma for breakfast the following morning, childishly refusing to shower in a pathetic attempt to allow the scent of her to linger on his skin. She was heavy in his arms that night, letting him hold and console her as she did the same for him. She stayed there like that for a while until she started to doze off, and he practically had to insist that she get some sleep. 

 

“When was the last time you slept, love?” he had asked her after what felt like hours of comfortable silence passed between them. 

 

“I have a three-month-old, ” she had reminded him. “ I don’t sleep. ”

 

Without thinking, he had foolishly suggested that she let herself rest in his room, without the potential to be woken up by the crying babe, but she had quickly declined his offer, still too worried to leave their son alone in the other room for too long. He didn’t bother to offer to go across the hall and spend the night in her room, mostly because he didn’t want to startle Henry if he had woken up, but also because he didn’t want to overstep. Plus, there was the fact that she had called Liam our kid . It made him so gleeful that he would have done whatever she had asked. 

 

Which, he supposes, is why he finds himself in the diner across from a sulking Henry, Liam snoring softly in his seat beside the two of them, despite the fact that all he wants is to talk Emma out of acting on her fears and running off to New York again. 

 

Once they had figured out Zelena’s plan, once they had discovered that she wants to steal Snow Whites newborn for her time travel spell, Emma had become upset. In fact, perhaps upset is too much of an understatement. She became scared and defensive, hot off the trauma of losing Bae in her arms, and told Killian that she was going to handle the Witch and then head back to New York where it’s safe. 

 

She said he can come or he can stay here, that the choice was his, as if that could possibly be true. The only choice he has is to be with his son. 

 

But still, he feels as though she’s making a mistake. Of course he would go with her to New York, damn the startling and overwhelming culture shock that he’d need to adjust to. But Emma has never really had a family, and now that she has the opportunity to be with her parents, he fears that she’s throwing it away out of fear. 

 

“ There’s always something ,” she had told him fearfully, angrily. “There’ll always be some kind of threat. We aren’t staying here. ” 

 

He tried to remind her that her parents are here and that she has the chance to have a relationship with them. He tried to remind her that she came here on her own volition because she knew it was the right thing to do. But it didn’t matter, and she became even more angry when he reminded her that she’s the Savior. 

 

And now her brother’s been stolen, without even an opportunity to be held by his mother, and Emma’s on a tear, and Killian’s helpless as he minds her sons. Perhaps it’s a good sign that she’s trusting him with the two of them, especially with the babe, but it doesn’t help the fact that he’s powerless to help her through her anger and desire for violent revenge. And he can’t help but to think that it’s not a good omen for what he hopes for the two of them to become. 

 

“This is stupid,” Henry says under his breath, shaking his head as he angrily scribbles his red crayon across the puzzle littered with random letters, crossing out as many of them as he can. His frustration is far more than palpable as he pushes the thin page away from himself, sending the crayon flying, and throws himself back against the booth, crossing his arms and shaking his head. 

 

“What is, lad?” he asks, wondering if he’s crossing some boundary that he didn’t know was there. 

 

“All of it!” he explodes, holding out his arms expectantly. Killian cringes and takes a look down towards Liam, but he doesn’t stir. “I should be out there helping my mom or something. Instead I'm just stuck here with the baby like I always am.”

 

Killian hums, nodding his head as he tries to come up with a response that won’t upset Henry further. If he’s anything like his mother, he knows he has to tread lightly. “You know, part of the reason you’re here is because you know better than I do how to care for your brother.” 

 

Obviously it wasn’t the right move, if the way he rolls his eyes is any indication. “Whatever,” he gripes under his breath. “At least he has a dad.” 

 

Of course , Killian thinks. He knew this would come up for the lad sooner rather than later, but he truly didn’t expect him to bring it up to him. Perhaps it’s jealousy, or perhaps it’s anger at his father for not being in his life, or perhaps it’s hatred for the person who killed Bae. He might not know why specifically Henry’s hurting, but he can relate to whatever it may be, because he’s felt it, too. 

 

“Henry,” he starts, leaning forward and moving the red crayon back towards the box it came in. He clears his throat, trying to consider how best to proceed, before he settles on exactly what seemed to help his mother. “I’m sorry for your loss.” 

 

He sighs heavily in frustration, rolling his eyes again, determined to stay angry. “It’s not fair,” he insists. 

 

“I know. Loss isn’t fair, especially the loss of your father.” 

 

“It’s not just that,” he says, finally meeting Killian’s eyes as he pouts. “I didn't even get a chance to know him! I knew him for, like, a few weeks, then I went to Neverland and thought he was dead, then we got cursed again! And he– he just died! ” 

 

It’s true. Henry barely knew his father, and now he’s gone again, and for good this time. His complaint that he hasn’t gotten a chance to get to know his father is more than valid, but Killian hopes that he can help with that. 

 

“You know, lad,” he starts, toying with his mug as Henry sits with crossed arms. “I knew your father when he was around your age.” 

 

Henry glances up through his angry-set brows, the fury in his eyes dampening slightly. “You did?” 

 

“Aye,” he nods. “He spent some time on my ship many years ago, just after he had lost his father.” 

 

“Rumplestiltskin?” he asks, clearly more intrigued than he tries to let on. “After he let him go through the portal?” 

 

“That’s right, lad. He was angry– rightfully so– much like you are now. But as angry as he was, he was still a very bright presence on my ship.”

 

Henry sulks again, his gaze casting downward once more. “At least someone has something nice to say about him.” 

 

“How do you mean?” 

 

He shrugs, picking up a green crayon this time and pulling the sheet of paper back towards himself to scribble some more. “Just that everything I’ve ever heard about him has been bad. He was a thief, he left my mom; he wasn’t a nice guy. And I never got the chance…” 

 

The chance to see the good in him. 

 

How can Henry fully mourn the loss of his father if a part of him believes that he’s supposed to be angry with him? 

 

“Your father made mistakes, Henry. Some of them… Some of those mistakes hurt your mother, and you. I won’t sit here and brush off what happened between him and your mother all those years ago. But the bad things he did don’t make him a bad person.”

 

“They don’t?” he asks in earnest, his fears coming to light. Henry wanted a relationship with his father, and Killian can see now that the thought of missing someone who hurt his mother so badly is weighing on him. 

 

“No, lad. He loved you, and he loved your mother, too,” he says, drawing from his few conversations with Neal before the curse was cast and then broken. “I’m sorry that his mistakes meant that you didn’t have a chance to get to really know him. But you should know that there was good in him, Henry. And I see the same goodness in you that I did in him.” 

 

His brows tighten again as his anger returns, and Killian fears that he’s made a mistake. “If I'm like my dad, then what if I hurt people like he hurt my mom?” 

 

“You won't,” he assures him, giving him a soft smile and leaning his arms against the table. “Your father… As a boy, he was broken. He had been let down and heartbroken by both of his parents. He didn’t have the love he deserved to, Henry, nor did he have the guidance that he needed. But you… your mother loves you more than anything. She would never let anything happen to you, aye?”

 

Perhaps a part of him can understand why Emma wants to hightail it out of Storybrooke and bring her children back to New York. The need to protect Liam is impossibly strong even though he’s not known him long, so he can only imagine how that feeling must be amplified for Emma. But still, Henry’s fears and worries remind Killian that he deserves to know where he comes from, and so does Liam. 

 

~~~~

 

She’s broken. 

 

He doesn’t know how else to describe the look on her face when she returns to Granny’s that evening after finally rescuing her new brother from the Wicked Witch and defeating her once and for all. The whole process broke her. 

 

Immediately upon her return, she goes to Henry, sitting beside him and wrapping an arm around his shoulder to pull her into her side. He can see in her eyes that she’s trying to be stoic, trying hard to show the world that she’s strong and firm and unphased by whatever she saw today, but it isn’t working the way she wants it to. He can see the emptiness in her eyes despite the smile she tries to plaster on. He can see the fear behind the insistence that she’s happy to have won. He knows that she must feel like she has to be happy, but under the surface simmers her renewed thoughts that she needs to flee Storybrooke. 

 

Of course he’ll go with them. It’s just that something is telling him that it’s best if they stay. 

 

~~~~

 

She’s in the hall again, and she knows for a fact that she doesn’t have to be. 

 

Liam isn’t particularly fussy tonight, not any more than he ever has been, and Henry’s out like a light. There’s nothing keeping her from her own room, nothing stopping her from putting her baby down after he finishes feeding and going to sleep herself. In fact, it’s probably better that she feed him in her own room; she isn’t so sure that the people of Storybrooke are ready for her to whip her shirt off. 

 

But something pulled her out here. Something dragged her from that lumpy mattress and convinced her that it’s better to stand in the hall and feed and rock her son outside of the comfort of their own room; something that she couldn’t ignore. 

 

She can’t even pretend to be surprised when his door opens. She also can’t pretend like this isn’t exactly what she was hoping for when she stepped outside, and she can’t pretend that she wasn’t wishing that Liam was just a tiny bit louder to get his father’s attention. 

 

“Swan,” he greets, his face unreadable but his tone soft and gentle and exactly what she’s been needing to hear. “I thought I may have heard something.” 

 

“Sorry, did we wake you?” He shakes his head. “Someone just needed a change in scenery, I think,” she tells him, glancing down at her son, their son, even though he probably knows that in reality, she’s referring to herself. 

 

Suddenly, it’s as if she realizes her place, with her son feeding and her shirt pulled up to give him unfettered access, leaving very little to Hook’s imagination. She clears her throat when Liam pulls away, turning around quickly and righting her top and bra, and she can hear him scurrying to turn around, too. “Uh… sorry,” she mumbles. 

 

“Not to worry, love,” he consoles, moving expertly from the awkward exchange and changing the subject. “He’s happier than he was a few nights back, aye?”

 

“He’s finally getting a little more sleep,” she nods. “I thought he was too young to be cutting any teeth, but he might just be advanced.” 

 

He nods, though his brows are pinched together and she can tell that he barely knows what she’s talking about. “Aye. Highly intelligent, I'd guess. It’s a Jones family trait.”

 

He’s making a joke, and she laughs. But at the same time, it strikes her that this is the first time that she’s thought of him as Liam Jones. He is a Jones, afterall, and even though his birth certificate has her name on it, she wonders about the logistics of their situation moving forward and whether she should change his name. 

 

It scares her that the thought doesn’t scare her. 

 

She clears her throat. “Do you, uh, wanna hold him?” 

 

His eyes light up and his lips quirk at the corner. “Shouldn’t he be getting some sleep?” 

 

“I usually rock him and read to him or something before bed, after he feeds. You could– that is, if you want–” 

 

“I’d love to.” 

 

His room is as tidy as it was the other night, possibly moreso. Last time it seemed more lived in, like he wasn’t expecting guests. Everything was neat and organized, but still she noticed a few things out of place like he hadn't gotten around to putting them away. But tonight, everything is in perfect order, like he had a few minutes to intentionally clean up his space. She sits beside him on the creaky bed as he cradles their baby as if it’s second nature, her heart racing in her chest and her cheeks warm.

 

He tells Liam all sorts of stories, about his pirating days and his adventures at sea. They’re all G-rated, tales about how he found buried treasure and fought off sharks and giant squids and how many tiny hiding spots he had on his ship, and she can’t help but to let herself be almost as engrossed in his words as the baby is. He makes sustained eye contact, something that she’s learned is a very good thing, and she can only attribute that to the connection that he must have with his father. 

 

Liam’s asleep long before Killian stops telling his stories, his voice continuing on softly but no less enthusiastically. He really is an amazing story teller, and she finds herself hanging on his every word and desperate to know which floorboard he hid those rubies under when Blackbeard boarded his ship. 

 

“They’re in the galley,” he tells her after a few minutes of quiet, Liam’s tiny breaths the only sound passing between them. 

 

“Huh?”

 

“The rubies. They’re beneath a board in the galley.” 

 

“They’re still there?” He nods like it should be obvious, his finger lightly tracing along the rosy round of Liam’s cheek. “That wasn’t, like, a whole century ago?” 

 

With a chuckle, he answers, “No, Swan. Blackbeard isn’t nearly as resilient as I am; he isn’t even close to a century in age.”

 

“Oh,” she nods. “It just kind of seemed like the kind of story you tell about, like… from long ago, I guess. I didn’t realize you were still doing pirate stuff during…” 

 

He makes a noncommittal noise as he shrugs softly, careful not to disturb the sleeping bundle in his arms. “I didn’t have my ship when we first returned, so I pirated the forest. But when I got her back, I was… well, I tried to go back to my old pirating ways.” 

 

“Tried?”

 

“Aye. I found it very difficult. Rumors began to spin that Captain Hook had gone soft,” he says with a sad smile, not denying the apparent rumors.

 

“How come? Why was it difficult, I mean?”

 

“Life as a pirate seemed not to compare to a life I had learned to yearn for, I suppose.”

 

He’s not subtle; he never has been. He stares down at their son as he says it, and he looks up at her, and she knows he does it for a reason. He didn’t know about the baby, obviously, when she and Henry left to flee the curse. While Liam is clearly a reason for him to leave his pirating lifestyle behind now, that doesn’t explain why he had gone soft during the year he spent in the Enchanted Forest. The way he looks at her now, though… 

 

“You mean…” she starts, her eyes big and deep and sad as she stares into his. 

 

“I mean I spent a year trying to get back to that mindset of ruthlessness and plundering and piracy but I couldn’t do anything without thinking of how much disdain I knew you would’ve had for it. I knew that if I had destroyed all of the good you brought out in me, then I could never be worthy of you. So I pretended my way through it for the sake of my crew, and I suppose I had done a terrible job of pretending; the rumor spread rather quickly.”

 

She chuckles sadly, looking down at her hands folded upon her lap and shaking her head. “So then when that bird landed on your ship’s wheel…?”

 

“Aye. I took the first chance I could to get back to you.”

 

As many mistakes as Neal had made, she can’t deny that she’s grateful for his choice to alert Hook to what was to come. It must be telling, too, that Neal knew that Hook would do whatever it took to break the curse. 

 

Something strikes her, though, and she asks, “What was it?”

 

“What?”

 

“The first chance. I mean, how did you get here?”

 

“Well,” he smiles, a soft smirk tossed her way before he glances back down at the sleeping baby. “The curse was coming, I ditched my crew and took the Jolly Roger as fast and as far as I possibly could to outrun it.”

 

“You outran a curse?” she asks in lighthearted disbelief.

 

“I’m a hell of a captain,” he smirks, and she chuckles warmly, unable to stop herself from the heat blooming in her chest. “Once I was outside the curse’s purview, I knew the walls were down; transport between the worlds was possible again. All I needed was a magic bean.”

 

“Those are not easy to come by,” she points out.

 

“They are if you’ve got something of value to trade,” he retorts, his voice careful and calculated as he looks down once more, fiddling with a short stray thread on Liam’s onesie. 

 

“And what was that?” she asks. 

 

“Why, the Jolly Roger, of course.”

 

She expected him to tell her he used the rubies, or some other treasure he had found, or something else that would have monetary value in the Enchanted Forest. She thought for sure he would have used the last of his pirating ways as a means to obtain a magic bean and cast a portal to New York City. He had told her a few days ago that he was there for a time and unable to track her down before he chose to return to Storybrooke with a boat stolen from the harbor. But she never really thought twice about why he couldn’t have just used his own ship like he had the first time he went to New York. 

 

“You traded your ship for me?” she asks, but that isn’t really what she means. Her voice is breaking and barely audible, and she can’t get the right words out, but what she really means is, you traded your home, your livelihood, your life for me?

 

“Aye.”

 

And he says it with such conviction, his eyes boring into hers until his gaze reaches her soul and finds it healed by the one person who’s shown time and time again that he truly cares for her, that she can’t even begin to consider not leaning over their sleeping infant and catching his lips in a soft, tender kiss. All she can do is hope that it shows him how she feels, that she sees the way he cares.

 

It’s different from that night in the jungle, when they were both fueled by passion and fire and anger, both of them frightened and on edge and in need of some kind of distraction. She needed a release, a way to get out the anxious energy boiling beneath her skin at the threats from Pan, and he needed comfort as he revisited some of the worst times in his life. She knew then that it meant something to him, more than it did for her, but she wasn’t able to find it in herself to care. 

 

Now, though, things are so different. In a matter of a few short weeks, it’s as if everything has changed. Liam has changed her and made it easier for her to accept what he seems so desperate to give to her. All she wants is for her kids to have a good father, and in giving that to them, she’s finding it easier to accept what it could mean for herself, too. 

 

Killian’s hand lifts from the baby’s thigh to cup her cheek, rings tangling in her hair, and it’s way too easy to lose herself in the feeling of his tongue tracing lightly along the seam of her lips. She doesn’t even think before lifting her hand, too, grabbing at the lapels of his modernized leather jacket– the armor that he seems to never want to take off. Maybe if he wasn’t holding a snoring baby between them, she would forget herself all together and crawl onto his lap to demand more from him. 

 

But things feel different now. They have a family, without even meaning to. And sure, Killian is Liam’s father, but he’s always been dedicated to Henry, too, and that hasn’t changed. In fact, it’s become pretty clear that their bond is getting stronger. Killian told Emma about their brief conversation, about how Henry was struggling to grieve properly and what he said to try to help. It makes perfect sense, and maybe Killian being the one to figure that out should make her jealous. It had been just her and Henry for such a long time– or at least, they thought it had– and she isn’t used to being able to rely on someone else. She isn’t used to trusting someone enough to leave them alone with her kid. She isn’t used to someone wanting to do that for them. Realizing that Henry trusts Killian makes that warmth in the pit of her stomach heat up a little bit more. 

 

And what’s more is that he gave up everything for them. She knows how much he loves his ship and she’s been able to figure out along the way that it’s something that makes him feel close to his brother. It’s been his home for centuries. It’s where he got to know himself as a lieutenant, as a captain, as a pirate. It’s where he and Milah spent their days and it’s where he lost her. That ship means the world to him, and he gave it all away without a second thought. 

 

For her. For her family. 

 

She doesn’t want just one night of feeling good. She doesn’t want to kiss him once and move on. She doesn’t want a one-time thing. 

 

So she pulls away, her heart beating almost painfully fast in her chest and her breath impossible to catch, but even still, she smiles. 

 

“Killian,” she whispers into the dim, warm lighting.

 

“Aye?” he croaks. His eyes meet hers and it’s like she can see every thought swirling around in his head; desire and fear and desperation for her to just say something already. 

 

“Thank you.”

 

He opens his mouth but whatever he was going to say gets lost on his lips, Liam’s tiny snort and disgruntled growl making the two of them look down to find him wide awake. Poor thing, Emma thinks, already traumatized by his parents making out in front of him at such a young age. 

 

“We should get you to bed,” she whispers down at their son, “or else you’re gonna be grumpier than usual tomorrow morning.” 

 

Hook passes the grouchy bundle of blankets over to her, his eyes filled with reluctance as he leans down to press a soft kiss to his forehead and whispers goodnight. “Perhaps I’ll, erm, see you both in the morning?” 

 

Emma stands up and Killian does the same, and once he’s on his feet, she leans forward and presses her lips to his cheek just as softly as he had their son’s forehead. “For breakfast,” she agrees. “Goodnight, Killian.”

 

~~~~

 

She’s never called him Killian before. 

 

If he wasn’t already certain that he made the right choice, hearing his name pass her lips reminds him.

 

~~~~

 

Henry hides the newspaper when she walks up behind him, as if he got caught doing something he knew he shouldn’t have been. She knows why; it’s because a few weeks ago, after the curse was broken, she found him looking at apartments and houses and she snapped. She was a little too harsh, telling him that he shouldn’t be wasting his time because, as soon as this ended, they were going back to New York. 

 

That was before, though. It was before she had a sudden and startling change of heart, one that she could kick herself for considering how quickly it came to her. But a revelation is a revelation, no matter how small, and this one couldn’t be denied. 

 

She realized it was happening pretty much immediately after she got herself and Liam back to their room, and then she took her time accepting it, but a week after Killian told her that he traded his entire life for the magic bean that he’d hoped would bring him to her, she’s certain of what she needs to do.

 

He took everything he held dear, the thing that meant the world to him for so long, and he gave it away without a second thought or an ounce of regret. It made her think of that first date with Neal years ago, when he told her about what home feels like. She reminded herself what Killian said the next morning when she asked him if he missed his ship, and he told her that of course he did, but that he missed her more during that year they spent apart. 

 

They aren’t dating, not officially. They haven’t really talked about what they are, officially. Sure, they spend the evenings together while he tells stories to the baby until he falls asleep, and sure, maybe after he falls asleep, he draws stories against her skin with his tongue, his lips conveying tales of trust and belief and something more as they glide along her mouth and her cheeks and her neck. But despite that, they aren’t technically together. 

 

There are a lot of things she should make official. Starting with: “Hey, kid. Whatcha got?”

 

“Nothing,” he answers almost instantly as he tucks the newspaper beneath his elbow, leaning against the table and smiling at her like he’s trying to keep his cool. 

 

She rolls her eyes playfully, smirking as she sits down across from him and puts the baby monitor on the table. “Right,” she says sarcastically. “Listen, kid, I’m sorry for snapping at you over the classifieds. That wasn’t fair; don’t let me stop you from looking.”

 

“Really?” he asks, straightening out so that he’s no longer awkwardly leaning over the apartment ads. 

 

“Yeah. let me know if you find something good; I can’t stay at Granny’s forever and I know you’re gonna lose it if you have to share a room with your mom and an infant for much longer.”

 

“Wait,” he says, eyes narrowing as he tilts his head to the side. He leans forward to rest his elbows on the table and his chin on his fists. “What are you saying?” 

 

Emma can’t help but smile at the hidden hopefulness in her son’s eyes. “Don’t tell me you changed your mind about wanting to stay in Storybrooke.”

 

“Really?” he asks again, more excited, his eyes lighting up and his posture straightening. She nods, and before she can take a breath, he’s up and across the booth, squeezing her in a tight hug. “Yes!”

 

She laughs, hugging him back, and she understands what Hook meant the other night. Henry’s reaction to the news that they’re not leaving for New York is worth giving up the life of comfort she’d grown accustomed to. He’s her home, and seeing him happy, seeing him with his grandparents and friends and people who love him, is more important to her than her fancy city apartment. 

 

Plus, Liam deserves to grow up beside his family, too. 

 

“And I'm gonna get my own room?” he asks as he pulls away with the biggest smile on his face she thinks she’s ever seen. 

 

“Yes,” she laughs. “I’m not gonna make you keep sharing with your infant brother, promise.”

 

Henry rights himself, clearly not content to spend any more time than he has to hugging his mother now that he’s almost a teenager, and heads back to his side of the booth to open up the classifieds again. “Should I be looking for a three bedroom place, then?”

 

“That’ll work.”

 

He nods. “And your bedroom should be… big enough to share?”

 

“With Liam? Only for another few months.”

 

He smirks this time. “I was more thinking about Liam’s dad. ” 

 

Her jaw drops and her eyes widen. It’s not like she’s been purposely sneaking out each night, but she did think that Henry was asleep each time she placed Liam in the Pack ‘N Play and then snuck back across the hall for… other enjoyable activities. She wasn’t hiding it, but she didn’t think he knew. “Uh–” 

 

“It’s okay, mom,” he assures her before she can even consider making up an excuse. “Killian’s a good guy; I want you to be happy.”

 

Killian is a good guy. He’s proven that not only to her, but to her sons.

 

And she is happy. 

 

~~~~

 

Raising Henry in Storybrooke from the age of 10 seems to have been challenging enough for Emma, given his stubbornly adventurous nature and penchant for getting into trouble. 

 

Raising Liam in Storybrooke from infancy has proven to be another challenge altogether. Teaching the lad to meet all of his developmental milestones , as Emma calls them, while simultaneously defeating snow monsters and storybook villains often feels near impossible to juggle. 

 

Killian wouldn't trade it for the world, though, and that’s something he realized not long after Emma returned from New York, and something that’s been proven to him on a near daily basis as he goes through life as a father of two and a lover of Emma Swan. 

 

She fell for him hard and fast, and it was something that he watched happen from just outside of her mind. He could see it clearly in her eyes and he found that he could never get enough of watching the small, almost imperceptible shifts in her demeanor each time she saw him. It wasn’t long after they defeated the Witch who tried to steal her brother that they found themselves closer than he thinks she ever imagined she’d be to anyone. 

 

And it was only a handful of weeks after she purchased the charming house on the corner that he found himself staying the night more frequently than he slept in his own rented room at Granny’s. 

 

Their relationship had shifted rather quickly, moving from the closed off, protective way she avoided him to her surprising willingness to let him in at a speed that almost made his head spin, but he never minded. He never questioned the way she let herself rely on him, seek comfort from him, even, eventually, love him. 

 

What started as nothing but physical beyond the acrimony they had for one another changed for him much sooner than it had for her. It started before they even left for Neverland and it grew stronger and stronger with each interaction they had, blooming into something undeniable when he finally had her in his arms. It remained strong and almost painful, bubbling beneath the surface of everything he did, boiling over when he thought he had lost her, although he knew that she hadn’t felt remotely the same for him then. Being with him on the island was a release that she needed to cope with what she was going through, nothing more. 

 

And then he lost her, and she lost her memories of him and of everyone else in her life. And when she returned, without an inkling of who he was to her and with a son whose father was desperately forced to stand on the sidelines, she was different. She wasn’t the Emma who locked him out and threw away the key because she wasn’t the Emma who had enough experiences to be wary of him. Knowing that made guilt settle heavily in his heart because he didn’t want to manipulate her while her memories were lost. So he’d resigned himself to staying just on the outskirts, looking in longingly at the life he craved but may never have.

 

But she got her memories back, and then she surprised him. Their relationship had started as a physical one, after the animosity had started, and a part of him wondered if they would easily pick up where they left off in Neverland. But in reality, things were far different from how they had been then. Emma was different, and so was Killian. They had a connection that could never be broken, one that they have to put above themselves for the rest of their lives. So while a part of him thought that perhaps the soft, stolen kisses would shift into something more once they got their privacy, once the baby was put down for the night and Emma had returned to his room where she would normally turn in herself, he found that he couldn’t be anything but grateful when they agreed to take things slow. 

 

So she kept visiting him each night, after putting Liam down. She’d kiss him and he'd kiss her, and then they’d talk. She’d run her fingers through his hair and along his scars and ask for the story of each one. He’d hold her against his chest and slip his hand up and down along her back while she told him of her childhood. And then she’d let herself doze in his arms, spending a few short hours with him before she returned to their son. 

 

It wasn’t until she moved that things changed. Henry was spending the night at Regina’s house, and Liam had moved into his own room a few days prior and was finally starting to get used to sleeping independently, as was Emma. It was only once she was sure that the lad wouldn’t stir or require her attention that she invited him over, and showed him her bedroom, and dragged him by the collar of his shirt until she was falling onto her back on the mattress and he was toppling over her and caging her with his arms. She showed him every part of her, everything that he couldn't see when they were together in the jungle, everything she kept hidden until she was finally ready to fully let him in. 

 

He never really left after that. Sure, he’d gone back to Granny’s here and there, to get his things or to give her space, but after that night, she never stopped asking him to stay. And eventually, she wasn’t asking; it was a silent agreement between the two of them that became more and more official with each item he brought into her home until his room at Granny’s was empty. 

 

It’s official now, a fact that makes him smile each time he thinks of it. He has a key, and the left side of the closet, and the right side of the bed. He has a slot for his toothbrush and a drawer for his eyeliner and beard oil. He keeps his hook on the table beside the bed and his near-forgotten greatcoat in the hall closet downstairs. He knows how to use the coffee maker and the waffle iron and the washer-dryer in the basement. 

 

He lifts Liam from the crib, shaking his head at the impatient, chubby fingers that grab for him and shushing his demanding shouts. “Mummy’s sleeping, lad,” he tries to remind him, his voice soft for fear of the monitor picking it up and broadcasting it to Emma in the other room. “Let’s go down stairs, shall we?” 

 

“Dada,” he answers, making Killian’s eyes widen. 

 

“I told you,” he quietly chastises, rushing the boy out of the room to avoid the monitor. “You’re not allowed to let mummy hear you say that until you say mummy first. She still thinks that’ll be your first word.”

 

“Dada.”

 

He sighs. He learned dada a week ago and Emma blessedly, somehow, hasn’t caught wind of it, her cocky insistence that he’ll say her name first remaining intact. 

 

He places Liam in the high chair once they get downstairs and retrieves a bottle, scooping out the right amount of formula after adding enough water, just like Emma showed him. Once the bottle is shaken and handed off to the hungry babe, he gets to work with the other ingredients necessary to make his family a breakfast worthy of such a special day. 

 

“A whole year,” he muses. “That means it’s been nine months since we met, you know. The best nine months of my life.”

 

“Dada.”

 

“Aye. Can you say mummy , now? Mummy? Perhaps you could try Mama?”

 

“Dada,” he smiles wickedly, shoving the bottle back into his mouth. 

 

“Bloody pirate, you are.”

 

“Well, he didn’t get that from me.”

 

His blood goes cold and his cheeks go hot, his eyes widening as he turns to face her with a plastered-on smile. “Morning, love.” 

 

“Morning, dada ,” she smirks. He sighs and drops his chin to his chest in defeat. “And good morning to you, birthday boy,” she sings, moving to plant several kisses to their son’s chubby cheeks.

 

“I, uh, had hoped to surprise you with his personalized vocabulary skills.”

 

“ Dada is definitely personalized,” she points out with a shrug, wiping Liam’s messy cheeks with a paper towel, “and he’s been saying that for a week now.”

 

Bloody hell . 

 

“It was very sweet of you to try to hide it,” she smirks as she steps around the island towards him, her arms wrapping around his waist from behind and her head resting between his shoulder blades. “But the little pirate sang like a canary the second you left last week. He’s been playing us.”

 

Killian hums, turning around with difficulty in her tightly circled arms, reaching his own around her. “He gets it from his mother, I think.”

 

She hums, too, shaking her head and pressing up onto her toes as he leans down to steal a kiss. 

 

“Dada!” Liam screams angrily, tossing the almost empty bottle as a ploy for attention. “No!”

 

“He doesn’t want you to kiss me,” she whispers against his mouth. 

 

“Doesn’t he know? I wasted far too much time not kissing you. One violent outburst can’t stop me.”

 

“As long as we’re on the same page,” she muses. And she kisses him again, and even though they’re interrupted again when a disgusted Henry makes his way through the door and with an angry Liam pounding his fists against his high chair, his world is perfect.

End.